Mark Driscoll has resigned. Mars Hill Church is disbanding its central organization and sunsetting its remaining 13 campuses to become either independent or dissolve entirely. Should anyone be happy about this news?
There will come a time when we—evangelicals with access to the internet who have loudly proclaimed our displeasure with Mark’s style of leadership—realize we have made a mistake. The internet has given us a voice. We are no longer silent victims. We no longer have to cower in the corner and be abused.
But, as Stan Lee so famously said, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Jesus said something similar in Luke 12.48: “When someone has been given much, much will be required in return.”
We just used our power, our voice, and our opinions to dismantle someone’s entire life and one of the most effective churches of this century.
Shame on us.
I’m not defending everything Mark Driscoll has ever done. At times, I’ve been critical of Mark. He’s said and done some painful things. But none of those things disqualify him from ministry. Iif being a jerk disqualified you from ministry we never would have had the apostle Paul, whose famous fallout with John Mark almost destroyed the younger man entirely. Paul was not nice, even though he advocated charity above all things.
We tore down one of the major works of God in the 21st century, and there’s going to come a time when we cry into our communion wafers because of it. We had this power and used it to its fullest extent when we should have shown restraint. As a group, we have done to Mark Driscoll the very things that made us hate him in the first place. We have abused him, we have badgered him, we have dominated him, and we have ultimately chased him out.
Shame on us.