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

Donna McDaniel! I know you messaged me and I want to write back but I’m writing here because THIS is a safe place for you to tell your story and be supported. There is a toxic culture amongst the author/speaker/conference minor xian celebrity sect where they feel justified in bull dozing over people and discarding them like they are disposable trash. It’s wrong! And then to carry on in the mix like nothing ever happened. Join me in The Lasting Supper on line community of post church toxicity survivors. Or tell your story here…we’re listening.

“This thread has so much misinformation, inference, innuendo and commentary that I think it needs to be addressed and I will at a later date when I have time.”
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TRANSLATION:

Everything in this thread is true and I hate it that it is coming out in a manner beyond my control. But I need more time to spin this to my favor and need to consult with people of like mind to formulate a lawyered response.

Thank you Brad. Thank you for what you are trying to do here. (I tip toe in to say this.) This all needs to happen for God to heal his Church. I’ve been praying for it for 12 years since my own marriage failed in much the same way as Julie’s, though not on such a large public stage. (Mine was a small semi-private stage, though it reached world wide.) But I’d begun to loose hope that God would ever deal with it. It’s still a cancer and still out there in the form of many unrepentant “ministers” still being allowed to carry on as if their choices meant nothing (as if their unrepentant lives don’t affect everything they touch). And there are a lot of still hurting abuse survivors who’s lives, callings, and ministries were derailed….some of whom are trying to figure out how to find their way back to where they should be….while most have probably given up altogether. I know my Ex is still out there in the mix, still undetected for the lies he’s told in order to keep his place “ministering” to emerging church leaders. I think you know him. Though I doubt you know his real story. I think I might have met you in Austin Texas, February…was it 2000, or 2001? My last name was Fernandez back then. I don’t know if this is the place…but if not here, then where?

I came into the conversation now known as Emergent in the late 1990’s. I was very involved at The OOZE specifically in the forums. At the time the conversation has no name or any leaders. To be honest there were no writers with books. The only word used a lot was "postmodern " and/or PoMo. (This is one way I know who hung at The OOZE back then) We debated, deconstructed, and learned. No one had the intention of labeling it. It was what it was. It was the environment. Palmolive, we were soaking in it.

There were Mars Hill people there. They did not last long. In my estimation now I would put them in the Emergent label, but not OF the conversation.

Now there is where those of us who were at The OOZE and those who later a part of the Emergent Village happens. Those who came from the ooze saw the whole deal as a conversation. There were no leaders. We were all a part of a larger community and trying to live out spirituality in a Postmodern climate. Emergents or Emergent Village was and is a collection of people in specific ministry roles, church planters, and pastors. There are main leaders who develop and voice what the Emergent people are about. Two VERY different ideas here.

I said this back in 2003 or so, that the label Emergent was the beginning of the slow fall for the conversation. This thread is evidence of what I warned about. People wanted to label it, put certain people up as leaders and then have no accountability. This is why there are stories like mine, Julie’s, Pat’s daughter and many MANY more. Emergent Village even had a gathering of their elite around 2009 or 2010, I believe??? They still deflected that this was a leadership meeting. In fact it was. They even post blogs about decisions made by them for Emergent. It is funny to me that when you try to confront the abuse to these people there are no rules and get over it attitudes. Yet, when silenced people finally go public in a blog (which I did in my blog I no long have.) or in comments (such as here) there are suddenly RULES and obligations.

Emergent people want their cake and eat it too. Always have and always will. They will not admit it because they are blind to it. It is frustrating as hell. They feel they can live by a certain unknown set of rules. God help you if you break one of these rules.

BTW: the rule I broke? I spoke out and said there needed to be more women of color speaking. I always challenged Emergent speakers to stop talking about LGBTQ. To let LGBTQ take the platform. To use their power to help a minority. Yeah, pure evil I was.

Brad [Cecil] … Brad [Sargent] here. It’s been a long, long time since we met at Young Leader events, and sorry that reconnecting is under some angst-filled circumstances.

I do have some thoughts myself on the kinds of questions and issues you raised toward the end of your comment a bit ago (October 1, 2014 at 12:59 pm), about emerging, Emergent, Mars Hill, etc. You’ve been an insider on the history of Young Leaders to Terra Nova Project to Emergent Village and beyond, so I look forward to reading what you have to say when you post your perspectives.

As it turned out, my point of departure from the “emerging ministry movement” took me more into the missional wing of things, where I’ve been continuing to work with several virtual, international teams on social transformation projects. I’ve done a lot of research writing on both why/how things go wrong in organizations when we want to “do good” right, and how to do start-ups that are safe zones at the beginning and sustainable to the end.

Since I spent 17 of the last 40 years in definitely sick non-profit systems, and as many years in healthy ones, I feel I have a good based from which to compare and contrast. So, my research work has included writing about 10 shorter case studies or longer archives on toxic church and ministry situations since 2008. I’ve put in at least 600 hours in writing, fact-checking, and editing them. The most recent case has been an extensive research guide on legal/ethical issues regarding Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll.

http://futuristguy.wordpress.com/2014/09/07/mark-driscoll-and-mars-hill-church-research-guide-part-2e/

I’ve also been keeping up on this thread as best I can, and I just last night posted an article about some issues I see with Emergent.

http://futuristguy.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/mars-hill-emergent-movement-emergent-meltdown/

And, FWIW, I do see some parallels between the kinds of behaviors going on in both Mars Hill and the E.V./Emergent movement that have ended up in allegations of misuse of spiritual authority – and also in what seems to me to be closed systems or “interlocking directories” of connections in both. Obviously the theologies are quite different, but I would also suggest that at the deepest level, the epistemologies are similar enough of an either/or processing style to spark similar “deep systems” despite radically different surface beliefs.

Each of those relatively short opinions require relatively large expansions. And I’ve been posting my responses to general issues like that since 2008, and may well be addressing more specifics of Mars Hill and Emergent in the near future as time allows. If interested, my FAQs post categorizes most of the articles I’ve written on spiritual abuse issues. I just did that a few days ago, and hopefully it makes the material more accessible to locate partial answers to the E.V./Mars Hill questions.

http://futuristguy.wordpress.com/spiritual-abuse-faqs/

And i can understand frustration over the exposure of details in this thread, if one assumes that the core issue is about messy private family matters like divorce. That isn’t my assumption, though. I’m looking at this gestalt through the lens of visible eruptions of what would otherwise be private matters if they did not involve acknowledged leaders who are in the public eye. That’s exactly what I posted earlier, just minutes before your longer comment today.

https://nakedpastor.ehermitsinc.com/2014/09/tony-jones-on-mark-driscoll-what-came-first-the-thug-or-the-theology/#comment-129953

To me, this means it’s about character issues and behaviors that may disqualify a leader from a role of public ministry, at least temporarily and perhaps permanently. And that’s a serious matter for discernment by the churches and the Church. And if the emergent conversation truly has been integrated into most expressions of Christianity as you stated, then shouldn’t that mean Tony Jones and other Emergent leaders should be accountable to all their audiences, then and now, for any points and patterns of alleged abuse? In my opinion, much could have been cleared up five years ago when these issues came up, as did pressure to various bloggers to edit or pull down posts and comments. It simmered under the surface and now, the eruptions may seem worse but it appears that maybe the issues can come to some closure.

Anyway, yes, this is all rather ugly in some very unpleasant ways, but I think the overall conversation here has been relatively civil – at least within the framework I’m working from that all public leaders / figures / role-models who are authors, speakers, event sponsors, etc., commit themselves to public scrutiny and accountability. Seems to me it was providence that this happens to have turned out to be the public venue in which that is taking place.

Final thought: I reminded here of a quote from the movie Gandhi. I think it’s relevant to the entire thread and all of us who find clashing perspectives to those we ourselves hold. After one of the last British Viceroys over India releases Gandhi from jail following the Empire’s inability to counter the 1930 “salt march” protest. According to interviews, this protest was apparently the first incident of international protest committed to film and shown in theatres as part of newsreels. Thus, both the Indian protesters and the British regents had their actions and responses shown before the watching world on the emerging media of their era.

So – Gandhi is ushered into the Viceroy’s office, and the first thing he says to the Viceroy is, “I am aware that I must have given you much cause for irritation, Your Excellency. I hope it will not stand between us as men.”

Continuing conversation in the midst of irritation is difficult, no denying. I’ve had some highly uncomfortable conversations both online and offline about all this. But I hope we can stay engaged for the sake of a healthier future for all of what was once known as the “emerging” ministry movement from which New Calvinism/Mars Hill, Emergent Village/Emergent, missional, post-evangelical, progressive, and other movements sifted themselves out. Don’t we owe that to the Church, for the sake of the Kingdom?