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Mars Hill

Theology

Mark Driscoll’s resignation letter

You might have heard the news that broke just a little while ago– Mark Driscoll has officially resigned from being a pastor and elder of Mars Hill. This is exceedingly good news, and while I was not exactly joyful to hear it, I am hopeful that those who have been abused by Mark and the Mars Hill leadership can gain some hope and comfort from this. Mark Driscoll wasn’t the only problem at Mars Hill– no one becomes a spiritual abuser of thousands all by themselves– but he was the most visible example of misogynistic, abusive Christianity and I’m glad he’s gone.

For the moment.

Because he’ll be back.

However, that’s not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about a few things happening in Mark’s resignation letter that hopefully won’t be ignored in the flood of “see, everyone, now we need to forgive him and NEVER SPEAK OF THIS EVER AGAIN” posts that are probably coming. You can read the entire letter here, if you’d like, but there’s a few things about this letter that I think it’s important to highlight.

This appears in the third paragraph:

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.

The “You” there is “Board of Advisers and Accountability.” When I got to this section, at first I was a little puzzled why this was coming up in the middle of what was supposed to be a resignation letter, and then I remembered that this is not so much a resignation letter as much as it is a PR move on Mark’s part. It’s his attempt to continue controlling the narrative and what gets talked about as he leaves, and “these people who have forced me into this are cowards whose stories aren’t credible” is supposed to be one of the things he wants us all to bicker about.

Except most of the people who have “made charges against him” have done so publicly, with their names attached, and they have put an overwhelming amount of proof out there for anyone to review, including memos and e-mails. That whoever Mark is talking about didn’t feel particularly inclined to talk to a “Board of Advisers” isn’t at all surprising, especially when people like Paul Tripp resigned from it because it was incapable of actually addressing the issues at hand. Why would anyone abused by not just Mark Driscoll but an entire system set up to keep him in power ever want to talk to these people?

This is not a failure on the part of those who “declined to meet.” They’ve done more than their fair share of suffering in order to expose Driscoll and Mars Hill leadership, and “declining to meet” was probably the only option they had to protect their mental and spiritual well-being.

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.

This line made me laugh– a bitter and cynical and rueful laugh, because oh it’s just so … sad. What this line actually means is: well, nothing I did was actually ILLEGAL. If the best thing you have to say about your behavior is “well, I wouldn’t go to prison for it,” you have a problem.

But let’s talk about how he says he didn’t commit “heresy.” The fact that he doesn’t think his abusive behavior– and his plagiarism– is immoral is a problem all on its own, but that the Board decided he’d never taught anything heretical is revealing. Granted, I’m not one to bandy around the word “heresy”– but Mark’s tribe is. I mean, they pull out the “heretic!” when someone uses a feminine pronoun to describe God in a poem.

But Mark gets to call women “penis homes” and preach entire sermon series on how women should basically be nothing more than sex slaves to their husbands and … crickets.

And, to be blunt, that Mark’s and the Board’s standard is “don’t be convicted of anything illegal and don’t do anything heretical or immoral” is more than just a touch horrifying. It’s also troubling, because the “standard” that these people claim to adhere to doesn’t have “don’t do something illegal” as its baseline. The Acts 29 Network even has a whole article dedicated to the “Biblical Qualifications of a Pastor” (posted March 2010, when Mark was still in charge) and these items jumped out at me:

4. A Pastor must be humble – not arrogant (Titus 1:7)
5. A Pastor must be gentle – not quick-tempered (Titus 1:7; 1 Tim 3:3)
7. A Pastor must be peaceful – not violent (Titus 1:7; 1 Tim 3:3)
16. A Pastor must be respectable (1 Tim 3:7)
17. A Pastor must be an example to the flock (1 Peter 5:3)

The Board of Advisers and Mark himself admitted to all the different ways Mark has not been any of these things– and some of these he even admitted to in the letter. He says that ” I have confessed to past pride, anger and a domineering spirit.” The Board of Advisers said this:

We concluded that Pastor Mark has, at times, been guilty of arrogance, responding to conflict with a quick temper and harsh speech, and leading the staff and elders in a domineering manner.

Mark is quite clearly saying my own articulation of the rules do not apply to me.

One of the last things he says in this letter, though, made me angry:

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.

I am not in Seattle, and I do not personally know the Driscolls. It is entirely possible that his family has received threats, even threats of physical violence. That would not surprise me at all, considering the things that Mark has done in an incredibly public way. Threats against his family are completely inexcusable and I will not justify them if they happened.

However, there is absolutely nothing in this letter that says “I am resigning as pastor because I have sinned against the people I was supposed to shepherd.” He never says that. He says a bunch of stuff about how the Board didn’t say he was disqualified to lead, and how the people accusing him are a bunch of untrusthworthy cowards, and how he’s leaving because it’s just not the best thing for him. This letter is dedicated to creating this image of a man who was persecuted out of being a pastor, and it makes me sick because that’s not what happened.

Mark is a misogynistic abuser who has spent well over a decade creating a church and staff that would enable his behavior, and this letter is nothing more than a continuation of that. It is insurance so that one day he can start another ministry and do it all over again.

Photo by Barret Anspach

October 15, 2014 by SamanthaField

Feminism

"Real Marriage" review: 65-85, "The Respectful Wife"

With a chapter title like that, you just know how much I loved it. I probably should have expected this chapter to be more infuriating than the one devoted to men, but I didn’t. My marginalia has a lot more “WTF” and “BS” (which stands for both bullshit and benevolent sexism; nice how that one worked out) than the last chapter did– and I wish I could talk about a lot more than I have the space for.

But, today, we’re going to start of with Significant Problem #1:

Mark and Grace twist Scripture to the point of deceit. Or they proof text in order to mislead. Or they use footnotes as if the verses they’re referencing have anything at all to do with their argument. In short: Mark and Grace use the Bible to lie, and it pisses me off. What they’re doing isn’t at all unusual in complementarian circles, because the “biblical” argument for complementarianism is incredibly weak so they are forced to rely on manipulative tactics like these. Unfortunately, these deceptions work on far too many people.

The first time I threw the book today was when I got to page 71, and Grace quotes 1 Cor. 11:7-9 in order to support her argument that women need to be “companions” and “helpers” in the complementarian sense. I have actually written about this exact problem, in a post I’m particularly proud of.

Grace quotes this:

“Man is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man.”

And then she stops. Because, if she kept going, she’d eventually run into this:

Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman, For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman.

Grace purposely omits this part of the passage, even though from a grammatical stand point the passage climaxes here. Stopping where she stops would be a bit like me stopping a sentence right before a but. After what she quotes is nevertheless. Nevertheless, (πλήν) as in, “in spite of what has just been said” or “but rather, except.” Quoting a passage in order to prove your point when the author himself says “but” right after the section you’re quoting is … well, I threw the book across the room. Now I just want to type out curse words. It’s wrong and misleading and dishonest and she’s doing this to the Bible, a book they both claim to live their lives by. This isn’t the only instance (she does something similar at least four times), but I have to keep going.

On to Significant Problem #2!

Grace and Mark put all of the responsibility for a healthy marriage and productive life onto wives. In the chapter Mark addressed to men, all he basically said was “don’t be a monster”; he never once uses the word “abuse” even though he describes emotional, verbal, and physical abuse. He didn’t even really take it beyond that into “here’s how to be a decent human being”– he just talks a lot about all the ways men can abuse their wives and then says “don’t be that guy.”

In this chapter, though, Grace has got a lot to say about all the things that a woman has to do.

She prays for her husband about every single thing he has to do all day long.
She touches him affectionately, romantically, and sexually.
She texts him through the day.
She makes sure the prepare healthful meals.
She takes up his interests.
She reads the Bible (71-75).

And while when she’s talking about learning to communicate she indicates this is something husbands and wives have to learn how to do together, “dudes, talk to your wife about what you think a problem is” is something Mark never tells husbands to do. Communication is a two-way street, but they’ve missed that.

And, lastly, Significant Problem #3:

Grace uses the “except if you’re being abused” line.

I wish I could tell you how much I hate that line. I hate it. I hate it more than any other single phrase I’ve ever heard come out of a spiritual leader’s mouth. I have gotten up and left church services because of it, and at this point if I hear it uttered in a sermon and I talk to the pastor afterward and their reaction is nonchalance, I’m never going back to that church. I am done with this phrase.

It is worse than useless. It is dangerous.

It is especially dangerous because of the context of this book. Chapter three spent a lot of time describing abusive behaviors– and not just verbal and emotional abuse, but physical coercion and violence as well. But, Mark never once says “this is what abuse looks like.” He spends the entire chapter minimizing it– personally, I think he has a vested interest in minimizing abuse, because he’s an abuser. There’s no way in hell Grace isn’t going through at home what Mark has been putting his church and staff through for years.

He gets away with it, though, because hardly anyone in our culture understands what abuse actually is. We have the vague thought that it’s black eyes, broken arms, women who “fall down stairs.” But the reality is that my abuser called me Goddamn fucking bitch every single day for almost three years and I never thought it was abuse because he wasn’t hitting me. He would pinch me and twist my fingers like he was playing “Uncle,” and I never thought it was abuse because there were never any bruises.

It is extraordinarily rare for a person in an abusive relationship to understand that’s what is happening. When someone says “oh, if you’re in an abusive relationship, none of this applies to you,” there is basically not a single fucking person who’s going to hear that and think “oh, that means me.”

If you’re about to say something that you think needs to have that disclaimer slapped onto it, then you need to think about it really, really hard. If you know that something you believe could be twisted by an abuser or a victim in order to trap them, then that belief must be re-evaluated, period. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit.

But, Real Marriage makes it so much more worse than that. She tells women that they are commanded to submit to their husbands, even if he makes an irresponsible decision that could be detrimental to both of them (80). She compares a woman submitting to her husband to a child obeying their parents (82). She says that “if your husband isn’t working on his part of loving, you are still called to work on your part of submitting” (84).

But, worst of all, she says this:

If your husband is verbally or physically abusing you, he is not loving or respecting you. If this is an ongoing issue, it should be addressed and stopped immediately by a pastor or trustworthy leader who will listen to you both.

…

There is so much wrong with this. First of all, if you realize that you are in an abusive situation, leaving should be your end goal. Not reconciliation. Not redemption. Not forgiveness. Getting yourself (and children if you have them) safe is your first and only priority, however you need to go about doing that.

Second, Grace’s idea that someone in an abusive marriage should go to a leader “who will listen to you both” is beyond wrong. It is worse than wrong. That “advice” can, has, and will kill people. Anyone who is willing to listen to both a victim and their abuser is an unwise person who should not be sought out or listened to. If they are willing to “listen” to the abuser, if they want to “hear both sides,” they will be used by the abuser to further ensnare their victim. A wise and properly trained counselor who hears “my husband hits me” will not be interested in hearing from the person willing to hit their spouse.

That Grace (and, presumably Mark), think this is a good idea is horrifying.

October 6, 2014 by SamanthaField

Feminism

"Real Marriage" review: 42-64, "Men and Marriage"

This was the first chapter that the book went flying. Honestly, I’m surprised I got to chapter three before that happened. This chapter was just … frustrating as hell to read. There’s so many problems with this chapter, and I’m going to spend my time today focusing on one of them, but it is important to at least point out a few other glaring problems.

First, he depends on a single researcher to make his arguments. 22 of his 29 citations come from W. Bradford Wilcox. I looked Wilcox up and you can tell from his list of publications that he has an obvious agenda, and he thinks “soft patriarchy” is a fine idea– he also does a lot of mixing up of correlation and causation in his conclusions. Wilcox is the head of the National Marriage Project, an organization that has a history of misrepresenting data in order to make their point. That Mark Driscoll only cites one person who agrees with him so exactly on everything is … awfully convenient. At best, it’s ridiculously shoddy research (and parroting Wilcox is basically all that happens from pages 57 to 63).

The second glaring problem with this chapter is the basis for a lot of his assumptions is his own personal experience. On some level we all do this, mostly unconsciously. What else are we supposed to form some of our assumptions on, if not our lives? However, when you’re a rich white American evangelical, your personal lived experience is going to be one of enormous privilege, and assuming that your mind-boggling advantages and opportunities is normal for everyone else will inevitably be a problem. Things that work for a neurotypical cishet able-bodied white Christian man who’s paid heaping amounts of money to yell curse words and insult people every week will not work for everyone, but he consistently does that through this entire chapter, mostly by demonizing men who don’t act exactly like an idealized version of himself (best examples of this are on pages 45-48).

However, the biggest problem is Mark’s main argument that complementarianism is the only possible theological conclusion and the only possible solution to abusive marriages.

The most rage-inducing thing about this chapter is how many times Mark describes abusive marriages, but not even once uses the word “abusive” to describe it:

Do you ever hit her? Do you ever shove her? Do you ever push her? Do you ever grab her, restrain her? Do you ever raise a hand and threaten her? Do you ever threaten her with physical violence? Do you give her that look, that pierced, glazed, angry, don’t-push-it-now’s-a-good-time-to-shut-up look? Do you tell her, “I’m getting very angry; you should just shut up right now or it’s gonna go bad for you? Do you get right in her face? Do you intimadate her with your presence? Do you play the role of the bully to push your wife around? (49)

What he’s just described is physically abusive. But, to Mark, this is simply “bullying.”

How do you speak toy our wife? Do you have nasty nicknames for her? Do you raise your voice? Do you threaten her? Do you give backhanded compliments? … If you start saying critical, cutting, demeaning, cruel, or disrespectful things about your wife, your children will be left in the awful position of choosing between their mother and father. Invariably some of your children will despise their own mother and speak evil of her in an effort to remain loyal to their father. (51)

First: that is verbal abuse. Second: Invariably? What the hell? But, worse than describing abusive acts and then minimizing them, he goes on to do this:

You honor your wife physically by being safe for her, protective of her, and tender with her. In this way she will see your strength as a blessing instead of danger … which means he needs to honor and protect [her weakness] rather than exploit it.

That is benevolent sexism (that link is truly excellent reading, I highly recommend it). There’s a few different forms of sexism: hostile, casual, and benevolent. Hostile sexism is what a lot of the “not all men” types are thinking about when they’re disagreeing with feminists, and, honestly, it used to be commonplace, but other forms of sexism are taking its place. Hostile sexism is what you get when you read Elliot Rodger’s manifesto. Casual sexism is “everyday sexism.” It’s cat calling and jokes about kitchens and sandwiches.

Benevolent sexism, though, is the belief that women are weak, innocent, home-guarding angels that need to be put on a pedestal and protected. It seems innocuous enough on its face; it’s chivalry and nobility and treating women right. Benevolent sexists spend a lot of time talking about how much they respect women, and how much they value women, and how men should honor women by opening up their pickle jars and putting their coats in puddles and treating them like “crystal goblets” (49).

However, the basic assumption of benevolent sexism is that women need to be protected by the men who own them. Daughters are protected by fathers, wives are protected by husbands, and they “protect” women from the big ugly nasty world that just wants one thing from us. In Mark’s words: “We are to be tough in carving out safety and protection for women and children in a world that abuses them” (44).

Missing from this framework is the understanding that women deserve respect because we are people. For example, Mark talks about how Grace was “overwhelmed with the demands of young children,” but instead of saying that “so I decided to shoulder my fair share of the responsibility, after all they’re my children, too, and I’m their parent,” he says that he started “helping out” as an act of service. Grace, in Mark’s head, is the woman-thing that he needs to protect and serve, not the person who is an equal partner in their marriage and who deserves to be treated with respect.

Benevolent sexism might initially seem like it’s not harmful, but it is. Nothing that assumes that women are intrinsically weak and vulnerable can be good. Historically speaking, the view that women are “weak and vulnerable” has been the main argument behind some of the most flagrantly misogynistic church teachings.

Benevolent sexism is just hostile sexism masquerading as a nice guy.

September 29, 2014 by SamanthaField

Feminism

"Real Marriage" review: 19-41, "Friends with Benefits"

When I was in graduate school, one of the books I had to read was The Power of Words and the Wonder of God, and one of the chapters was written by Mark Driscoll– unsurprisingly, it was on swearing. I didn’t know anything about Mark Driscoll at the time, but I figured out quick that he was a pretty big fan of Martin Luther. As I’ve come to know more about Mark, that he sees himself as a “Martin Luther 2.0” should surprise absolutely no one, and that comes across pretty clearly in this chapter. The first five pages are dedicated to Martin Luther’s marriage to Katherine von Bora, and Mark cannot even begin to contain his enthusiasm:

Their marriage was a public scandal and arguably the most significant marriage outside the Bible in the history of the world.

Just … sigh.

In the rest of the chapter, Mark is going to spend a lot of time trying to convince us that he isn’t a raving misogynistic chauvinistic pig and that complementarian headship in marriage isn’t demeaning to women in any way whatsoever. However, the way that Mark writes about Katherine upends that completely:

What is perhaps most curious is that their marriage did not start with love or attraction, as Katherine was not physically attractive . . . Martin even confesses to his friends afterward … that the proud and haughty Katie alienated him . . . Even Martin’s friends were not fond of Katherine. He reported that many cried with grief upon hearing of his hasty marriage. (21)

Katherine was not physically attractive? Aish. It’s not exactly as though Martin was some sort of Adonis, but Mark says absolutely nothing about his looks. And, when talking about their “awkward” early days, due– according to Mark– to their “monasticism,” he only gives an example of Katherine being awkward, not Martin.

As the story goes on, Mark describes the blossoming friendship and romance between Katherine and Martin Luther, but it’s clear from the previous five pages that Mark thinks the love that Martin felt for “Katie” was not only in spite of himself (“Good God, they will never thrust a wife on me!”), but in spite of Katie, as well; after all, Martin married an ugly harpy– a harpy who worked very, very hard and sat with him while he wrote his letters and was just there for him as he did all of his amazing man-stuff while Katherine … kept a garden.

~~~~~~~~~

The rest of the chapter is Mark and Grace arguing about how important it is for married people to be friends. Which, ok, there’s nothing wrong with that argument on its face. I think friendship can go a long way in a marriage, and I have a hard time envisioning a successful marriage without friendship– all of the happily married people I know are friends. So, while I don’t necessarily have a problem with the message of the chapter as a whole, I do have a problem with how a lot of the specifics get presented, because things like this happen a lot:

I wanted the friendship but without the conflict. I didn’t understand that true friendship involves healthy conflict and hard discussions as God reveals sin and repentance, and reconciliation takes place. (25)

There’s an important word missing there: can. Friendships can involve conflict. However, the way that Grace has phrased this– and from things they both say later on– it is assumed that all friendships must involve conflict, or they are not actually friendships:

We may say we are someone’s friend, but unless we are quick to pursue them in the sin they have fallen into, we are not really much of a friend. (40)

I disagree with that. This is coming from someone who hasn’t even been married two years yet, so feel free to tip in your two cents, couples-with-more-experience, but drawing on both my experience as a partner and as a friend, I don’t think this is true. All of my friendships have involved some sort of conflict, true, but those have been the moments when our friendships have been the weakest and the most unloving. In my marriage, my goal isn’t to “pursue him into the sin he has fallen into,” but to love and accept and encourage.

I’ve had the sort of friendships that Mark and Grace are advocating for here, and one thing I’ve learned after a short lifetime of “friends” who want nothing more than to “sanctify” and “edify” me is that it sucks. Hardcore. I can’t imagine if Handsome treated me the way that Mark thinks partners should treat each other; I would be miserable and unhappy. The fact that my partner encourages me, and loves me, and accepts me for who I am right now while also dreaming with me about everything we can be together is wonderful. We both want to become better people– more loving, more generous, more kind . . . but we are not going to do that by harping on each other every time we think the other has “fallen into sin.”

Also, Mark doesn’t actually believe this, since he fired, excommunicated, and publicly shamed pretty much anyone who dared to disagree with him, particularly regarding accountability.

Interestingly enough, this first assumption– that true friendships are about “edification”– leads to another problem I have with this chapter: Christian elitism.

Only when marriage and family exist for God’s glory– and not to serve as replacement idols– are we able to to truly love and be loved. (28)

It is through the presence of God the Holy Spirit in our lives that we are able to love our spouses. (30)

We are convinced that the couples who pray … together stay together. (36)

The more his need for her and her need to help him are celebrated as gracious gifts from God, the faster oneness and friendship blossom in the marriage. (38)

That last one is also just icky– because they say that a wife needs to “celebrate being helpful as a gracious gift from God.” Whee. Complementarianism isn’t demeaning or chauvinistic at all. Not even a little bit. But the biggest problem I have (for the moment) with these statements is that they frame non-Christian marriages as less than. They probably wouldn’t go so far as to say that non-Christian marriages are doomed to unhappiness and divorce, but by making the claim that we need to place “glorifying God” as the center purpose of our marriage in order to truly love, what they are saying is that people who don’t think of “glorifying God” as a goal cannot truly love. They can love, sure, but not truly love. Any happiness a non-Christian experiences in their marriage is because of luck, probably. Because they couldn’t possibly be building a healthy marriage filled with trust and love and respect and kindness and acceptance– not without God, at least. Not really.

Christian elitism comes out in a lot of ways in Christian culture, and they’re usually wrapped up in sentiments like this one– and it frustrates me no end because of how baldly false it is. I’m friends with a lot of atheists and agnostics, and my friendships with them have been richer and more meaningful and more challenging than most of the friendships I’ve ever had with Christians– and the relationships that I have now with Christians don’t have anything “more” than my relationships with atheists. In fact, most of the friendships I’ve had with Christians have been profoundly negative and have ended horrifically because they felt more entitled to judge and condemn me than to love me.

In short: being friends with your spouse = good. Doing it the way that Grace and Mark think is good (such as, for Grace, “forcing herself to trust him,” 25) = bad.

September 22, 2014 by SamanthaField

Feminism

"Real Marriage" review: 3-18, "New Marriage, Same Spouse"

[content note: sexual violence, emotional abuse]

I’m doing something different with Real Marriage than how I reviewed Fascinating Womanhood and Captivating; with the last two books, I’ve read the entire thing before I started and then did one chapter at a time, trying to keep the message of the whole book in mind. After reading the first few chapters of this book, I realized I couldn’t handle that– not spiritually, not emotionally, not psychologically. So, for this review, what you’ll be reading from me will lean in the direction of gut reaction and instinct, since I don’t know where Mark and Grace are taking this.

The first chapter is Mark and Grace telling their story, starting from before they met each other, through dating, engagement, and what seems to be the bulk of their marriage. This chapter is mostly written from Mark’s perspective, as he wrote 46 paragraphs and Grace wrote 11. What I found the most disturbing, however, is what Grace says about her side of the story. It is … well, it reminded me of this:

Most of Mark’s paragraphs are him patting himself on the back for living such a good, moral life even though he was surrounded by “brazen prostitutes” and “manipulative women”– he even left his own fraternity, guys, because of the drinking! Wow, isn’t he just great? But Grace’s sections are full of self-flagellation; her teenage and young adult years are summed up by her as “living a lie,” and the few things she says about her marriage are full of “oh, how much I sinned against my husband! I did not feel that I was worthy of his love!”

And this is where I get incredibly fuzzy on the details, as both Mark and Grace are deliberately vague: apparently during the early days of their dating relationship, Grace “sexually sinned” with another man. There is no distinct timeline given, and I’m left wondering things like if they’d both verbally committed to a monogamous relationship at the time, or if their perspective on dating relationships now is coloring their dating relationship then, and what the “sexual sin” was; but what has me the most concerned is that they mention several times that Grace was sexually assaulted, and her assault caused some significant trauma for her. I can’t tell whether or not this “sexual sin” was actually being assaulted, especially because of things like this:

I felt God had conned me by telling me to marry Grace, and allowed Grace to rule over me since she was controlling our sex life. (10)

When I discovered her sin against me and that she had punished me with resulting years of sexual and emotional denial . . . (13)

Then, after more than a decade of marriage, a root issue was finally revealed. Grace’s problem was that she was an assault victim who had never told me or anyone else of the physical, spiritual, emotional, and sexual abuse she had suffered … In forgiving and walking with Grace . . . (16)

And if you have unconfessed sin and/or a past of sexual sin, including pornography, fornication, sexual abuse, bitterness, and the like, we pray this book leads to the healing of your soul and your marriage. (18)

There’s a pattern through this entire chapter, and it is victim blaming. Both acknowledge that Grace was sexually abused, and that this abuse affected their sex life. She experienced pain and discomfort during intercourse, and Mark describes her as “checked out”– this is known as disassociation, and is common with sexual violence survivors.

However, all of that is framed as Grace’s fault. She “punished” him because she was traumatized– her needs as a sexual violence survivor was her “ruling over him.” He had to “forgive her.” In the last paragraph of the chapter, being sexually abused is listed as a form of “unconfessed sexual sin.” So, even if the “sexual sin” that they’re talking about back when they were dating was consensual, it’s clear that even if she’d been assaulted, Mark’s reaction would have been exactly the same: it’s a sin, her trauma and pain was her “punishing him,” and he needed to forgive her for her “sexual past” of being sexually abused.

What is just as horrifying to me is how Mark and Grace describe at least the first decade of their marriage: Mark says his actions were “overbearing and boorish, so angry and harsh, that I had not been the kind of husband who she could trust and confide in with the most painful and shameful parts of her past.” He said he used his words to “tear her down,” that he “condemned” her, and he links this with Grace “shutting down.” Grace describes it– in the scant few paragraphs where she’s allowed a voice– as him being “angry” and “harsh.” She describes her own reaction as “distant” and that she reacted to his diatribes and “harsh words” with silence.

I do not know Mark and Grace personally. I have never met them, and I did not observe them during this time. However, what they’ve spent fifteen pages describing sounds an awful lot like Mark being an emotional and verbal abuser. Apparently finding out that Grace had been sexually abused caused Mark to do some heavy re-thinking, but that just breaks my heart even more.

My partner and I had been dating for a couple months when we initiated any sort of physical romance, and it took me a long time to finally open up to him about what I’d been through. Before that, all he knew was that my last boyfriend had been a “jerk.” He didn’t push me, he didn’t question me. He waited for me to talk about it when I was ready, and was willing for that to be never. However, he didn’t need to know that I’d been raped in order for him to pay attention to my boundaries and to not just respect but love my physical needs.

He was so incredibly careful and gentle about making sure I was ok with anything we were doing. When I mentioned one day how much I loved his way with me– that he was respectful and loving– he looked at me like he didn’t know what I was talking about. For him, it was of course he would respect what I wanted, what I needed. Of course he wouldn’t cross my boundaries. Of course he thought of my enjoyment, my fun, my laughter and pleasure as paramount. This is normal, he told me, and it took me a very long time before I believed him.

American culture accepts violence against women as normal. Of course a penis will tear a vagina the first time they have penetrative sex. Of course men are sex-fueled robots. Of course women should expect reactions and behavior like Mark Driscoll’s. He had every right to feel bitter and tormented and angry because he’d had the bad luck to marry a traumatized sexual violence survivor who displays some symptoms of PTSD and couldn’t be his own personal porn star in bed.

That Mark Driscoll needed to know that his wife is a survivor in order to respect her needs during sex tells me everything I need to know about him.

Update 9/16/14 12:57a: for readers who have engaged in the comment section, please read my new comment here. My deepest apologies for letting that go on so long. I should never have let it begin.

September 15, 2014 by SamanthaField

Feminism

the church won't rein in misogyny, but bloggers will

I’m guest posting at Convergent Books today about the Acts 29 Network’s decision to remove Mars Hill from its membership.

My friend, like the evangelical community at large, was captured by Driscoll’s apparently genuine and forthright style. The outspoken pastor rocketed to an extremely influential position among evangelicals, at least partly because he comes across as ballsy. It is said that he is willing to say out loud what the rest of us are thinking.

And that is exactly the problem.

Recently, the board of the Acts 29 Network—an organization founded by Driscoll—removed Driscoll and Mars Hill Church from the group’s membership. Acts 29 said Driscoll had become a “distraction.” A message from the board members, made public by Acts 29, went even further in asking Driscoll to “please step down from ministry for an extended time and seek help.” Such an action, when taken by an established evangelical church-planting network, attracts attention.

Further, LifeWay Christian Resources has—at least temporarily—removed Driscoll’s books from its stores’ shelves in order to “assess the situation regarding his ministry.” But, like others, I am left to wonder about the timing of this move. Was it merely the only PR move left to a major Christian retailer that had been selling Driscoll’s books for years—apparently without reservation?

You can read the rest here.

August 14, 2014 by SamanthaField