Mark Driscoll, founding pastor of the now- defunct Mars Hill Church, won early praise as a Gen X church planter. Within a year of starting his ministry, established church leaders invited him to speak at conferences on how to reach young adults. Soon they sponsored his growth and helped establish his platform.

The podcast series The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill tells the story of how toxic leadership led to the eventual downfall of Driscoll and the church he started. But how did it get to this point? How did thousands of people miss the warning signs and tolerate evidence of abuse for so long?

Going back through the archives of Driscoll’s messages and interviewing his former followers, repeated patterns emerge.

First, Driscoll goes out of his way to care for people by bringing groceries to single mothers, giving families a place to live while they are in transition, and opening doors for the people he calls to help him build the ministry. In effect, these action served to build his brand and engender loyalty.

Second, he continuously emphasizes the numbers: how much the church is growing, how many new sites are opening. These declarations are even more prominent when they precede otherwise disturbing news, such as when he fired two board members that questioned the centralization of power in the new proposed by-laws of the church. Their problem? They were holding back the mission.

The reason people excused Driscoll’s bullying for so long is that he appeared to bear fruit. Who can argue with souls being saved and families being transformed?

Meanwhile, what Mark preached from the pulpit had detrimental effects on women, amounting to spiritual abuse. He alienated and dismissed staff members that questioned him. And he refused to submit to other spiritual leaders who could hold him accountable, saying he had nothing to learn from them because his church was bigger than theirs.

The illusion that Driscoll created around his ministry could be called “malignant normality” — the concept of normalizing an alternate reality that is absurd at it’s core. Narcissists create conditions where behavior that would normally be considered atrocious becomes legitimate.

It became normal for a pastor to curse from the pulpit, tell women not to work, reserve the right to decide whether people could get married.

In this kind of system, people start to surround the leader as enablers of their power. If we think about Germany in the 1930s, the people were crushed under the burden of war reparations amid a global economic depression. Their offense opened the door for someone like Hitler to manipulate and distort their sense of right and wrong.

When Absalom came to power, Ahithophel, one of King David’s closest advisors, stayed behind in Jerusalem to help him establish his throne. Absalom paved the way for his insurrection by intercepting people on their way to court and promising them justice and retribution. In other words, he played on their offenses to curry their favor.

But why Ahithophel? Surely someone who spent so much time with David would know who he really was and wouldn’t be so easily swayed. If we look at the lineage of Ahithophel, he may have been the grandfather of Bathsheba, the woman David coerced or forced into adultery. If so, that would imply an offense at how he took advantage of her, and a disillusionment with his once noble character.

What can we take away?

  • The standard for what is right and wrong lies in Scripture and we have no reason to make excuses for people
  • We need to build self awareness to notice when an offense could make us open to deception
  • We need leaders that can be held accountable
  • Good numbers are no excuse for bad behavior.

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