Do NOT Quote Driscoll on Social Media, Part 2

So, here is the outline the I made in order to explain to my work friend why Driscoll should not be shared on her Facebook. I started way back with my relationship with The Song of Solomon in order for her to see why I found Driscoll's take on The Songs to be so wrong, ungodly, and unholy.

*****

 I was born again in 1982 through the charismatic renewal that was happening at the time. It hit many of the mainline denominations including Catholics and Lutherans.

We sang two songs that came from The Song of Solomon (hitherto referred to as The Songs) which established for me a connection to the long tradition of reading The Songs as Allegorical in nature of our relationship with God. The two songs were "We Will Rejoice in You and Be Glad" and "His Banner Over Me Is Love."

My family moved onto another church that was pastored by a Narcissist (though we didn't know it at that time. that word was not even used yet.) I won't get into this particular thing even though it is relevant to the story. But it was there that I met and married my husband (1987) and we were given the book "The Act of Marriage" by Tim and Beverly LaHaye. This book used The Songs as a physical guided to married sex. So this established the use of the Songs in this manner in a way that greatly overshadowed my previous/limited exposure to the allegorical side of the book.

Fast forward to the mid 90s. There was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit happening at a missionary organization in (name removed to guard my anonymity). During one of the sessions a frail, skinny, redheaded, young woman was in deep worship. She was responding to the intense outpouring by saying several things including, "We enrapture your heart, oh God," several times. As I stood to the side listening to her, my internal dialogue went something like this: "That's very nice sounding. But my Bible doesn't say that about us/me." But later when I looked it up in The Songs, it was there. And my next conclusion was that it might be in The Songs but that doesn't mean it should absolutely be taken allegorically like the redhead was doing. It was then that I felt impressed by God to start meditating on The Songs. But I resisted thinking that The Songs were just too racy for this small town girl. However, God shut up the whole Bible to me, even the parts that could prompt the greatest worship within me. Reading the Bible became like reading a phone book. The only scripture that I read during that time of resistance, the only Bible verse that sparked anything thing inside of me was Psalms 2:12 Kiss the Son, that He may not be angry and you perish on the way...

So I relented and began reading and meditating on The Songs. And what a blessing it was. It was an antidote and emotional protection from the shallow and self-serving love that I was receiving from my husband. It was also a healing balm for a previous and devastating rejection from a family of origin member.

I spent a decade meditating on The Songs and decided to look on-line to see if anyone else was getting so much healing from this book in the mid 2000s. This is when I stumbled upon the outrage and controversy caused by a message preached by Mark Driscoll in Scotland. The sermon was something about "The Good Bits" from The Songs. He was preaching an overly sexualized and, I would say, even pornified version so the Book. But the part that enraged people and felt like pig's blood in the Holy of Holies to me was when he told the women in that congregation than Jesus commanded them to get on their knees and service their husbands orally. It was a hard slap in my face for someone to take a healing book and use it to invade the privacy of the bedroom and command women to do an act that some women might find distasteful. Pun intended.

I got involved in on-line discussions concerning this and how far out in left-field Driscoll had taken his teaching on sex in the Bible. In these conversations, Driscoll apologists would show up, be rude and obnoxious, challenge us, call us prudes, and said we were squeamish over what the Bible "clearly teaches". They would also point out how smart and well read Driscoll was and that we were just jealous of his amazing teaching and preaching. One fellow, who was more polite than the others, agreed that the Scotland sermon was over the top. But he insisted that Driscoll was a great teacher and handled the book more graciously in his "Peasant Princess" sermon series.  He linked to an episode of the series and challenged me to go see for myself.  I went ahead and watched it. And while it was more toned down than the "Shock Jock Preacher" antics he engaged in Scotland, I was still dismayed by what he did to the Book.

Without getting into all the gory details, I'll point out a few major issues with his handling of the book. First off, he mocks, scorns, and ridicules the long standing tradition of looking at the Songs as an allegory of our relationship with God. Then, he seeks and "finds" symbolism of explicit sex acts under every rock and tree in the book. He also takes this poetic book, written mostly from a female point of view and about what made her feel loved and safe and morphs it into a pornified male-centric monstrosity mostly concerned with what a husband is owed from his wife in the bedroom. People who have left Driscoll's church had many complaints. One particular complaint was that Driscoll was trying to force women into a tiny submissive box everywhere but the bedroom. And in the bedroom, he was trying to force women into their husband's personal porn stars and nymphomaniacs, complete with stripteases and pole dancing. 

[I stopped at this moment to let my friend know that I actually didn't care if people had stripteases and pole dancing in their bedrooms. That was their business. My concern was with Driscoll making up commands concerning sex acts and deciding certain symbolisms in The Songs simply had to be about stripteases when this was highly unlikely.)

I wondered how this man was declared one of the top 50 pastors in the United States. So I took a closer look. Turns out that, besides using the Bible as a sock puppet that always agrees with him, he also has issues with rage, bullying, and fostering a cult-like atmosphere at his church, Mars Hill, in Seattle. While I was watching him and researching about him, he was credibly accused of plagiarism and of buying a spot on the New York Times Best Sellers list.

When his elders in Seattle tried to hold Driscoll accountable for his bullying, raging, and misappropriating church funds, he fled Seattle and went to Phoenix and started a new church there where he is in charge and answers to no one. No elders to get in the way of doing whatever he wants. He continues to "pastor" and "teach' and is hustling hard to be a huge, Christian online Influencer.

As you can see, I am unhappy with Driscoll, his history, and what he continues to do. However, abusers are gonna abuse and grifters are gonna grift. I am way more upset with the men who have propped Driscoll up, past and present, and have given him a platform. Christians, especially Christian "leaders", are woefully lacking in wisdom and discernment. Many Christian leaders may also be as lacking in integrity as Driscoll. They just aren't as blatant about it as he is. But God's sheep are paying dearly for the neglect of true pastors and shepherds..
 

*****

So this is what I told my friend at work. And if you have been watching Driscoll as long as I have, you know that I haven't listed half of his blatant misogyny and sins.

Twitter is all abuzz with talk of Mike Bickle of IHOP fame, and what a flaming Narcissist he is. There are also portions of Twitter (yes, I know it is X now. It just looks better typed out as Twitter) taking on Doug Wilson. There are too many Narcissists in the pulpit. And it's not going to change unless the rank and file step up and scream "ENOUGH!" and take their tithes and offerings elsewhere.

Do NOT Quote Driscoll on Social Media part 1

 As mentioned in my 2/24/24 post, I was triggered by a friend who put a Mark Driscoll quote up on her Facebook. I knew that she did it not have a clue about Driscoll being an over-the-top abusive grifter. If she knew this, she would have never put up the quote. Because we are co-workers and interact at work, I let her know that when we had time, I would explain why Driscoll is not a good person. Since work has been insanely busy lately, I felt like I should create a streamlined and abbreviated timeline for her and I wrote it down so I wouldn't ramble, get sidetracked on the many, many stupid tangents that make up Driscoll's reprehensible history.

As I revisited my history with both The Song of Solomon and Driscoll's rape of the book, I realized two things. One thing was this: It was therapeutic for me to give this testimony out loud and in person to an understanding sister in Christ who then promptly deleted her Driscoll quote. When she looked at it again, she saw that a cousin of hers had commented under the quote saying that she would never follow this guy (Driscoll).

The second was a reminder to me that, while I still meditate semi-consistently on The Songs due to their healing properties, I haven't really dived in and immersed myself in the book for a long time. Deep and immersive meditation in The Songs, besides being healing, also brings me closer to the heart and nature of God, something I've been a bit distant from. So now, I'm spending more quality time with the book along with my regular (or irregular) scripture reading and am better for it.

And then, over the weekend, something else happened. I saw a tweet from someone.

And this made a whole lot of sense. They (Christian Leaders) made a podcast about it. But now they are done. They did their due diligence. What more do we want from them?

Well, I guess it was the grass roots movement that brought him down. So, I suppose it will take grassroots resistance to keep reminding people why Driscoll has disqualified himself as a pastor or any kind of church leader both in the past and in this present.

I did my grassroots job with my friend and so did my friend's cousin.

Where the hell are the supposed Christian leaders crying out against Driscoll. I guess they are too busy protecting their own kingdoms to give a flying flip about the Kingdom of God.

The "Taking God's Name in Vain" Diversion

 A few Sundays ago, I was at church. The pastor was away and ended up being away one Sunday longer than he planned. So the children's pastor was presenting with the help of her children's church, They were talking about the Ten Commandments at one point and was asking the adult congregation what each one meant. When they came to what "Taking God's Name in Vain" meant, I raised my hand. She called on me and I said it means, "Saying that God said something when God had not actually said it." She was taken aback and responded, "Oh, that's good."

Why was she taken aback and responded thus? Well, I believe that it is because it has been beaten into our heads from the pulpit that the actual meaning of "Don't take God's name in vain" means don't use God's name as an expletive or swear word. I think most preachers, teachers, and authors do this innocently enough because they don't know any better. But I am sure that some preachers, teachers, and authors teach this on purpose to distract from the real meaning of the command. They want to make sure that this is what people think when, "Thou shalt not take the Name of the LORD thy GOD in vain" comes up. They want people to think that this is referring to Joe Blow who hit his thumb with a hammer and is JCing and GDing all over his garage holding his injured digit. These unscrupulous preachers don't want people to realize that the greater sin of taking God's name in vain is saying that God agrees with them on some wonky doctrine, opinion, or idea that they claim is "biblical".

That Sunday mornings presentation along with the Bare Marriage's podcast on "The Problems With Lies Women Believe" put together with a quote a friend put on Facebook from Mark Driscoll has made me think again about this diversionary tactic concerning taking God's Name in vain.

First, let's look at the Bare Marriage podcast on Nancy DeMoss Wolgemoth's book concerning what Nancy refers to as lies women believe. Sheila and her guests come to the conclusion that it is Nancy who believes lies about God's attitude towards women and marriage. They did not go so far as to say that Nancy was using God's name in vain to convince women that God agrees with Nancy. But that's where my mind went. Does Nancy take God's name in vain when she wrongly uses scripture to warp God's love and nature against His daughters? When she uses the Bible to support her beliefs in a false narrative that the Bible does not actually support is she breaking that commandment? If she truly believes her lies to be true, is she then not held accountable for supporting her lies about God? I don't know. She may use these lies against herself just as much as against other women.  So this is between her and her Lord. He loves her. She is in His hands.

Now let's turn to what, in my view, is closer to taking God's name in vain. It is something Mark Driscoll said back in 2007.

The only reason I'm thinking of this now is because a friend and co-worker recently put a Mark Driscoll quote up on Facebook. It was very triggering for me to see this sold-out-for-Jesus, Celebrate Recovery Christian quote Driscoll. In order to help her understand why Driscoll is not a good person to quote, I laid out for her an abbreviated list of reasons in chronological order (that I may post later on this blog). Going through that list of things, I dealt again with the 2007 quote from Mark Driscoll's infamous sermon in Scotland where he claimed that Jesus commanded women to sexually service their husbands in a certain way. He was taking God's name in vain, issuing as command to women something that God never commanded. The bad part of that sermon is also mentioned in the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill episode entitled The Things We Do To Women.at the 34 minute mark.

People were appalled at what Mark said in that sermon. But it never came up that he was taking God's name in vain. It never came up that when Mark told those women in Scotland that Jesus commanded them to service their husbands that he was breaking one of the Ten Commandments. And I don't know why people are so squeamish about calling out this sin and naming it for what it is.

I guess I'm just tired of Christians getting all up in arms about people using God's Name in Vain when they don't actually realize that preachers do it all the time, passing off their own opinion or interpretation as the very oracles of God.

So why am I so ready to say that Driscoll uses God's name in vain over Nancy DeMoss. Well, it has to do with what each gets out of their lies. Nancy's lies hurt herself along with other women. Driscoll's lies are all about propping himself up, serving him, and putting women down. He also labels his opinion of Bible interpretation as a literal "Command" from Jesus. So, yes, I would not be surprised if the judgement against Driscoll would be stronger.

But long and short, they both hurt women and lie about Who God is and how He feels about His daughters. I would not want to be in either one of their shoes come Judgement Day.

A Late Link about "The Rise and Fall..."

Taking a short break from my "Let Women Tell Their Stories" Series. 

Somehow, back in 2021, amidst all the "Rise and Fall of Mars Hill" mishmash, I missed an article calling out a misunderstanding that Cosper has concerning victims of religious hierarchal abuse.

But in an effort to be kind to myself and my own healing, that was the year my divorce was finalized. In addition, I had a whole host of other things going on.

Anyway, there is an article in the Baptist News Global concerning Cosper's interview with Josh Harris and how he and Christianity Today "used its conversation with Harris to further push a false narrative about the hurting people conservative evangelicals have abused."

Sorry if you have seen this. But I haven't until just recently. And I want it be able to find this article quickly so I'm linking it here:

I lived in the culture of 'The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill' and there's one part of the story that's wrong.

Now, hopefully I can finish my series "Let Women Tell Their Stories" where I'm telling the story of how my ex used me and made me his mother/servant/savior.

The Raging Narcissist in Review

 I had stopped listening to The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcasts at Christianity Today because the series was essentially over with a vague promise of some bonus issues. It took so long for those issues to drop that I stopped going there to look for them.

For reasons I won't get into, I went back to the main podcast page and found several bonus issues available that had dropped without me knowing it. So I am slowly working through them.

The one I'm listening to as I start this post is called "Paint the Beauty We Split: A Conversation With Chad Gardner".

I probably wouldn't have even mentioned it here except for something in particular that was said in the podcast.

I had mentioned in a previous post that I had to skip parts of the intro of the series because of Mark displaying Narcissistic Rage during the song "Paint the Beauty We Split".

It turns out that others have associated the clip of that raging narcissist with the song and that this had left a hard lump in the stomach of Chad Gardner. It was difficult for him to think this song of his and his band's (Kings Kaleidoscope) had Mark's "thumb prints" all over it.

So Cosper, the podcast host, announce that they removed Mark's Narcissistic tirade out of the intro so that it would no longer be linked with the song. They took it out of every podcast that it was used in. But kept the song. And I appreciate that.

Plus, this was a pretty good podcast and you should give it a listen if you haven't yet.

Critical Review of The Rise and Fall Podcast

 No, I'm not writing a critical review. I just found one that I want to keep track of. So I'm going to link it here, for now.

Sharing Many of the Same Flaws as It's Subject "The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill" Podcast puts the Blame Anywhere But Where It Belongs 

I agree with much of her assessment. I was always so frustrated with all the Evangelical leaders who promoted and gave Driscoll a platform and a pass.

A Couple of Survivors of Mars Hill Have a Podcast

 And I'm going to listen to some of their podcasts when I get the time.

Veterans of Culture Wars

Well Played, Cosper

 Episode 8 of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast finally dropped on Friday. Demon Hunting looked into the weird world of Mark Driscoll's Narcissistic Personality Disorder brand of deliverance ministry.

As a side note, Cosper announced in this episode that these Podcasts will begin to come out every two weeks rather than every week. One reason given was that people who initially didn't want to be interviewed for this have been changing their minds, so they are coming forward and wanting their voices to be included in this massive undertaking.

Over all, I suppose that this is good. However, I see this as a potentially detrimental turn in one area.

Apparently there are those who are mad at Cosper for giving feminists and egalitarians too much voice in the fifth episode of the podcast. You know that podcast that I mentioned in my Mars Hill and Consumerism (NPD) post called The Things We Do to Women.

In "The Things We Do to Women" Cosper includes the voices of feminists and actually went as far as addressing the Rape Culture at Mars Hill. He didn't hit it hard. In fact, there are many of us who felt he let Driscoll and Mars Hill off easy rather than giving this issue the full attention that it deserves.

But as is common among Evangelical men, there was an outcry and one star reviews about Cosper giving voice to those filthy feminists. (gasp!!! entities far worse than pedophile pastors and repeat sex offenders that riddle the SBC.)

So in this episode, Episode Eight, Demon Hunting, Cosper again addresses the blatant misogyny of Driscoll and the Mars Hill community. But this time, he brings a Complementarian in to point it out so that the screeching Patriarchy couldn't just poo poo what was being said. The Comp dude was concerned with and opposed to the woman-demeaning culture that Mark had created, including the misogyny perpetuated in his teachings on deliverance.

This can be both good and bad. I do feel that Cosper did well to bring in that pro-woman Complementarian voice. This is why the title of this post includes "well played" in it. However, now I am worried that the egalitarian voice and the voices of trauma informed counselors might be set aside for the rest of the podcast series.

Make no mistake, what Mark taught men and women about sex and the purpose of women was spiritual and sexual abuse. And his warped teachings did, in fact, lead to a rape culture. Women were traumatized. And while it was going on, Evangelical men did not care. This fact should not be minimized or glossed over. And I hope Cosper keeps this in mind and doesn't just throw women under the "keep the peace with the patriarchy" bus.

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.

Mars Hill and How to Become a Tyrant (NPD)

 I haven't written much here. And I expect there is presently little to no traffic through here. And I'm okay with that. I have moved beyond my initial anger (and sometimes rage) over how broken, dysfunctional and misogynistic the modern evangelical church had become. Don't get me wrong. It is still all of these things. But now it is being exposed more and more. And hopefully it will be soundly dealt with.

We have Sheila Gregoire battling the warped and destructive sex teaching coming from Evangelical teachers.

We have The Wartburg Watch continuing to call out Disfunction and Abuse across the board.

Shirley Taylor continues to sound the alarm against the flagrant abuses of the SBC.

And WenatcheeTheHatchet keeps us abreast of any news concerning Mark Driscoll present and what is coming out concerning the former Mars Hill.

Listening to The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill at this point is just a look back at a time when I couldn't believe that people actually thought that Mark Driscoll's teaching on the Songs was inspire by the Holy Spirit rather than his personal perspective that is highly influenced by our porn culture.

Yes, I was outraged back then that he was looked upon as a balanced, educated, and wise source on married sex. But there were other things at play within me during this time. And looking back with some distance and perspective I am able to see more now than I could then.

For one thing, I am finally (as of February) divorced from my ex who displayed Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) symptoms. I was married to him for over thirty years and was the target of his narcissistic rage all the time. I've been separated from him for nearly three years but am still healing from the CPSTD of living with his personality disorder and tip-toeing around his hair trigger rage.

Initially, looking back by means of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcasts, I found, their opening, where Mark is screaming "HOW DARE YOU!" and "WHO. DO. YOU.THINK. YOU. ARE.!?" to be triggering. It is becoming easier to put distance between Mark's narcissistic rage and my soul destroying marriage. I consider this to be a good step towards the inner healing that I have been pursuing. 

Long and short, it appears that another reason Mark rubbed me the wrong way was because he was displaying similar behaviors to those that I was living with. And it was easier to focus on Mark's bad behavior and narcissistic symptoms that to deal with those of my then husband.

Concerning "How to Become a Tyrant". I just started watching this Netflix series. The little blurb given about this says, "Ruling with an iron fist requires an aspiring dictator to know the playbook for absolute power, as histories despots prove in this sardonic docuseries." One thing that keeps coming up is the Narcissistic nature of the likes of Stalin and Hitler. Seeing this while also listening to The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill really magnifies how much of a religious despot Mark Driscoll truly is. There are more overlaps than differences between religious despots and political ones. Okay, so sure, the bodies behind the Mars Hill bus are figurative rather than literal. But there is still a glee in Mark Driscoll about the "bodies" that he leaves behind.

Tying this into The Rise and Fall Podcasts, it was the third podcast "You Read Your Bible, Ringo?" that gave an example of an early display of narcissistic rage in Mark Driscoll. It is the story of Karen Schaeffer who was accused of heresy for suggesting that Mark could use the guidance of older, wiser men. If you are familiar with the story, there is no need to go into it. If you are not familiar, it starts at the 40:15 mark and finishes up at the 47:28 point of the Read You Bible Ringo episode. And within this seven minute segment, Mike Cosper mentions a book by Chuck DeGroat called "When Narcissism Comes to Church" and includes a blurb from Chuck concerning the hero/martyr/victim aspect of Narcissism which is important in understanding the mind and abuses of the Narcissist.

But what really stood out to me concerning Karen's story was the rage that Mark had toward her. She said that she had never dealt with such rage against her in all of her life. She also describes how jarring and disorienting it was to her entire being to be subject to such intense rage and hated from a trusted pastor.

As mentioned above, this post (and possible future posts on this subject) is merely a vehicle to reflect on and perhaps bring closure to my time spent married to a narcissist and ,my time watching the church being taken in by the Narcissism of Mark Driscoll.

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill

 Christianity Today is running a podcast on this topic under this name.

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill

It is very interesting and informative.