THANKYOU HILLSONG!

Profound gratitude to Hillsong, Brian Houston, and all the leadership at Hillsong. You listened to the victims of Mark Driscoll's abuse and chose not to give him a voice and a stage and a platform. We spoke, you listened. Thank you thank you thank you.

Sunday 31 May 2015

For Immediate Release

Press release:  Planned Protest against Hillsong Conference guest speaker Mark Driscoll at Hillsong’s Waterloo Campus in Sydney, 9:15 AM on Sunday May 31st


(for questions please contact Benjamin Ady on 0400048195 or benjamin.ady@gmail.com)


People Against Fundamentalism are calling for a protest against Sydney’s Hillsong church’s invitation to former mega-church pastor Mark Driscoll, often accused of being a misogynist and a bully, to speak at their Sydney conference this winter. An online petition against Driscoll’s presence at the conference has gathered nearly 1,000 signatures (1)


People Against Fundamentalism have watched Mark Driscoll ongoingly hurt many people, especially women, in  Seattle, with his misogyny, bullying, and hardline complementarian teaching.


Last year Mars Hill, the 14,000 member megachurch Driscoll founded and led in Seattle, went down in flames because of his bad behaviour (2). The former church is currently facing a lawsuit for racketeering alleging misuse of funds designated for church planting in Ethiopia and India, including the use of those same funds to pay an agency US$210,000 to game the New York Times bestseller list to get Driscoll’s latest book, Real Marriage, on top (3, 4)
Brian Houston, Hillsong’s senior pastor, is himself potentially under investigation and facing legal repercussions for failing to report his own father and previous Hillsong pastor Frank Houston’s sexual abuse of minors. (5) Jim Henderson, one of the leaders of the protest that brought down Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church last year, and author of the book “Question Mark” about Driscoll and bullying in the church, said “Given Houston’s precarious position with the Royal Commission it seems a risk not worth taking to bring someone else on stage who is similarly under investigation for racketeering charges- What if some of the protesters begin linking the two of them together and accuse Brian of either attempting to divert attention away from his own legal allegations by focusing on Driscoll’s or of processing his own guilt in public using Driscoll as a surrogate"


Rachel Held Evans, a popular Christian blogger and author, says that Driscoll has an “alarming preoccupation with sex and masculinity”, and characterised his most recent book, “Real Marriage” as promoting the idea that “real marriage is to be based on a hierarchical pattern of submission” and as suggesting that it is “sinful” for a wife to withhold sex from her husband. (6)


Paul Tripp, executive director of the Centre for Pastoral Life and Care, and former board member at Mars Hill  said of  the culture created at by Mark at Mars Hill “This is without a doubt, the most abusive, coercive ministry culture I’ve ever been involved with.” (7)

Throughout his pastoral career at Mars Hill Church in Seattle Driscoll consistently generated controversy by speaking of women and the feminine with near contempt, referring to the church as “chickified”, saying the church needs dudes, saying dudes are and must be the leaders and denigrating “chicks” as being of no consequence. (8) Mark has ongoingly embraced and taught complementarianism, the doctrine that God gave men and women different roles, with men as the leaders and women as the followers. As such, women were precluded from the ranks of leadership at Mars Hill.


In 2011, Driscoll posted this status update to his facebook page “So, what story do you have about the most effeminate anatomically male worship leader you’ve ever personally witnessed?” (9)


Mark Driscoll has bragged about his bullying and casting aside of anyone who disagreed with him “There is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus, and by God’s grace it will be a mountain by the time we’re done. You either get on the bus or get run over by the bus.” (10)


The worldwide church-planting network (over 500 churches) which Mark Driscoll founded, Acts 29, kicked him AND his church Mars Hill out of their network last year, citing “ungodly and disqualifying behaviour”. They asked Mark to step down from ministry for an extended period of time and seek help. (11)


Mark has been accused by many of the pastors/elders of his own church of
  • Lack of self control
  • Verbally assaulting people
  • Slander
  • Creating a culture of fear
  • Being verbally abusive
  • Being arrogant (12)


The board of Elders who investigated these charges found that Mark Driscoll had a pattern of “persistent sin”, and they intended to rebuke him and ask him to enter a restoration process that would eventually lead to his restoration to leadership. The church’s elders were “deeply grieved” when Driscoll surprised them by resigning, thereby circumventing that process. This was followed very quickly by the dissolution of the megachurch he started. (13, 14)


Hillsong--please: don’t give this misogynistic, abusive, ex pastor a platform. Recently, a mere 4 months after the events culminating in his resignation and the dissolution of Mars Hill, Mark Driscoll has relaunched his ministry, still calling himself a “pastor”, and bragging that he’s speaking at Hillsong conference in Sydney this year. We don’t need or want his abusive version of Christianity in Australia.



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