The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill 5 Years On

Or... The Rise and Fall of Mike Cosper

Update: I have written part two here: Re: The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill 5 Years On

Introduction

I remember the first time I found the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast by Mike Cosper for my afternoon run about five years ago. Like many, I had been very influenced by Mark Driscoll when I was quite a bit younger. I still appreciate his fiery preaching from those days. But, I was always concerned about certain things, and I had stopped paying too much attention as I matured. But like most Evangelicals, it is hard to take my eyes off of a car crash in progress; the podcast, with its high production value and narrative style, gave an “inside look” into the ways that Mars Hill Church grew into a large church and then, precipitously, collapsed in 2014. I eagerly listened to every episode as it came out and told others about it.

Five years later, however, I am not sure the podcast was really all that helpful. In fact, I am fairly confident that the podcast was a net negative in the Evangelical world. There are three very big problems with the podcast.

A Very Biased Take

First, there is a serious methodological flaw. I am a bit surprised now that anything that purports to be journalistic allowed it to be published under its moniker. In the long run, it makes Christianity Today’s brand look unprofessional. Here’s the deal: Mike Cosper was self-admittedly, biased. He had been part of a church that was on a similar trajectory. He had friends who worked at Mars Hill. He worked with Acts 29, Mars Hill’s church planting network. He was in part of the broader orbit of Mars Hill in a variety of ways. He was part of the story. All of that is fine and gives him an insight into the narrative. But it is increasingly apparent the further the podcast goes, he has no emotional distance from his subject matter. It also seems like nearly everybody who was part of the project had axes to grind, and Cosper is happy to give them a mostly uncritical platform to do so. And, I get it. I’ve been in situations where I have been hurt and wounded, and where my experience with something triggers me, and if somebody put a microphone in my face, I would put lots of people on blast.

But I don’t aim to be a journalist.

Journalism should give us the story as it really was. That is simply, by definition, impossible to do when you have no emotional distance from the subject matter. It is obviously a hard balance to strike, particularly with somebody as inflammatory as Mark Driscoll. But, again, nobody made him try out the journalism gig. In fact, it does make one wonder, where in the world were the adults in the room at CT that they would allow such an obviously biased piece of reporting to come from their masthead?

This taints the entire project in my estimation. Every time he interviews a former MH member, I wonder, “Okay, but what was the other side?” or a church leader who interacted with Driscoll, “Okay, but, obviously that isn’t all there is to say,” or an ‘expert,’ “Okay, I’m not confident this person knows anything about anything,”. The biased nature of the reporting casts doubt on the veracity of the entire project. A guy like Driscoll obviously burned a lot of bridges in his time, so I recognize that doing the digging necessary to get all the sides of the story is going to be hard. But, again, nobody made Cosper be a journalist. He chose that.

An example of this is his reporting on Driscoll’s “recantation” of all his previous Reformed theology, books, preaching, and brand because of a few offhand comments on the 5 points of Calvinism. But, Driscoll was never someone who was all that committed to traditional Reformed theology. And, if you go and listen to his sermons on Romans 9–11 from his new church (as I have and Cosper could), he sounds remarkably like he always has. I happen to think he’s a bit inconsistent and flawed on that, but I’ve always thought that. No Driscoll didn’t recant his Calvinism—as he explained later. He just expressed a dissatisfaction for the “5 Points” paradigm. I don’t know any Calvinist who hasn’t, albeit not in the same typically Driscollite fashion. But Cosper jumps on this and makes great hay of it, but why? Because he is primed to see anything Driscoll says or does as wrong.

What was Driscoll’s Problem again?

Thinking back on the story, I am left with my hand scratching my head a bit. It is not quite clear what Driscoll did that was actually wrong from the point of view of Rise and Fall team. I do not think Cosper has a very good grasp on what good leadership is. Here’s what I mean:

Most of the podcast boils down to the fact that Driscoll hurt lots of people’s feelings and said some things that really made people feel bad. The problem is, I don’t know any preacher who hasn’t. In fact, the best preachers say hard, bold things that do really offend people. That’s not because they enjoy hurting people’s feelings or offending people, but because they are bold enough to say a true thing that might be hard to hear. Usually that will do a lot of good. But some people will get offended and upset by it, and they tend to be the loudest. But Cosper, again and again, seems to highlight how much of what Driscoll said hurt someone in a cold, calloused, hurtful way. In fact, much of the podcast seems to be lots of heaped up emotional blackmail: what he said was over the top and people got upset about it and Driscoll should feel bad. Very bad. And it’s bad, very bad, that he doesn’t feel very bad.

But, and here is the confusing part, he consistently characterizes Driscoll as being controlled by what people think about him. He goes to the meeting with the would-be protestors to stop them from protesting against him. He manipulates the Gospel Coalition leadership because he wants a bigger platform. He treats the internet views on his sermons like cocaine. He rehearses his famous “How Dare You” clip to get it just right for all the cameras.

So which is it? Does he not care enough about what people have to say to him, or does he care too much? I don’t think the podcast did a good job explaining that. What is the difference between a leader who says over the top, even outrageous things, to get somebody’s attention and open up a rhetorical door, and the leader who will do a song and dance to get all the social media likes and views and attention? This question is not even remotely close to being addressed in the podcast. But this question is the fault line for the entire podcast. This isn’t incidental; the problem with Driscoll’s leadership is a major part of what the podcast is trying to explain. Either Driscoll is an anxious presence, looking for his next hit of approval, or he is a bold and calloused speaker, saying and doing outrageous things because of what he believes in, the human consequences be damned. Which is it?

The Damage Done

I think the podcast did a lot of damage. It probably has shut the door on any genuine and final reconciliation between Driscoll and the wounded people at MH. They now think he is a monster. And he now thinks they’re out to get him. Maybe they’re both right. But, there is a reason that the Lord gave instructions about dealing with local church conflict in the context of, well, local churches.

One of the unfortunate things about the podcast, which, of course, I am not sure Cosper could have foreseen, is the way this has primed the pump for church conflicts around the country. I have known, personally, that the climate caused by Rise and Fall caused a number of people to reinterpret their church conflict experiences as if their pastor was a real Mark Driscoll. In the new Blessed Are the Cancelled podcast, Josh Butler describes how the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill was part of the context from which the cancel culture mob came for him. Cosper seems to encourage that kind of thinking by noting how the kinds of things he is addressing occur in churches large and small and of every kind.

As a pastor, I can’t help wondering if this story would have been better left untold or, perhaps, been told by someone else.

It’s not that there was nothing good or true in the podcast, or there were no problem at Mars Hill. There was quite a bit of both, in fact. It is just that, with the muddled theory of leadership and biased storytelling, it’s hard to sift through it all to know what is gold and what’s not. In other words, I am not sure we are actually that much closer to knowing what really happened in Seattle.