a Teddy Roosevelt quote about critics and 1910 speech--on the evil of men who seek their own advancement "with brutal indifference to the rights of others"

http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html
... Indeed, it is a sign of marked political weakness in any commonwealth if the people tend to be carried away by mere oratory, if they tend to value words in and for themselves, as divorced from the deeds for which they are supposed to stand. The phrase-maker, the phrase-monger, the ready talker, however great his power, whose speech does not make for courage, sobriety, and right understanding, is simply a noxious element in the body politic, and it speaks ill for the public if he has influence over them. To admire the gift of oratory without regard to the moral quality behind the gift is to do wrong to the republic [emphasis added]

...

  But if a man's efficiency is not guided and regulated by a moral sense, then the more efficient he is the worse he is, the more dangerous to the body politic. Courage, intellect, all the masterful qualities, serve but to make a man more evil if they are merely used for that man's own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of others. It speaks ill for the community if the community worships these qualities and treats their possessors as heroes regardless of whether the qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It makes no difference as to the precise way in which this sinister efficiency is shown. [emphases added] It makes no difference whether such a man's force and ability betray themselves in a career of money-maker or politician, soldier or orator, journalist or popular leader. ...

... or pastor?

Perhaps we could extrapolate from Roosevelt's observation that it hardly matters how lofty the ideals a man may say he stands for from a podium or a pulpit, we must see and hear how speaks to and treats those under him behind closed doors to get a fuller estimate of his character.  The phrase-maker, the phrase-monger, the ready talker, whatever powers this sort of person has can be considered vices rather than virtues.  A man can say "It's all about Jesus" all he wants but that should remind us that it is all the more important which Jesus this man claims to stand for.  Or as N. T. Wright has put it, he's had to remind himself that the Jesus presented in the Gospels is not an Anglican bishop. 

There's reason enough to wonder whether or not the Jesus Mark Driscoll has told us it's all about has turned out to be a Jesus as much Mark Driscoll as a Jesus who may be found in the Synoptics and an anonymously authored gospel attributed to John.  In light of what former pastors from Mars Hill have began to share within the last year even Driscoll's most ardent fans must pause a moment to consider whether being the "great man" is enough, because Roosevelt went on in his speech to say that the qualities of greatness unbounded by a moral sense becomes vice, greatness in potential does not preclude what he described as "sinister efficiency" and it should be considered whether testimony from former leaders of Mars Hill haven't been testifying to a culture of "sinister efficiency" within the still dissolving corporation.

And for all of this, let's consider whether the unaided and un-branded Mark Driscoll has been a great man.  A devoted husband and father, sure, let's grant that because unlike Tony Jones Mark Driscoll's still married to Grace.  But being married to the same person for decades is not in itself a qualification for pastoral ministry, is it?

So take away Mark Driscoll's Docent Group research help, take away any ghost writers, take away Barna polls, take away everything but what the man himself can bring to the table and what will we have?  We may be able to find out but for the moment we should not forget that for those who would quote Roosevelt as if the Roosevelt quote were an endorsement of a Mark Driscoll, it seems more likely one could argue that the kind of trumped up and ultimately fraudulent "success" Mark Driscoll had bought for himself via Result Source Inc would be the kind of bought status Roosevelt would say is a sign of the times in a bad way, were Roosevelt alive to comment on it. 

Between the substance of what was brought to light in the plagiarism controversy; and the substance of what was admitted to by Mars Hill leadership with respect to Result Source, it's difficult to shake at least the possibility that Mark Driscoll's ministry, however meteoric its rise, was bedeviled with what might be considered a "false standard of success", whether in making use of ideas that weren't his own without properly crediting them, or whether in having had his leadership crew contract with a company to get him a status he had not otherwise attained.  By these measures alone it would seem hard to equate Mark Driscoll with Roosevelt's "man in the arena", and to go by the growing testimony of former elders who served under Driscoll and the other executive leaders, it can seem like there was a "sinister efficiency" in how decisions were made and for whose benefit those decisions got made.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2014/december-online-only/painful-lessons-of-mars-hill.html?paging=off
Nevertheless, Clem says, the structure of Mars Hill—which over time consolidated power and financial decisions in the central organization—did play a role. "As the structure became more refined, the driving motive became efficiency and growth, and those two factors began dictating church policy."

Clem went on to explain further:

"Here's an example of what happens, then: When Driscoll quit preaching at my Ballard campus and went to Bellevue, I immediately lost 1,000 people. At $10 per head, that's $10,000 per Sunday that went out the door. And yet my people who stayed continued to give to the same budget; they actually started to give more.

"But because my attendance dropped, Central says my budget needs to drop, and that means that I have to fire a youth pastor.

 

"People don't want to lose the youth pastor and start asking, 'How much more will it take to keep Mitch?' And I'm saying, 'No matter how much more you give, we can't use a penny. It just goes to Central.' And they start going, 'This is communism!'"

And here Sutton Turner was saying this week local leadership was the problem?  Yet Clem's account suggests that at the local level pastors could feel Central Operations was so fixated on growth and efficiency that it began to take on pernicious effects.  Sadly, in his recent posts about Result Source Sutton Turner has never mentioned that the biggest reason to have been against it was that it constituted a false standard of success.

As more former pastors have come forth sharing what they saw and heard there seems to be a case made by those who worked with and for Mark Driscoll that the culture he presided over had slipped into something like Roosevelt's "sinister efficiency".   As Roosevelt put it, "Courage, intellect, all the masterful qualities, serve but to make a man more evil if they are merely used for that man's own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of others."  There were voices within Mars Hill before the roll-out of Real Marriage that raised the question of whether what was going to be beneficial for Mark Driscoll's reputation might potentially harm the well-being of the church.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/09/22/realmarriagememo/
http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2014/09/RMGiving1pager.png

Consider the two statements from the memo quoted at Warren Throckmorton's blog

* If this information was ever made public it could be viewed by the IRS or someone muckraking that a large giving campaign was set up for the personal profit of Mark Driscoll.

* As a result of this giving campaign you will make a royalty of everyone of the books that is given away. So in a sense it could be conjectured that you're making money directly off of a Mars Hill fundraiser

It might be tempting for some of Driscoll's supporters to invoke Roosevelt's quote about "the man in the arena" but if we were to consult the full text of the speech this attempt seems utterly dubious.  These words from Roosevelt's speech, however, seem necessary to consider as Mark Driscoll appears to be regrouping for a return to the public scene and a return to public ministry.  In place of "the body politic" you could substitute "the Christian community", if you like.

But if a man's efficiency is not guided and regulated by a moral sense, then the more efficient he is the worse he is, the more dangerous to the body politic. Courage, intellect, all the masterful qualities, serve but to make a man more evil if they are merely used for that man's own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of others. It speaks ill for the community if the community worships these qualities and treats their possessors as heroes regardless of whether the qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It makes no difference as to the precise way in which this sinister efficiency is shown.

a Teddy Roosevelt quote about critics and 1910 speech--an interlude "Update from Pastor Mark O'Driscoll"

You probably won't find this link works any longer over at Pastor Mark TV. 

http://markdriscoll.org/2010/11/13/update-from-pastor-mark-odriscoll

But the beauty of the redundant mass-distribution of content that was characteristic of Mars Hill is that the same content was sent out across so many channels it's still fairly easy to dig up stuff that would nominally seem "gone"or winnowed out of the Google search.  One cannot do reliable research on background for news by means of Google alone, after all.

So ... let's revisit this blast from the past, from November 13, 2010.  There's a disconnect between the nobody trying to tell everybody about somebody here, spending time on a post that largely recounts the lineage of the O'Driscoll clan and how at one point they ruled ten castles in the old country.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-driscoll/update-from-pastor-mark-odriscoll/454372815517

http://web.archive.org/web/20120318071055/http://marshill.com/2010/11/13/update-from-pastor-mark-odriscoll


November 13, 2010 at 1:34pm

Dear Mars Hill,

It’s late here in Belfast, Northern Ireland (we are eight hours ahead of Seattle), and before I went to bed I felt compelled to write a quick update.

On Sunday I left with my dad, Joe, to visit Ireland—a place we’ve both always wanted to go. We started out in County Cork in southern Ireland. We traced our family heritage as far back as we could go. The records were destroyed amidst civil unrest in the early 1900s, though, so anything before 1800 is tough to get. But I still learned a ton.


The O’Driscolls ruled for three hundred years with around ten castles in southern Ireland, near the city of Baltimore, which we visited. I actually got to see one of the remaining castles, which was a moving experience. After three hundred years of rule, a new king whom we fought against overtook our land and made us peasants. Apparently we were also sea pirates who were fond of seizing ships filled with wine. We also liked to take castles from the Norse and have a lot of children while drinking stolen wine.


In 1845–1890, a massive famine hit Ireland. The nation had been 8 million people until 1.25 million died, and 1.5 million fled the country. I went to the ship dock where my great-great grandfather, James, at the age of forty-eight, sailed from Ireland with his sixteen-year-old son. His wife died, probably of typhoid or starvation. The walk to the ship took weeks for James, and the sailing took months and many died on the “coffin ships.” They landed at Ellis Island, where the Irish were not welcome. So, likely after dropping the “O” from “O’Driscoll,” he moved to Ontario, where he married a nineteen-year-old at the age of fifty-one and had seven kids while dairy farming. She hated that life, so they moved to the U.S. and settled in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He homesteaded his land and built his own home at the age of seventy-one. My dad was born on that farm. I was born there also.

My dad moved to Seattle when I was about a year old so he could get work in construction—something he continued until he broke his back over twenty years later, feeding me and my four siblings while my mom stayed home to tend to us.

As many of you know, I met Jesus at the age of nineteen after having been a non-Christian Catholic. Some Catholics are Jesus-loving Christians; I was just not one of them. My dad also met Jesus. Last summer I had the honor of baptizing him in the Jordan River along with my son and his grandson, Calvin Martin Driscoll. He and my mom, Debra, are with us at Mars Hill, which is a great blessing. My whole family has been saved and is walking with Jesus.

It’s pretty surreal to see what God has done in my life, and tracing my ancestors’ journey was been a bit emotionally overwhelming since God’s grace is so obvious in my life. From pirate to pastor is a lot of grace.


From County Cork we headed up to Dublin. There we saw the Book of Kells exhibit, learned a lot about the political “troubles,” visited a prison and a few large churches, and had a ton of fun—including a pint and some stew at the Guinness Storehouse. We also visited Cashel Rock, which was a magnificent ancient church and monastery built in the lush rolling hills of Ireland and is where Saint Patrick baptized the king of Munster.

Tonight we are in Belfast of Northern Ireland. Tomorrow I am preaching to a few thousand men at The Mandate conference in downtown Belfast. Your prayers would be appreciated. That God would take the great-great grandson of an Irish peasant who was starving to death from a long line of drunkards and wife beaters to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to a few thousand fellow Irishmen is very emotional for me and an overwhelming grace of God in my life.

On Sunday I will not be at Mars Hill. Instead, I will be preaching at Bloomfield Presbyterian Church in Belfast. Monday and Tuesday I will be training Christian leaders and yelling at young men like I do the guys at Mars Hill. Then we will return home by God’s grace and I’ll be preaching my final sermon of the year at Mars Hill before taking some time off to write a book and enjoy my high school sweetheart and our five blessings.

So, if you think of us, pray that the gospel goes forth by God’s grace. This is one of the most religious cities in the world. It is filled with ancient churches and nearly everyone says they are a Christian—half claiming Catholic and half claiming Protestant commitment. The nation is torn between the north, which is British, and the south, which is independent. There is a great need for real revival—true, deep, heartfelt, passionate, uncompromising mission to see people meet Jesus and not just be moral and religious.

Lastly, I want to thank the elders for granting me the kindness of taking this pilgrimage with my dad. The gospel of Jesus Christ is making more sense and bringing me to tears more often than any other time in my life.

A Nobody Trying to Tell Everybody about Somebody
Pastor Mark O’Driscoll

That may have been the tagline, but the mention of the semi-royal rule of the O'Driscoll clan from Mark Driscoll is an interesting thing to mention.  Driscoll has made it plain enough that he believes young men, and everybody really, should live with a legacy in mind.  If Driscoll was really thinking he was a nobody trying to tell everybody about somebody we could ask a few possibly impertinent questions.  Why capitalize "nobody"?  And why would it be worth sharing with the whole world your ancestors ruled across the range of ten castles for three centuries? 

To the extent that Driscoll publicly invoked a family lineage that included rulers, well, maybe the Roosevelt speech about the conduct and aims becoming a member of the ruling class would be all the more pertinent.  He had a warning about the kind of man he referred to as the "phrase-maker" and the "phrase-monger" and by now it would be difficult for even the most animated Mark Driscoll fan to deny that over the 18 years of ministry Driscoll was almost certainly capable of being that, and to that we'll turn.

a Teddy Roosevelt quote about critics and 1910 speech--"It is a bad thing for a nation to raise and to admire a false standard of success", revisiting Result Source

As we've revisited Teddy Roosevelt's speech that made mention of "the man in the arena" we've considered whether advocates for Mark Driscoll could or should attempt to appropriate that axiom with reference to the man.  That Driscoll's book turned out to be full of ideas that weren't his but that weren't adequately credited in first print editions has been fairly well established here and elsewhere.

Just as it seemed the controversy surrounding the subject of Mark Driscoll and plagiarism was dying down another controversy erupted.
http://www.worldmag.com/2014/03/unreal_sales_for_driscoll_s_real_marriage

There was a relatively quick response from the Mars Hill Board of Advisors and Accountability simultaneously admitting the contract was set up, that it was not illegal but that it was unwise and would not be repeated.

http://web.archive.org/web/20140311063444/http://marshill.com/2014/03/07/a-note-from-our-board-of-advisors-accountability

http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2014/march/did-mark-driscoll-real-marriage-earn-nyt-bestseller-status-.html

That thematically leads us, actually, into another part of Roosevelt's 1910 speech: 
http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html

  Nevertheless, while laying all stress on this point, while not merely acknowledging but insisting upon the fact that there must be a basis of material well-being for the individual as for the nation, let us with equal emphasis insist that this material well-being represents nothing but the foundation, and that the foundation, though indispensable, is worthless unless upon it is raised the superstructure of a higher life. That is why I decline to recognize the mere multimillionaire, the man of mere wealth, as an asset of value to any country; and especially as not an asset to my own country. If he has earned or uses his wealth in a way that makes him a real benefit, of real use- and such is often the case- why, then he does become an asset of real worth. But it is the way in which it has been earned or used, and not the mere fact of wealth, that entitles him to the credit.
...
            It is a bad thing for a nation to raise and to admire a false standard of success; and their can be no falser standard than that set by the deification of material well-being in and for itself.  [emphases added]

Roosevelt had a specific false standard of success in mind but we would not range far from his intent in suggesting that any false standard of success would be a bad thing for any people to praise.

Like Result Source rigging your way to a spot on the New York Times bestseller list?  A false standard of success, Roosevelt declared, was a bad thing for a nation to raise and admire.  How much more then, perhaps, could this be said about those Christians who might admire the success and activity a man whose status was bought rather than earned?  And while Mars Hill insisted it never again resorted to Result Source let's not forget the iPad Mini offer. 

Now we'll just skip past the part where Roosevelt's speech touched on the necessity of an active and responsible political class and a responsible press because Wenatchee the Hatchet largely agrees.  It's the part that people quoting Roosevelt might not remember was in the speech because reading Roosevelt advocate for an active and responsible press/journalistic group was probably not why they were reading the speech to begin with.

We'll get back to Teddy, but let's revisit that Result Source was not the only promotional approach Team Driscoll resorted to.  Though not returning to RSI for the next big Driscoll book, Who Do You Think You Are featured another promotional campaign that was noteworthy, featuring the offer of an iPad Mini, pre-loaded with Driscoll books, and all you had to do to enter to win it was do something like, well, Driscoll explained it thusly:

http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2013/01/santa-driscoll-has-toys-for-you-maybe.html
http://pastormark.tv/2013/01/21/monday-giveaway-win-an-ipad-mini
Monday giveaway: Win an iPad mini!
 It’s gonna be a fun week on PastorMark.tv. Every weekday this week, I’m giving away a free prize to celebrate the release of Who Do You Think You Are? We’ve never done anything quite like this before—and who knows if we’ll ever do it again—so enjoy!

To start things off, today’s winner will receive a brand new iPad mini, pre-loaded with some of my books.

To enter, all you have to do to enter the contest is share the following phrase on your favorite social network and/or submit a review on Amazon, then submit the form below. We'll accept entries until 11:59 p.m. tonight (Pacific).
One can now wonder whether those pre-loaded Driscoll books have since had their citation errors fixed.

So as indicators of a status gained by, well, contracts and stunt promotions, it's a little hard to imagine that if Teddy Roosevelt were alive today he would necessarily endorse his quote about critics being applied to a guy like Mark Driscoll.  We can't be sure, of course, but it's a point that might be worth bringing up as we approach the 105th anniversary of the speech. 

But there is, in fact, one more thing to consider from Roosevelt's speech on its anniversary and whether it might be applicable to a man like Mark Driscoll as, no doubt, some of his fans may still hope.

a Teddy Roosevelt quote about critics and 1910 speech, the red-letter quote about "the critic" and "the man in the arena", would that man have done his own research?

We've been working through the historical and conceptual context Theodore Roosevelt was establishing in his 1910 speech prior to the too-quotable bit about the critic vs. the man in the arena.
We established it was a speech given in France to those with wealth and education and the speech was about the importance of the wealthy and educated to have some understanding of using their natural and acquired gifts for the public good, as Americans and French in potential future collaboration, more or less. 

It's with that background in mind we can see that Roosevelt was laying the groundwork for an active and engaged upperclass in contrast to the sorts of self-absorbed cynics who did not take action. 

Now, finally, the red-letter part, without having omitted the earlier practical definition of what kind of person Roosevelt was talking about.
http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world.

Roosevelt's axiom can certainly hold true for the man in the arena who actually fights his own fights, works his own work, and is not necessarily someone with a history of having relied on research help.
One can generally hazard a guess that Roosevelt's "man in the arena" was someone who would do his own work.  His name's kinda not so prominent in their promotion these days but at one point Mark Driscoll had glowing things to say on behalf of The Docent Group's research assistance.

http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-docent-group-and-sermon-preparation.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20120317183037/http://www.docentgroup.com/pastor_stories
Docent has been invaluable to me. I think I have had them do nearly everything but cut my grass. They have saved me hundreds of hours of work and multiplied my effectiveness. I have recommended them to lots of friends because any ministry that serves leaders who serve God’s people is a great gift. 

Mark Driscoll, Founding and Preaching Pastor

Mars Hill Church, Seattle

up through September 14, 2013 Driscoll's voice was at the top of the page.

http://web.archive.org/web/20130914143501/http://www.docentgroup.com/pastor_stories/

Just beneath him for a good stretch was ...

Mark Driscoll first contacted me about Docent Research. After his glowing recommendations of how Docent had improved his sermon preparation, I decided to give them a try.

Mark was right. Docent proved to be exceptional at scholarly research. I was especially impressed at the speed at which they could gather information. I've found their work most useful when I give them specific requests to help in my preparation for sermons.

Craig Groeschel, Lead Pastor

LifeChurch.tv, Edmond, OK

But a year later in September 2014 and a plagiarism controversy away, Groeschel's pitch looked more like this:
http://web.archive.org/web/20140902180132/http://www.docentgroup.com/pastor_stories/

Docent proved to be exceptional at scholarly research. I was especially impressed at the speed at which they could gather information. I've found their work most useful when I give them specific requests to help in my preparation for sermons.

Craig Groeschel, Lead Pastor

LifeChurch.tv, Edmond, OK

Groeschel's advocacy for Docent had been stripped of any publicly acknowledged debt to Mark Driscoll.  And now?

https://www.docentgroup.com/pastor_stories

No sign of Groeschel, either. For whatever reason Docent Group has no current use for endorsements by Mark Driscoll and Craig Groeschel.

Now it's not insignificant to ask whether or not "the man in the arena" in Roosevelt's speech should be expected to do his own work.  Was "the man in the arena" Mark Driscoll or the research help?  Because if it was the research help, well, when Mefferd's on-air confrontation with Driscoll about plagiarism happened within a week or so what was the Mars Hill response?  This will take some time.

The initial response seemed to be this:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2013/12/10/mars-hill-church-alters-statement-on-mark-driscoll-plagiarism-controversy/
http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2013/12/trial-statementmarshillsmallhighlight.jpg

In 2009, Pastor Mark preached through 1 & 2 Peter in a sermon series called Trial. To help our small groups, a team of people including a research assistant, put together a free study guide that was produced in-house and was never sold. About 5 years later it was brought to our attention that it contained some citation errors. We have discovered that during the editing process, content from other published sources were mistaken for research notes. These sentences were adapted instead of quoted directly. We are grateful this was brought to our attention, and we have removed that document from our website to correct the mistake. Additionally, we are examining all of our similar content as a precautionary measure.

The doc was removed and Mars Hill removed the statement that it was never sold.  What wasn't removed for a while was the comment that a team that included a research assistant helped put together the study guide.  Let the record show that before the December 19, 2013 Tyndale press release, the public reaction Mars Hill took to Janet Mefferd publicly presenting evidence that the Trial study guide infringed copyright was to initially state the book was never sold.  Then it turned out that because it was Mars Hill retracted that statement. 

Because the Trial study guide was copyrighted to Mars Hill Church the corporation had three problems. 

First, the way the material was appropriated was not something Intervarsity Press considered to fall within Fair Use:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2013/december/parsing-mark-driscoll-plagiarism-janet-mefferd-apologizes.html

InterVarsity Press tells CT:

Several paragraphs from the New Bible Commentary edited by G. J. Wenham, J. A. Motyer, D. A. Carson and R. T. France published by InterVarsity Press appear in Mark Driscoll's now out of print book Trial: 8 Witnesses From 1 & 2 Peter. These improperly appeared without quotation or attribution. With proper citation the material would have been a case of fair use.

InterVarsity Press believes all writers should use great care as they do research and prepare texts for any use to make sure that proper acknowledgement is given to source material.

IVP tells CT this will be its final statement on the matter. CT has reached out to Driscoll for a response.

Secondly, the book was sold, after all:
http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2013/12/09/mars-hill-church-plagiarism-controversy-citation-errors/

The statement appears to contain at least one incorrect statement. Though Mars Hill claims the book was “never sold,” it is currently on sale by at least one vendor (Logos Bible Software) for $9.95. A screen shot of the sales page is attached. - See more at: http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2013/12/09/mars-hill-church-plagiarism-controversy-citation-errors/#sthash.0vR2VaCz.dpuf
http://mobile.tyndale.com/03-company/company-news-story.php?id=237&pref=MOBILE&lang

Thirdly, the mention of the research assistance prompted Docent Group to public refute even the possibility that whatever failings there were in handling copyright, the research help they provided was not to blame.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/december-web-only/real-problem-with-mark-driscolls-citation-errors.html?paging=off

[Driscoll] forthrightly credited two researchers: Justin Holcomb, who worked for an outside research firm called the Docent Group, and Crystal Griffin, a deacon at Mars Hill. (Glenn Lucke, founder of the Docent Group, told me his firm's records show that Holcomb provided Mars Hill all the documentation needed to properly cite the IVP commentary.) With their help, he told his congregation, "I am now sending out literally thousands of pages of content a year, as well as preaching and teaching hundreds of hours of content a year."

So why were their names not on the final work?

So Docent Group founder Glenn Lucke stated for the record Holcomb could not possibly have been responsible for the citation errors. 

Blogger James Duncan appears to have found something else, a problem of fabrication.  Whoever did complete the finished product of the Trial study guide altered the footnotes in a way that presented the consultation of primary sources in secondary literature as though it were the author having done primary source consultation.
http://www.pajamapages.com/on-driscoll-its-a-straight-red/

... The three paragraphs documented by Janet Mefferd are clearly plagiarism. The footnotes in Driscoll’s work also make it fabrication. At my school, we define fabrication as follows (emphasis added):

Fabrication is the intentional use of invented information or the falsification of research or other findings with the intent to deceive. Examples:
1. Citation of information not taken from the source indicated.
2. Listing sources in a bibliography not used in the academic exercise, unless directed by the instructor to list references consulted even if not cited.
3. Inventing data or source information for research or other academic exercise.

The in-text citations in the work Driscoll copied from

Not only did Driscoll copy the words, he manipulated the citations in the source material to make it appear as though he had done the research himself. By so doing, it shows that he understands the value of citations and research, but decided to deceive the reader into believing that he had done that work himself. Think about the effort it took to reformat those in-text citations and add them to his book as footnotes. Why not also footnote the original book? He did know how to use them.

The relocated and reformatted citations in Driscoll’s book

In soccer, a player can get a yellow card from a referee to warn for rough play or a bad tackle. Two yellows and the player is ejected from the game. A particularly egregious foul can be awarded a straight red. No warning. No doubts. Expelled.

With the manipulation of the footnotes, Driscoll has compounded his deception, and worked even harder to mask it. No yellow here. No warning. This is an easy call: Straight Red.

So James Duncan's understanding of the evidence at hand at the time was that since the notes were changed so that it looked like Driscoll consulted Eusebius and Tertullian rather than having seen mention of their work in the secondary literature.

The Trial study guide turned out to be an example in which Intervarsity Press said the finished work infringed copyright and was not Fair Use.  It also transpired that between the initial on-air interview between Mefferd and Driscoll Mars Hill's public response was to include mention of the research help in a way that prompted the Docent Group founder Glenn Lucke to deny even the possibility that Mark's research assistant was responsible for the mistake.  This is worth bearing in mind for when we finally got to the Tyndale press release.

It was striking that even within the confines of The City Mark Driscoll was unwilling to explain to members what the controversy was if they didn't know about it already.  The press release got reference in a missive from Driscoll, around December 18 or 19, 2013
http://marshill.onthecity.org/groups/1/topics/1461734
From Pastor Mark Driscoll:

Dear Mars Hill Church,

In light of some recent controversy that you may or may not be aware of, I wanted to communicate with you, our church family. Earning and keeping the trust of people in our church that I love and have given my adult life to matters very much to me. It has taken us some time to provide a statement, and it was because we wanted to do the right thing, in the right way, with the right heart, and that required time.

 

For those who have been patient and prayerful, thank you. I am genuinely grateful for the grace I receive from the people I am honored to teach the Bible to week in and week out.

I am sorry for any concern this may have caused some of you. Because this matters greatly, it has also weighed on me heavily.

 

Lastly, I would encourage you to not feel any need to defend me. Our job is not to win arguments but to win people to Jesus Christ.

 

A full statement on the matter from my publisher and me is posted online.

A nobody trying to tell everybody about Somebody,

–Pastor Mark

For some reason Driscoll declined to mention WHAT the nature of the controversy swirling around him was, even within the confines of The City.  Now there's no doubt Mars Hill leadership was aware that material from The City had managed to get to bloggers, but Driscoll's reticence to simply explain that the controversy surrounding him involved allegations of plagiarism was whatever it was.

But there's something about the missive in its opacity, "we wanted to do the right thing, in the right way, with the right heart ... "

What was it about deciding to mention that research assistants helped assemble the Trial study guide in a way that seemed to redirect blame for copyright infringement on to them as well as Mark Driscoll was doing the right thing, in the right way, with the right heart?  Driscoll publicly took sole responsibility for the citation errors and copyright infringement ... but this seemed to happen only after it became impossible for the blame to have been shared with any of the research help.

Let's revisit what was said in the Tyndale press release. 

From the press release
http://mobile.tyndale.com/03-company/company-news-story.php?id=237&pref=MOBILE&lang

 

2.   In a separate issue unrelated to any Tyndale title, the radio host also made an allegation with regard to a study guide that was published in-house at Mars Hill. In this instance, Pastor Driscoll agrees that errors were made. He says:  
 

 In recent weeks, it was brought to my attention that our 2009 Trial study guide on 1&2 Peter contained passages from an existing work for which no proper citation to the original work was provided. The error was unintentional, but serious nonetheless.  I take responsibility for all of this. In order to make things right, we’ve contacted the publisher of the works used in the study guide, offered an apology, and agreed to work with them to resolve any issues they had. Also, I personally contacted one of the editors of the work that was not rightly attributed. Thankfully, he and I have a longstanding relationship, which includes him teaching at Mars Hill and publishing a book with us through Resurgence. He’s a godly man who has been very gracious through all of this. I am deeply thankful for his acceptance of my apology, as I deeply grieve this mistake with a brother in Christ whom I appreciate very much.

So if Driscoll took responsibility for all of what happened why was the public response of Mars Hill prior to the above-quoted press release to mention that a research team assembled the work that turned out to have infringed on a copyright?  If Driscoll was taking responsibility for all of it why couldn't he have done that from jump?  After all, it was only his name on the published product in question, anyway.  Would Roosevelt's "man in the arena" have taken this kind of path, letting a public relations response veiled in anonymity share the blame for copyright infringement in the Trial study guide with people whom none other than Driscoll himself had publicly mentioned by name before the guide was released? 

It would appear that since one of those editors at IVP was D. A. Carson Driscoll's account was he called Carson and talked with him.  What's worth considering in all of this was that two years earlier Mars Hill let a cease-and-desist go out over trademark and logo infringement concerns.  Publicly Mars Hill expressed regret about that and yet it seems striking that when the shoe was on the other foot Mars Hill was okay with letting lawyers send cease-and-desist letters to small church plants on the issue of intellectual property when it would turn out that thanks to the Trial study guide Mars Hill itself had already been guilty of copyright infringement. 

If someone were to even hope that Mark Driscoll could be Teddy Roosevelt's "man in the arena" Driscoll would have to have been demonstrated to have done his own research.  As it stood, in the month following the confrontation with Mefferd the public relations response of Mars Hill was to mention the research help and Driscoll and Mars Hill conceded error but do not seem to have ever apologized to the people who were passively given blame for copyright infringement that only had Mark Driscoll's name on it.  It would seem that the man in the arena Teddy Roosevelt had in mind would not accept full credit for something until a copyright infringement issue came up, let the corporation he was president of cast some blame on the hired help, and only take full responsibility after the news cycle and verified sources established no one else was to blame.

Somewhat incredibly, that wasn't the end of the trouble.  It wasn't just the citation errors in a couple of books.  More research and coverage would begin to reveal there were systemic problems of attribution failure in Driscoll's published work covering at least six books.  One of the more striking offenders was Real Marriage, a book that turned out to have been given a spot on the NYT bestseller list with help from Result Source.  In the rest of Roosevelt's speech he addressed the wrongness of admiring a "false standard of success".  To that concern in Roosevelt's 1910 speech we shall turn.

a Teddy Roosevelt quote about critics and 1910 speech, ruminations on whether Driscoll could be "the great man", some background to a popular quote

This was going to go up April 23, 2015 to make for an official anniversary.  But it's lengthy enough that it might as well go up the night before.

The internet being what it is there's apt to be a Roosevelt quote out there about critics you have likely seen.  We'll get to it in time but as Wenatchee The Hatchet has made a modest hobby of documenting the life and times of the corporation that has come to be known as Mars Hill that Roosevelt quote's going to be worth discussing in its political, economic and military context.  There are those who ignorantly and unthinkingly circulate Roosevelt quotes as if they could apply to a potentially resurgent Mark Driscoll.

The popular re-quote will emerge soon enough in a suitably red-letter quoted format, but the stuff that isn't in red shouldn't be overlooked. Note that the class being addressed by Roosevelt is implicitly and explicitly pretty upper crust and the speech concluded noting the greatness of the republics of the United States and France.  It was a speech to and for elites and that might be worth keeping in mind as a caveat as to its interpretation and application.  Moreover, there's a red-letter Roosevelt quote coming along in it that may be popular for certain fans of a certain resigned megachurch preacher to invoke without a fuller understanding of the speech.  Roosevelt's comments about critics presuppose the necessity of the orator and the journalist.  If we were to translate and transpose Roosevelt's words and ideas for our time it would be to note that there should be journalists and there should be bloggers and that they must be measured and considerate and not wield their power without caution.

It's important to bear in mind that Roosevelt admonished those of high social and economic standing to not look down on those who worked "Joe jobs" but to consider their welfare as a reason to be active in politics.  There were those who would need a hand up to be helped up and those who would lie down should be left where they lie, and so on, but these kinds of matters have to be kept in mind as the larger context from which the red-letter quote circulating has so often been wrenched.

Anyway ... first let's note the setting of the speech from which you may have seen a certain pithy quote.  The speech was delivered, where?

from a speech delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910

So, France.  And the nature of the audience .... ?
http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html
...


It is well if a large proportion of the leaders in any republic, in any democracy, are, as a matter of course, drawn from the classes represented in this audience to-day; but only provided that those classes possess the gifts of sympathy with plain people and of devotion to great ideals. You and those like you have received special advantages; you have all of you had the opportunity for mental training; many of you have had leisure; most of you have had a chance for enjoyment of life far greater than comes to the majority of your fellows. To you and your kind much has been given, and from you much should be expected. Yet there are certain failings against which it is especially incumbent that both men of trained and cultivated intellect, and men of inherited wealth and position should especially guard themselves, because to these failings they are especially liable; and if yielded to, their- your- chances of useful service are at an end. [emphasis added] Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as a cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer.
...

Okay, right there we should note that Mark Driscoll has at no point qualified as either an inheritor of old wealth or as a public intellectual.  Further, Driscoll's Irish ancestry is such that he is certainly never going to fit the bill of the audience of the Roosevelt speech, French landed gentry and intellectuals, to go by the people whom Roosevelt said he was addressing. If you miss this preparatory element in Roosevelt's speech then the nature of "the critic" that comes up later will be easy to miss.  There's a context for Roosevelt's statement that assumes a public role for the wealthy and intellectuals that anchors "the critic" comment.

Roosevelt continued:
 
... A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities - all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The rôle is easy; there is none easier, save only the rôle of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.  ...

That might seem like a lot of set up, but since journalistic coverage has deigned to traffic in merely repeating that Driscoll's been surrounded by controversy over his leadership style without bothering to note that controversy included discussion of how half a dozen of his books made use of the intellectual property of others without attribution; and how there was this deal to rig a best-seller ist; we need to revisit the reality of controversy surrounding Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll issues on intellectual property first, before getting to the proverbial red-letter stuff.