A bit more than a year ago Wenatchee The Hatchet published this in the months after Andrew Lamb's case became a set of headlines. It was simply called "Mars Hill, Andrew in 2012 and the idol of social media".
While Mars Hill PR worked hard to avoid discussing disciplinary cases in early 2012 and leaned on the idea of protecting the privacy of victims, generally women, the reality was that the parties involved had largely blogged and tweeted away their privacy. As documented at considerable length, no less than Mark Driscoll himself preached tidbits giving away the identity of a party involved.
All of that thumbnail review is to propose that Mars Hill Church has a fixation of some kind on social media and branding. The fact that they are hunting for a Chief Sales and Marketing Officer makes this all but impossible to dispute. Come on, we can't quote ourselves all the time, though we could and that, too, would be a distinctly Mars Hill thing to do, in it's way. In fact ... let's just quote from ourselves now.
Every god and every cause demands a sacrifice and the great sacrifice made to the idol of social media and media saturation is what? What you publish is there for everyone to see. In other words, what you sacrifice when you immerse yourself in the internet and social media long enough is something called privacy. You can choose to give up ten percent of your privacy or thirty percent or you can create a persona that you offer to the internet and social media. That, too, is a sacrifice.
Mars Hill members, even leaders, have posted huge amounts of information to social and broadcast media in the course of more than a decade. It's conceivable, in fact, that some have posted information on social media or broadcast media they shouldn't have, even to the point of publishing something that might have cost them a job or two. Maybe it has already happened. Who knows?
To by what Mark Driscoll's associates did with his sermon quoted by Andy and Wendy Alsup last year, when something that has been in the public for years is quoted and shows Mars Hill or Driscoll in a potentially less than favorable light things get redacted. There are places where the longer material has been preserved in some fashion here and here. So between Wenatchee The Hatchet and the other two blogs there are at least three places where you can compare what Driscoll is quoted saying in the earlier form and what is available to hear on download more recently.
Last year Fighting for the Faith broadcast statements by Mark Driscoll made in the wake of the termination of two men from pastoral work. Chris Rosebrough discussed what the changes in Mark Driscoll's roles meant, as he understood them, here. That the words of Driscoll were not available, apparently, until last year suggests that this was material that nobody in association with Mark Driscoll seemed to think would be good to have available for public consultation. They're worth listening to for what Driscoll said about the necessity of casting vision and then just moving on if people aren't on board.
Short version, backing away from visible power and consolidating informal power. In fact Driscoll is currently legal president of Mars Hill Church. The secretary of state listing for Acts 29 Network looks out of date since there's no sign of Scott Thomas anywhere, but when Mark Driscoll mentioned in February 2012 that Scott Thomas asked him to resume presidency that's apparently what happened. So it seems that Mars Hill Church and Acts 29 Network, as legal entities, looked to be pretty much the same three officers. it may be different now that Acts 29 Network has a presence in Texas things may be different. And so it is, in that Texas does not consider it suitable or necessary to divulge the identities of the legal officers of an organization like Acts 29 Network.
What appeared to be happening was that Driscoll had been consolidating formal and legal power while the public statements were to the effect that Sutton Turner would be replacing Jamie Munson as the one with the "kingly" gifts. Now perhaps Turner is an adequate treasurer and secretary for Mars Hill Church but that remains to be seen. It also remains to be seen, if discoverable, who the legal officers of Mars Hill in Texas are and when the agent information on the Washington side may be updated.
It remains to be seen how soon Mars Hill will fill that Chief Sales and Marketing Officer position. Whoever gets that job may want to consider at least the possibility that social media is one of the idols of Mars Hill and that a careful examination of Mars Hill's social and broadcast media output "may" reveal that the controversies that have bedeviled Mars Hill may not be a devilish plot as much as unforeseen consequences of Mars Hill's own cultural fixations. Just presenting that as a possible interpretation of the evidence in social media at hand. Others are welcome to other interpretations.
Showing posts with label a context for a call. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a context for a call. Show all posts
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Saturday, March 30, 2013
A Call for Reconciliation, more than a year later
http://marshill.com/2012/03/02/a-call-for-reconciliation
Dear Mars Hill,
Lately, we’ve gotten some negative press regarding two specific church discipline cases, which has led to speculation regarding and criticism of our church discipline process. In each of the stories surrounding these cases both in various blogs and in the news media, there has unfortunately been some misinformation. Such is the nature of commenting and reporting on private issues between two parties, especially when it comes to issues that are emotionally charged to begin with.
Private issues between two parties was what would have been the case had Andrew not been brought into the Mars Hill disciplinary process to begin with. As Mars Hill ought to know by now posting any document or statement of any kind on to The City isn't in any way private.
Some of the misinformation, such as whether or not staff were let go in connection to the disciplinary cases of Andrew or Lance, may have come from the Mars Hill side. After all, there was that clarification of the clarification that the two staff let go for a pattern of overstepping spiritual authority weren't in any way connected to the Andrew Lamb or Lance cases.
Rather than try and defend ourselves or refute misinformation, we simply wish to say that as a church, we’re saddened by this continual attempt to drag into public very private and sensitive issues that were church matters. As with any story that has two sides, the natural tendency is for people to lean toward their prejudices. If they don’t like Mars Hill, these stories will serve to cement their beliefs regardless of what we say. For those who are part of Mars Hill and love the church, there is a tendency to take the defensive.
It wasn't that private that Andrew and his girlfriend were together if she was blogging about it. The tendency to take the defensive was certainly a real concern, as a few people were quite content to imply Andrew gave his girlfriend a venereal disease or to declare that Andrew had sex with multiple partners without any clarification of what evidence there was for this. Questions about whether or not the girlfriend could have lied never seemed to come up for people within Mars Hill.
Rather than attack or defend, we wish to reconcile. We are saddened that in some cases people have been hurt, both people who are no longer at Mars Hill Church and those who still call us their church home. While we reiterate that the overwhelming majority of our church discipline cases are healthy and restorative, there are certainly times where things don’t go as they should—both from our end and from the end of those who are in the process.
If they were serious about not wishing to attack or defend then opening with a statement about misinformation in the earlier paragraphs was unnecessary, wasn't it?
To our critics, we’d humbly ask you to imagine how complicated situations such as this are for us. When someone says they have a issue with us, they get to tell the media their side of the story. If we tell the other side of the story, we risk breaching laws and exposing people—both the people in the discipline process and the people they’ve sinned against—to public backlash. The choice for us as a church is often to either take the hits in the press or put one of our members forward (often a young woman sexually sinned against) to let our members take the hits and endure the criticism. Obviously, we’d rather take the hits as a church than expose our members to the media and potentially break the law by divulging private information shared in a counseling session by a victim.
So Mars Hill didn't want to put forward a member to endure criticism but they also, evidently, really didn't want to just sit by and take public criticism over something that would have stayed private if a document hadn't been posted to The City to begin with. All that backlash could have been avoided if Mars Hill had just let someone leave who wanted to leave. It's not like that didn't happen at any point in the previous eight years.
But in the case of Andrew, the Noriegas had blogged and tweeted about their respective relationships to Andrew before he even made a confession and before anyone got into the escalating disciplinary situation at Mars Hill. Mars Hill leaders and members had eliminated privacy by divulging in broadcast media the nature of their respective connections to an Andrew. For that matter even Driscoll sermons referred to aspects of the Noriega story. The call for reconciliation rang hollow not just because many former members viewed it as a publicity tactic to quell further bad press but also because Mars Hill had spent a decade publicizing as an institution and among its members the very things that, when press coverage was suddenly more widespread and negative, was supposed to be "private".
Here’s the bottom line: we love people. Our goal is always repentance and reconciliation in the discipline process and that the process would be loving, grace-filled, and reflect the heart of Jesus. We don’t always get it right. But, in this instance we ask that you would pray for your leaders, love your city, and wait until we all stand before Jesus to get the facts and a clear verdict.
It hasn't always been clear that the goal of the discipline process or termination process is repentance and reconciliation or what those two terms necessarily mean. Someone got some audio to Chris Rosebrough at Fighting for the Faith that has also made its way to Joyful Exiles. How interested in reconciliation did Driscoll sound the day after the firings?
Naturally, we’ve been following these stories closely, and a handful of people have stepped out to discuss their experiences. Quoted in various sources are people who’ve given their stories anonymously. Since we don’t know who they are, we’d love to meet with them and serve them and begin a process of reconciliation. So please, if you’re reading this, do let us know who you are so we can do all we can to love you by sitting down to meet, listen, and serve. For the two mentioned in the KOMO story, we’d love to meet with you also to do the same.
Andrew Lamb was not actually all that anonymous even when he and Turner attempted to make his story anonymous. This was because at Mars Hill Ballard there were only two guys in leadership who were in second marriages, which made it possible to narrow the field down to Noriega even after Noriega was apparently fired some time in September 2011. Why Andrew would have wanted to meet with Mars Hill leadership and a culture that posted a notice of shunning to The City isn't a question MH seems to have given much serious thought about. Mars Hill didn't thrill to the idea that the media had hostile people in the press and on blogs badmouthing them without stopping even a moment to consider that this could have been doing to them what they'd already done to Andrew? If Andrew chose to leave the church and end his membership what was to stop Mars Hill from just letting him go?
Then again, Mars Hill had a history of posting significant announcements about shunning people who ended membershil while under discipline before, as Joyful Exiles has established. The lengthy document trail at Joyful Exiles has also illustrated that an executive elder in at least once case was perfectly willing to misrepresent the nature of the entire disciplinary/termination process to a member of Mars Hill back in 2007. Mars Hill also had a history in which executive elders published partial statements about former pastors that omitted significant details like nearly 40% salary cuts without mentioning playing a consulting role in the policy shifts that led to those cuts, or to how the replacement of a campus pastor was given a full salary without having to really show up to do his job during the same year that the earlier campus pastor was making a lot less money and by Driscoll's own account had to deal with constant pain.
And for those who used to be Mars Hill Church members seeking to resolve something from the past, including the majority in the news stories that have not been at our church in roughly six years, the best way to do that is not through the media but rather by meeting with a Mars Hill pastor. Our desire is for reconciliation between us and you. This won’t mean we’ll always see eye to eye, but can and should talk face to face in a spirit of humility and grace. Please submit requests by phone or email so we can begin this process. We offer this all as a means of opening up a line of reconciliation in the hopes of making it as easy for you as possible.
Refer to Joyful Exiles for an example of how Mars Hill pastors opted to deal with Bent Meyer oand Paul Petry when they sought to meet after the decisions were made for termination. It looks even more now than it did a year ago that Mars Hill's big priority was to avoid any media discussion. Sadly Mars Hill is even this weekend leaning on its use of technology as a way to combine the experience of fourteen campuses for a big Easter 2013 celebration. Mars Hill, it's tough to have it both ways on technology and media use. If there hadn't been what Justin Dean called "unclear communication" Andrew couldn't have known about that escalation letter. If Mars Hill and Acts 29 had not recorded apparently any and every stray remark Driscoll's ever made nobody would have felt obliged to scrube the woodchipper incident from "The Man". If when confronted by the fact that Driscoll shared a story of running a pastor through a woodchipper Mars Hill response or Acts 29 response is simply to remove that segment from the sermon all that suggests is that Mark Driscoll has some people in his corner who are willing to remove material that makes him sound bad. Thing is, the clip was out there for so many years the contents have been reproduced in a couple of places. The woodchipper incident will live on via internet for a while.
Now who among leadership at Mars Hill has gotten in touch with Bent Meyer or Paul Petry? What was the Mars Hill idea of reconciliation? A little bit of that can be gleaned from Mars Hill Refuge. It's worth noting that Bill Clem has since transitioned out of Mars Hill.
So now that it's been more than a year since that call for reconciliation what's come of it? Was it more than just an attempt at damage control where Mars Hill coverage in the media was concerned? What meetings took place? Did leadership take any initiative to work toward reconciliation in cases where members and former members felt hurt by men who were by that time no longer even employed by Mars Hill or who had spread out to other campuses beyond Puget Sound? Does Mars Hill consider there to be a statute of limitations past which reconciliation isn't an interesting or worthy goal?
Dear Mars Hill,
Lately, we’ve gotten some negative press regarding two specific church discipline cases, which has led to speculation regarding and criticism of our church discipline process. In each of the stories surrounding these cases both in various blogs and in the news media, there has unfortunately been some misinformation. Such is the nature of commenting and reporting on private issues between two parties, especially when it comes to issues that are emotionally charged to begin with.
Private issues between two parties was what would have been the case had Andrew not been brought into the Mars Hill disciplinary process to begin with. As Mars Hill ought to know by now posting any document or statement of any kind on to The City isn't in any way private.
Some of the misinformation, such as whether or not staff were let go in connection to the disciplinary cases of Andrew or Lance, may have come from the Mars Hill side. After all, there was that clarification of the clarification that the two staff let go for a pattern of overstepping spiritual authority weren't in any way connected to the Andrew Lamb or Lance cases.
Rather than try and defend ourselves or refute misinformation, we simply wish to say that as a church, we’re saddened by this continual attempt to drag into public very private and sensitive issues that were church matters. As with any story that has two sides, the natural tendency is for people to lean toward their prejudices. If they don’t like Mars Hill, these stories will serve to cement their beliefs regardless of what we say. For those who are part of Mars Hill and love the church, there is a tendency to take the defensive.
It wasn't that private that Andrew and his girlfriend were together if she was blogging about it. The tendency to take the defensive was certainly a real concern, as a few people were quite content to imply Andrew gave his girlfriend a venereal disease or to declare that Andrew had sex with multiple partners without any clarification of what evidence there was for this. Questions about whether or not the girlfriend could have lied never seemed to come up for people within Mars Hill.
Rather than attack or defend, we wish to reconcile. We are saddened that in some cases people have been hurt, both people who are no longer at Mars Hill Church and those who still call us their church home. While we reiterate that the overwhelming majority of our church discipline cases are healthy and restorative, there are certainly times where things don’t go as they should—both from our end and from the end of those who are in the process.
If they were serious about not wishing to attack or defend then opening with a statement about misinformation in the earlier paragraphs was unnecessary, wasn't it?
To our critics, we’d humbly ask you to imagine how complicated situations such as this are for us. When someone says they have a issue with us, they get to tell the media their side of the story. If we tell the other side of the story, we risk breaching laws and exposing people—both the people in the discipline process and the people they’ve sinned against—to public backlash. The choice for us as a church is often to either take the hits in the press or put one of our members forward (often a young woman sexually sinned against) to let our members take the hits and endure the criticism. Obviously, we’d rather take the hits as a church than expose our members to the media and potentially break the law by divulging private information shared in a counseling session by a victim.
So Mars Hill didn't want to put forward a member to endure criticism but they also, evidently, really didn't want to just sit by and take public criticism over something that would have stayed private if a document hadn't been posted to The City to begin with. All that backlash could have been avoided if Mars Hill had just let someone leave who wanted to leave. It's not like that didn't happen at any point in the previous eight years.
But in the case of Andrew, the Noriegas had blogged and tweeted about their respective relationships to Andrew before he even made a confession and before anyone got into the escalating disciplinary situation at Mars Hill. Mars Hill leaders and members had eliminated privacy by divulging in broadcast media the nature of their respective connections to an Andrew. For that matter even Driscoll sermons referred to aspects of the Noriega story. The call for reconciliation rang hollow not just because many former members viewed it as a publicity tactic to quell further bad press but also because Mars Hill had spent a decade publicizing as an institution and among its members the very things that, when press coverage was suddenly more widespread and negative, was supposed to be "private".
Here’s the bottom line: we love people. Our goal is always repentance and reconciliation in the discipline process and that the process would be loving, grace-filled, and reflect the heart of Jesus. We don’t always get it right. But, in this instance we ask that you would pray for your leaders, love your city, and wait until we all stand before Jesus to get the facts and a clear verdict.
It hasn't always been clear that the goal of the discipline process or termination process is repentance and reconciliation or what those two terms necessarily mean. Someone got some audio to Chris Rosebrough at Fighting for the Faith that has also made its way to Joyful Exiles. How interested in reconciliation did Driscoll sound the day after the firings?
Naturally, we’ve been following these stories closely, and a handful of people have stepped out to discuss their experiences. Quoted in various sources are people who’ve given their stories anonymously. Since we don’t know who they are, we’d love to meet with them and serve them and begin a process of reconciliation. So please, if you’re reading this, do let us know who you are so we can do all we can to love you by sitting down to meet, listen, and serve. For the two mentioned in the KOMO story, we’d love to meet with you also to do the same.
Andrew Lamb was not actually all that anonymous even when he and Turner attempted to make his story anonymous. This was because at Mars Hill Ballard there were only two guys in leadership who were in second marriages, which made it possible to narrow the field down to Noriega even after Noriega was apparently fired some time in September 2011. Why Andrew would have wanted to meet with Mars Hill leadership and a culture that posted a notice of shunning to The City isn't a question MH seems to have given much serious thought about. Mars Hill didn't thrill to the idea that the media had hostile people in the press and on blogs badmouthing them without stopping even a moment to consider that this could have been doing to them what they'd already done to Andrew? If Andrew chose to leave the church and end his membership what was to stop Mars Hill from just letting him go?
Then again, Mars Hill had a history of posting significant announcements about shunning people who ended membershil while under discipline before, as Joyful Exiles has established. The lengthy document trail at Joyful Exiles has also illustrated that an executive elder in at least once case was perfectly willing to misrepresent the nature of the entire disciplinary/termination process to a member of Mars Hill back in 2007. Mars Hill also had a history in which executive elders published partial statements about former pastors that omitted significant details like nearly 40% salary cuts without mentioning playing a consulting role in the policy shifts that led to those cuts, or to how the replacement of a campus pastor was given a full salary without having to really show up to do his job during the same year that the earlier campus pastor was making a lot less money and by Driscoll's own account had to deal with constant pain.
And for those who used to be Mars Hill Church members seeking to resolve something from the past, including the majority in the news stories that have not been at our church in roughly six years, the best way to do that is not through the media but rather by meeting with a Mars Hill pastor. Our desire is for reconciliation between us and you. This won’t mean we’ll always see eye to eye, but can and should talk face to face in a spirit of humility and grace. Please submit requests by phone or email so we can begin this process. We offer this all as a means of opening up a line of reconciliation in the hopes of making it as easy for you as possible.
Refer to Joyful Exiles for an example of how Mars Hill pastors opted to deal with Bent Meyer oand Paul Petry when they sought to meet after the decisions were made for termination. It looks even more now than it did a year ago that Mars Hill's big priority was to avoid any media discussion. Sadly Mars Hill is even this weekend leaning on its use of technology as a way to combine the experience of fourteen campuses for a big Easter 2013 celebration. Mars Hill, it's tough to have it both ways on technology and media use. If there hadn't been what Justin Dean called "unclear communication" Andrew couldn't have known about that escalation letter. If Mars Hill and Acts 29 had not recorded apparently any and every stray remark Driscoll's ever made nobody would have felt obliged to scrube the woodchipper incident from "The Man". If when confronted by the fact that Driscoll shared a story of running a pastor through a woodchipper Mars Hill response or Acts 29 response is simply to remove that segment from the sermon all that suggests is that Mark Driscoll has some people in his corner who are willing to remove material that makes him sound bad. Thing is, the clip was out there for so many years the contents have been reproduced in a couple of places. The woodchipper incident will live on via internet for a while.
Now who among leadership at Mars Hill has gotten in touch with Bent Meyer or Paul Petry? What was the Mars Hill idea of reconciliation? A little bit of that can be gleaned from Mars Hill Refuge. It's worth noting that Bill Clem has since transitioned out of Mars Hill.
So now that it's been more than a year since that call for reconciliation what's come of it? Was it more than just an attempt at damage control where Mars Hill coverage in the media was concerned? What meetings took place? Did leadership take any initiative to work toward reconciliation in cases where members and former members felt hurt by men who were by that time no longer even employed by Mars Hill or who had spread out to other campuses beyond Puget Sound? Does Mars Hill consider there to be a statute of limitations past which reconciliation isn't an interesting or worthy goal?
Thursday, March 15, 2012
A Context for A Call for Reconciliation: Part 8
Part 8: Reconciliation can't come if only you get to control the terms
Mars Hill has stated it wants reconciliation to happen. I’d like to take that seriously and I sincerely hope it occurs. However, to want reconciliation only on one’s own terms is not possible. Asking former members to meet privately and not consider the media by now can’t work. I’ve demonstrated why. You can’t suppose at this point that even meeting in private will also automatically mean “off the record”. [more after the jump]
Mars Hill has stated it wants reconciliation to happen. I’d like to take that seriously and I sincerely hope it occurs. However, to want reconciliation only on one’s own terms is not possible. Asking former members to meet privately and not consider the media by now can’t work. I’ve demonstrated why. You can’t suppose at this point that even meeting in private will also automatically mean “off the record”. [more after the jump]
A Context for A Call for Reconciliation: Part 7
Part 7: Where the leader goes (and what he does), the rest may follow
As I have attempted to demonstrate the recent stories came to light in the media due to what look like intra-Martian activity. Andrew wouldn’t have known about the escalation letter unless someone with access to The City sent it to him. This suggests that the underlying tension may not be how former members feel about church discipline, it may be that within the church itself there are some who are no longer convinced in the competence or equity of the process. If so that “might” explain why “A Call For Reconciliation” is addressed first of all to Mars Hill and only secondarily to former members or members who might be under discipline. [more after the jump]
As I have attempted to demonstrate the recent stories came to light in the media due to what look like intra-Martian activity. Andrew wouldn’t have known about the escalation letter unless someone with access to The City sent it to him. This suggests that the underlying tension may not be how former members feel about church discipline, it may be that within the church itself there are some who are no longer convinced in the competence or equity of the process. If so that “might” explain why “A Call For Reconciliation” is addressed first of all to Mars Hill and only secondarily to former members or members who might be under discipline. [more after the jump]
A Context for A Call for Reconciliation: part 6
Part 6: The current situation did not arrive without any prior warning
Mars Hill camps out on protecting victims. It is important to protect victims but it is also important to define victimization from a criminal/legal standpoint as well as a spiritual one, something Mars Hill has not established. If what Andrew did was criminal he would have been prosecuted by now, wouldn’t he? Not everything that is immoral is considered criminal and vice versa. Mars Hill has not defined anything about victims, even victims of sexual abuse, as such. The rights of the accused are not eliminated by camping out on the rights of the accuser, are they? Was Andrew given an opportunity to appeal a disciplinary decision? This seems unlikely given the precedent and explanations provided by Mars Hill about church discipline so far. [more after the jump]
A Context for A Call for Reconciliation: Part 5
I've decided to suspend this part. I may put it up later but for now it's suspended.
If you read it already don't replicate any of it in derivative work.
If you read it already don't replicate any of it in derivative work.
A Context for A Call for Reconciliation: Part 4
Part 4: Clarifications and Clarifications
As I documentted earlier this week from the clarifications from Mars Hill to Slate and on the Mars Hill website, sometimes clarifications need to be clarified. New Reformation Press was informed that Andrew's case was part of a "confluence" of some kind. Whatever that is we don't necessarily ever need to find out but, along the way, Mars Hill attempts to clarify things seemed to need clarifying.
[more after the jump]
As I documentted earlier this week from the clarifications from Mars Hill to Slate and on the Mars Hill website, sometimes clarifications need to be clarified. New Reformation Press was informed that Andrew's case was part of a "confluence" of some kind. Whatever that is we don't necessarily ever need to find out but, along the way, Mars Hill attempts to clarify things seemed to need clarifying.
[more after the jump]
A Context for A Call for Reconciliation, part 3
Part 3: Mars Hill's anonymous advocate
Mars Hill leadership has indicated over the months they do not want to discuss things publicly so as to keep things private and avoid potential legal trouble. Members and advocates do not seem to have handled this in the same way. For instance, observe this rather lengthy comment discussion between Santita Tafarella, Anonymous (a woman who is at Mars Hill) and Anonymous2 a self-described atheist friend of Anonymous who steps into defend a few of her defenses of MH regarding her general approach to the Andrew situation. [more after the jump]
A Context for A Call for Reconciliation, part 2
Part 2: A staffer at Mars Hill contacts New Reformation Press
Now here's the blog entry in which Pat K wrote on Feb 4, 2012 about what he heard from a friend on staff at Mars Hill.
http://www.newreformationpress.com/blog/2012/02/04/mars-hill-and-proverbs-1817-in-action/
While being discreet to protect the identities of those involved, and avoiding many of the gory details, my friend laid out enough evidence to satisfy me that the initial accounts given by Andrew and those promoting his story are at best incomplete, and most likely deliberately misleading. Large parts are left out, including the majority of action taken by the church to reconcile him. Also, Andrew’s case involves a confluence of several situations that it appears Mars Hill has properly and thoroughly dealt with. Because the details involve the sin of others that are not publicly known, the church has decided the best course of action is to remain silent to protect those people’s reputation and privacy. They did not divulge the identities of the people involved, or the specific details of each situation to me, but they gave me a rough overview of the pieces missing in various accounts of the incident now in circulation. In light of these facts it is only right that I publicly retract my former comments directed at Mars Hill.
In other words someone anonymously conveyed to Patrick Kyle that Andrew's story was at best incomplete and most likely deliberately misleading. It is also explained that Andrew’s case involves a confluence of several situations. There’s no explanation as to what in the February 4 post, which is understandable. [more after the jump]
Now here's the blog entry in which Pat K wrote on Feb 4, 2012 about what he heard from a friend on staff at Mars Hill.
http://www.newreformationpress.com/blog/2012/02/04/mars-hill-and-proverbs-1817-in-action/
While being discreet to protect the identities of those involved, and avoiding many of the gory details, my friend laid out enough evidence to satisfy me that the initial accounts given by Andrew and those promoting his story are at best incomplete, and most likely deliberately misleading. Large parts are left out, including the majority of action taken by the church to reconcile him. Also, Andrew’s case involves a confluence of several situations that it appears Mars Hill has properly and thoroughly dealt with. Because the details involve the sin of others that are not publicly known, the church has decided the best course of action is to remain silent to protect those people’s reputation and privacy. They did not divulge the identities of the people involved, or the specific details of each situation to me, but they gave me a rough overview of the pieces missing in various accounts of the incident now in circulation. In light of these facts it is only right that I publicly retract my former comments directed at Mars Hill.
In other words someone anonymously conveyed to Patrick Kyle that Andrew's story was at best incomplete and most likely deliberately misleading. It is also explained that Andrew’s case involves a confluence of several situations. There’s no explanation as to what in the February 4 post, which is understandable. [more after the jump]
A Context for a Call for Reconciliation, part 1
UPDATE/PRELUDE 3-20-2012
Some readers (or all) may want to read almost everything at the following blog before proceeding to the body of this series:
http://joyfulexiles.com/
The body of the unrevised first part begins below
***
I had decided over the last few months I wasn’t that interested in blogging about this topic but then the coverage kept happening. Then I got linked to by a Slate article in which the author and related editors clearly never bothered to read what I actually said in the blog post they linked to. Then I began to see the subject continue to come up in many of my favorite blogs. Then I began to realize that the subject was not going away and that the more I looked at how public discussion of the situation was going that things about it were starting to bother me. I also began to see Mars Hill members attacking the character and actions of Andrew on Facebook debates amongst people I actually know.
Some readers (or all) may want to read almost everything at the following blog before proceeding to the body of this series:
http://joyfulexiles.com/
The body of the unrevised first part begins below
***
I had decided over the last few months I wasn’t that interested in blogging about this topic but then the coverage kept happening. Then I got linked to by a Slate article in which the author and related editors clearly never bothered to read what I actually said in the blog post they linked to. Then I began to see the subject continue to come up in many of my favorite blogs. Then I began to realize that the subject was not going away and that the more I looked at how public discussion of the situation was going that things about it were starting to bother me. I also began to see Mars Hill members attacking the character and actions of Andrew on Facebook debates amongst people I actually know.
Then the “Call to Reconciliation” got published and I saw how it was worded. I have tried to be cautiously optimistic about it but I believe that in order for the “call” to be considered it has to be considered in context. By “in context” I do not mean the situations of Andrew or Lance, I mean the publicly observable pattern of how Mars Hill responds to criticism and specifically how advocates have chosen to broach the defense of Mars Hill as a subject recently and in the past. It is vital to be aware of this history so as to illustrate why people may feel cautious about meeting privately with Mars Hill leaders after having been hurt by specific decisions or policies at the church six years or six months ago. A central concern that has not yet been discussed that should be is the question of how “private” something private manages to stay. [more after the break]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)