Mark Driscoll Says Mars Hill Elders Planned to Accuse Him of Infidelity

Julie Roys did the hard work so I am going to refer you to her article on this.

In short, in a sermon last Sunday Mark Driscoll claimed that some of the elders who accused him of abusive behavior at Mars Hill Church planned to accuse of adultery if he didn’t step out of the pulpit.

From Roys article:

Driscoll alleged that prior to resigning from Mars Hill, God told him “that a trap was set.” Then, during an 18-month hiatus following his resignation, Driscoll said he met multiple times at Panera with some “critics and enemies” who used to be friends, “some who were pastors, some who are still pastors.”

Driscoll said when he asked these former friends about a possible trap, they responded that “the nuclear option was that we were going to accuse you of adultery.”

Driscoll said the plan was to get him “out of the pulpit.” And those plotting against him believed that if “we accused you of adultery, and enough of us signed the open letter, that ultimately there would be such a media firestorm that you would have to exit the ministry . . . for probably a year while a full investigation was done,’” Driscoll recounted.

Sutton Turner, former number two man at Mars Hill, denied anything like that to Roys and then today put out a tweet linking to notes taken from the meeting where Driscoll was informed of the elders findings. Significantly, Driscoll was found to be disqualified from ministry but for no reasons involving infidelity.

From my perspective, this is a fantastical story. If the elders wanted to make such an allegation, they could have made it when he resigned suddenly rather than enter a plan of restoration. Likewise, these same elders could have done this last year when they approached Christianity Today with a statement calling on Driscoll to resign from The Trinity Church in Phoenix.

Although it has taken him awhile, all I can surmise is that he is now fighting back against the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast. Elsewhere in the sermon, he encouraged his congregation to ignore what they read on the Internet. Never mind what hundreds of people say, just listen to Mark Driscoll is the message. What could go wrong?

UPDATE: Miles Rohde, one of the elders on the Board of Elders who investigated the charges against Driscoll, commented on Twitter about Driscoll’s response to the BOE’s findings.

Despite the fact that Driscoll’s book Doctrine upheld the authority of elders, he didn’t follow his own teaching when the time came to apply it.

8 thoughts on “Mark Driscoll Says Mars Hill Elders Planned to Accuse Him of Infidelity”

  3. didn’t he originally say it was Grace (his wife) that said God had told her about the trap thing and that’s why he quit?

  4. Mark Driscoll is still Mark Driscoll. It would appear that he is every bit the arrogant, would-be king of Mars Hill that he was, who has no trouble lying to leave the impression he wants people to take with them when he speaks. I suspect that The Trinity Church will eventually come to the same conclusions as Mars Hill: that Mark Driscoll is unrepentant, and unfit for the ministry.

  6. This is what Malignant Narcissists do. They lie. They manipulate. They are Children of the Devil. They do evil. Period. And people who think they are Christians will follow them even while they get fleeced. What passes for Christianity these days is beyond ridiculous. We need to wise up. Period.

  7. One of the ironies in that sermon (yes, I listened) is the amount of time he spends telling his hearers not to pay any attention to anonymous reports–followed by his own report of these anonymous elders and “friends” telling him about this trap.

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