Prolegomenon
For those of us who enjoy reading but often lack the time, the advent of podcasts and audiobooks has been like manna from heaven. Listening to audio while doing housework or yardwork has revolutionized the way we can injest information. Yet as with anything, it is vital that we weight the content of we are ingesting. Life is catechesis—we are constantly being taught and trained, and are therefore called to be wise.
One of the more popular podcasts in recent months has been Christianity Today's (CT) immensely successful series The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill (link here). For those of you unfamiliar with the podcast, it chronicles (through various means) the meteoric rise of Mars Hill church in Seattle, Washington, pastored (during that time) by Mark Driscoll. Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll were instrumental in several movements at the time, particularly so among the younger-and-newly-Reformed crowd. Mars Hill eventually would boast several campus locations with thousands of congregants, and Mark Driscoll became a household name for many Christians. Media served a key role in this expansion, and their content was widespread.
As the name of the CT podcast should suggest, there was a rise of Mars Hill, and there was an observable fall of Mars Hill. The church and its leadership seemed to implode in quite unthinkable ways, both regarding the speed with which things unraveled and the devestation which the afternmath brought. The last episode of CT's podcast (and the impetus for this current blog article) is appropriately labeled "The Aftermath."
We cautiously recommended the Rise/Fall podcast on the podcast that I co-host (the Good Doctrine Podcast), though this was during the CT podcast's initial episodes. Now that Rise/Fall is concluding its coverage of the Mars Hill story, several points of consideration have pressed upon me from its "Aftermath" episode. These themes were echoed throughout their podcast (becoming more pronounced in this final episode), and they represent concerns that I have in giving an unqualified recommendation of this podcast to others. The following may contain spoilers for the Rise/Fall podcast, but I trust that even if you have never listened to their show, that these observations may be helpful and applicable outside this singular example.
Christian Rubbernecking
I have observed that the Rise/Fall podcast was extremely popular, and there is likely not one specific reason for that. The topic content, the production value, the narrative storytelling—this podcast was done quite well and was thoroughly engaging. Yet the central content of this podcast was essentially negative—being, after all, a sort of postmortem investigation into the death of a church (or, at least, the death of a particular church movement). So why was this podcast so popular?
I am certainly not alone in raising such questions. Many have noted in recent weeks and months that our fascination with the Rise/Fall saga tells us a great deal about ourselves, and not just the subject matter at hand (see Trevin Wax's article, here). Without taking an overly postmodern perspective on things, it certainly seems that the Rise/Fall also serves as a sort of mirror to its observer, telling us a great deal about ourselves in the process.
Why do Christians find such fascination with such a tragic situation as the one we hear recounted in Rise/Fall? Perhaps there is the drive to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past This would be a laudable perspective: to hear the errors and missteps of those who have come before us and to learn accordingly from their example. This would, in fact, even seem biblical:
"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice." (Proverbs 12:15)
Learning from those lessons is commendable, but there is another, more prominent, dynamic that seems to be at play. Some may simply enjoy a good story (and one that is well-told), and that alone may account for the show's appeal. Others may have been similarly hurt by institutions or individuals, and may find some semblance of catharsis and solace in hearing others share their own experiences in that light. That may account for some of its listeners.
My suspicion, however, is that many Christians are simply quite prone to spiritual rubbernecking. We find a sort of entertainment in watching things unravel. We sympathize with the wounded and dare not justify the wrongs committed, yet we find ourselves entertained in the same way as we might in watching a baking show contest where the judges are obtuse and abusive toward the accident-prone contestents. In short, we unthinkingly rubberneck at the spiritual wreckage in this world. For the same reasons that we tend to gossip about the shortcomings and failures of others (perhaps even under the guise of "prayer requests"), we find comfort in seeing the wreckage of those around us. This may well be that it makes us feel more spiritually secure—and that sentiment would certainly have biblical precedent, though certainly not a positive sort (see Luke 18:9–14).
Biblical Authority and Scriptural Sufficiency
This may well be one of the dynamics which most concerned me about the tone of the Rise/Fall podcast, but it is a dynamic I would like to treat rather delicately. Let me explain that desire for delicacy: throughout the Rise/Fall podcast, there have been appeals to the consequences of the actions of either the church and/or its leadership (or specifically Driscoll). I do not assume to know the intentions of the Rise/Fall podcast producers, but the way these discussions were framed certainly had the potential to lead its listeners to a particular viewpoint. The podcast would regularly interview those who had been associated with Mars Hill and Driscoll, and detail the negative (and often lasting) effects that relationship had incurred. There was also a regular discussion of the church handling things that should have been relegated to outside entities, specifically regarding counseling situations with members. These dynamics became especially prominent in the latest episode, and I believe some thoughtful reservations are in order here.
Let me first address the discussions about negative consequences of Mars Hill's beliefs. Let me give a tangible example for the sake of clarity, while using a lighthearted example for illustrative purposes. Here is an example of how these conversations unfolded throughout the series: "Mars Hill led our families to eat ice cream together after church. My kids would often misbehave after eating ice cream, and our van would become sticky, and I gained several pounds from the ice cream consumption. I am a victim of this teaching by Mars Hill, and they were wrong to have taught such things." Perhaps this is too silly an illustration, but it almost must be, and this is why: what is of most vital importance in this discussion is whether Mars Hill was biblically faithful in teaching families to eat ice cream. In other words, if Scripture commanded families to eat ice cream, any true church is bound to teach this to its people (one may question the tone and delivery of how this is taught, but the standard remains). To assess the validity or virtue of a teaching based on its consequences alone is simply an appeal to consequences fallacy—as unpopular as this observation is, the truth of the thing (that is, biblical truth) is what is definitional.
You may well think of how this worked out in the Mars Hill situation: counseling sessions on marital conflict, gender roles within the church, accusations of abuse and misuse of power... those illustrations are certainly more complex and intense than a simple ice cream cone. Yet the standard of truth remains the same—if Mars Hill taught harmful things that led to lasting hurts for its congregants, that is a horrible thing. But the lasting hurts cannot be the defining criterion by which all else is judged in retrospect—the question must be: was Mars Hill faithful in biblically teaching the truth in love. That defining standard seemed vague (or even absent) at times in the Rise/Fall discussion, while the standard of experience seemed dominant. That is a concerning truth standard for a Christian.
As to the second matter of Scriptural sufficiency, those interviewed in the podcast seemed to have a rather negative tone when addressing Mars Hill's efforts to counsel its congregants. An implicit message (one that is certainly not relegated to this podcast, but I would wager is widespread within Christian circles) is that the church and its leadership are incapable of addressing the serious needs of its congregants. This likely would not be listed on any church website, but it may certainly be observable in the life and practice of the church. The pastor or elder is regarded to be "in his lane" when preaching general truths from Scripture, yet when the truly challenging matters of life arise (marital strife, pornography addictions, sexual identity questions, etc), these things are considered best left to trained authorities outside the church. In fact, it may even be framed as negligence not to immediately seek outside professional counsel on these issues, whether those outside counselors are Christian or not (note: I am referring here to serious issues that do not enter the realm of criminal acts or credible threats of self-harm).
This could certainly entail a lengthy conversation, but let me briefly plead this point. I am thankful for men and women who have specialized training, those who have dedicated their professional lives to helping others, and I am especially thankful for those who have done so out of a desire to glorify the God they serve. I am also mindful that many pastors and churches have provided less-than-adequate (or even negligent) counseling to their members on various issues, and those wounds tend to linger. However, I find it distressing that Christians seem to boldly declare that the Word of God is sufficient for everything (2 Tim 3:16–17), yet that belief seems to implicitly vanish when any serious issue may arise. A robust belief in the power of God working through Scripture gives me pause with such hasty conclusions.
True Convictions
Finally, Rise/Fall reminded me that true convictions are a commendable thing for the believer. If we believe God has spoken, we are bound to mold our lives around His words and stand for them with our every breath (1 Pet 3:15). Likewise, if we are not convinced of something from Scripture, we are to be wary of following blindly along with a theological "camp" for any other reason than our God-wrought convictions from Scripture (see Eph 4:14). I considered this when I heard the Rise/Fall reports of Driscoll, who had previously taught and defended the Doctrines of Grace, seemingly reversing course in the aftermath of Seattle and calling those foundational doctrines "garbage" and "not biblical." Any believer may be confronted from Scripture with their own wrong belief and change accordingly, and that is a good and expected thing at times. Yet holding to doctrines out of convenience or popularity will wash away with the tides, leaving no foundation in its wake (Matt 7:24–27).
Beyond Driscoll, this is probably a good time for reflection as believers: if God has spoken, we are commanded to listen and to live accordingly. When we do so, we call those things convictions. Convictions do not arise from popular sentiment, or from public acceptance, or from perceived chances for personal advancement. We believe what God has said even if no one else does, and we hold to those convictions no matter what cost they may entail. This separates true conviction from the convenient stances of the world (Bonhoeffer's Discipleship comes to mind here).
If we fail to clarify and biblically ground our convictions, we may find ourselves advocating a reworking of our belief system not on biblical conviction but upon subjective personal reflection. This was one of the more troubling trends observable in those intereviewed by the Rise/Fall podcast, which, after interviewing several Christians who have "deconstructed" their faith (several of whom no longer identify as Christians), concluded with a prominent Christian personality who spoke quite glowingly about "deconstruction" as a necessary means of working through our faith. Per the Lexham Glossary of Theology, deconstruction is "a postmodern method of literary interpretation that highlights the inherent disjunctions or contradictions of language that are thought to undermine a text's presentation of meaning." As its name suggests, deconstruction is a dismantling process. Applied in theology, deconstruction seems to be quite a destructive process, one whose standard of truth appears firmly rooted in the individual. This seems to be a most unfortunate conclusion to reach, yet it is one which is very much in keeping with the current winds of our culture.
SDG,
Josh Howard
Josh Howard serves as the Elder/Pastor at Grace Community Church in Battle Creek, MI, co-hosts the Good Doctrine Podcast, and is an alumni of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (PhD, ThM).