Commenting on Mark Driscoll's resignation absolutely must begin in prayers and tears. It's hard for me to be joyful about it -- or even relieved for that matter.
I am hopeful for Christ's healing of those who've been abused over the years. I believe in prayer, so I believe in forgiveness. And I pray that Driscoll's former vision of a misogynistic, abusive Christianity has died.
But I know, just like the Terminator, he'll be back.
But that's not what I want to write about today. No, what I want to say today, I say because I love the Church and live for it. What I write today, I write because I have devoted my ministry to training young clergy for faithful ministry; I believe in the wisdom of that Church through the ages. So I know it has much to say to Driscoll. Just read Tom Oden's Pastoral Theology or Will Willimon's Pastor. Or, even better, Gregory the Great's Pastoral Rule.
You can read the entire letter here, if you'd like, but there's a few things about this letter that I think it's important to highlight from a pastor's perspective.
And it appears in that third paragraph, particularly these two sentences: "You have also shared with me that many of those making charges against me declined to meet with you or participate in the review process at all. Consequently, those conducting the review of charges against me began to interview people who had not even been a party to the charges".
That's odd, coming in a resignation letter. Who is this you anyway?
Remember, he's addressing his Board of Advisers and Accountability. So why those lines?
I think it's really nothing more than a cunning PR move, in which Driscoll controls the narrative of this crisis and spins it in a positive way for himself. It amounts to saying, "These people forced me into this, but they aren't even credible".
Except that, all those folks who've made claims have done so publicly, with their names attached, in quite compelling charges. There's been (to my mind, at least) an overwhelming amount of proof out there for anyone to review, including memos and e-mails.
That no one was inclined to talk to the Board is unsurprising. Because we know -- after Paul Tripp resigned from it because it was incapable of actually addressing the issues at hand -- that this same Board was perpetuating the abuse because it didn't handle the allegations forthrightly, in a way consistent with Matthew 18.
And, speaking of Matthew 18, there's another line that really concerned me in Driscoll's letter: "Prior to and during this process there have been no charges of criminal activity, immorality or heresy, any of which could clearly be grounds for disqualification from pastoral ministry".
It concerned me enough that I responded on twitter yesterday with this tweet:
What Driscoll actually says, it seems to me, is this: At least I didn't do anything illegal. But, if you're only defense of a pastoral act is, "at least I can't go to jail for it", you've missed the moral dimension on pastoral ministry by a long shot. (See Willimon's Calling and Character: Virtues of the Ordained Life.)
He says he never committed heresy, and even I know that's a slippery word. But as my tweet tried to indicate, there are worse things for pastors to do. Like abuse.
What about all those biblical qualifications for ministry that are enshrined in early canons from the Church about being a pastor? (Check them out in Philip Culbertson's Pastor: Readings from the Patristic Period.) Things like:
1. Humility (Titus 1.7)
2. Gentleness (Titus 1.7 again, and 1 Timothy 3.3)
3. Peaceableness (both again)
4. Respectable (1 Timothy 3.7)
5. An example to the Church (1 Peter 5.3)
Why didn't the Board ever address those, as the complaints began to roll in?
Because, lest we need reminded, the Board -- and even Driscoll himself! -- admits those violations were true. Because, they're in that letter!
On a more personal note, when I read this line, every bone in my pastoral body shook with a righteous anger: "
Recent months have proven unhealthy for our family -- even physically unsafe at times -- and we believe the time has now come for the elders to choose new pastoral leadership for Mars Hill".I don't live in Seattle. I don't know the Driscolls. And that may be true. But it omits the one line that would make reconciliation possible. It leaves off the one thing Driscoll absolutely needed to say pastorally to the people at Mars Hill: "I am resigning as pastor because I have sinned against the people I was supposed to shepherd".
He never says that.
He doesn't even hint at that.
Instead: He's leaving because it's the best thing for him.
His letter is dedicated to maintaining an image of Driscoll as the persecuted pastor, and it makes me angry as a pastor because that's not what happened.
I take no delight in Driscoll leaving this way. That his ministry has meant so much over the years is a testament to God's grace in the proclaimed, living Word in Jesus. His ministry -- as my ministry -- is not done because we do it.
Mark is a misogynistic abuser who has spent well over a decade creating a church and staff that would enable his behavior, and this letter is nothing more than a continuation of that. It is insurance so that one day he can start another ministry and do it all over again.
And nothing, it seems to me, will have changed. Because there can be no reconciliation, no transformation, come from a letter that only means to maintain a spiritually diseased status quo.