Today, Julie Roys dropped an article about the ongoing controversies at Mark Driscoll’s The Trinity Church and it is a hammer. She brings together many threads of reporting into a devastating report about the church and what she calls Mark Driscoll’s “cult-like actions.”
Roys takes a very deep dive into the situation with the family first described at David Bonner’s blog involving Driscoll’s daughter. Roys has the aftermath of that situation and tells us that the Scottsdale police are involved. The church filed a complaint against the father and the family has filed a complaint against Brandon Anderson at the church for detaining Driscoll’s daughter’s boyfriend for questioning.
Roys explores the “elderless church” as I have been calling The Trinity Church. She points out the lack of accountability at the church. There are no budgets available and church finances are closed to members. In fact, there are no members. People attend but they have no meaningful way to participate. Driscoll has insulated himself from being accountable to those who attend and those who are his subordinates. If he wants someone out of the church or to be monitored, it is done.
I reported on Saturday that Driscoll authorized surveillance of his daughter’s former boyfriend’s family. Roys has a transcript of conversations involving church staff following members of this family. Not only did Driscoll ban the family from the church, he paid to have them secretly monitored. I wonder if Phoenix Seminary teaches classes in surveillance.
Spectrum of Trust
As extensive as Roys’ report is, there are more stories to tell. She mentions shunning, but there are more stories of families being shunned because they are not sufficiently loyal to Mark Driscoll. Roys introduces us to the very culty phrase “spectrum of trust.” The higher you are on the spectrum of trust, the more the Driscolls trust you and the more access to them you have. Sadly, if you not high on that spectrum, you may drag your family members down a notch or two. Ranking people in terms of their loyalty to the dear leader is a characteristic of a mind control group. An extension of that is shunning family members over loyalty to the dear leader.
One aspect of fallout from Mars Hill was the creation of blogs by people affected by the church (e.g., Joyful Exiles, Wenatchee the Hatchet*). As far as I know, here is the first such blog:
It appears to be in the development stage but go check it out.
*Probably my favorite blog name ever.