My musings on the Acts 29 and Mark Driscoll blowup as well as some very important theological concepts that emerge from the thinking through of it: So many of you know at least by way of seeing some headline somebody posted on social media that Acts 29, a church planting organization founded in part by pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill church, has chosen to break ties with Driscoll and Mars Hill because of allegations against pastor Mark, many of which have been confirmed by him. News Sources doing pieces on this story have done a horrific job of reporting why this split was made. For starters let me inform you that on the board of Acts 29, who unanimously voted for this separation are friends of Driscoll. In particular, Matt Chandler of the Village church down in Texas, is a longtime personal friend of Driscoll, himself having a nearly impeccable reputation. Anyone who thinks this was easy for him is kidding themselves. Matt Chandler knows the grave seriousness of public accusations against a sitting pastor and the vast ramifications this kind of thing has, both ecclesiastically as well as the way the world views God and his Christ and his church. Several of the news outlets have reported on some stories that occured a decade and a half ago regarding something Mark did in a church chat room regarding vulgarities and so forth, leaving the readers to think this was the driving reasons behind the separation. Nonsense. Utter nonsense. The last twelve months has been a virtual firestorm of accusations and revelations against Mark Driscoll. Theres been reports of bullying from literally dozens of individuals that are so severe they really just make you say wow. There were the allegations of plagiarism in multiple of pastor Marks books starting on the Janet Medford show that snowballed and got bigger and more extensive. This was admitted and chocked up to mistakes. There was the discovery Mars Hill used church funds to hire a firm to purchase thousands of copies of Driscolls personal book and have them mailed to a vast plurality of mailing addresses so as to contractionally guarantee that it ended up on the NY Times best seller list which it did and he profited immensely from. Which by the way is highly unethical. There was the revelation of pre employment contracts which forced pastors to sign no competition agreements agreeing that if they ever left Mars Hill they could not pastor another church within a ten mile radius of a Mars Hill campus which by the way is the entire greater King, Pierce, and Thurston county populated areas. Several paid staff who were fired have publicly stated that they were threatened with lawsuits if the violated this. Theres several current accusations of misappropriation of funds as well. Theres a long trail of hurt feelings that goes back miles and years that is evidenced in the public protests on the sidewalk outside of Mars Hill last week as well as the various fb groups with hundreds of members who claim to have been bullied and all sorts of various other accusations. Most notably in my mind the Demon trials that went on at various MH campuses. I personally know someone who was put through this at one of the satellite campuses. And on it goes. Now, I do not personally know what part of all this stuff is true and how true it is. Other than the stuff that has been admitted or documented well. Im not primarily writing this to suggest I think x, y, or z should happen to Mark Driscoll or Mars Hill. I am writing this for two reasons: to assert that Acts 29s actions are not some flippant knee jerk reaction to some old rehashed news story and primarily to say that it is my understanding that we are to be Christ centered and not Grace centered. Now what in the world does that mean youre probably asking. Christ centered and not Grace centered? Let me explain. Theres a strong school of thought today in evangelicalism that speaks of being grace centered or gospel centered. One particular pastor was using phrases like anti gospel earlier this year. I would strongly assert, and this is not easy because who wants to be against being gospel centered, that the New Testament exhorts us is an overarching way to be Christ centered, not grace centered. If I can be use dramatic language to drive home my point I think many have removed Christ from his throne and replaced him with one of his attributes. The greatest goal of the Christians life is to be conformed to the image of Gods son. Said another way, I believe scripture teaches that Christ is the center of all things not justification. If being grace centered is the end all that governs all we do and all we think then the measure by which a thing is either good or bad is how much does it display grace. Being grace centered is going to at the very least be suspicious of the constant refrain of the new testament to walk in a manner worthy of your calling and to act in such a way as to please God. But if Christ is the center, and being like Christ is the center, then of course we can say amen without suspicion to telling those who are his to be more and more like him. The great enemy of grace is legalism. The great enemy of Christ is sin. Grace centered theology then, while correct, is just one part of the picture. Why do I bring all these nuances of theology up? Because those who are quick to jump to defend Driscoll and accuse Acts 29 are quoting bible verses galore telling Acts 29 they need to be grace centered. Ultimately grace/gospel centered-ness has no framework to deal with things like church discipline. To say okay, according to the requirements for eldership as found in the pastoral epistles in the new testament youre disqualified from doing this is going to smack of anti grace legalistic thinking. And yet there it is in Timothy and Titus. Whereas if you have Christocentric thinking youll say well of course, if a shepherd has really departed from looking like Christ and has given the world more than adequate reason to blaspheme God then he should be removed at least for a season. Church discipline passages as well as others have thoroughly convinced me the overall theology of the believer is indeed Christocentric. So some assertions: 1) there are moral requirements for pastorship 2) accusing pastors is very serious and should always be looked at suspiciously unless there is corroboration. 3) our overall governing thing in thinking and behavior is Christocentricity 4) there are occasions where disassociation is necessary and godly. Some caveats: Im NOT making any specific assertions as to the guilt or innocence of MD in one or any or all of the accusations or assertions regarding what I think the consequences should be. Neither am I making assertions regarding the guilt or innocence of Acts 29 in their actions. What I AM asserting is that a Christocentric theology does lead to situations where disqualification for ministry exist for a time, where discipline is necessary, where accountability is a must, and where disassociation will sometimes be necessary because Christs glory would demand such. That may or may not be in this situation.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 15:49:38 +0000
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