I’ve written (and scrapped) a lot of final thoughts on Christianity Today’s podcast, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. 

I’m glad I waited until now to publish them. The final episode, while long, was very, very healing but also very, very heartbreaking and triggering, as I realized there are a lot of conversations in my own life that will probably never happen. If they do, I’d really prefer to have them off-camera (ideally over drinks), in person, with people who want to have them.

I have had a lot to say over the journey of this podcast, but most of my thoughts and comments won’t do justice to the work and energy that Mike Cosper and his team put into it. And also, any thoughts I had on the corrupted theology that leads to systems like the one Mark Driscoll built were exquisitely articulated in the podcast’s final episode (released on Saturday, December 4, 2021).

And I figure you’ll either listen to this podcast, or you won’t. Because you either think it’s highlighting the beauty of God working in broken places (which is how the title sequence always ends), or you think it’s divisive failure porn that can only do harm and damage the global church. And I probably won’t be able to change your mind.

So my final thought on this (impeccably executed) podcast is this: This isn’t about Driscoll.

It’s really nice and basic to think that it is. It’s calming and comfortable to think that Driscoll was just a guy who went astray and it’s so sad to see how that’s spiraled out of control in his professional life, and to see the damage it inflicted on countless people in the process. But this isn’t about Driscoll.

Driscoll was just a guy who figured out how to manipulate a broken system. And I assure you, there are guys (or pairs of guys, or teams of guys, but rest assured, it’s all or mostly guys) all over the planet who have done this, or will do it, because the system is the problem.

This is talked about heavily in the final episode of the podcast, in far better language than I could ever hope to use. And as I’ve processed that and what I want to say (because, in typical Sarah fashion, I do want to say something ), I want to issue a final warning about how this happens and what’s missing from the equation.

How does this happen? Corrupted or misinterpreted theology, either from the seats or the pulpit. What’s missing? Reconciliation and accountability.

My dad is a pastor. Ministry is hard. I know a lot of other completely lovely, wonderful pastors who work hard at what they do and try to do right by their vocation. People like Mark Driscoll, and the systems he created, give my dad and those guys a bad name. That breaks my heart.

But also, my dad is not an evangelical pastor. I grew up in a Christian home that did not perpetuate the rhetoric that Driscoll (and thousands like him) perpetuate. It exists where I grew up, and it’s much more prominent now than it was when I was younger, but I didn’t have much experience with it until I moved further south, where I have been surrounded by it and its iterations for over a decade. 

For the most part, as I’ve been further immersed in this theology, I’ve found it alarming on many levels. It’s a system based on quantified performance that uses shame to manipulate you into thinking you’re never, ever enough. It might be masked as evangelism, or a mission (this is particularly discussed heavily in the podcast), or a certain way of being or doing or living out your faith. It’s a toxic system with assigned value and hierarchy at its core, and minions at its feet, fighting each other as they chase the high of being deemed worthy/valuable by a human leader/leaders. 

This makes sense, because humans all want to feel valued and worthy and like they are living for something beyond themselves; a higher calling, if you will. But it makes it exponentially easier for people like Driscoll to step in, in a personified form of God, and control, manipulate, and abuse.

When you trade in the very biblical idea that you are fearfully and wonderfully (and uniquely and individually) made in favor of a mandate of emptying yourself (out of humility, shame, sacrifice, a “calling” or “purpose,” or whatever else) in order to be all the things on behalf of “the mission” (sanctioned by a leader or a team of leaders who are very, very human), you’re opening yourself up to this. It all boils down to a system with rewards and punishments and not a whole lot of accountability or grace.

I don’t need to repeat all of this. And rest assured, I know a bunch of people who would (and probably will) tell me that I am wrong and misrepresenting everything. I’m not, but that’s fair. 

But I do need to say this: If you are entangled within a system like this, whether from the seats or the pulpit, you know you are entangled within a system like this.

You know. I know you know. It’s the pea beneath the stack of mattresses that keeps you awake at night. 

Maybe you haven’t thought about it, or haven’t wanted to think about it, or haven’t been sure what it was. It’s this. The system is the problem.

And I’m going to let you sit with that knowledge, in the interest of letting the podcast do what (I think) it was intended to do, and allow the beauty of God to work in broken places.

I don’t know what you’ll do with that knowledge. Maybe nothing. Systems like this prey on people who are familiar with shame and abuse. And people always go back to what they’re familiar with. “We become what we tolerate,” as quoted in an early episode of the podcast. You may be perfectly comfortable in this system, which makes me sad, but I can’t rescue you from the system. I can only sit on the other side of the chasm and catch you if you choose to jump across.

What’s been funny (for me, anyway) about walking through this podcast is the reminder that Christians are really bad at having hard conversations. In fact, Christians are probably the most bad at having hard conversations, out of any category of human I’ve encountered in my entire life.

This is absolutely ironic given the constant rhetoric from pulpits about “truth in love” and how the Bible never said that Christian life would be easy. Churches and their leaders spend exorbitant amounts of money on discipleship curriculum and classes on how to share the gospel and ten steps to having hard conversations about Jesus, but precious few dollars or minutes on things like how to hold leaders accountable, or how to admit when you’ve fucked up, or appropriate words for apologies, or how to properly reconcile a wrong or repair a relationship.

Which is my next point: There is no justice here. It’s something I’ve had to quietly accept in my own life. There’s very few redemption arcs, and while the stories of reconciliation from this final episode were beautiful and somewhat healing, they also left a gaping ache in my heart, knowing things like that are rare and probably won’t happen in my own life, or in the lives of many, many people who have been wounded by systems like this.

It’s been easier for me to walk away from the alarming theology because I didn’t grow up with it; it’s not my roots, nor is it all I’ve ever known. That’s not the case for a lot of people within systems like this. There’s a deep sense of loss and wild flailing that comes with walking away from foundational theology that is the only way you’ve ever known God or Jesus. 

But I can assure you, it’s not worth the damage it causes. The testimonials in this podcast are very real (and relatable for me, and many others I know). If you think the “good work” being done is a tradeoff, it’s not. It’s a disservice to the truth of God and Jesus that is being misrepresented and corrupted, and to all of the people who try to do right by that truth.

Forgiveness, grace, and mercy can still be accompanied by accountability. We do not need to allow people back into our lives, in a leadership position or otherwise, just because they claim they are sorry. And true reconciliation comes with an authentic acknowledgement of wrongdoing, and an understanding of the damage caused. People who know they did damage don’t fight tooth and nail to get back onto the pulpit. And they don’t twist their wrongdoing into a calling from God that they’ve heeded and label the bodies under the bus as collateral damage.

That’s a hard conversation to have. Accountability is hard. Reconciliation is hard. There’s a moment in the final episode of the podcast where the son of one of the wounded goes back and confronts Mark Driscoll about maybe apologizing to his dad. It’s a striking moment of simultaneous courage and devastation. I’ve seen some absolutely beautiful reconciliation in my own life, but it’s rarely been from people who profess to be Christians. I think that says a lot about the Christian faith, and theology, and what we’re skimming from all of it. Very few people are going to say they’re sorry here. And even fewer are going to try to do better (please do see how that worked out for Driscoll when he went on his merry way to plant a new church in Arizona).

But you can (maybe). That’s up to you. I can assure you that I will. 

I’m certainly not perfect. I have to own my fair share of being part of the system for many years, and allowing it to damage me from the inside out, and haphazardly inflicting that damage on others. I certainly do not have all the answers, but I’m willing to have the hard conversation. 

Pastors and ministry leaders need to learn how to admit that they are fallible human beings who fuck up, and how to properly apologize, repair a relationship, and reconcile a wrong (like they’re preaching regularly from the pulpit for us to do). They need to learn how to sit in an actual room with a person and say “I’m sorry,” absent the gaslighting of manipulative semantics like “I’m sorry if I said that” or “I’m sorry that happened to you” or “I’m sorry that that’s how you perceived that” or “I’m sorry if you misinterpreted that” or “I’m sorry you were hurt by that” (all real-life examples from my own experience). 

Elders, staff, and volunteers need to have the courage to speak up and call out behavior, even if it means you lose your position, or your community, or your job. After all, those who have tried to speak up have already lost a lot of those things, but we’re just the bodies under the bus, I guess; the sacrificial lambs of “the mission”…? That’s a hard pill to swallow, but Christianity is allegedly based on right and wrong, and doing the right (and biblical) thing. You know what the right thing is. And if you truly have the faith you claim that God will support and protect those who do right by his name, what on earth are you waiting for? 

And from the seats, we all need to be better models of autonomy as image-bearers who have been given the agency to know what the right thing to do is in any situation. Credentials, “anointing,” vision-casting, and an alleged word from the Holy Spirit shouldn’t mask any red flags you are feeling in your soul. Some of these dudes don’t have your best interests at heart. It’s dangerous and scary and it makes me sad. I still believe in God. I still think the global church can be beautiful. But we’ve got a lot of work to do, in holding people accountable and having hard conversations.

This is my contribution to the hard conversation. What will yours be?

If you want to have it in person over drinks, I’m down.