A Space on the Couch - Tell your Story
There’s a lot of activity in Seattle right now around Mars Hill Church and its leader, Mark Driscoll. I’ve been watching it all with deep sadness and concern. As a Christian, I’m saddened that Jesus, a man I deeply love, is being misused and maligned at Mars Hill Church. As a pastor, I’m concerned for the many women – along with men, marriages, and families — that have been damaged by Driscoll’s extreme theology.
As a former abuse victim, I know the power of telling my story. When you tell your story, you take the power of your life’s tale back into your own hands, and you diminish the power of the person who abused or misused you. Secrecy and silence are an abuser’s tools. Telling your story takes those tools away. It dis-empowers the abuser and returns you to a position of power.
It takes time for someone to be ready to tell their tale. Only you can decide when the time has come for you to regain your voice.
If you are a woman (or man) who has been damaged by the harsh complementarian doctrine that has been passed down at Mars Hill Church, I would like to offer you a place to tell your story. Out of a pastoral concern for the former Mars Hill women I have known – and for the many I’ve yet to meet—I would like to offer my blog as a place to tell your story in safety. May this, my virtual living room, be a place where you can curl up under an afghan, hold someone’s hand, and tell your story. It’s okay to use a whole box of Kleenex. We’ll still be here.
If you are a former Mars Hill congregant and need to tell your tale:
Write you story, when you are ready. It doesn’t have to be perfectly formatted or finely told. Just let it come out.
Send it to me at urbanabbess @t monkfish-abbey d0t org (you’ll need to fix up the address; note the dash is needed) [new address: moi at magpie-girl dot com]. I will post it on my blog as a guest post. Let me know, and I’ll post it anonymously.
Be safe. I will close the comments on any post that contains a Mars Hill story.
If you are someone who wishes to offer support and healing to the people who may tell their stories here:
Offer words of support or healing by emailing me at urbanabbess @t monkfish-abbey d0t org. Please include the title of the post and your name. After vetting the emails, I will post appropriately supportive comments to each person’s story and then close the comments again.
My hope is this approach will give you a safe and supportive place to tell your story, and in the telling you will be able to move a little deeper into healing. My hope is in telling our stories we will find common ground on which to stand, and move together into a deeper place of shalom.
Great blog. However, you seem freakishly obsessed with Mark Driscoll. How come?
Rachelle, thank so much for this!
I wrote about your kind offer on my blog this morning. I love how well-thought out this is - that people can e-mail you supportive responses and you will post them; but you will not leave the comments sections open because of the risk of anyone posting anything unsupportive.
I am sorry that you had to learn how to be this sensitive by going through a horrible experience of your own. I appreciate you showing the sensitivity of Jesus, who, according to Old Testament prophecy, would not “break a bruised reed or snuff out a smoldering wick” (Isaiah 42:3a)
By the way, I posted some resources for people who have been spiritually abused, or aren’t sure and want to learn more about it, on my blog here:
Spiritual Abuse Recovery Resources
If you have any other recommended resources I would love to have you add links to them in the comments section on my blog entry.
Jill,
As a pastor who shares a parish with Driscoll, I am deeply concerned about the extreme teachings he is imparting to thousands of people, most of whom are at a formative age (in their 20’s). I’ve also come into contact with women who have been deeply hurt by his teachings, and have had to move through long periods of healing and reconstruction. Because Driscoll has such a huge influence in my city I am not “freakishly obsessed” as you put it, but actively involved in ’seeking the shalom (wholeness) of the city where God has sent me.’ (Jeremiah 29) In part, this includes working to educate the public about the hurtful words and teachings of a church which has come to have a large influnce in my neighborhood.
Rachelle
Rachelle, Sister,
I would love to offer support to your cause.
But I think it is misplaced.
You blog makes me worrysome, whenever you speak of Driscoll you use the word power (refering to Pastor Driscoll’s temporal power) more than you refer to the person or power of Jesus.
Simply put, your blog seems to be more about temporal power than Jesus.
Case in point: Driscoll’s teachings affect you personally, mainly that women should not be pastors. This is an affront to your power. Did you know that everytime you complain about Pastor Driscoll having power you imply that you are complaining about a lack of your own? And I can see how this realisation may hurt may hurt.
You don’t seem obsessed with Driscoll, you seem obsessed with the power Driscoll has. Having lived in texas for 18 years, I would suspect that these people just don’t agree with you and they never will. They are not misled, they just plain don’t agree. Numbers of attendance does not mean you are wrong, it just means you are more unique. But from here, it looks to me like this is more about sour grapes wrapped in feminism rather than a real problem or struggle. And as an egalitarian christian I cannot support a cause that I see as personal and I hate to say it twisted like this. You are rousing a rabble to strike down a teacher you disagree with. And to me it seems more personal than out of a real concern for women in general. This action is very negative. I am sure there are battered womens shelters that can use the energy and effort that you and Paul are aiming towards to what I see largely as a windmill.
It does seem as if you have a personal axe to grind with Mark. I do not know what his “theology” is extreme and your’s is what should be normative. Truth is historically speaking, his view on these issues that I know you passionately disagree with him on, are the one’s that have been held by the Christianity. I also question the fact that your do not seem willing to admit that many women (who I personally know) love Mars Hill and are blessed by the teaching of Mark. Could it be that because he does not share you your same views on gender roles that you are the one who is being intolerant? Just something to think about.
I’m not personally concerned with getting Mark or his followers to agree with egalitarian theology. I don’t think it’s possible.
I am concerned with testifying to the fact that Jesus loved women, that he hung out with prostitutes and treated them as beloveds, that he had intimate female friends, that women had a dominate role in the early Christian chruch, and that no where in scripture does it say that women’s primary role in life is to be sexually available to thier husbands on demand, or to stay at home and raise as many children as possible.
I’m not concerned with getting Mark’s power as my own or ’stealing his sheep.’
I am concerned with being an abbess to a small group of people in our home, (I gave up a promising and powerful future in a large church to do this small and quiet kind of minsitry), to living a life of recipriocal caring with my neighbors, to advocating for the low-income families in my local public school, and for caring for the marginalized and oppressed in whatever small way I can.
I am concerned with being allowed to stand in the sort of power that every person, as a child of God, deserves to have–to have my own voice, and to speak my own thoughts — preferably without being accused of being a power hungry person. (This is something that women expereince far more often than men — that whenever they use thier voice to express an opposing view to that which is held by the patriarchal elite’s they are accused of “wanting power.” Yet men in the church the world over are never accused of the same thing when they hold a microphone before thousands. It’s a ridiculous and offensive double standard. Every time I have used my voice on a controversial subject, I have been accused of “wanting power.” It’s just another way to keep me from using my gift as preacher/prophet, and even men who supposedly support women in ministry are often guilty of using this technique to silence me and many of my female collegues.)
I do know that there are a lot of women who are happy at Mars Hill Church. But there are also many who are hurting and suppressed. Those who leave come to people like me, and Rose, and other women ministers in Seattle in pain. If we saw this fall-out and remained silent, allowing it to continue unchecked and unwarned about, we would be ignoring our path of obedience.
I am concerned about following the path set out before me with as much obedience as possible. The path before me, set their by the Spirit, requires me to seek justice.
May you be blessed in following whatever path is set before you.
Rachelle,
I think it’s great that you are offering your blog as a place for those who have been hurt to “vent” a little bit. I pray that even more these folks will find restoration in community with you (or somewhere else that can support them).
Grace and peace,
Steve K.
Hey, I hear you on your frustration but I honestly would suggest not giving Mr. Driscoll anymore attention than necessary. The Church belongs to Jesus and He will set right and expose what needs to be set right and exposed. May God richly bless you as you pursue His plan for your life
Rachelle,
I just wanted to say thanks for doing this. Although I haven’t been affected by Mark’s teaching, I have been affected by this issue. I was raised believing exactly what Mark teaches and I am just now coming to a place of healing.
I have been continually blessed by you and your blog.
Just happened upon your blog. You go Rachelle! We are all equal in Jesus’eyes. You hang in there and be as Jesus would be to others.
Prophets were never terribly popular and it seems that it is the few who must speak truth to the many.
Rock on Abbess!
-Joanna
[…] To tell your story, go to http://www.monkfish-abbey.org/blog/20061116/a-space-on-the-couch-tell-your-story/. […]
reGeN:
It is true that our efforts alone will determine the course of things. However, it does not have to mean that we must do nothing. Ignoring Driscoll or protecting him does not help either.
Thanks for giving people a forum to express themselves. I want to say that I am personally disgusted with what Mark said, and has advocated theologically in regards to his position on gender roles. But let me say that I myself and very confused where I stand theologically on this subject. So the most I can say is that I disagree with Mark, and I don’t protest against people I disagree with…I protest against people who I think are doing and injustice to others. And in my book, and injustice hurts everyone, it’s not selective in whom it seeks out.
I would suggest to you that you are not mad at Mark because he has done an injustice, but that you disagree with him. You said:
“I do know that there are a lot of women who are happy at Mars Hill Church. But there are also many who are hurting and suppressed.”
This is not injstice, it is people who don’t like the way they are treated or portrayed. The fact that they are many women who go to Mars Hill who feel empowered and freed to be the women that God created them to be (I know many)tells me that there is not an injustice here, but rather bad judgment.
Feel free to be a person and a space for women to heal from their experiences, but don’t call it injustice because its not.
[…] A protest is being planned […]
[…] Mark Driscoll has broken the silence by responding to the recent storm that was brewing over his remarks he made on his blog. Egalitarians were not at all pleased with Mark; one lady had written, “If you are a woman (or man) who has been damaged by the harsh complementarian doctrine that has been passed down at Mars Hill Church, I would like to offer you a place to tell your story.” A female pastor had issued an open letter to Driscoll: “This open letter is an attempt on my part to ask you to stop your insulting rhetoric and not abuse the power that has been given you by using bombastic statements about people, both male and especially the demeaning way you name-call women. […]
Rachelle, thanks for standing up for the truth and love of Jesus and not hidding behind the “social institution of christendom”. To others, I’d like to say this is not about Mark Driscoll, (although such a narcicist may be enjoying all of this attention)it is about being a prophetic voice in the defense of human rights. We are called to be light, to stand up for truth, and defend and set the opressed free.
As a Christian, I cannot sit still and tolerate the misuse of the word of God against women.
Thanks Rachelle for offering this space for healing
admidst all the hate and hidden sexism that has surfaced as the result of all this, I thank you for offering a place of healing.
Sorry to say - this is sad and ridiculous. get over yourselves and if you believe you were called to be pastors or leaders, Do it. Mark driscoll is following his role, and bringing hundreds of people to christ. men, women, gays, homeless, wealthy, poor. stop wasting your breath, do your job. check yourself - the only reasons your having a fit and getting affected by this, is because you are probably a women, gay, and have too much pride to ask jesus about why he would let a famous pastor teach this. did you even try praying about it? and if you have… will you get over it? you dont have to listen to mark driscoll. but seriously, if you all upset about it, than teach jesus. jesus is where it should all be. jesus jesus jesus
We are busy building the Kingdom of Christ which includes demolishing injustice, sexism, racism, hate, and prejudice as we build love, faith, hope, peace, and righteousness. The Lord Christ does not “let” anyone commit injustice. He does not “let” anyone commit abuse. He didn’t “let” Darfur, Tuskeegee, the holocaust, domestic violence, or child rape, happen. He didn’t “let” the brilliant fundamentalist complementarian mega church pastor in CO. commit adultery and abuse against his wife. These things have been called out because they are not of the Kingdom.
The misogynistic behavior that has been under discussion is wrong. Silence is its accomplice.
Please remember the value that Christ put on fame, size, authority, image, tradition, and gender. The red letters are where its at.
To the Builder.
Joanna,
Then why aren’t you spending more time and energy fighting the huge social evils like darfur or poverty or disparities in incarceratio among minorities or health care disparities or educational disparities?
Most of our white women are too busy trying to usurp the authority of white men, when their energies directed towards real injustice would most likely advance the kingdom more than fighting. Let’s face it, there is some penis envy going on here.
Jim,
We clearly have never met and it is none of my left hands business what the right hand is doing. I now must forward this to the people who know me so I can share the joy.
LOL.
Its all in the Red Letters.
Bless you, Rachelle. False doctrine never seems to go away. Nowhere does evil need more to be exposed and rooted out than within the ranks of those who claim to be Christ-followers. In the name of Christ, in whom “there is not male or female,” you go, girl! Priscilla would be proud.
I’m way over on the other coast, but on December 3, I’ll be out there standing in spirit with the protesters at Mars Hill.
“As a pastor who shares a parish with Driscoll, I am deeply concerned about the extreme teachings he is imparting to thousands of people…”
What are these extreme teachings that everyone is up in arms about??
Rigggghhht……just as I thought….it is all about the penis. Everything is about the penis. Women are jealous of the penis. Men have a penis and the penis must be happy at all times. If the penis isn’t happy, it will look for happiness somewhere else. We must bow to the penis. The penis is to be respected. The penis is powerful. Let us all make an idol of the penis and worship it.
Jim, are you for real? Penis envy? Why do you say that? What is penis envy? What would a woman do if she had a penis? Why would a woman want a penis? I just don’t get it. But, YOU said it and let’s face it, that phrase really tells me a lot about you.
Do you not see your attitude as idolatrous?
How are you ridding the world of injustice? By making sure that women in your sphere are in submission to you?
I said you when I should have spoken to factions in the Church in general. Jesus did say don’t let one hand know what the other is doing. However, when holy hands are busy, hands without wrath or doubt, the world can’t help but know. Jesus also said don’t hide your light under a bushel. The church is the light of the world and the world is looking pretty dark. I don’t know if we are helping by debating who gets the mic.
Jesus is the prime example. He didn’t go about boasting, but his works spoke for themselves and those works weren’t doing arts and crafts or blogging about pharisees. Succintly put, faith without works is dead Ms. red letters. lol
I’m interested in hearing people’s stories - has anyone come foreward at this point? I haven’t seen any updates on the blog.
I have listened to a lot of Ps. Marks messages and to be honest with you I come from a more Pentecostal perspective and understand that there are just going to be issues that we do not agree with. In relation to his stance on ‘woman’ I dont agree but the reason we have differing opinions is due to how we interpret scripture.
The reason this is such a sensitive issue is because there have been so many woman who have been hurt by men. In relation to sexual abuse in most case’s it is a man who is the perpetrator and also in most cases it is a woman who is being abused. This tradegy that is so prevelant in our soceity and culture causes the statements of Ps. Mark to be so controversial.
At the end of the day I dont beleive Ps. Mark dislike’s or has a hatred towards woman. I beleive he loves his wife and his daughters and would gladly lay down his life for them. He has a different interpretation of scripture and therefore he has to choose, do I follow the convictions of how I interpret the scripture or do I change my stance because it wont be popular or because of history.
If a married couple disagree with the teaching of the Mars Hill on this issue then they wont hang around and same applies for single woman. If in the case the wife disagrees and the husband agree then thet will cause some tension but that will have to be up to them as a married couple to work out.
As I said I dont agree with a lot of his interprations of scripture but you no what, his church is growing, people are giving their lives to Jesus. I appreciate the fact that Ps. Mark is out there and makes it clear what he does beleive therefore people can choose. You would be surprized how many male pastors are out there who agree with Mark but are not willing to be vocal about it.
Ps. Dont waste your time trying to get people’s stories who have been hurt by Mars Hill. Imagine if you started a blog encourageing people who have been hurt by a church. There wouldnt be enough servers to hold the data.
Where are the stories - has anyone gotten on the couch to tell yet?
help me understand, what are his extreme teachings? i dont understand?
[…] A few weeks ago I offered this, my viritual living room, as a place for women to tell thier stories of painful interaction with what has been described as the ‘hard complementairan’ model preached at Mars Hill Church. […]