Tag Archives: Mark Driscoll

Mark Driscoll Must Have Gone to the Max Sebald School of Writing

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A friend writes (in an email)-

W.G. “Max” Sebald once gave advice for writers (see here), and I think Driscoll picked up on one bit of advice and ran with it.  When talking about reading and intertextuality, Sebald says this:

“I can only encourage you to steal as much as you can. No one will ever notice. You should keep a notebook of tidbits, but don’t write down the attributions, and then after a couple of years you can come back to the notebook and treat the stuff as your own without guilt.”

My only guess is that Driscoll didn’t count on so many non-stupid people reading his stuff.
Indeed!  Mr Driscoll has the same ethical standards as Mr Sebald.  That is, none.

Mark Driscoll Steals More IVP Academic Material

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I think I’ll stop using the word plagiarizing in Driscoll’s case because it’s just too unclear to him what he’s done.  He needs plain speech.  Mark Driscoll has stolen the intellectual property of yet another IVP Academic publication.  Mark Driscoll is a thief.  A common thief.  Warren Throckmorton writes

Last week, I noted that a study guide on 1 & 2 Peter with Mark Driscoll’s name on it as the author improperly copied material from a publication by InterVarsity Press (seeIVP’s statement to Christianity Today). Driscoll (or someone) took the material from a report by the Docent Group. The Docent researcher provided footnotes and references but these were not carried over into the study guide titled Trial: 8 Witnesses From 1 & 2 Peter. See here and here for more on that matter.

Now, I have found a similar pattern within Driscoll’s recent book, Who Do You Think You Are?: Finding Your True Identity in Christ. Prior to the publication of the Ephesians book, Docent Research Group produced a 290 page research report for Mars Hill Church which contains a “best hits” of materials relating to the New Testament book of Ephesians. Many sources are cited verbatim with footnotes and reference material provided, although as I point out, some of the sections are quite lengthy. I have found several sections in Driscoll’s book which borrow directly from the research report. Although I have not done a complete analysis, I can report that the same problems acknowledged by Mars Hill regarding the 1 & 2 Peter book show up in this book as well. Below are just two examples.

Take a look at them.  I hope that IVP takes legal action against the thefts perpetrated by Driscoll.

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Richard Bartholomew’s Take on the Mark Driscoll Plagiarism Affair

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Richard summarizes things as they presently stand and then adds a couple of points that are new to me:

However, this [i.e., Tyndale Publishing House] is not the only source of pressure on Mefferd: some of Driscoll’s previous books are published by Crossway, and Wartburg Watch observes that Crossway’s VP of Editorial Justin Taylor took to Twitter to warn that “I wouldn’t recommend authors go on @JanetMefferd’s show after she pulled this during an interview with @PastorMark”. What is this, if not the “machine” of which Schlueter writes?

Indeed.   Taylor’s remarks are appropriate only for a person who is clearly trying to silence any opposition to Driscoll’s plagiarisms.  They are, in fact, nothing but a thinly veiled threat.  Taylor might as well come out and honestly say as he implies, ‘… if you go on Mefferd’s show, we won’t publish your stuff’.  Taylor is a part of the strong-arming mafiosa mentality which Mefferd evidently heeded.  Then Richard writes

Pastor Driscoll has always struck me as a controlling and somewhat sinister figure, so I’m not surprised that he appears to believe that he can use other people’s work unattributed and not expect to be challenged for it.

Indeed.  And that, further, he can get silenced anyone who does.  In Mefferd’s case it has worked.  And that’s a shame.  This whole sorry affair, kicked off by Driscoll’s self evident falsehoods and theft of intellectual property is a black eye on authentic Evangelicalism. Those responsible, including publishers calling themselves Evangelically oriented, really ought to be ashamed of themselves.  But they aren’t.  They’ve money to earn, privileges to protect, and wagons to circle.

Luther’s Comments at the Conclusion of the ‘Strange Fire’ Conference

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luther6Seen leaving the ‘conference’, Martin Luther was asked his view of the affair, to which he replied

Of Mark Driscoll-  “You are a little pious prancer.”   And of the meeting participants- “You are desperate, thorough arch-rascals, murderers, traitors, liars, the very scum of all the most evil people on earth. You are full of all the worst devils in hell – full, full, and so full that you can do nothing but vomit, throw, and blow out devils!”  And finally, of MacArthur- “If you had looked with slumbering and only half-open eyes, the clear bright light would have struck you so that you would have had to open your eyes wide and awakened. But now since you did not do that, but only listened as if in a dream, you speak like a sleepy toper when one asks him whether he would not like to go home and he replies, “Bring me another,” and really believes that one brings him another drink.”

And there you have it.  Martin Luther’s view of ‘Strange Fire’.

Mark Driscoll: The Dreadful Perversity of America’s Heretic

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This time he’s taken to discussing Esther and by doing so has shown, once again, his extraordinary distance from Christian faith and theology.

Recently, Mark Driscoll weighed in on the Esther situation. He is becoming painfully predictable. His name is increasingly synonymous with sex, in a negative fashion.  This time, couched in his promise of prayer and study, he has determined Esther to be a whore. Yep, that Esther, the one who was made a sex slave of a king and, in spite of her painful circumstance, risked her life to save her people.   Before I begin, I once again ask, “Where are Driscoll’s advisors hiding?”  This man has issues and it is readily apparent to a whole boat-load of observers. When he starts perverting Scripture to buttress his rather pathetic views on sex and women, it is time for the adults and medical professionals to weigh in. They must be too busy attending cage fights and drinking micro brews. 

It’s clear to see for anyone with even so much as half an eye that Mr Driscoll is a pervert in pervert’s clothing who sees every biblical woman in the light and through the lens of his perversion.  And probably every woman.

If you attend his church please, for the sake of your own soul’s health, get out.  If you listen to his sermons, stop.  If you read his rubbish, quit.  He is a cancer on the body of Christ and when he’s excised, those closest to him may well be as well.

[HT Michael Acidri on FB]

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Mark Driscoll’s Precious Irony…

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I noticed an advert on the facebook for something calling itself the Pastor’s Edge- (resources for lazy pastors who would rather plagiarize and pass off someone else’s work than do their own) so I thought I’d take a look and get a chuckle before I go out to mow. And what did I find, to my surprise, but a remark by none other than the pandering Mark Driscoll, who actually had the stones to write… well see for yourself:

You read that right- from the guy who has made tricks and gimmicks into an art form and who is perhaps the worst exegete occupying any Pulpit in America today (in the same league with John Hagee and TD Jakes and Harold Camping and the wretch in Houston who put his bed on his church roof and whose name I won’t even use).

Mark Driscoll’s precious irony…  What could be more simultaneously laughable and saddening.

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Mark Driscoll Confirms What We Already Knew: He’s a Heretic and His ‘Church’ Is a Cult

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Robert writes

Mathew Paul Turner has the story, entitled,”Exorcism at Mars Hill: One Woman’s Story“.  MPT is an excellent, and very fair (he followed professional journalistic procedure and called Mars Hill and gave them an opportunity to respond) author, who has covered Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill for years. And the evidence is pointing toward a potentially tragic climax.  When will it end? Story. After story. After story. After story. After story. After story. After story. After story. After story. After story.  The preponderance of evidence is growing and increasingly tilting toward what we already knew:  Mars Hill is a cult.  Mark Driscoll is a cult leader who claims supernatural powers of exorcism, psychic visions, and extrasensory perception.

Mars Hill: If They Patted Themselves on the Back any Harder They’d Break their Arms

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Their braggadocia is here.

Last Year’s Easter Celebration at Mars Hill Church was one you’ll tell your grandkids about. For the first time in years, we gathered as one church, packing the stands at Qwest Field with over 17,000 people to proclaim the risen King Jesus. The result? The name of Jesus proclaimed to our city, over 700 baptisms, a Jesus flag high over the city of Seattle, and an unforgettable worship service.

Notice, it’s the Easter celebration that you’ll tell your grandkids about, not Christ.   Notice too that they don’t make disciples, they just baptize folk (and they’re happy to keep score just so you know how ‘successful’ they see themselves to be).  Then, Jesus is tossed in just to give their self important marketing ploy an air of spirituality. And this year they’re promising to do the same.

What Amos said to the Northern Kingdom could be said, mutatis mutandis, to Mars Hill pseudo-Church and its pseudo-Pastor Mark Driscoll:

Amos 4:4“Enter Mars Hill and transgress;
In Seattle multiply transgression!
Bring your sacrifices every morning,
Your tithes every three days.

5“Offer a thank offering also from that which is leavened,
And proclaim freewill offerings, make them known.
For so you love to do, you sons of deception,”
Declares the Lord GOD.

6“But I gave you also cleanness of teeth in all your worship centers
And lack of bread in all your gathering locations,
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the LORD.

7“Furthermore, I withheld the rain from you
While there were still three months until harvest.
Then I would send rain on one city
And on another city I would not send rain;
One part would be rained on,
While the part not rained on would dry up.

8“So two or three cities would stagger to another city to drink water,
But would not be satisfied;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the LORD.

9“I smote you with scorching wind and mildew;
And the caterpillar was devouring
Your many gardens and vineyards, fig trees and olive trees;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the LORD.

10“I sent a plague among you after the manner of Egypt;
I slew your young men by the sword along with your captured horses,
And I made the stench of your camp rise up in your nostrils;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the LORD.

11“I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
And you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the LORD.

12“Therefore thus I will do to you, O idolaters of Mars Hill;
Because I will do this to you,
Prepare to meet your God, O Driscoll-ites.”

13For behold, He who forms mountains and creates the wind
And declares to man what are His thoughts,
He who makes dawn into darkness
And treads on the high places of the earth,
The LORD God of hosts is His name.

The Lord alone is worthy of glory- not your church or your accomplishments in the flesh- your self aggrandizements and your damnably heretical false teaching are fit only for destruction.

Mark Driscoll is a False Teacher and a Cult Leader- One Should Only Expect Impropriety

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Until last fall, a 25-year-old Seattle man named Andrew was happily committed to Mars Hill Church, one of America’s fastest-growing megachurches with more than 5,000 members. He volunteered weekly for security duty at his branch of the church, joined a Bible study group, and had recently become engaged to the daughter of a church elder. Then he made a mistake that found him cast out: He cheated on his fiancee with a community college classmate. The fury over Andrew’s experience—and his decision to publicize the church’s internal disciplinary procedures—has led to accusations by other Christians that one of the most powerful evangelical voices in the country, Mars Hill pastor Mark Driscoll, employs a cultlike leadership style. Now, for the first time, Mars Hill is speaking out in response to its former member’s charges.

His is a cult and he is a cult leader.  There’s simply no question about it.  And serious student of the Bible and Theology can see through him and his tactics as if looking through a clean window.  When cult leaders do inappropriate things only those unfamiliar with cults and how they operate are surprised.

Driscoll could only and ever be the ‘pastor’ of a ‘church’ where a sufficient number of members are completely illiterate biblically and theologically.

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More Proof That Mark Driscoll Leads a Cult

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Only a cult leader can ‘fire’ someone in a position of leadership in the cult.  I.e., only a cult has a mere mortal as absolute authority.  Said fired leader writes, in part,

The downside is Mark’s pathology shows up in ways that are impulsive, aggressive, irascible, shut off from effective relational influence, and most apparent not respectful and submissive to anyone, though he claims otherwise.  I have hoped and still hope for something short of him destroying himself that would bring about substantial change for this ever increasing population of worshiper. Some have fretted there will be a great loss of Christians with the demise of Mark and/or the Church. I don’t think so. The church that comprises all of us will survive. The chaff will be blown away, but the church will remain.

If there are any Christians at Mars Hill they’ll be ok.  Those following the cultist, however, won’t.  In fact, Matthew 13 has it right-

24 He put before them another parable, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while his people were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed darnel in the midst of the wheat and went away. 26 So when the wheat sprouted and yielded grain, then the darnel appeared also. 27 So the slaves of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have darnel?’ 28 And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ So the slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, “No, lest when you gather the darnel you uproot the wheat together with it. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the season of the harvest I will tell the reapers, “First gather the darnel and tie it into bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my storehouse.”’”

If there is any good seed at Mars Hill, time will tell. The fact that Driscoll is Darnel, though, will also – eventually – be known even by the most devout of his cultish followers and defenders.

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Christianity Made me Kidnap Them…

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I don’t think this guy has a very good grasp on matters of faith-

A 38-year-old German man who kidnapped his four children and took them to North Africa last year told a court Tuesday that his Christian beliefs drove him to the crime. He remains unrepentant.

Axel H. was arrested in September in Cairo, Egypt after having been on the run with his children – two boys and two girls aged between four and nine – since Easter.

After having lost custody of the children in divorce proceedings, Axel H. used a pretext for taking the children from their mother’s home in Celle, Lower Saxony, on Easter Monday and flew with them to Egypt. He spent some time in Sudan with them during their 136-day ordeal, before returning to Egypt.

According to a report in Bild newspaper, the man, who confessed before the trial began, told the court, “Because of my faith and the law, I feel I have duty to bring up the children.”

The unemployed careworker also told the judge that he fled to Egypt because it was near to Germany and he hoped he would escape extradition there, since Egypt has no agreement with Germany for returning kidnapped children.

Questioned about his motives, he said, “I believe that what is in the Bible is God’s word,” and that his wife’s divorce and new relationship was a breach of religious law. He said that he could not allow his children to grow up in her home.

Maybe he’s a fan of Mark Driscoll and he thinks women are idiots unworthy of raising children if they don’t have a man’s man around to do all the beating- oh I mean ‘discipline’ and to set a ‘godly’ (choke, choke) example…

And the Verdict? Mark Driscoll Leads a Cult

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Robert’s right.  Just a sampling- you need to read the entire post.

You simply will not believe what is going on behind the scenes at Mars Hill. We’ve already seen Mark Driscoll discuss (watch about the 3 minute mark) how he builds his church by intentionally targeting young men and their businesses. But now, Mars Hill’s disciplinary practices have been exposed for the cult tactics they are.

Now, according to Turner, a copy of a Mars Hill ‘church discipline’ contract is posted online, where the ‘sinner’ who has been ‘brought under church discipline’ has his sins spelled out, and in turn is asked to write out his further sins in full detail, meet with a prescribed ‘community group’ regularly, ‘write out in detail his sexual and emotional attachment history with women and share it with’ the pastor, and ‘write out a list of all people he has sinned against during this time frame, either by sexual/emotional sin, lying or deceiving, share it with’ the pastor.

Also available is the letter of ‘church discipline’ sent to the rest of the church after the member decided to leave the Mars Hill church. The document spells out the terms of the excommunication, citing the sexual nature of the individuals sins, and detailing what members of the Mars Hill community can and cannot do with the excommunicated former member on their own time.

It will turn your stomach.

Heretics have a way of doing that.  If there are any authentic Christians left at Mars Hill they need to leave.

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Lot’s of Christians Can Only Handle ‘Milk’

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As the author of Hebrews rightly observed (in Ch 5)-

11 We have a lot to say about this topic, and it’s difficult to explain, because you have been lazy and you have’t been listening. 12 Although you should have been teachers by now, you need someone to teach you an introduction to the basics about God’s message. You have come to the place where you need milk instead of solid food. 13 Everyone who lives on milk is not used to the word of righteousness, because they are babies. 14 But solid food is for the mature, whose senses are trained by practice to distinguish between good and evil.  (CEB)

The inability of many to distinguish between good doctrine and bad, good biblical exegesis and bad, good theology and bad, is all too common these days (as in ancient times as well).  That’s exactly why people like Mark Driscoll, Ted Haggard, TD Jakes, Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyers, and the bevy of heretics presently passing themselves off as Christian teachers get away with it and aren’t ‘called out’ by either their churches or the Church at large.

Even many Pastors are too often bereft of the ability to discern the spirits (and probably don’t even recognize that as a biblical phrase).  Churches are in trouble, Christians are in trouble, and the truth is in trouble because too many are satisfied with milk – with remaining infants in doctrinal and biblical studies – and don’t ‘grow up’ to the point where they can handle deeper spiritual truths.

If one thing needs to be said to American Christianity today it’s this: grow up!

Poor Mark Driscoll- He Just Can’t Stop Being an Ignoramus

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Joel notes

 Mark noted the robes wore by Church leaders in Britain (vestments too, but I suspect that he doesn’t know the difference) wore dresses like girls, and that this was an issue of why the Church in England is failing. Oddly, the so-called neo-Calvinist pastor doesn’t understand his own faith tradition…  Odd? I’m sorry, I meant “As usual.”

Then Joel quotes the dullard.  A thing I refuse to do.  I’ve decided that Driscoll either says moronic things because he is genuinely moronic, or because he’s a bigger publicity whore than Casey Anthony.  Either way, he’s not fit to occupy a pulpit and the people at his ‘church’ don’t deserve to be called Christians as long as they tolerate his evil.

Acceptance of evil is participation in evil.  Mars Hill needs to learn that.

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T.M. Law Takes Mark Driscoll and Ed Young to the Theological Woodshed…

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And they get the beating they deserve.

Neither Driscoll nor Young should 1) be allowed to sell books about the Bible or Theology or the Christian life. Nor should they 2) be allowed to pastor so much as a 1 man church. They both illustrate exactly what’s wrong with mega-church pseudo-theology and its quest not for truth or faith but fame and wealth and ‘prestige’.

The both of them are heretics of the first order because they are leading people with a lie. And Revelation 21:8 nicely describes the ultimate fate of liars:

τοῖς δὲ δειλοῖς καὶ ἀπίστοις καὶ ἐβδελυγμένοις καὶ φονεῦσι καὶ πόρνοις καὶ φαρμάκοις καὶ εἰδωλολάτραις καὶ πᾶσι τοῖς ψευδέσιν τὸ μέρος αὐτῶν ἐν τῇ λίμνῃ τῇ καιομένῃ πυρὶ καὶ θείῳ, ὅ ἐστιν ὁ θάνατος ὁ δεύτερος.

There’s just simply nothing worse than a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  In Driscoll and Young we have two.