Adam Gussow's Beyond the Crossroads quotes Francis Grimké's 1892 address on the state of Afro-American clergy from a Crossway compendium. It's now possible to go straight to the source, but let's also rabbit trail on New Calvinism

In Adam Gussow's Beyond the Crossroads: The Devil and the Blues Tradition, he mentions Francis Grimké 's 1892 critique of his fellow African American peers in pastoral offices. Gussow cites a book edited by Thabiti Anyabwile and John Piper. 

 

The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors

By Thabiti Anyabwile, Foreword by John Piper

https://www.crossway.org/books/the-faithful-preacher-tpb/

ISBN-10:          1-58134-827-4

ISBN-13:          978-1-58134-827-9

ISBN-UPC:        9781581348279

Published:        March 31, 2007

 

It turns out that now you can go straight to the source but I'll get to that after a few rabbit trails.

Doug Wilson was on some show and though he doesn't give a rip he still felt obliged to write 1,346 about having been on that show.

First off, HT to Jim West for linking to a post by Du Mez.  It's important to chronicle how and where you hear of things.  Longtime readers know that's kind of a thing with Wenatchee The Hatchet. 

https://kristindumez.substack.com/p/false-prophets-without-clothes

…

When I was finishing Jesus and John Wayne, a scholar I respect very much questioned my inclusion of Wilson: “Who is this guy? I’ve never heard of him, and I don’t think he’s that important.” Wilson’s Amazon sales numbers at the time seemed to suggest the same. But I knew Wilson wasn’t selling his books on Amazon, and I’d heard too many people attest to his influence to dismiss him. I kept my sections on Wilson in Jesus and John Wayne.

 

I added more in Live Laugh Love, where I also share the perspectives of women caught up in his orbit. More on that in September, but here’s a taste: “…fitting within no established tradition, Wilson started his own school, college, publishing house, and eventually his own denomination. [emphasis added] (Wilson never attended seminary and was not traditionally ordained; placing himself at the top of the chain of command, he wielded authority but answered to no one.)”

…

Now I have not bothered to read Jesus and John Wayne (despite actually having the book) for reasons I have explained elsewhere.  It’s very easy to scapegoat white Christian nationalist evangelicals at this stage and the somewhat obvious demise of not only pax Americana in general but any sense of stability in the current administration. Doug Wilson claims to be a Burkean conservative.  Curiously, Wenatchee The Hatchet considers himself to be a Burkean conservative but whereas I have described myself as a Mark Hatfield Republican after the Oregon Senator from the last century, Wilson has described himself as a theocratic libertarian. 

 

If we’re going to indulge in playing Doug Wilson’s kind of word games (and, fair warning, at the level he plays them at) then a "theocratic libertarian" comes off sort of like a virgin prostitute who is technically a virgin only by way of the most technical of technicalities. Wilson couldn’t resist having a hot take on hot takes on hotties by way of commenting on Sydney Sweeney.  It seems to be one of the traits of the New Calvinist types by way of Doug Wilson and Mark Driscoll that Wilson can discuss Sweeney, and Driscoll could discuss Adriana Lima and Jenna Jameson, but if some lowly tithing peon were to admit he knows who those women are, well, the subordinate pastors would tell the guy it’s time for a heart check moment.  

It’s something to keep in mind about how pervasively these kinds of guys have moving and movable goalposts for their metacultural punditry. They get to pontificate about blonde bombshells, models and porn stars for sake of cultural commentary about how bad things are. If you’re an ordinary guy you’re probably not supposed to even know who these women are.

 

Stuff that I don’t doubt Du Mez is familiar with.

The Roys Report discusses the checkered history of the real estate recently acquired by Mark Driscoll's new ministry; Doug Wilson tweets on how some people think he should avoid Mark Driscoll

Having seen how Mark Driscoll touted an "amazing" real estate acquisition on behalf of Mars Hill Church twenty years ago and, then, seeing how it turned out to be an utter boondoggle because the Mars Hill leaders went and bought a whole building without bothering to investigate the zoning and permit issues in advance ... 

Freddie deBoer on what he regards as the greatest tension within 21st century progressivism, carceral feminism vs defund the police ... but a version of it certainly seems to exist on the right, too

I suppose at this point I can't help but feel that it's important to consider that liberals, progressives and leftists are not necessarily the same thing in much the same way that social conservatives, libertarians and anti-communist/anti-Marxist types have not been the same thing.  deBoer "may" be conflating people across groups.  But the general point is clear enough:

Doug Wilson is the Christian Nationalist Liberals are Afraid of--The Mark Driscoll Show Episode 12, a few observations on Driscoll saying he was "the" editor of his college's paper rather than "an" editor; and some consideration of Doug Wilson being the guest of a self-identified partisan of prophetic dreams

I didn't feel like wading into this last month but I noticed back on December 20, 2025 that ...

Fix Your Family Systems: Breaking Toxic Patterns Through Biblical Wisdom is here, from the guy who said back in 1998 that he was a confrontational guy and not some pansy-ass therapist

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1998/07/generation/

Politics

July/August 1998 Issue

GENERATION

A look inside fundamentalism’s answer to MTV: the postmodern church.

...

By setting themselves up against their elders, postmoderns are ingeniously adding an anti-establishment spirit to their movement. “I really preach; it’s not just three points to a better self-esteem,” Driscoll says. “Megachurches have perfect services with perfect lighting. We’re a friggin’ mess.” Driscoll delivers his sermons largely off-the- cuff, and refuses to follow a point-by-point outline like most pastors at megachurches do. “I’m very confrontational,” he says, “not some pansy-ass therapist.”

...

“Some of us haven’t given ourselves over to the American Dream yet,” Driscoll says into the microphone. “How do we make sure we don’t become victims of what harmed us— parents who weren’t around because they were too busy making money so we could go on vacations and look like a family?” The phones are dead.

...

A lot can change in 27 years.

 

links for the weekend 11-16-2025 Theopolis Institute conversation about the work of the late Michael Heiser, on Heiser's Driscoll foreward and some thoughts on trajectories in demonology and anti-demonology in Christian and Jewish theologies

https://theopolisinstitute.com/conversations/the-divine-council/
https://theopolisinstitute.com/conversations/curiosity-and-the-divine-council/
https://theopolisinstitute.com/conversations/evaluating-the-divine-council-theology-of-michael-heiser-and-christopher-kous-adaptations/
https://theopolisinstitute.com/conversations/heisers-interpretive-iconoclasm/
Now it doesn't just so happen if you look up the book on Google books and find the "Limited Preview" version you can read the entirety of Michael Heiser's foreward to Mark and Grace Driscoll's spiritual warfare self-help manual published in 2019. Since I own a physical copy I can just transcribe a bit.  I haven't gotten around to reading Heiser's work beyond about 15% into any given of his books but I saw quickly how much he drew upon work by Archie T. Wright, Loren Stuckenbruck and Annette Yoshiko Reed among others.  I'm more in a Graham Twelftree phase and Andrew Bowie's writing on philosophy lately, so Heiser's on one of a few back burners.  Still, this seemed something to share for the record:
 
Win Your War: Fight in the Realm You Don’t See For Freedom in the One You Do
Mark and Grace Driscoll
Charisma House
Copyright © 2019 by Mark and Grace Driscoll
LCCN 2019022514 (print)               LCCN 2019022515 (ebook)
ISBN 9781629996257 (hardback)     ISBN 9781629996264 (ebook)
Foreward by Michael S. Heiser pages xxiii-xxv
 
As a Biblical scholar I'm prone to read only scholarly works produced under peer review and highbrow academic publishers. The focus of my own work for both the academy and the person in the pew has largely been the supernature worldview of the Bible. Consequently, when I was approached by Mark to read the manuscript of Win Your War, I was drawn out of my scholarly bubble by the twofold goal he and his wife, Grace, sought to accomplish in the book: to convince Christians that they need to embrace the reality of the supernatural world and to process every area of the Christian life (every personal "war") in accord with that belief.
 
The implication, of course, is that being conformed to the image of Christ involves more than the daily struggle to turn from self-destructive behavior, character flaws, and human evil. It also means believing that there are intelligent evil forces at work that not only impede the process of our growth in becoming more like Jesus but seek to manipulate our thinking and behavior to undermine our joy and usefulness to God. In short, God has enemies, and His enemies are our enemies--and they are not passive.
 
This may sound odd to some readers. How does it make sense to tell Christians that they need to embrace the supernatural? Don't Christians believe in God, that Jesus was God in the flesh, and that God the Holy Spirit resides within? Don't they believe what happened on the cross supernaturally resulted in the forgiveness of sin and everlasting life to all who believe that God sent Jesus for those purposes?
 
The answer put for by Mark and Grace is straightforward, For many Christians, belief in the supernatural ends with the points of doctrine noted above. Affirming the reality of intelligent evil the way it is portrayed in the Bible--where supernatural agents of darkness actively participate in misdirecting our thoughts and behavior to self-destruction, unbelief, and apathy--isn't on the table for many Christians in the modern Western world, driven by "enlightenment" rationalism.
 
The unfortunate reality is that many Christians are selectively supernatural in their outlook, a stance that not only denies biblical authority on a range of ideas but anesthetizes believers as to what's really happening to them and their churches on social, cultural, and geopolitical levels. Most believers don't realize that demons occupy a low status in the pecking order of supernatural darkness. It's no accident that the Book of Daniel incudes supernatural intelligences in the operations of empires (Daniel 10's "princes"). It's also no coincidence that Paul's vocabulary for intelligent evil (rulers, principalities, powers, thrones, etc.) follows suit--the terms are common ones for geographical dominion.
 
This is not to endorse a cartoonish view of spiritual warfare, a term that has become a buzzword in certain circles of Christianity. Mark and Grace are not finding demons under every rock (not every church, corporate, or governmental board). While they refer to some truly strange supernatural incidents in their lives, they are quite clear from the outset that Win Your War is not about baptizing Hollywood's portrayals of the supernatural. Biblically speaking (and when we discuss supernatural darkness we should indeed be speaking biblically) warfare should not be defined as soliciting angels, engaging in shouting matches with supernatural powers, or blaming our failures on demons. Rather, spiritual warfare is fundamentally about the conflict between two kingdoms, a conflict within and without for every true Christian whether he or she discerns that or not. Followers of Jesus win their spiritual war when they spready the gospel, protect the gospel against false teaching, and live out the gospel by becoming more conformed to the loving, sacrificial character of Jesus.
 
Not surprisingly, these things are encapsulated in the last words of Jesus before He ascended to heaven (Matt. 28:18-20). It follows, then, that these are the things the supernatural powers of darkness fear, for they grow the kingdom of God and are the catalyst for the Lord's return. As the apostle Paul so eloquently noted, when the gospel spreads to the nations, the moment of the kingdom's consummation draws closer (Rom. 11:25-27); cf. Gal 3:7-9, 26-29). Believers weren't tasked by Jesus with "ghost-busting" in His name. We are instead supposed to be making disciples of all nations. But doing that requires each of us to be a useful and effective believer. The powers of supernatural darkness are on the clock, and they know it. We must win our spiritual war to do our part. This is why we face supernatural opposition.
 
Win Your War is a pastoral plea that needs to take hold in the hearts and minds of serious believers in every church that preaches the gospel. My hope is that Win Your War will prod readers toward realizing that the powers of darkness are real and that they work to influence our thinking and behavior to distract us from fulfilling--and enjoying--our lives in Christ and our kingdom tasks.
--Dr. Michael S. Heiser
PhD, Hebrew Bible and Semitic Studies
Executive Director, Awakening School of Theology and Ministry
Author, The Unseen Realm, Angels, AND Supernatural
 
 
If you are not already familiar with mark Driscoll’s post-Mars Hill resignation books I’m not going to get you up to speed.  Charting the theological trajectory of Mark Driscoll in the last eleven years it not the primary point here.
 
Heiser’s account was that Mark Driscoll sent him a manuscript copy of the book that became Win Your War. Mark Driscoll’s take on Genesis 6:1-4 in 2005 was substantially different from the take he had after reading Michael Heiser’s work.  Driscoll referred to the idea that angels and humans had sexual relations and begat offspring as the “seed of Chucky” theory from the pulpit back in the Genesis series from 2005.  At the risk of pulling the eyewitness testimony move, I remember this because I was attending Mars Hill at the time.  I knew Augustine wrote that this was a widely held belief about how to interpret Genesis 6 but that the interpretation had fallen into disfavor.  I knew Driscoll had read Augustine so his “seed of Chucky” quip struck me as unbalanced and glib with regard to scholarship on an obviously debated biblical passage.
Fast forward twenty years later and, as you can see, people at the Theopolis Institute have been having a round table discussing the late Michael Heiser’s work.
 
What jumped out for me about Heiser’s foreward commending Mark and Grace Driscoll’s book is that there’s no indication Heiser met the Driscoll’s and no indication he had any idea that just a few years earlier in 2014 there were a variety of scandals swirling around Mark Driscoll about plagiarism; the use of ResultSource to rig a #1 place on the New York Time bestseller list; objections made public about Driscoll’s abusive and domineering leadership style; or concerns about the disbursement and use of funds in Mars Hill Global.  There’s no sign that Heiser was familiar with any of that.  If he was busy reading and writing work in peer-reviewed contexts then this may be a sign of how really peripheral Mark Driscoll had always been if Michael Heiser was approached by Driscoll and gave no evidence of having ever heard of him before. 
 
That might, at least, be a potential explanation for how and why Heiser was unfamiliar with the scandals connected to Driscoll and by 2021 former Mars Hill pastors stated for the record they believed Mark Driscoll was unrepentant and showed himself unfit for pastoral ministry.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/2021/07/mars-hill-elders-letter-mark-driscoll-pastor-resign-trinity/
https://www.christianitytoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/mars-hill-former-elders-statement.pdf
https://churchleaders.com/news/402200-former-mars-hill-elders-plead-for-mark-driscoll-to-resign-immediately.html
https://julieroys.com/mark-driscoll-unfit-former-mars-hill-elders/
 
This was a point that had already been expressed somewhat by Acts 29 leaders when they urged Mark Driscoll to step down, although that has since been scrubbed off Acts 29 websites.
 
Earlier this year Robert Morris pled guilty to indecent acts against a child.  I asked how it was that Mark “I see things” Driscoll didn’t see “that” about his one-time friend Robert Morris.  Michael Heiser is no longer alive and so he isn’t around to answer a question that, nevertheless, can and should be asked, for an author who wrote so much about the unseen realm and supernatural realities not visible to the naked eye, how did Heiser manage to not be aware of Mark Driscoll’s history of controversy?  Perhaps we could merely guess that an Abiathar can support an Adonijah now and then and not necessarily be an altogether bad guy.  But Heath Henning has contended that Heiser’s teachings are aberrant and errant and because Heiser went to the trouble of writing and endorsing foreward to a post-Mars Hill resignation Mark Driscoll book, specifically Win Your War, I think it’s fair to ask how much practical discernment Heiser had even without raising any claims to the effect that the late Michael Heiser qualified as some kind of false teacher.
My skepticism about varieties of Christian nationalism from evangelical conservatives and liberal mainline Protestants is pretty equal.  The latter dread the influence of the former precisely because the Protestant and mainline denominations threw in with pax Americana and American expansion across the 19th and 20th centuries and dread the prospect of a 21st century dominated by evangelical or charismatic/Pentecostal types with views of spiritual warfare that can feature a Paula White being a spiritual advisor to President Trump.  
So at a practical level just saying Heiser had some bad ideas that shouldn't be adopted proves nothing in itself about the life lived.  Doug Wilson can keep gushing about R L Dabney's prophetic wisdom and vision but Dabney's white supremacism was still what it was, for instance, and we've had eight No Quarter Novembers and hardly a word from Wilson about the Mark Driscoll he said he still liked in 2014.  Having met the man myself some twenty-five years ago I really believe that the Mark Driscoll of 2005 would regard the Mark Driscoll of 2023 to the present as dangerously misguided and a charismaniac of the worst sort.

One of the things that is also worth noting is that there is a distinction to be made between what people say about Heiser's work and seeing how it can (and has been) actually get used by other authors.  Mark Driscoll asked Heiser to review a manuscript and credited Heiser with changing his mind about how to interpret Genesis 6:1-4 but there was little in Win Your War that broke new ground on Mark Driscoll's ideas about spiritual warfare that he articulated in a four-hour session in February 2008 that I mostly transcribed years ago.  

David E Ritchie, on the other hand, drew upon the work of Michael Heiser and others to argue that all forms of nationalism in general and Christian nationalism of the January 6, 2020 variety in particular, can and should be regarded as demonic.

https://wipfandstock.com/9781666732207/why-do-the-nations-rage/

https://www.modernreformation.org/resources/articles/why-do-the-nations-rage-an-interview-with-david-a-ritchie

I have actually read that book and he's written a very earnest case that all forms of nationalism have a demonic element to them. I don't even disagree, actually. All the political theology in the world doesn't address the question of whether the prince of Persia in the Book of Daniel can be saved.  Whatever faults people find with Walter Wink's work he already charted out how powers and principalities could/can refer to earthly empires, seats of authority and spiritual forces behind the scenes.  

That Heiser's work got Driscoll to change his mind doesn't necessarily say anything about Heiser's work.  It tells us that Mark Driscoll is prone to the kinds of all-or-nothing either/or thinking that he prizes.  

Now something that doesn't come up in the Heiser conversation which should come up is that the gap between what academic theologians say about "the unseen realm" and what is popularly believed at the lay level has always differed for centuries.  Francis Young has written histories on exorcism in Anglican and Catholic practice and has pointed out that more people are seeking exorcism now in Catholic and Anglican settings the world over than ever before and the clergy are more reluctant than ever to grant or accede to those requests, preferring to steer people to formal counseling and taking up exorcism as a literal last resort.  The world is not more disenchanted now than it was before, whether because of Weber's thesis or because fewer people believe angels and demons exist.  Jason Ananda Josephson Storm has a whole book about this called The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences. He made two simple points in a somewhat long and daunting book:

1) more people believe in supernatural powers, forces and persons now than ever before both because there are literally more people on the planet and because they didn't stop believing in this stuff just because it's a rote notion in the academy that Weber's disenchantment thesis has been "proven"

2) the entire field of "human sciences" has had partisans eager to sweep under the rug the pervasive interest in the occult held by pioneers in the social sciences (Carl Jung was merely one of the more obvious and unavoidable examples). Reckoning with where the human sciences can go "from here" needs to take seriously what the Euro-American academic mainstream has been scrupulously trying to ignore for the whole history of fields like psychology and sociology (and it's not the replication crisis, which Andrew Scull has written about as a crisis that has bedeviled psychiatry from its inception)

It's something like this we need to keep in mind when academics discuss the popular influence of a popularizer like the late Michael Heiser.  Most evangelical Christians are not even going to think about slogging through books by Loren Stuckenbruck or Archie Wright but the central question between the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and the New Testament that gets no answer from within the pages of Scripture itself is how did we get from the Jewish scriptures where no demons get mentioned at all to the Gospels where Jesus is obviously presented as an itinerant exorcist?  Depending on which scholars of Judaism you read this could be because Jewish scriptures rejected the idea of demonology as relevant to medicine (Jacob Milgrom staked this claim about Levitical diagnoses of skin diseases as just that over against the demonologies of Babylonian medical manuals). Or you could read a scholarly case that demons and gods were rendered into mere forces that Yahweh could and did control (Judit Blair).  Alternatively you could have Esther Hamori's God's Monsters that contends that all those monsters are all over the Hebrew Bible and that these terrors served at the beck and call of a God who is a ruthless and mercurial mobster.  Hamori also celebrates the necromancer of Endor as a woman who is described as having real power to really summon the dead prophet-judge Samuel and if the text tells us that's what happened that's what happened.  

Jeffrey Burton Russell wrote decades ago that the evolution of the devil is explicable in terms of getting God off the hook for permitting so much atrocity but at the same time theologians fretted that the devil shouldn't be granted so much power as to seem like a potential rival to God.  In Russell's account of the evolution of Western thought on the devil it is this eagerness to minimize the influence and significance of the devil that can be seen as the basis for the trajectory in Western favored atonement theories from the ransom theory to christus victor to satisfaction theory (Anselm) to the more refined variation of satisfaction theory known (and at times damned) as penal substitutionary atonement. Russell pointed out that with each successive atonement theory the devil is increasingly removed from having any role in the human need for salvation.  

What Russell didn't mention is that by the time we get to Friedrich Schleiermacher the liberal Prussian theologian jettisoned the doctrine of The Fall and all demons and the devil as unnecessary to a creedal Christian faith and inadequately accounted for by any biblical texts.  Schleiermacher was happy to jettison the entire unseen realm, to use the late Michael Heiser's idiom, because he didn't see it in the Apostle's Creed or the Nicene Creed so it was easily dispensed with.  

What becomes strikingly obvious if you were to go through, say Merrill Unger's Biblical Demonology and fundamentalist and evangelical writings about Satan and demons is that you find a lot of demonic exegesis taken for granted with zero explanation as to how these traditions emerged or why.  Cue Jeffrey Burton Russell and Peggy Day in the 20th century with attempts to explain how and why.  More recent work has been done by Ryan T Stokes and if you want to go old-school there's a slim book by G. B. Caird.  But the biggest reason a figure like Michael Heiser can sell so many books that academic theologians may urge you to not read is simple, a strictly biblicist take on the Bible gives you no explanation at all of what unclean spirits are, where they came from, what they actually do, and whether or not they are real.  Throw in theological paradigms like cessationism or dispensationalism and the waters become opaque rather than merely murky.  There is probably no field of theology where the gap between the leaders and laity is quite so big as it seems to be on the issue of demonology and spiritual warfare. 

Francis Young and Brivan Levack have both pointed out that hardline cessationism as an anti-Catholic polemical stance was taken up in the Anglican tradition partly to differentiate from Catholicism and also to delegitimize Catholic exorcism as magic and superstition.  On the Catholic side anxiety about the similarities exorcism had to magic was significant enough that the exorcistic formulas that were in the earliest baptismal rites were progressively cut out over a few centuries.  Jason Storm could probably point out that this would be part of the triangular dynamic of legitimate religion, illegitimate superstition and science.  What gets counted as legitimate can change over time.  

Popular belief in demons or the restless dead haven't gone away over a thousand or so years.  If it seems that way because we are modern and "Western" ignore that.  Only a modern post-industrial Western society could keep cranking out films about exorcisms.  This year the United States had successful theatrical releases for anime like Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle and Chainsaw Man, to say nothing of K-Pop Demon Hunters becoming popular. The conceit that the spirit of a restless dead girl could become a full-blown demon was a story line in Rumiko Takahashi's manga Inuyasha decades ago.  Mira being half human and half demon just means she's a new variation on a trope that Inuyasha and countless other tales have had.  

Those are the kinds of things that persist in popular imagination even if academic theologians want to talk about other things like political theology or maybe how "we" are all Christian nationalists now.  In those kinds of moments I am reminded that the Swiss Reformed lay theologian Emil Brunner remarked that the questions that interest and trouble the layman tend to be both more interesting and more difficult than the questions beloved by professional theologians.  

What progressive scholars have regularly noted is that there's never a conversation about demons without talking about who the demons are and how often and reliably the demons or the demonized are "other", people who don't fit into the ideal/idealized culture that people in ivory towers talk about.  The paradoxical aspect of this observation is that in the 21st century progressives tend to demonize socially conservative evangelical Protestants and integralist Catholics.  It's not that I can't understand how and why progressives and secularists could think and feel that way, I'm merely noting the paradox.  The impulse is so strong, apparently, to bracket the unwanted others as demonic in some capacity, that even those who profess to reject such moves on principle can't help making those moves in dealing with and addressing flesh and blood movements they don't want prevailing upon the seats of power.

What I have been finding curious in reading about music is that I find the concept of ethnic or national essentialism to have had what I would regard as actually demonic effects.  Maybe liberal Protestantism turned to intersubjectivity as a way to get past the impasse of the Cartesian split but if the intersubjective modes at hand turned out to be race and nation (per Theodore Vial's work on some arguably bad side effects of thinking about group identity in Schleiermacher) then there is a sense in which some of the most pressing problems of social cohesion and neighborly living in the 21st century had roots in what liberal Prussian Protestants thought was a grand solution to the problem of a lack of German cohesion in the face of Napoleonic conquests in the long 19th century.

What I'm mulling over offline is how it seems partisans of absolute music cordon off a lot of black American music as inferior because there is some inherently lesser range of possibilities in the "musical material".  Now that is manifestly nonsense and I'm not going to rehearse all the blogging I've done in the last ten years toward the aim of advocating for ragtime and blues based sonatas and fugues.  But the social constructivist associationist rebuttal to the racism in partisans of absolute music has not, I think, been able to successfully surmount the problem of tethering musical materials to racialized expression.  To say that all music is racially linked is, unfortunately, conceding the very point antiracists should most want to reject and for obviously understandable reasons.  That is why I have leaned toward steering away from theories of ethnos and race altogether toward how we proprioceptively engage musical time and space.  I don't even have binocular vision, actually, but I can get how we live through space and time by way of integrated senses and this is something we can talk about regardless of our skin color, ethnic heritage, or self-identification by way of race.

I think the antiracists want some great things that a constructivist conception of all music as racially produced will probably prevent them from attaining.  Conversely, the absolutists in absolute music tend to be intellectually dishonest about the alleged impossibility of certain types of musical material to be compatible with "musical argument".  

What can be fruitful about a deep dive into histories of demonologies is something some progressives and secular scholars have pointed out, that who gets demonized should be something we think about.  But there's a more basic intra-scholastic question that needs to be asked, if today's scholars feel obliged to combat the demons their scribal forebears put to page what demons are those scholars creating now that future scholar-scribes may feel compelled to denounce generations from now? 

In Christian theological terms I can appreciate Emil Brunner's terse statement that fundamentalists tend to want to have detailed taxonomies of demons but the Bible is equivocal and unclear; more important for Christians is to say that Christ defeated and overcame all these powers.  

On the other hand, I think Robert Ewusie Moses made a good counterpoint in his book Practices of Power, that Christian life and the life of the mind for a Christian entails confronting what powers and principalities Christ overcame in each age and living in light of that.  I.e. James Cone could assert Christ overcame the powers of white supremacism on the Cross.  I'll say "Amen" to that even if I'm not sure Cone didn't go way, way off the rails in later work after Black Theology and Black Power. 

Given how much tension and debate I've seen within musicology on the legacy of racial essentialist theories about what music X is or music Y isn't, someone like Heiser floating the idea that the biblical literature suggests the possibility of malign spiritual forces being behind anything like that may be rampantly speculative but it's not necessarily more rampantly speculative than advocating for figural readings of passages from The Book of Numbers ... is it? 

I may not be impressed with Heiser's work by the time I finally finish it but it's also not really unfair to ask whether or not the failure of Western academic theologians to address these issues (if they're doctrinally conservative) hasn't made it all the easier for figures like Heiser to simply introduce mainstream scholarly ideas about henotheism in the Levant to otherwise evangelical readers.

Appeals to, say, how the oracle to the King of Tyre in Ezekiel refers to Satan without even explaining why cuts the feet out from under any objection that someone like Heiser has become popular.

Pointing out that Jews have never interpreted the oracle in that way is something Hector Patmore discussed at length in a book published by Brill but I'm trying to wrap up this special links-for-the-weekend post by now.

So it's done. :)

somewhat contra Julie Roys on Twitter, Mark Driscoll's stories haven't gotten more fantastical (let me show you tales from 2005 and 2008), he's talked about prophetic dreams, having visions, and God killing people as an answer to his prayer now and then across twenty years

Julie Roys has tweeted that Mark Driscoll's stories keep getting more fantastical.

https://x.com/reachjulieroys/status/1976436978821497046

Wow, 

@PastorMark's stories just keep getting more fantastical.

0:03 / 0:36

From 

Terri Green

4:57 PM · Oct 9, 2025

https://x.com/TerriGreenUSA/status/1972703940471832809

Terri Green

@TerriGreenUSA

This is a NAR falsehood. Mark Driscoll, claims he “had a prophetic vision” and “saw Charlie Kirk ascend into the sky like a magnet and …saw a bunch of pieces of metal gathering and being collected up under that magnet.”

9:44 AM · Sep 29, 2025

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOmKKTNkr1W/

https://www.instagram.com/reels/audio/1303402274708920/

at 00:46 of the audio Driscoll described how, during worship, he had what he hoped was a prophetic vision of Charlie Kirk ascending to heaven as the martyr and saint that he was and he was a magnet drawing up metal to him as he ascended.  

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Driscoll has not been reading books by Larry Hurtado or Andrei Orlov discussing the Enoch-Metatron traditions as background for how a high Christology is explicable in early Christianity by way of reference to human figures being elevated by Yahweh.  This is more Rick Joyner stuff. 

But I grew up Pentecostal and moved away from it as I began to learn more about (and disagree with) Latter Rain and post-Latter Rain ideas, which may have connections to the New Apostolic Reformation stuff.  Anyway ... I mention this background to pivot to a personal observation, Mark Driscoll has had fantastical stories for a long time.

I was once on the Mars Hill Theology Response Team decades ago and was required to listen to all of the February 2008 Spiritual Warfare material, I transcribed about three quarters of it. 

I heard "I see things" for myself. It was one of several nails in the coffin of my membership.  I not so long ago asked why Mark "I see things" Driscoll didn't "see" what his buddy Robert Morris had done to a 12-year-old girl back in the 1980s now that Robert Morris has pled guilty.

I actually forgot about the "I prayed and God slayed" story Mark Driscoll shared from the pulpit in 2005 until I'd read Jessica Johnson's Biblical Porn!  I had to go back and look up the sermon from the Genesis sermon series and that led to a post.

6-29-2005 Mark Driscoll, "But I still believe that God kills people, and sometimes I pray for it." as background to Driscoll's approach to church governance at Mars Hill

The relevant material is as follows:

http://download.marshill.info/files/2005/06/26/20050626_judah-and-tamar_sd_audio.mp3

JUDAH AND TAMAR
Part 37 of Genesis
Pastor Mark Driscoll | Genesis 38 | June 26, 2005

07:21
“Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.” We’re gonna deal with her. She is gonna be a very important story. “But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the LORD’s sight;” – so God smoked him – “Put him to death.” What does that mean in Hebrew? He killed him. Metaphor – he killed him literally – metaphysically challenged. The guy is dead, okay. Oh, that’s troubling. That’s the point. Stop whatever you’re doing. He’s gonna kill you. That’s the point. I know some of you have this wrong view of God as a big sky fairy, lavender tights, lemon yellow half shirt, herbal tea. I know you say, “We love that fairy, Jesus, that hippie Christ. We love that guy.” 

 

Look, that’s the god up on Broadway today for the parade. This is the real God, all right. This is the real God. This God gets ticked, and he kills people. And some of you say, “Oh, but that’s the Old Testament – his junior high years. He was immature and emotional. And now we have the New Testament God, and he’s all grown up now.” God kills people in the New Testament too.

I’ll give you two places you can look when you go home, Acts 5, Ananias and Saphira. A married couple go into church. They withhold part of their tithe, and God kills them in the church, right? And it says, “Great fear sees the whole church.” Offering went through the roof. They made budget. It was amazing. People are like, “Put the keys in there, Martha, and the credit cards and whatever. Here, put these shoes in – whatever he wants. He seems to be in a mood today.”

The other is in 1 Corinthians 11 where it says people are taking communion without repenting of sin, so they die in the church. Can you imagine that? You’re coming up for communion, you and your girlfriend who woke up together this morning to come to Mars Hill. And the two of you are walking down the aisle, and you’re like stepping over all your drinking buddies, like, “Who am I?” “What happened?” “They didn’t repent.” Like, “Oh, well, let’s go back to our seat then.” You know, this is – he kills people. He does. He kills them. He gets sick of them. He gets sick of them and says, “You keep sinning. You won’t stop. I’ll stop you. You’re dead.”

Okay, this guy’s about 18 years of age. He’s done. He just got out of high school. He was getting ready to go to Cancun, you know, for his big graduation party. This guy was just gonna go to college; just joined his frat; 18 year old kid – done. He’s thinking, “Oh, you only live once. You’re young. Have fun. Have a good,” – dead.

10:16
Okay, now some of you, this bothers you because you’re evil and it scares you. I understand. It’s supposed to. The scary parts are to scare you. It’s crazy how that goes together. You’re supposed to look at it and go, “He kills evil people. I’m an evil person. Oh, no.” That’s the point – supposed to scare you into repentance, go straight. [10:42] Now God still does this. This will sound terrible in addition to many other things I will say. But I still believe that God kills people, and sometimes I pray for it.

10:50
I’ll give you an example – and I don’t. High mercy counseling – a gift. I know. If I wasn’t doing this, I’d definitely be in the counseling. So, I’m meeting with this high school kid a few years ago. His mom and dad were Christians. He and his brother were Christians. They went overseas for many years into a foreign culture to preach the Gospel and start and church and have people meet Jesus. And they were there for many years.

Well, the whole time, his dad was having this escalating online sexual relationship with another man here in the United States. And next thing you know it, dad doesn’t say anything to his boys or the mom or to the church or to the ministry – nothing. He just secretly empties the bank account, gets on an airplane, flies to the United States to go be with his gay lover. I think it was in New York City. And then sends a letter or an email or something back to the family saying, “Good luck.” And the boys get it. They’re like, “What happened to dad?” “What? Dad left the family. Dad’s in New York. Dad emptied the bank account. Oh, I thought we belonged to Jesus.”

11:52
Now they had a hard time leaving the country. They’re flat broke. They’re totally shocked. The family’s destroyed. All the new converts are wondering is Jesus really God? Does he really change lives? Everything’s thrown into mayhem. I’m meeting with the teenage kid, and he says, “What is all this?” He says, “You know, it’s got me doubting whether or not God pays attention anymore, God cares. We get all these people. They’re getting ready to deny their faith. We’re flat broke. My mom’s heartbroken. My dad’s got all the money, living life, doing what he wants.” He said, “Where’s God in all of this?” [12:21] I said, “Well, here, let’s do this. Let’s pray that he either repents or God kills him – your dad.” 

12:27
So, we prayed together. I prayed mostly. And I said, “Okay, here’s the deal. Let’s pray that he either repents, and if he’s never gonna repent, then God will just kill him.” So, we prayed. He says, “Okay, now we’ll see what happens.” About a week later, dad dies of an instantaneous massive heart attack. No history of heart disease in his family. He’s in good health. No seeming cause or trigger. His heart literally exploded in his chest cavity. He died instantaneously. [emphasis added] Now all of a sudden all those people go, “Oh, yeah, God does deal with sin.” So the mission gets saved. The churches get saved. You know, everything gets preserved.

13:08
You know what? Some people will never change. Not everybody’s going to heaven. Not everybody lives happily ever after. Not everybody makes a turn for the better. Some people just keep going. And God knows their heart, and with certain people, he looks at them and says, “That’s it. You’re only getting worse. You’re never gonna get better. You’re dead. I’m killing you. It’s over.”

13:30
Some of you need to realize that it is a terrifying thing, the Bible says, to fall into the hands of the living God. When you’re dealing with a holy, righteous, just God, and you’re just absolutely defying him repeatedly and mocking him, there does come a point with many people where he’s just done because sin leads to death. And if you keep sinning, you’ll either die in your sin, or he’ll kill you for your sin. But one way or another, you’ll die.
 

...

So in Driscoll's account, he prayed that a man he regarded as being in unrepentant sin would either be brought to repentance or that God would kill the man.  Lo and behold, Driscoll claimed that the man died.  We're never told who the man actually was and so we can't be sure the man even existed or was potentially a composite.  By now we've established that Mark Driscoll, particularly in the 2013-2014 period, was capable of directly contradicting himself at any number of points about events and details. 

If the account was recycled in Death by Love it may have been considerably more fuzzy than what was recounted in the sermon above, rather undetailed though even that narrative was.

 Death by Love: Letters from the Cross

Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears
Copyright (c) 2008 by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears
Published by Crossway
ISBN 978-1-4335-3533-8
PDF ISBN 978-1-4335-0423-5
Mobipocket ISBN 978-1-4335-0424-3
ePub ISBN 978-1-4335-2121-8

 pages 129-130

... For example, I once met with a young man whose father, a pastor, suddenly left his ministry, wife, and teenage sons to have a homosexual affair with a man he had met on the Internet. He told his teenage sons that there is no God, Jesus did not rise from death, and that there is no such thing as punishment for sin. His sons experienced a profound crisis of faith, and since their dad kept saying that he was happy for the first time in his life, they wondered if God existed, and if he did, whether he cared. To make matters worse, the entire church he had been pastoring was experiencing the same sort of faith crisis. I prayed with one of the sons, asking God to either bring their father to repentance or pour out his wrath on the man as an example. Within days, the father died of an unexplainable, sudden explosion of his heart. [emphases added]

While we can't make a definitive connection of this timely death to the wrath of God, it is in keeping with what we see in instances like Genesis 38 where God kills the two sons of Judah because of their wickedness. 

See also ... 

https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/12/2-5-2008-spiritual-warfare-part-3-part_73.html

Spiritual Warfare
February 5, 2008
Pastor Mark Driscoll
Christus Victor (Part 3)

[you can find a video version of the presentation here]

19:19

On occasion I see things. I see things. Like I was meeting with one person, and they didn't know this but they were abused when they were a child and I said, "When you were a child, you were abused. This person did this to you, physically touched you this way." They said, "How do you know?" I said, "I don't know, it's like I got a TV right here and I'm seeing it." They said, "No, that never happened." I said, "Go ask them. Go ask if they actually did what I think they did and I see that they did."  They went and asked this person, "When I was a little kid did you do this?" and the person said, "Yeah [slowly], but you were only like a year or two old. How do you remember that?" They said, "Well, Pastor Mark told me." I'm not a guru. I'm not a freak. I don't talk about this. If I did talk about it everybody'd want to meet with me and I'd end up like one of those guys on TV, but some of you have this visual ability to see things.

20:13
There was one woman I dealt with, she never told her husband that she had committed adultery on him early in the relationship. I said:

"You know (she was sitting there with her husband), you know I think the root of all this is Satan has a foothold in your life because you never told your husband about that really tall blond guy that you met at the bar. And then you went back to the hotel, and you laid on your back, and you undressed yourself, and he climbed on top of you, and you had sex with him, and snuggled up with him for a while, and deep down in your heart (even though you had just met him) you desired him because (secretly) he is the fantasy body type."

I said:
"You remember that place, it was that cheap hotel with that certain colored bedspread. You did it--you had sex with the light on because you weren't ashamed and you wanted him to see you and you wanted to see him."

She's just looking at me, like ...

I said, "You know, it was about ten years ago." I see everything.
She looks at her husband.  He says, "Is that true?" She says, "Yeah. He was 6'2", blonde hair, blue eyes. Yeah."

Some of you, when you're counseling, you will see things. You will literally get the discernment to see things. I can't even explain it. It doesn't happen all the time.

Sometimes your counselee, they will see things. I found this with people, I'm, okay,-like, "I'm gonna ask the demon questions, you tell me what they say."  They don't say anything. I say, "What do you hear?" and they say, "Nothing, but I'm seeing stuff."
"What, oh, oh. What's that?"
"I'm seeing, you know, when I was little, my grandpa molested me. I didn't know that."

I said, "Well, let's not assume it's true. Go ask your grandpa." Grandpa says, "Yeah [slowly], when you were little I molested you." Grandpa was assuming they'd be too young to remember so he'd only molest grandkids up until a certain age. But they saw it. Supernatural. It's a whole other realm. It's like the Matrix. You can take the blue pill. You can take the red pill.  You can go into this whole other world and that's the way it works.

So I say tell me everything you hear, tell me everything you see and sometimes I see things, too. I see things, too.  I've seen women raped.

I've seen children molested. I've seen people abused. I've seen people beaten. I've seen horrible things done. Horrible things done.

I've seen children dedicated in occult groups, and demons come upon them as an infant by invitation and I wasn't present for any of it but I've seen it, visibly. [emphasis added]

Upon occasion when I get up to preach I see, just like a [makes "whif" sound] screen in front of me, I'll see somebody get raped or abused and I'll track `em down and say, "Look, I had this vision, let me tell you about it." All true.  One I had, I was sitting in my office at the old Earl building.  This gal walks by, nice gal, member of the church. This was when the church was small.  And there just like a TV was there and I saw the night before her husband threw her up against the wall, had her by the throat, was physically violent with her and she said, "That's it. I'm telling the pastor." And he said, "If you do, I'll kill you." He was a very physically abusive man. She was walking by and I just saw it. Just like a TV.  I said, "Hey! come here for a sec. ... Last night did your husband throw you against the wall and have you by the throat, physically assault you and tell you if you told anyone he would kill you?" She just starts bawling. She says, "How did you know?" I said, "Jesus told me." I call the guy on the phone, "Hey, I need you to come to the office." Didn't give him any clue. [He] comes in. I said, "What did you do to your wife last night?  Why'd you this? Why'd you throw her against the wall?" And he gets very angry, they're sitting on the couch, he says, "Why did you tell him?"  I said, "She didn't, Jesus did." Jesus did. 

There are people who are hyper-spiritual total freaks. They make stuff up.  They hear from demons. They pretend to have insight and discernment and there are some people who have real gift of discernment, and I'm not saying I'm 100% always right with it, but some of you are gonna have gift of discernment and you need to, you need to grow to learn in the use of that gift. Sometimes people will hear things. Sometimes people will see things.

And yet for all those super-powers he didn't see what Robert Morris pled guilty to having done just last week in court.  I bluntly asked why there's no evidence that any of Mark Driscoll's self-described visions seem to have led to a documentable arrest or the capture of an abuser.  

It is still worth asking, as Driscoll seems eager to ramp up the possibilities of a connection to the late Charlie Kirk, why it seems as if Mark Driscoll has quietly scrubbed Robert Morris' role in his 2014 resignation from Mars Hill and launching of The Trinity Church in Scotsdale, Arizona.  

There are people who are hyper-spiritual total freaks who make stuff up.  They pretend to have insight and discernment.  Whether they hear from demons is not even a necessary question.  Jeremiah 23:16 has a warning about certain types of prophets and we'll just go King James for this

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.

See also my old post Dream Divination in the Ministry of Mark Driscoll: A Survey of Primary Source Accounts as well as Dream Divination in the Ministry of Mark Driscoll: Driscoll on the rarity of his interpreting other dreams as an implicit baseline against which to appreciate his reliance on dream divination in his own ministry.  Even across his Mars Hill years Mark Driscoll had tales of having prophetic dreams, having a prayer answered by God killing someone (who? Driscoll has never said), and claims to have witnessed child molestations.

Just not, you know, the molestations Robert Morris pled guilty to in court just last week. 

Robert Morris has pled guilty so why didn't Mark "I see things" Driscoll see those things about his friend? A new context for one of Driscoll's most controversial claims, reviewing how Morris' role in Driscoll''s departure from Mars Hill has vanished in newer accounts

Robert Morris has pled guilty to charges made against him.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/10/02/robert-morris-texas-megachurch-child-sex-abuse-guilty-plea/86486382007/

...

 

Morris, 64, entered guilty pleas to five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child in an Osage County courtroom. He will serve six months in the Osage County jail and then be on probation for nine years and six months, according to a plea agreement outlined by Oklahoma Attorney General Getner Drummond in a news release.

...

 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/02/us/robert-morris-texas-megachurch-guilty-plea

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/robert-morris-texas-megachurch-pastor-surrender-oklahoma-child-sexual-abuse-charges/

As Robert Morris pleaded guilty to five felony counts of child sexual abuse on Thursday, Clemishire told him, "Even if you never see the truth, the state of Oklahoma does and has finally done what should have been done decades ago — brought you to justice. For that I am deeply grateful."

...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/robert-morris-guilty-child-sexual-abuse-texas-megachurch-pastor-rcna234748

...

After decades of roadblocks, a family friend encouraged Clemishire to go public last year. She shared her story with The Wartburg Watch, a blog focused on exposing stories of abuse in churches.

 

After Morris resigned, the Oklahoma attorney general’s office opened an investigation. In March 2025, a multicounty grand jury indicted him on the five felony counts, charging that he had abused Clemishire from 1982 to 1985. Prosecutors argued that Oklahoma law allowed them to pursue the case despite the passage of decades, pointing to a frontier-era provision that pauses the clock on the statute of limitations when a defendant moves out of state.

 

At his first court appearance in May, Morris pleaded not guilty and was released on a $50,000 bond. Last month, he waived his preliminary hearing, a signal that his defense team and prosecutors were engaged in plea negotiations. Those talks culminated Thursday with Morris’ guilty plea.

...

https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/gateway-church-robert-morris-guilty-child-sex-abuse-cindy-clemishire/

Pawhuska, Oklahoma (AP) — The founder of a Texas megachurch who resigned last year after a woman in Oklahoma accused the pastor of sexually abusing her in the 1980s pleaded guilty Thursday to five counts of lewd and indecent acts with a child, authorities said.

 

Robert Preston Morris, 64, entered the pleas before a judge in Oklahoma’s Osage County as part of a plea agreement, according to the state attorney general’s office.

 

This plea is significant for reasons I will expand upon at length, drawing upon work that I and Warren Throckmorton have done from roughly eleven to ten years ago. It will take some time to chart the trajectory of what Mark Driscoll said about the reasons for his resignation from Mars Hill in 2014 and who was given (and took) credit for conferring with him about the need to step away from Mars Hill.

https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2015/07/six-available-accounts-of-mark-driscoll.html

 

THE RESIGNATION LETTER ITSELF, ON GODLY MEN AND WOMEN ACROSS THE COUNTRY SOUGHT FOR COUNSEL

https://religionnews.com/2014/10/15/exclusive-mark-driscolls-resignation-letter-to-mars-hill-church/

http://www.religionnews.com/?p=109053

October 14, 2014

Michael Van Skaik

Chairman, Board of Advisors and Accountability

Mars Hill Church

Dear Michael:

By God’s grace I have pastored Mars Hill Church for 18 years. Today, also by God’s grace, and with the full support of my wife Grace, I resign my position as a pastor and elder of Mars Hill. I do so with profound sadness, but also with complete peace.

 

On August 24^th I announced to our Mars Hill family of churches that I had requested a leave of absence from the pulpit and the office for a minimum of six weeks while a committee of elders conducted a formal review of charges made against me by various people in recent times. Last week our Board of Overseers met for an extended period of time with Grace and me, thereby concluding the formal review of charges against me. I want to thank you for assuring Grace and me that last Saturday that I had not disqualified myself from ministry.

 

You have shared with us that this committee spent more than 1,000 hours reviewing documents and interviewing some of those who had presented charges against me. 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.

 

I readily acknowledge I am an imperfect messenger of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are many things I have confessed and repented of, privately and publicly, as you are well aware. Specifically, I have confessed to past pride, anger and a domineering spirit. As I shared with our church in August, “God has broken me many times in recent years by showing me where I have fallen short, and while my journey, at age 43, is far from over, I believe He has brought me a long way from some days I am not very proud of, and is making me more like Him every day.”

 

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. Other issues, such as aspects of my personality and leadership style, have proven to be divisive within the Mars Hill context, and I do not want to be the source of anything that might detract from our church’s mission to lead people to a personal and growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

 

That is why, after seeking the face and will of God, and seeking godly counsel from men and women across the country, we have concluded it would be best for the health of our family, and for the Mars Hill family, that we step aside from further ministry at the church we helped launch in 1996. I will gladly work with you in the coming days on any details related to our separation. [emphasis added]

 

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. Grace and I pledge our full support in this process and will join you in praying for God’s best for this, His church, in the days and years ahead. Grace and I would also covet your prayers for us as we seek God’s will for the next chapter of our lives. Therefore, consider this written notice of my voluntary termination of employment.

Finally, it would be my hope to convey to the wonderful members of the Mars Hill family how deeply my family and I love them, thank them, and point them to their Senior Pastor Jesus Christ who has always been only good to us.

Sincerely,

Pastor Mark Driscoll

 

At the time it was not clear who the godly counsel was, who the men and women across the country were.

 

THE BOARD OF OVERSEERS ACCOUNT

On October 15, 2014 ... Mars Hill issued the following statement.

http://web.archive.org/web/20141016105922/https://marshill.com/2014/10/15/pastor-mark-driscolls-resignation
Pastor Mark Driscoll's Resignation
By: Mars Hill Church
Posted: Oct 15, 2014

On Tuesday, October 14, Pastor Mark Driscoll submitted his resignation as an elder and lead pastor of Mars Hill Church. The Board of Overseers has accepted that resignation [emphasis added] and is moving forward with planning for pastoral transition, recognizing the challenge of such a task in a church that has only known one pastor since its founding. We ask for prayer for the journey ahead.

As is well known, inside and outside of Mars Hill, Pastor Mark has been on a leave of absence for nearly two months while a group of elders investigated a series of formal charges brought against him. This investigation had only recently been concluded, following some 1,000 hours of research, interviewing more than 50 people and preparing 200 pages of information. This process was conducted in accordance with our church Bylaws and with Pastor Mark’s support and cooperation.
While a group of seven elders plus one member of the Board of Overseers was charged with conducting this investigation, the full Board of Overseers is charged with reaching any conclusions and issuing any findings.
...
Finally, Mark Driscoll was not asked to resign; indeed, we were surprised to receive his resignation letter. [emphasis added] While he can speak to his decision as he chooses, we would point to just two things from his letter. He noted that he had concluded “it would be best for the health of our family, and for the Mars Hill family, that we step aside from further ministry at the church.” Secondly, he specifically wanted to convey “to the wonderful members of the Mars Hill family, how deeply my family and I love them, thank them, and point them to their Senior Pastor, Jesus Christ, who has always been only good to us.”

Mars Hill Board of Overseers
Michael Van Skaik
Larry Osborne
Jon Phelps
Matt Rogers

Matt Rogers was, based on the publicly available information, the member of the Board of Overseers who was simultaneously on the Board of Elders. 

It’s worth revisiting that Mark Driscoll’s resignation was a surprise to the board.  So, whoever counseled Mark and Grace Driscoll as alluded to in the resignation letter of October 14, 2014 those godly men and women were neither on the Board of Advisors and Accountability, no the Board of Overseers, nor the investigating Board of Elders.  In fact, an announcement issued at Mars Hill October 19 seems to indicate that by resigning Mark Driscoll chose to not participate in the restoration plan that was considered necessary for his return to formal ministry at Mars Hill.


THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT DRISCOLL HAD GRIVED THE BoE and BoO BY RESIGNING RATHER THAN SUBMIT TO RESTORATION PLAN

https://wthrockmorton.com/2014/10/19/mars-hill-church-board-of-elders-mark-driscoll-resigned-instead-of-enter-restoration-plan-to-deal/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/10/19/mars-hill-church-board-of-elders-mark-driscoll-resigned-instead-of-enter-restoration-plan-to-deal/
http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2014/10/Alex-Ghioni-Announcement.m4a

starting about 3:45

The investigation of formal charges against Mark Driscoll has revealed patterns of persistent sin in the three areas disclosed in the previous letter by the Board of Overseers. In I Tim 5:20, it requires that an elder be rebuked for persistent sin. Our intention was to do this while providing a plan for his eventual restoration to leadership. The Board of Elders in agreement with the Board of Overseers are grieved, deeply grieved, that any process like that was lost to us when Mark Driscoll resigned in position and left the church. [emphasis added] Now is the time to move on and consider what God is calling us to next as a church as we participate in Jesus’ mission to make disciples in His name. Today begins a new chapter in the history of our church which has proceeded in one direction under one leadership for many years now, but I want you to understand this, God is our Father. That does not change. Jesus is the chief shepherd of the church and that has not changed.

So if it was no one inside of Mars Hill whose counsel prompted Mark and Grace Driscoll to resign in advance of participating in a restoration plan, has anyone got any ideas who DID say something?

According to Robert Morris, `twas he who conferred with Mark Driscoll that it would be wise if he stepped away from ministry.

ROBERT MORRIS EXPLAINS ON 10-20-2014 THAT HE AND MARK DRISCOLL AGREED HE SHOULD STEP DOWN

 

https://wthrockmorton.com/2014/10/20/mark-driscoll-rocks-the-gateway-conference/

https://wthrockmorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Transcript-Robert-Morris-Mark-Driscoll.pdf

http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2014/10/Transcript-Robert-Morris-Mark-Driscoll.pdf

Transcript of Robert Morris and Mark Driscoll from the Gateway Leadership + Worship Conference
on the evening of Monday, October 20, 2014, as broadcast live via DayStar Television:
Robert Morris: Uh, it was publicized that we cancelled him; that’s not true, we did not cancel. I’m speaking of Mark Driscoll. We did not cancel him. He and I decided together uh that he was going to step out of ministry for a season and get some healing. [emphasis added]

Robert Morris’ account could not have been clearer. He said that he and Mark Driscoll, together, agreed that Driscoll was going to step out of ministry for a season and get some healing.

 

By 2015 the account had supplemental revelation

THRIVE 2015 PERFORMANCE, MARK DRISCOLL CLAIMS GOD RELEASED HIM AND GRACE DRISCOLL FROM RESPONSIBILITY TO MINISTRY
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2015/05/courtesy-throckmorton-thrive-transcript.html

https://wthrockmorton.com/2015/05/13/transcript-of-mark-driscolls-speech-at-the-thrive-leadership-conference-2015/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2015/05/13/transcript-of-mark-driscolls-speech-at-the-thrive-leadership-conference-2015/
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wYBTnRpPHRb8N1nqtgP2FcHcdnBeMIqCYy2SyQCEWBg/edit

 

Transcript | Mark Driscoll | Thrive 2015-05-01
See Links to Timestamps at the end of this doc. [these omitted here]
...

[6:34]
It finally came to the point where God released my wife and I from our responsibility to ministry. He spoke to us audibly. It wasn’t what we were expecting. It wasn’t what we had agreed to. We were both pretty shocked and the announcement was going to come out that week. [emphasis added] And, uh, our server, our e-mail and things apparently were hacked and there was no way to get anything done without it being a public situation. And so the Board, which are good, godly people in authority, which I appreciate -- they released a statement earlier than we were anticipating, so um, but that meant, and I agree with that decision, I’m not critical of it.  But that meant that I hadn’t told my kids that I had resigned and they were in school, taking test, it was a test week, …. we threw some stuff in a bag and ran to school to grab the kids and within minutes it was on TV, I think it was on CNN.  [emphasis added]We pulled the kids out of school, and they already knew because of social media -- media moves so fast.  So we told them they couldn’t go back to the house for a few days so we jumped in the car and went to a hotel and it was just kind of a emotionally wrecked.  We’d served in that city for 20 years.  Founded that church in our living room. And served it for 18 years.  (loud applause) Baptized somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 people. (audible amens from crowd).
[8:13]
So, we’re sitting with the kids explaining to them that dad had resigned and that we were going to continue forward and that God had released us very clearly.  And my middle son -- he is really the pastor’s heart of the family, he’s a shepherd -- his first question, I just lost it, he said “Who’s going to care for the people?” We stayed there for a few days. Drove them into school for their tests. I went home and checked the security footage and yeah, there was a lot of people at our house taking photos.  It was a good thing we weren’t there.  We finally came home.

In the Thrive account the board released the resignation letter statement sooner than anticipated.  Driscoll emphasized that the trouble the swift release of the October 14, 2014 resignation letter caused was that Mark and Grace Driscoll had not yet told the Driscoll kids Mark had resigned and the kids were in school. 

 

The fuller nature of the supplemental revelation was clarified in an interview Mark and Grace Driscoll had with Brian Houston of Hillsong.

BRIAN HOUSTON INTERVIEW SUMMER 2015, MARK DRISCOLL CLAIMS HE HEARD "A TRAP HAS BEEN SET", RESIGNS AFTER SAYING HE AGREED TO RESTORATION PLAN
https://wthrockmorton.com/2015/07/29/brian-houston-publishes-interview-with-mark-and-grace-driscoll/

 

https://wthrockmorton.com/2015/06/29/hillsongs-brian-houston-interviewed-mark-and-grace-driscoll-after-all/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2015/06/29/hillsongs-brian-houston-interviewed-mark-and-grace-driscoll-after-all/
http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2015/06/DriscollHillsong.mp4

on the resignation letter, this is a transcript of the audio, though thanks to coughing people and garbled voices and murmurs it's not always easy to make out every last little syllable. There may be some inaccuracies but the audio link is available.  Transcription is not necessarily one of Wenatchee The Hatchet's great gifts.

39.45
I never got to say good-bye to the church and the people and so what went public was actually the resignation letter that went to the legal governing board that was in authority over me and so, uh, i uh, I know under the circumstances there wasn't a way to do that that would have been, uh, clean or easy. I don't have any criticism of the board. I think that, for the people, that there wasn't closure and I didn't, we didn't get to say anything.

And we didn't expect to resign. I met with the board. There was a whole list of things that were charged by current and former leaders and there was an internal governance struggle and threats of legal action that it got very complicated. And a lot of it was anonymous through the internet so you don't know who is saying or doing what. And so I invited the board to do a full examination, interview anybody, anything, and we woud submit to whatever verdict that they determined.
... When I think about eight weeks we met Friday and Saturday, October 10 and 11. I remember because the 11th was my birthday and so Grace and I were present with the board and they said: "We see in your history of leadership, less in more recent years but particularly in the past, pride, anger and a domineering leadership style." That would be the exact words they used.  "We don't see anything disqualifying. These are areas we want you to grow. We want you to leadership at the
church soon." They wanted to do some clean up internally. "We want you back on January 4 in the pulpit, give you time to heal, things to cool down, and for some changes to be made."

We agreed to that. I sent in a go-forward plan and then we went home to have birthday cake with the kids. I think it was on Monday night. I was in the bedroom. Grace was in the living room. And so we told the board and told the kids, you know, we come back and ["will do"? garbled] preaching and try and love and serve and, and fix what was a struggling church and God had provided a way for us to do that as volunteers. And so our plan was to come back as volunteers.

42:10
And then on that Monday night I was in the bedroom, Grace was in the living room and he spoke to me and he spoke to her in a supernatural way that neither of anticipated or expected. Ah, and so Grace walked in and she said, "I feel like the Lord just spoke to me and said what we're supposed to do." and I said "I feel like the Lord spoke to me and said what we're supposed to do." It's not what we wanted; it's not what we agreed to; it's not what we've planned for. And so I asked her, "Well, what did the Lord say to you?" cuz I didn't wanna influence and she said, uh, she said we're [Grace Driscoll speaks but it's low and indistinct, Driscoll pauses a moment and is urged to continue by Houston] "The Lord revealed to me that , you know, a trap has been set, there's, there's no way, chance we can return to leadership" and I didn't know what that meant or what was going on at the time.  And I'm, I said, [garbled] "We need to resign". So this is not what we anticipated
and a lot of people've thought, you know, "maybe he's another plan" but we didn't. We didn't know what we were doing.

And Grace fell to the floor and she was just sobbing uncontrollably and I'd never seen my wife like that. She was devastated. So we prayed and slept on it and decided we would make sure we got this right. Talked to pastors, those that we trust and sent in our resignation then on, it would have been Tuesday. ...

 

While this is not an attempt to provide a comprehensive list of citations of accounts about the resignation I am trying to be thorough.  This next account references a pastor but doesn’t name them.

 

https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2023/01/an-apparent-account-of-mark-driscolls.html

 

Pray Like Jesus: Learn to Pray to God as Father

Mark Driscoll and Ashley Chase

Copyright © 2021 by Mark Driscoll and Ashley Chase

Charisma House

ISBN 978-1-62999-926-5

ISBN 978-1-62999-927-2 (ebook)

 

Before I (Mark) married Grace, I prayed a lot. She did the same. We also asked our Christian friends and family to join us. Since we were young, we did not want simply to ask God to bless our plan, but we wanted to ask God to give us His plan. Are you getting married? Sort that out with God first. Whom you marry is the second-most important decision you will ever make after whom you will worship. The same is true of any major life decision. One of our pastors, who has taught us a lot, walked with us through the biggest decision-making season of our life as a married couple. We took months to pray and asked others to pray with us and for us. We wanted God to tell us whether we should stay in a ministry, home, and city that we’d been serving for a few decades or if we should transition into a completely unknown future in faith.

 

After months of prayer God spoke to us both audibly at the same time. Grace was in the kitchen, and I was in the bed-room on the opposite end of our home. Grace came running in the bedroom to tell me that God had spoken to her, and stunned, I told her that at the same moment He spoke to her, he also spoke to me. He told us both we were “released”.

 

This word from the Lord led to the biggest faith step of our lives as we did not know what was next but knew that a season of our life had ended and we needed to step out together, in faith. In submission to the pastoral authority over us, we asked our overseers whether they agreed this was a word from God. They confirmed what God said.

 

Without months of praying together and God supernaturally answering this prayer, we would have been divided, and, as Jesus taught, our household would have fallen apart. Thankfully, because of prayer, we were united and able to lead our five kids through an incredibly painful and difficult time. We are now in the holiest, happiest, and healthiest season of our lives, doing ministry together because God heard and answered our prayers.   Pages 50-51

 

Based on previous accounts the most that can be said of the pastor is that Robert Morris could have been one of any number of possibilities.  Just because Morris took credit for the idea of Mark Driscoll’s resignation in conference with him doesn’t mean Driscoll and his wife weren’t getting advice from others. 

 

Still, of note regarding Pray Like Jesus is who wrote endorsement blurbs.  The first three were written by Jimmy Evans, Robert Morris, and Larry Osborne.  The Morris endorsement reads as follows:

 

Prayer is one of the most crucial elements to us, as children of God, walking in an intimate relationship with our heavenly Father. And Jesus is our ultimate example of what real prayer looks like and how it brings us closer to the Father. That’s why I’m so excited about Pray Like Jesus, a new book written by my good friend Mark Driscoll and his daughter Ashley Chase. Coming from different upbringings, they each offer their own unique perspective on prayer and how it’s a simple, yet powerful, way to talk and connect with God.

Robert Morris

Senior Pastor, Gateway Church

Best-selling author of, The Blessed Life, Beyond Blessed, and Take the Day Off

 

Robert Morris wrote an endorsement blurb with Debbie Morris for

 

Win Your War: Fight in the Realm You Don't See for Freedom in the One You Do 
Mark and Grace Driscoll 
Charisma House (2019) 
ISBNs 9781629996257 and  9781629996264

 

We’re in an all-our war with an enemy who wants to destroy us. Whenever we’re being attacked, it’s important to remember that we don’t wage war against flesh and blood—we’re in a spiritual battle. That’s why we’re so glad our dear friends Mark and Grace Driscoll have written Win Your War, a book that looks at spiritual warfare through the eyes of a married couple. In it they help you see the practical and biblical nature of spiritual warfare in your relationship with God, self, others, and the church. If you want to better understand how to access the power of the Holy Spirit to defeat the enemy, we encourage you to read this book.

Robert and Debbie Morris

Founding Lead Senior Pastor and Executive Women’s Pastor, Gateway Church

Best-selling author, The Blessed Life, Frequency, and Beyond Blessed

 

And a Foreward for the 2018 book

 

Spirit-Filled Jesus

Mark Driscoll

Published by Charisma House

Copyright © 2018 by Mark Driscoll

ISBN 9781629995229 (hardcover)

ISBN 9781629995236 (ebook)

LCCN 2018029899 (print)

LCCN 2018034467 (ebook)

 

On page xvii Morris explained:

Five years ago I received a phone call from Mark. He called to tell me about some of the pastors from his church who had just attended Gateway Conference, our church’s annual conference for pastors and ministry leaders. …

 

Some months later my wife, Debbie, and I had the privilege of meeting Mark and his wife, Grace, and getting to know them. I already thought highly of Mark from our phone conversations, but now that he and Grace were in our home, sitting down and talking with us, I was even more impressed. It was evident they were the real deal. Now, years later, Debbie and I consider them to be close personal friends, and we love them dearly.

 

I am honored to walk with Mark as a friend and a co-laborer in the kingdom. I also have the privilege of serving as one of the overseers of The Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he is the founding pastor. …

asfasf

 

From about 2022 onward Mark Driscoll’s books tended to be self-published and he no longer sought endorsements. Morris was conspicuously endorsing the Charisma House era publications of Mark (and Grace) Driscoll. As the years rolled on the account of Mark Driscoll’s departure from Mars Hill became more schematic and frontloaded how eagerly supportive the board was of his decision to leave even though Driscoll himself began to describe the decision as abrupt and even, implicitly, impulsive more than as the result of months of prayer.

 

By 2023 the account of Mark Driscoll and family leaving Mars Hill had been transformed into “a series of nodal events” in a 21-day family systems journey, overtly invoking the work of Murray Bowen:

Leave & Cleave: A 21-Day Family Systems Journey

Mark Driscoll

(c) 2023 by Mark Driscoll

ISBN: 979-8-9894167-1-4 (paperback)

ISBN: 979-8-9894167-2-1 (ebook)

 

As high school graduation approached for our oldest daughter, Ashley, our family endured a series of nodal events that caused us to leave our church home, schools, sports teams, friends, and extended family to move half-way across the country to start over in every way without any job, house, church, family, or close friends. Ashley was an outstanding student and leader but did not know where she should apply to college because we had not yet decided where we would be moving. She and I both (along with my wife) fasted and prayed, and the Lord burdened her to go out of country in Costa Rica for half a year to heal up, spend time in the Word and with the Lord, and wait to see where we moved and possibly attend college nearby.  The thought of sending our daughter to another country where we could not have regular access to her through technology, to a place we had never been, with people we had never met, was stressful. However, Grace and I believed she heard from the Lord and agreed to fund and support her decision. Dropping her off at the airport, and sitting in the car to pray through tears, it was a clear moment of differentiation and one of the greatest seasons of her life. Her deep faith only deepened, and she was able to get offline, out of the crazy media drama our family was enduring, enjoy traveling, study the Bible, pray a lot, and work on her Spanish. I deeply wanted to over parent and not send my daughter to another country. My fear was that she might fall in love, marry, and never return. Had we opposed that season of differentiation, it is quite possible she would have cut us off altogether. Instead, she's happily married and has our cute grandson we love holding, especially at church.

page 41

 

Here in 2025 Mark Driscoll has, finally, mentioned Mars Hill Church by name in a preface to his recent self-published book Everything is Meaningless: Life Lessons from Ecclesiastes (RealFaith Ministries, 2025)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FJGHV3L8/

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0FJGHV3L8

https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Meaningless-Life-Lessons-Ecclesiastes/dp/196622320X/

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 196622320X

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1966223207Publication Date 09/01/2025

Page 1

PREFACE ABOUT THE SUMMER OF 2015

In the summer of 2015, my wife and our five kids moved from Seattle, Washington to Phoenix, Arizona. After years of prolonged battles in ministry, God spoke audibly to my wife and me in different ends of our home at the same time in the fall of 2014. Grace came running into the bedroom and looked overwhelmed. She blurted out something like, "God spoke to me!" I said something like, "He just spoke to me as well. What did He tell you?" She said, "Released ... He said we are released! I told her something like, "He said to me a trap has been set, you are released and you need to resign immediately!"

I get this kind of word from the Lord on occasion, but for Grace this was a very rare experience. To be honest, the entire scene had us in shock, and so it's a bit of a blur, but the word "released" was clear. Grace fell to the floor weeping so hard she could not breathe, and I raised my hands and started singing as I felt the Holy Spirit fall on me. He gave me assurance I would not die a young man but live to enjoy my grandkids one day, which is a wonderful reality today as I am now "Bop-Bop" to the grandkids.  I always assumed someone would kill me, or I would die an early death from stress and work. Suddenly a massive oppression lifted, and the Spirit of God flooded my soul with relief at not being in the intense battle for the rest of my life.

After preaching in America's least-churched city for nearly two decades and years of prolonged attack, we had taken a break and invited the legal governing board over us to investigate anything and everything, at my request. They did, and found out the truth--that we were always qualified for ministry--and asked us to continue in the ministry we had been leading as the senior pastor. We agreed and panned on re-entering what felt like a never-ending war. Then, a few days after agreeing to return, God spoke to us, and we had to tell the board that we had changed our minds, were obeying God, and were resigning. They kindly asked what our plan was, and I told them I had no plan other than to obey what God had spoken to Grace and me. In my mind, this was a leap of faith with a blind-fold off a cliff.

So, in my mid-40s, cancelled by false accusations, unemployed, and without access to my personal social media to defend myself (I was locked out by former staff), we moved our family to Arizona after our oldest daughter graduated high school with her friends. God told me that was His plan for her, which she had asked the Lord to tell me because she did not want to make that request herself. The Lord honored her request and spoke to me directly on her behalf. During our final months before the move, Grace and I met with a Christian counselor to process, learn, repent, and heal, which was a great blessing. I spent every Sunday before our big move weeping in the shower so the family could not see or hear me, heartbroken that we did not get to say goodbye to the church family and help give those dear people clarity and closure. An event was planned for us to do so but got cancelled when a very real concern for a riot emerged.  For the next few years, I could not say the name of Mars Hill Church without weeping, as it felt like we had lost a child we loved.  Until our move, we met as a family on Sundays at home, having church together, which paved the way for later planting a church together, at the kids' request, in Arizona.  

…

What stands out in this new account are all the things that were omitted. There’s no reference to months of the Driscolls being in prayer; there’s no reference to seeking wise counsel from godly men and women across the country; and last but surely not least there is no mention of Robert Morris. The further away Mark Driscoll is from the events of his resignation the more God seems to have beamed into his head all the details of what was to come. The Mars Hill board went along with the divine directive Mark Driscoll said he got … although that’s the 2025 account and back in 2014 there was no word from anyone in Mars Hill leadership to the effect that “Mark Driscoll just quit because God said he could and we totally believe him”.  In fact, Christianity Today reported back in 2021 that “More than 40 elders who served with Mark Driscoll during the final years of Mars Hill Church are publicly calling for him to step down from his current pastoral position and seek reconciliation with those he has hurt.”

 

Having reviewed all that I come back to this memorable and controversial claim Mark Driscoll made to Mars Hill leaders back in 2008.

https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/12/2-5-2008-spiritual-warfare-part-3-part_73.html

Spiritual Warfare
February 5, 2008
Pastor Mark Driscoll
Christus Victor (Part 3)

[you can find a video version of the presentation here]

19:19

On occasion I see things. I see things. Like I was meeting with one person, and they didn't know this but they were abused when they were a child and I said, "When you were a child, you were abused. This person did this to you, physically touched you this way." They said, "How do you know?" I said, "I don't know, it's like I got a TV right here and I'm seeing it." They said, "No, that never happened." I said, "Go ask them. Go ask if they actually did what I think they did and I see that they did."  They went and asked this person, "When I was a little kid did you do this?" and the person said, "Yeah [slowly], but you were only like a year or two old. How do you remember that?" They said, "Well, Pastor Mark told me." I'm not a guru. I'm not a freak. I don't talk about this. If I did talk about it everybody'd want to meet with me and I'd end up like one of those guys on TV, but some of you have this visual ability to see things.

20:13
There was one woman I dealt with, she never told her husband that she had committed adultery on him early in the relationship. I said:

"You know (she was sitting there with her husband), you know I think the root of all this is Satan has a foothold in your life because you never told your husband about that really tall blond guy that you met at the bar. And then you went back to the hotel, and you laid on your back, and you undressed yourself, and he climbed on top of you, and you had sex with him, and snuggled up with him for a while, and deep down in your heart (even though you had just met him) you desired him because (secretly) he is the fantasy body type."

I said:
"You remember that place, it was that cheap hotel with that certain colored bedspread. You did it--you had sex with the light on because you weren't ashamed and you wanted him to see you and you wanted to see him."

She's just looking at me, like ...

I said, "You know, it was about ten years ago." I see everything.
She looks at her husband.  He says, "Is that true?" She says, "Yeah. He was 6'2", blonde hair, blue eyes. Yeah."

Some of you, when you're counseling, you will see things. You will literally get the discernment to see things. I can't even explain it. It doesn't happen all the time.

Sometimes your counselee, they will see things. I found this with people, I'm, okay,-like, "I'm gonna ask the demon questions, you tell me what they say."  They don't say anything. I say, "What do you hear?" and they say, "Nothing, but I'm seeing stuff."
"What, oh, oh. What's that?"
"I'm seeing, you know, when I was little, my grandpa molested me. I didn't know that."

I said, "Well, let's not assume it's true. Go ask your grandpa." Grandpa says, "Yeah [slowly], when you were little I molested you." Grandpa was assuming they'd be too young to remember so he'd only molest grandkids up until a certain age. But they saw it. Supernatural. It's a whole other realm. It's like the Matrix. You can take the blue pill. You can take the red pill.  You can go into this whole other world and that's the way it works.

So I say tell me everything you hear, tell me everything you see and sometimes I see things, too. I see things, too.  I've seen women raped.

I've seen children molested. I've seen people abused. I've seen people beaten. I've seen horrible things done. Horrible things done.

I've seen children dedicated in occult groups, and demons come upon them as an infant by invitation and I wasn't present for any of it but I've seen it, visibly. [emphasis added]

Upon occasion when I get up to preach I see, just like a [makes "whif" sound] screen in front of me, I'll see somebody get raped or abused and I'll track `em down and say, "Look, I had this vision, let me tell you about it." All true.  One I had, I was sitting in my office at the old Earl building.  This gal walks by, nice gal, member of the church. This was when the church was small.  And there just like a TV was there and I saw the night before her husband threw her up against the wall, had her by the throat, was physically violent with her and she said, "That's it. I'm telling the pastor." And he said, "If you do, I'll kill you." He was a very physically abusive man. She was walking by and I just saw it. Just like a TV.  I said, "Hey! come here for a sec. ... Last night did your husband throw you against the wall and have you by the throat, physically assault you and tell you if you told anyone he would kill you?" She just starts bawling. She says, "How did you know?" I said, "Jesus told me." I call the guy on the phone, "Hey, I need you to come to the office." Didn't give him any clue. [He] comes in. I said, "What did you do to your wife last night?  Why'd you this? Why'd you throw her against the wall?" And he gets very angry, they're sitting on the couch, he says, "Why did you tell him?"  I said, "She didn't, Jesus did." Jesus did. 

There are people who are hyper-spiritual total freaks. They make stuff up.  They hear from demons. They pretend to have insight and discernment and there are some people who have real gift of discernment, and I'm not saying I'm 100% always right with it, but some of you are gonna have gift of discernment and you need to, you need to grow to learn in the use of that gift. Sometimes people will hear things. Sometimes people will see things.

 

Why did Mark “I see things” Driscoll not see the acts his friend Robert Morris just pled guilty to?  

UPDATE 10-3-2025 5:39pm

from June 6, 2025 at The Roys Report

https://julieroys.com/documents-jimmy-evans-new-life-elders-knew-robert-morris-abused-12-year-old-decades-ago/

When the news broke a year ago that a famous Dallas pastor had sexually abused a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s, church leaders across several states swore they knew nothing about it.
 
Now it turns out they did.
 
Just-released court documents show that Bible teacher Jimmy Evans and leaders at a Colorado megachurch knew all along that Gateway Church founder Robert Morris had sexually abused Cindy Clemishire.
 
Despite this, Evans said in a statement last year that he was “shocked and devastated” by recent revelations of Clemishire’s abuse.  

...

This compounds the failure of "sight" a bit more.

The article includes, among other things, an image of Mark and Grace Driscoll with Jimmy Evans and Robert Morris from early 2020.

https://www.facebook.com/pastormark/photos/thank-you-to-our-pastors-who-care-for-our-family-serve-as-overseers-at-the-trini/10157894145106912/

Mark Driscoll

January 28, 2020

 

Thank you to our pastors who care for our family & serve as overseers at The Trinity Church 🙏. Great vision meeting today for an exciting future during the best season of our lives.

The Roys Report identified the people in the photograph as 

Mark Driscoll center with Grace and from left to right

Randal Taylor

Jimmy Evans

Robert Morris

If it turned out Evans knew it makes Driscoll's failure of "sight" even more awkward.  If Evans knew what Morris did then "i see things" seems to have far more blinkered vision than previously advertised.