Wandering Eagle

Covering Mark Driscoll and life after Mars Hill: Why isn't this a mainstream news story?

Covering Mark Driscoll and life after Mars Hill: Why isn't this a mainstream news story?

It’s been nearly seven years since Mars Hill Church, the fabulously successful multi-campus evangelical flock in Seattle, imploded when its pastor, Mark Driscoll, resigned. The church’s nearly 13,000-person Sunday attendance totals quickly dissolved, its headquarters and branch campuses were closed or sold.

I moved to the Seattle suburbs the following summer and had a long conversation with one of the church’s leaders. I’ve rarely turned down a chance to do a story, but it was clear that covering this mess would take up more time and emotional energy than I had time for.

Dodging a lawsuit that accused him of misappropriating $30 million worth of members’ tithes, Driscoll ended up moving to Scottsdale, Ariz., (whose sunny clime is like Shangri-la to many rain-drenched Seattleites) and starting a new church plant in 2016 called Trinity Church.

Recently, a number of stories have come out about Driscoll’s heavy-handed leadership and dysfunctional pastoring at Trinity that sounded all too similar to what went down in Seattle. The latest just came out Monday in Christianity Today:

Nearly 40 elders who served with Mark Driscoll during the final years of Mars Hill Church are publicly calling for him to step down from his current pastoral position and seek reconciliation with those he has hurt.

“We are troubled that he continues to be unrepentant despite the fact that these sins have been previously investigated, verified, and brought to his attention by his fellow Elders, prior to his abrupt resignation” from Mars Hill, they wrote in a statement released today to CT. “Accordingly, we believe that Mark is presently unfit for serving the church in the office of pastor.”

Christianity Today is one of two outlets that have been following the Mars Hill story a lot recently and I’ll get to CT’s podcast series in a moment.

But first I should first mention investigative journalist Julie Roys’ two podcasts. She’s been following the Mars-Hill-in-Arizona beat for some time, but her latest is an act of war. From the transcript of Inside the Driscoll Cult Part 1:

The cultic activities of Mark Driscoll and The Trinity Church have escalated to a whole new level. As Julie’s guests describe on this edition of The Roys Report, Driscoll is now sending cease and desist letters, threatening to sue whistleblowers.


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