In an exclusive statement to Christian Post, Mars Hill Church denies that the edits to Mark Driscoll’s recent sermon on Acts 6:1-7 were anything unusual. They also stand in support of the content of the edited portion.
According to the CP article, sermons are evaluated and then edited on a routine basis. In one sense, this is certainly true. Many people have access to the sermon prior to finished product and can make various suggestions. According to my sources, most editing is for the sake of time. Sometimes editing is done to remove content the leaders don’t want the congregation to hear or know. For instance, older sermon transcripts have been edited to remove mention of Leif Moi, one of the founders of Mars Hill. Other former leaders have been scrubbed from the website, as was Mark Driscoll’s naturopathic physician when the doctor lost his license.
In this case, sources from Mars Hill tell me that some staff took Driscoll’s references to the mistakes of Jesus as thinly veiled self-defense, using the life of Jesus to do it. Others had few concerns about the content but were worried that Driscoll would be perceived as comparing himself to Jesus in order to minimize the concerns of former members. These varied concerns led to the edits, according to my sources.
Without naming the sermon, at least one former Mars Hill pastor, Dave Kraft, raised concerns about making an analogy from Jesus’s actions to human mistakes. Kraft is one of the pastors leading 20 former Mars Hill pastors to request mediation with Driscoll and the other executive elders.
CP’s Alex Murashko said I didn’t return an email by press time. All Murashko wanted to know was where I got the video. I wrote back to ask how that information would be relevant to his story.
Tag: Mark Driscoll
Mars Hill Church to Hold Vision Breakfast on June 10
I have obtained a memo inviting Mars Hill Church members to attend a “vision breakfast.” In a report on the last vision breakfast, it was reported by Sutton Turner that at least one member had questions about the 2012 legal situation for the church in Orange County CA. Turner said he wouldn’t answer because he wanted to talk to Kyle Firstenberg first.
Vision Breakfast | 6.10.14
From Pastor Sutton Turner:
Mars Hill Bellevue, My deepest prayer for our church family these past several weeks has come from Hebrews 12:1–2: that we would lay aside every weight and sin, and that we would run with endurance the race that is set before us. I’ve been praying that we would look to Jesus! I ask you to pray as well for our continued health and maturity as individuals and as the body of Christ at Mars Hill.
HEAR THE VISION
I can’t wait to gather together for our upcoming Vision Breakfast on June 10. Vision Breakfasts are our regular opportunity throughout the year for the leadership to share a united vision with all of our local churches. Vision Breakfasts allow us to communicate on a more intimate level. Think of them as family meetings: they allow us the chance to personally engage with you, Mars Hill, regarding what we believe Jesus has next for us as a body of believers.
JOIN US
Pastor Mark, Pastor Dave, and I will address all Mars Hill churches via live video. Then, Pastor Thomas will address your church family with a personal word about your local mission. So, please mark your calendars for June 10 and plan to join us for future Tuesday-morning Vision Breakfasts, held from 7:00 to 8:30 a.m. (PST), on the following days:
• June 10 (RSVP here)
• September 9
• November 11
Breakfast is served at 7:00 a.m. and is generously funded, organized, and served by members of Mars Hill Bellevue. They continue to treat us so well—and yes, the food is always great! We are thankful to the Lord for their gift of hospitality and the good they do for the household of faith (Gal. 6:10). RSVP If you are interested in attending the Vision Breakfast on June 10, please RSVP in order to help us plan accordingly.
Gratefully, Pastor Sutton Turner Executive Pastor and Executive Elder
There is something surreal an intimate conversation with a video feed. In any case, perhaps there will be some mechanism for questions to get to the executive elders. There is much that could come up. Perhaps the elders will tell the congregation what is happening with the 10700 Northtup Way property; and where the Mars Hill Global money is being spent. Maybe there will be an update about the mediation efforts with the 20 former pastors, or an explanation for the editing of a recent sermon or why so many popular leaders are leaving.
Mars Hill Church Leases Bellevue College Building; Does the Congregation Know?
On May 9, I posted a memo from Mars Hill executive pastor Sutton Turner about a plan to buy a former Bellevue College building at 10700 Northrup Way in Bellevue, WA. Mars Hill central offices will need to move by 2015 to make way for development in Seattle and so they need a new home. Originally, the leadership of Mars Hill told their congregation that God wanted them to have a property which had been purchased by Sound Transit. The church even mounted a campaign to convince the owner that the church should be there. However, something went wrong somewhere because now the church has focused on the Bellevue Community College building in Bellevue.
Recently, I learned that the planned collaboration between Mars Hill Church and two Christian colleges is slated to begin this fall in the 10700 Northrup Way property. Sources tell me that the church did not raise the $40 million requested but instead has signed a lease to use the space needed for the educational partnership. In the Spring, 2014 issue of the Corban University alumni magazine the plan to partner with Mars Hill is presented. On page 11, the picture below shows the Northrup Way property with a caption saying that Mars Hill purchased the building.
The statement that Mars Hill purchased the building is at odds with the information I am getting from inside the church. According to an analysis of rents in the Seattle area, my sources are correct. A Colliers International source says that Mars Hill leased the space.
A Mars Hill member recently told me that leadership is telling members that the church purchased the building. However, the information provided by other church sources is more consistent with the Colliers International analysis. One way or another, it appears that Mars Hill’s leadership was determined to get into the Northrup Way property. The bylaws allow the executive elders to make these moves without congregational approval. However, it is hard to understand the wisdom of making such significant move with tithes and offerings without at least informing the congregation. To be fair to MHC, perhaps the leadership has informed the people but my sources have not heard about it. I am certainly open to correction here.
Troubles in the Calvinist Revival Tent
Jonathan Merritt cut himself and jumped in the shark tank with this article on troubles in the Calvinist revival.
You need to read the whole thing but in the mean time, here is a taste:
To be sure, neo-calvinists don’t shy away from controversy and aren’t reticent to critique those outside of the movement. (One might refer to some Calvinist’s blistering responses to Donald Miller’s announcement that he doesn’t attend church.) Yet these same leaders are often resistant, delayed, and then tempered with their critiques of other Calvinists who seem to stray.
An illuminating example of this might be the recent glut of Mark Driscoll controversies—from sexist comments to charges of plagiarism to proof that he bought his way onto the New York Times bestsellers list using ministry monies. Leaders in the movement were effectively mum until a select few broke the silence of late. The first accusations of Driscoll plagiarizing were revealed on November 21st, but the first truly critical response posted by neo-Calvinist mega-blog, The Gospel Coalition, trickles out on December 18th. One might compare this with the response to Rob Bell’s book “Love Wins” that was in full bloom before the YouTube trailer finished buffering.
Even those who were brave enough to critique Driscoll were mostly moderate. And several Calvinists told me off-the-record that many who offered full-throated criticisms of Driscoll—like Carl Trueman of Westminster Theological Seminary—have been relegated to the margins as a result.
This is an intriguing admission. I wonder if Trueman knows he is under the bus. Makes me glad that I don’t belong to many clubs anymore.
Mars Hill Church Deletes Mark Driscoll's Teaching on Jesus Making Mistakes
WMWJD?*
On May 4, Mark Driscoll preached on Acts 6:1-7. In keeping with usual procedure, the video of the sermon was not posted on the church website until yesterday.
Those who watch the sermon on the website are missing some material from the live delivery two weeks ago. A segment of nearly six minutes was deleted from the sermon after discussion internally and some questions were raised externally. I have obtained a copy of the original sermon and have the missing material here.
In question is Driscoll’s teaching on the difference between sin and mistakes. In general, the Acts 6:1-7 sermon sounds like a self-defense. However, his teaching on Jesus making mistakes was of enough concern that MHC leaders deleted it. You can watch the edited version of the sermon at the Mars Hill site. At 30:11 into the video, a nearly six minute segment was snipped out. In the video below, I start with point four, “The Difference Between a Sin and a Mistake.” The deleted section starts about two minutes into the video:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/2k4nmD0GTp0[/youtube]
Transcript:
Ok, ready, what I’m going to tell you now might be a heresy. I’m not sure. We’ll see. Ok, um, I’ll just say that, so that if it is, I have an out, ok? So, what I’m going to say now is uh, ok I’ll just say it. Jesus never sinned, will you give me that, He never sinned, true? Good, you’ve been well taught, I think. Ok, so never sinned, never violated any command of the Bible, but question, question, here goes, brain explode, ready? Here we go, is it possible that he made some mistakes?
Meaning; when he was a little kid, when Joseph sat him on his bike, he needed no training wheels, didn’t wobble, just rolled around Jerusalem. When he played Little League, if he played Little League, every time he got up, it was like, ‘Ahhh, walk ‘em! Do not throw the ball to Jesus cause he hits a home run every time! Every time he hits a home run.’ Do you think he ever hit a single? He ever hit a double? Do you think he would’ve ever swung and missed? If the ball was on the outside corner and it was a strike, maybe one time, hypothetically possibly, he didn’t swing at it.
Did he ever make a mistake? Not a sin, a mistake. Did He ever have to do something twice because he didn’t get it right the first time. When he was learning as a little kid how to write his letters, was it like, ‘I can do this, mom, I made the heavens and the Earth. Watch, I can do cursive too. Or, or, did He have to, ‘ok, this is how you make, oh, ah, ok, I got it right the second time. What do you think? What do you think? It says in Luke that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and favor with men and God. He grew. What that means is that he had to learn how to do things. You’re going to need to learn how to do things. One of the ways we learn how to do things is we don’t get it right the first time. We fail. So then we learn from it and we figure out how to do it, that’s how we do things, right? Some of you are paralyzed by religious perfectionism. I need to get it all right, I need to get it all right the first time. You’re not Jesus. And you know what? Jesus may have learn how to do things by figuring it out, maybe not always getting it 100% right the first time.
Let me be careful with this. It’s not immoral. It’s not sinful. It’s not ungodly. It’s part of your humanity. You don’t need to repent of being human. You need to give yourself a little grace and be human. We need to give grace to one another. Otherwise you’re like one of those parents to the kid like, ‘you got it wrong!’ And the kid’s like, “and that’s how I learn. I need to try it and figure it out. So much of life is growth through mistakes, and in that category of failure, sometimes it’s a sin to be repented of, but sometimes it’s a mistake to be learned from. You get the difference?
This is why, my son’s in the middle of baseball season and track season for my daughter, we figured it out, we’ve got a hundred games with my son, and they keep raining out and rescheduling and now my son, it’s time for all-stars cause we need more games and so I was working with my 8 year old son Gideon yesterday, he’s trying out for all-stars and he, when he was in the outfield, running him in the infield, outfield, getting him ready for everything, he would push the ball and it would (made an arc motion) he doesn’t realize that he’s gotten bigger and stronger and he’s got a good arm, and he can take his crow hop and come right on over the top and he can throw the ball on a straight line from the outfield all the way into home. So yesterday we’re playing catch and Gideon pushed the ball (made arc motion) instead of throw the ball. Here’s what I didn’t say, ‘Gideon you’re in sin! When Jesus played outfield, He never had a loop on the ball. He threw it straight by the power of the Holy Spirit. You should throw it straight by the power of the Holy Spirit and repent of the pushing and looping the ball! Be like Jesus!’ I didn’t say it like that to my 8 year old son. What I said was, ‘Hey, Giddy, you know what? You’re arm’s gotten stronger, you don’t need to push the ball, you can throw it, you’re strong enough to get it all the way in on a line buddy. He needed a little coaching, a little encouragement, and he learned. That’s what life’s like. That’s what God the Father’s like. But that’s not always what religious teaching is like.
I might revisit the theology in this teaching in a future post. In the mean time, I hope my theologically inclined readers will weigh in.
I can’t help but remember that Mark Driscoll defended himself against plagiarism charges by saying “mistakes were made.” I wonder if Driscoll thinks Jesus would have made “citations errors,” yet without sin.
The textual basis for this sermon is Acts 6:1-7 where the Greek Jews were bothered that their widows weren’t getting as much care as the Hebraic Jews. We are not told in the Bible that the differential treatment was a mistake but Driscoll interprets the passage that way. From there, he contemplates Jesus as a boy doing things He never did.
The fact that Mars Hill leaders thought this passage should be removed is intriguing. Was Driscoll making an analogy to himself? It seems so because he follows this section up with a reference to leaders:
Every leader fails at something. And your failure doesn’t need to be the end of you; it could be the beginning of your learning.
Reflecting on Jesus’ humanity is a worthy theological topic but in this context, it seems like a distraction from the many calls from former members and pastors to enter into reconciliation and mediation over alleged sins, not mistakes. Former and current members don’t care much about hitting a baseball or writing in cursive. They have other concerns and deleting questionable sermon material won’t change that.
(*What Mistakes Would Jesus Do?)