Narcissistic Pastors

 I have been talking here, more specifically, about Mark Driscoll. I also occasionally refer to my ex who was also Narcissistic and a pastor and relate it to my understanding of the Driscoll debacle. But I haven't really spoken about the pastor I had back in the mid-eighties who was also Narcissistic.

Yes, clear back in the eighties. That was when I graduated from high school and college, got married and gave birth to my first child. My ex and I met in a church where the pastor was a narcissist. And like the people of Mars Hill, we didn't know he was a Narcissist. In addition, we didn't know that NPD was a thing, an actual diagnose-able personality disorder.

We'll call this Eighties pastor of mine Fred. Anyway, Pastor Fred started off looking okay just like my ex and Mark Driscoll. But as time went on, and he amassed more power and influence, it became clear that something wasn't right. Pretty soon we could see that he was more about building his own kingdom rather than God's. Before we left the state in 1989 for my then-spouse to go to Bible College, Pastor Fred was yelling at his congregation more often. He'd yell at the ones that attended Sunday night service about the absence of those who weren't there. He yelled about people not giving enough money, etc. My parents continued to attend Pastor Fred's church while we were gone. My dad continued to serve on the board. So I got to hear how things continued to spiral downwards.

You see, Pastor Fred was not nearly as smart, savvy, or decent looking as Mark Driscoll. This was also before the internet age, so he couldn't bypass the cultural gate keepers referred to in The Brand episode of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcasts. So, luckily, the damage he inflicted was a lot smaller and more localized than what Driscoll has been guilty of. But that doesn't mean the people hurt were not damaged as much as the people wounded by Driscoll at Mars Hill.

Hearing the latest shenanigans of Pastor Fred from my parents in the early Nineties took its toll on me and I soon I needed to talk to someone. I was provided the opportunity to sit down with the Dean of the Bible College's wife. She listened very empathetically. But when I had laid it all out before her, the words she spoke were hard to hear. She said something along the the lines of, "You have no idea how often we hear about this situation." And she basically said that what I thought was a rare occurrence was really way more common than people knew. What she told me was devastating. It rocked my world and forced me out of my naivety.

Long before I ever heard of Driscoll, I found out the hard way that Pastors like Fred were very common. So when Driscoll appeared on my radar, I already knew that he was one of those pastors. And later I learned about NPD and knew that it applied to Pastor Fred and Pastor Driscoll and so many others.

On discussion boards, I would interact with young, naïve Driscoll lovers who didn't want to hear me bash their idol. They ascribed to me all manner of sin rather than listen to the place of experience that I had come from. They accused me of being jealous of his intelligence or popularity saying that I was too old fashioned and not hip enough to get Driscoll. They accused me of being ignorant, unteachable, prudish, and of trying to be the "bedroom police". The list goes on.

I could convince them of nothing. The Mars Hill Bus had to crash, burn, and go down in flames before they could see the truth.

And still, even after everything that went on in Seattle, ignorance and naivety concerning Narcissistic Pastors abounded in the Church. Mark was able to go to Scottsdale Arizona and set up shop again. He now pastors Trinity Church. And lo and behold, the same things are happening in Scottsdale that happened in Seattle, only worse. There seems to be an endless supply of naïve Christians willing to give Narcissistic Pastors more chances to steal money, kill souls, and destroy lives.

This is why we need podcasts like The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. It may not be perfect. It may not go nearly far enough in dealing with Mark's horrid teachings on Gender and Marriage. But thank God, people are waking up to the problem of Narcissistic Pastors. Thank God this very real, serious, and way too common problem is being looked at and analyzed in earnest.