Episode Details

I woke very early this morning, as I’ve been doing more often recently, but couldn’t muster the energy or wakefulness to get up and do something productive. It’s been a long year.

So I lay there and listened to a chunk of the most recent episode of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, a podcast series from Christianity Today. It tells the story of the meteoric growth and tragic implosion of the ministry of Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

As a friend said to me, listening to this podcast series is like watching a slow-motion train wreck, and feeling a little guilty for wanting to see what happens next. And this penultimate episode, which runs for over two hours (!), is certainly like that. It lays out in well-documented detail the final awful unravelling between 2012 and 2014, featuring extended interviews with those involved, including heart-wrenching stories of people who had invested their lives in Mars Hill and were left strewn on the side of the road as collateral damage.

The podcast series itself is by no means perfect. It’s overly long and digressive at points, and has an agenda that peeps through more than once. But it does succeed in telling the story of an outrageously gifted preacher and leader with major character flaws, and the dysfunctional and doomed leadership culture that resulted.

Two things jumped out at me as I listened, along with a nagging question that still bothers me.

The first is perhaps the most obvious. The stakes are high in Christian ministry, and for Christian leaders. It’s a ‘noble work’, as Paul describes it in 1 Timothy 3. It requires a certain kind of person—someone who not only has the ability to teach and lead, but who has the character and personal maturity to exemplify in his life (as far as we sinful humans can) the reality of the truth he teaches.

It’s not as if this is obscure in the New Testament. The characteristics and qualifications for congregational leaders are laid out in multiple places (1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, 1 Peter 5).

It’s worth noting, though, that not every Christian virtue is listed in these passages. There’s no mention of joy, for example, or hope, or prayerfulness, or patience, or even love.

The ones that are mentioned seem to correlate to the demands and pressures that godly leaders have to face—their public demeanour and reputation, their family life, their ability to deal constructively and helpfully with others in the church (humble rather than domineering), their approach to conflict (not quarrelsome or arrogant but gentle), the lure of money, and the danger of getting into all of it too young and falling into the condemnation of the devil (of becoming puffed up and conceited).

The tragedy of Mars Hill is that, from quite early on, it was apparent to numerous people that Mark Driscoll had deficiencies in several of these areas—particularly (it seems) in relation to quick temper, belligerence, arrogance and domineering behaviour. And he was young. He started Mars Hill on his own, at the age of 25, without formal theological education and without oversight.

It took 15 years for it all to come unstuck, in a way that almost seemed inevitable, looking back.

The podcast is an exploration of how and why this happened. In particular, how was Mark affirmed and supported in Christian ministry for so long—by his own congregation, by elders and fellow pastors, by other leaders he was in fellowship with—when according to the Bible he seemed patently unsuited to be a pastoral leader?

The podcast suggests many of the reasons we might first think of. Success has a way of blinding us, and leading us to compromise for the ‘sake of growth’. As the movement and institution grows, the pressure to cut corners and overlook bad behaviour intensifies. We become caught up in the culture of celebrity, and in the charisma of a powerful and compelling leader. Allowances are made. No-on