People against Fundamentalism (PAF) was originally created by Jim Henderson and Paul Chapman in 2006 to protest Mark Driscoll's bad behaviour and misogyny. We organised a protest back then and were victorious in meeting our 3 goals (although we later realised his apology didn’t lead to any real change in his behaviour or speech):
- To alert the city of Seattle to Mark’s pejorative language.
- To see Mark removed as a religion columnist for The Seattle Times.
- To see a sincere apology from Mark for his comments and a pledge to cease demeaning women in the future.
PAF was resurrected by Benjamin Ady in 2015 to once again protest Mark Driscoll’s bad behaviour and misogyny. This time around, our goal was to see to it that Mark did get to be on stage at the two gigantic Christian conferences put on by Hillsong Church in Sydney in June 2015 and in London in July 2015.
Once again, thanks to an amazing groundswell of support from people in the US, UK, and Australia, PAF were successful in meeting our goal and Hillsong officially uninvited Mark Driscoll from appearing at their conferences. Our profound gratitude to everyone involved, and to Hillsong leadership for making this wise and gracious choice to stand up for Mark’s many victims.
For now, we’re putting PAF back into dormant mode. Our hope remains that Mark will be able to realise the terrible harm he has done so many, and to begin reaching out to his many victims to make amends.
If you want to read further about the background story with regards Mark Driscoll, and for an in depth examination of how to reduce and prevent bullying in the church, please see Jim Henderson and Doug Murren’s brilliant book “Question Mark”, which you can buy at Amazon.
For now, we’re putting PAF back into dormant mode. Our hope remains that Mark will be able to realise the terrible harm he has done so many, and to begin reaching out to his many victims to make amends.
If you want to read further about the background story with regards Mark Driscoll, and for an in depth examination of how to reduce and prevent bullying in the church, please see Jim Henderson and Doug Murren’s brilliant book “Question Mark”, which you can buy at Amazon.
