Tony Jones on Mark Driscoll: What came first, the thug or the theology?

Please forgive the rhetorical devices of my first post. Divorce, and affairs, are a particularly difficult subject for me and I’ve experienced my own hell over the competing violently clashing truths that force people to take sides with broken lives and relationships in the wake. I don’t believe in treating them with pitchforks or a with any lack of humility.

I don’t know Julie, I don’t know the intimate details of her divorce, and I don’t know Tony’s story, or what any of the EV leaders would say in response. Of course moral justifications are not the point. As flawed imperfect people trying on some level to get to an experience of truth — it seems to me that this conversation is in part about the fact that the “truth” is not just about right ideas, or right ideology or interpretations. To David’s original questions. Moral codified perfection or justifications are think rarely the point — or at least not the primary point of the gospel.

So I have a hard time understanding why a blog forum would be an appropriate venue to air the intimate agony of a divorce and invite counter-accusations and justifications in defense. If Tony were to respond in detail with his version of events, if EV leaders stepped in and rather inevitably started saying, “but Julie was or did X or Y,” and THAT’s why I did Z… then suddenly the conversation is immersed in counter-accusations over the agony of a divorce, something that is rarely if ever simplistic and one-sided. A divorce is by definition a clash of competing truths and do you think we can get to the truth of it all on an online forum in order to then make a larger point about theology and spiritual leadership? The attempt or demand to do this on a blog forum just feels wrong to me.

You all say this isn’t about divorce, but it obviously is the context and where the anecdotes and accusations derive from. I understand that Julie’s accusations are not just about an affair, or a ‘divorce’, but are also about silencing. Justice. She’s inviting apologies, or what most likely would be a set of counter-accusations and justifications, or at least explanatory context that would likely invite scrutiny into her behavior at the time because again divorces are competing clashing stories about pain and betrayal and rage and brokenness.

I’m honestly asking — when I do not know these people or their story, but I do know the murkiness and agony of divorce — is it wrong of me to not want to rush to grab a pitchfork after hearing just one side in a series of anecdotes derived from a divorce? Is it wrong that I don’t want to invite (much less demand) that either Julie or Tony air their most profound, intimate pain in this public forum in order to have a conversation about theology and abuse?

And if I am wrong — then help me understand how you want this to go?

If Tony et al legitimately believe their own version of events (objectively right or wrong) but if they really believe it, and if they start airing their version… then how do you expect this to go? Hyenas I suppose will “pass the popcorn” and find the gossip delicious. But what good — GOOD — do you expect will come of it? Really not asking rhetorically.

I can respect her no-bullshit courageous fighting spirit. And don’t claim that I’m patronizing anyone. She’s got game. But it seems wrong to assume that the only reason why Tony or EV leaders choose to be silent on this forum is because they’re ashamed, or hiding, or cowering in the darkness of their narcisistic evils in order to protect some sort of fame that many of you claim they don’t have anyway. I am not in contact w/ any of them, have no clue about what they are thinking, but I know if it were me I wouldn’t want to force or participate in an online debate with a group of virtual strangers over the intimate details of a personal divorce. And any reluctance to do so does not mean that I am a coward or a villain. Particularly if I was inviting the conversation to be had in person, face to face, or voice to voice.

Are any of you having this conversation in person, or voice to voice?

Saying to a virtual group of strangers, “you don’t get to walk into the intimate pain and failures of this divorce”, or saying that it’s inappropriate to do so on an online forum when I am simultaneously inviting conversation in person… just doesn’t mean that I am a — bwa-ha-ha — victimizer.

And Danica — "where the sun don’t shine?? You’re not trying to “silence” me are you? :)

None of this is to take sides w/ EV leaders I don’t know. I take seriously the psychological/spiritual manipulation of leaders who exert influence to control others for personal gain. Where leaders take advantage of peoples acquiescence in order to achieve greater domination or success. It’s horrific, and didn’t Jesus say something about tying huge rocks around their necks and drowning them in the sea? That’s His justice. And its far more terrifying than social media debates. And why a prayer for mercy from all our flawed lips is so perhaps necessary.

You all clearly have more history in the EV village world than I do, and there is much that I don’t know. So Godspeed literally in your quest for justice.

i hear that ;)

David, standing slow clap for your response to all the private bullying, legal threats, etc. that you are no doubt receiving offline. The time for justice is now. It’s always now.

“Nakedpastor is in the habit of exposing abuse, elevating the dignity of the abused, and providing a safe space for this to occur.”

I think that what is so cathartic and compelling about Julie’s story/stories is how very awfully true they ring. If one has been targeted by an organization, or powerful person within an organization, there’s a way the wagons circle and the aggressions a pile up. It makes you feel crazy, paranoid. Trying to tell someone about it or get support and help makes you LOOK crazy and paranoid. And people start to back away.

There are a thousand tiny and not-so-tiny things that are said or implied or, to family and neighbors and community; many more things that are said and done to the targeted individual. Many are too small to be taken seriously (so many call/hang ups in the middle of the night. So. Many. And let’s not forget the occasional bill missing from the mailbox. Hard to know for sure it was them, but it only happened during that 3 year period) but taken as a whole they wear you down. And none of it is the kind of thing you ever imagine anyone would do before you experience it, the half-truths mixed with bible verses, the twisting of one’s own words, the sudden legal threat despite promises to the contrary. If I were trying to make up a sympathy sob story I would make up better details, more believable ones, than the grinding, boring, crushing, and banal reality of what it was like to be targeted by Men Of God protecting their image and bottom line.

The quote I leave you with, from the director of the organization targeting my husband, came when he finally looked at the facts and acknowledged that the org had done us wrong. We asked him to fix it using biblical standards for reconciliation between brothers in Christ (ha ha haaaa. We were so effing naive back then). He looked at us apologetically, almost like he was begging us to be understanding of his awkward position, and said: Of course you always want to follow the Bible, but sometimes, when you’re running a Christian organization, you can’t afford to.

I think that sums this shit up nicely.