CW: Language
My Introduction
I reviewed Jennifer McKinney’s excellent book, Making Christianity Manly Again: Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill Church, and American Evangelicalism (Oxford University Press, 2023). , at Seattle Pacific University yesterday.
Each year the School of Theology of Seattle Pacific University celebrates their faculty book celebrations by asking local leaders and pastors to offer a 10-minute review. Jennifer McKinney, one of SPU’s professors of sociology, just published a book on Mark Driscoll and his pastorate in Seattle.
I was honored to do so. Several folks asked me if they had recorded the talk. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so I will do a short series here from my review.
It is a privilege that SPU asked me to read and review this book. I was pastoring in Shoreline during the rise and fall of Mars Hill Church. I had a few encounters with Mark, one just after he wrote his 2006 blog response to the Ted Haggard scandal blaming “wives who let themselves go”- a group of us met with him to discuss how his vitriolic, misogynist language towards women was an offense to the gospel in our city.
Jennifer’s work places the hypermasculine doctrine of Mars Hill Church in a historical context, analyzing the rhetoric Mark Driscoll used to prescribe gender characteristics, roles, and relationships at Mars Hill Church and how Mars Hill members responded to and interpreted Mark Driscoll’s complementarian theology.
Driscoll’s series on Esther, Ruth, and Song of Solomon was poor exegesis. These sermon series were filled with misogyny and vitriol.
Jennifer gives an example: On Old Testament Queen Esther: “Her behavior is sinful, and she spends around a year in the spa getting dolled up to lose her virginity with the pagan king like hundreds of other women.” (pg 8)
An estimated 250,000 people worldwide listened to Driscoll’s weekly sermons, with 15 million accessed each year. Driscoll and his hyper-masculine theology had a significant influence on so many pastors!
Driscoll and Mars Hill Church were at the center of the Young Restless and Reformed Movement or the New Calvinist movement. New Calvinism sought to revitalize evangelicalism by embracing classic Calvinist doctrines but with an injection of masculinity. (9)
As I read this, I remembered something about the New Calvinist Movement. In the summer of 2010, I spent a day with Eugene and Jan Peterson at their home on Flathead Lake in Montana. One of the men I was with that day asked Eugene, “What do you make of the New Calvinists, the Young Restless and Reformed guys?” His answer without skipping a beat: “They are a virus in the body of Christ that needs to be excised.” I was shocked at how quickly those words came out of his mouth. He was serious; he told us the numerous reasons he was concerned.
Jennifer places the topic of gender dynamics as the focal point of the Mars Hill encounter. Rather than a mere side-effect, misogyny was a defining characteristic. Jennifer, a gender sociologist, is well-suited to examine the events at Mars Hill in greater depth.
She engages in extensive inquiry utilizing content analysis. This methodology carefully examines Driscoll’s many sermon series and written work, interviews, and online sources from Mars Hill’s present and past members.
Driscoll built the brand around the strong man imagery he felt was missing in Seattle. He critiqued modern men as “Cabriolet-driving, sweater-vest-wearing, Spice girls-singing wusses.” But, according to Driscoll, the Bible required tough guys who liked UFC and were willing to take strong stands for the faith. This strong man imagery would be the counter-cultural image that would change Seattle for Jesus.
Jennifer’s in-depth interviews with Mars Hill families are grievous. Many were attracted by Driscoll’s “solving the men crisis” approach. But, as the Christianity Today podcast series illustrated, young people were drawn to the church by Driscoll’s outrageous style and approach to a black-and-white scripture (according to Mark). They tried to adjust to his idealized models of masculinity and family. But it never seemed to work.
The Book’s Introduction, Chapters, and Conclusion
Introduction: Pussified Nation (The name of the blog Mark wrote under the Pseudonym William Wallace II)
Jennifer begins the Introduction with the question of how could 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Postelection commentators asked, “How could ‘family values’ conservatives vote for a man flouting every value they espoused?” Or, more colorfully, “How could so many conservative evangelicals have voted for a thrice-married casino mogul who has bragged about assaulting women and rarely goes to church?” These questions were valid because evangelical support for political candidates had traditionally hinged on a candidate’s moral behavior. (pg 1)
The Introduction of this book contains a lot of data, quotes, and a significant amount of Mark Driscoll’s backstory. I will finish this post with this from the book:
Evangelicals were primed to vote for a candidate like Trump by hypermasculine pastors like Mark Driscoll of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church. As conservative megachurch pastor John McArthur stated, “The evangelical interest in Donald Trump–in his crassness, rudeness, brashness and profanity” was prepared by Mark Driscoll. (4)
Next Post: Chapter 1 Evangelicalism and Gender: The Road to Mars Hill. I think this might be the most important chapter of the book. We have to understand history to learn and grow from it.
