I found this very unsettling. This is the latest video of Mark Driscoll that is making the rounds. I believe that the first poster was the Pyromaniacs blog.
I don’t often do this, but I think it’s called for: Trigger warning for stories of abuse and rape, particularly in the clip. If this is likely to be a problem for you, then please enjoy this baby oncilla instead.
This is a clip of a seminar that Driscoll gave to the staff at Mars Hill on the subject of “spiritual warfare.” (Pyronamiacs points out that this is evidence that Pentecostal influence is not confined to the fringe.) My guess is that Driscoll didn’t plan on having this broadcast on the internet.
Driscoll explains that he has visions. Sometimes these vision are of horrible things that have happened to people in the past and that they no longer remember, including abuse and rape.
Pyromaniacs has the transcript.
There are a couple of ways to go about this. Scott Bailey and Robert Cargill focus on the visions. Matthew Paul Turner tentatively accepts the visions, but questions the stories, “When does a longtime abuser just casually confess, “Oh yeah, I did all of those things. But you were only two.” It’s unlikely that, if this happened, that it happened like that.”
My own reaction is different. I agree that it’s likely that Driscoll is just making this up whole cloth. But if there’s a germ of truth here that Driscoll is exaggerating, things actually get much worse.
Let’s consider what is happening here: Driscoll, a trusted and authoritative preacher, is telling people that God has shown him that they were abused. If we’ve learned anything about the mind in the past few decades, it’s that memory is far more slippery than we’d like to believe. Could Driscoll be creating the memory he believes that he’s revealed?
You can listen to Elizabeth Loftus being interviewed on SGU on the topic of false memories. She focuses on therapists who – intentionally or unintentionally – implant false memories of abuse in their patients. It seems possible to me that Driscoll’s talks with the victims he has visions about could result in the same thing.
I’m open to being corrected by someone who knows more about the science of memory than I do. But to me, this goes beyond absurd. This is actually dangerous and very, very damaging.
Baby oncilla should be required viewing for all anger-inducing things.
Mark Driscoll needs to be shot in the face at the earliest available opportunity.
Hyperbole noted, but really? I’m sick of PC but when people agitate with such rhetoric what good can come of it? I don’t think it’s appropriate when speaking of Driscoll as I don’t think it would be appropriate of Dawkins, who I’ve seen threatened passively.
For those that disagree: see Gabby Giffords
Yes, maybe a bit drastic.
But seriously folks, here’s our dilemma here in Portland, OR: Mark Driscoll is setting up a sister Mars Hill church right here in the heart of Portland’s most gay-friendly neighborhood. My guess is that no more than 1 or 2% of the population of inner SE Portland would be of the religious nature inclined to attend his church. The only way he’ll fill more than two pews is to bus christians in from the rural outskirts of Portland.
Suggestions for impish ways to mess with these people when they arrive?
Glitter bombs every Sunday!
*like*
Might be they’ll just preach the Gospel, call people to repentance, and fill the pews with sinners turning their lives over to Christ. You know….”seek and save the lost”, that old chestnut? Not ringing any bells?
woah, mindblowing idea sam!
I’m old enough to remember the suggested memory witch hunt, with unsubstantiated tales of abuse and satanic rituals on young children. It is dangerous ground. If Driscoll’s going to be in a counseling position, he should know better. Are pastors not required to take psychology courses? This sorta stuff weighs as heavy on psychology’s history as lobotomies and insulin-induced seizures. It’s evil and we don’t do it anymore and we abhor anyone who suggests we
start up again.
Is he entirely making it up, or does he have a good imagination, is attuned to social cues, and occasionally gets something right? Liar and charlatan are my gut feelings on this one.
“Are pastors not required to take psychology courses?”
Frighteningly enough, no. I went to a church where something like this wouldn’t be out of place if said by ‘the right person’. They don’t even see the need for basics like Psych 101, because to them they have God’s word/vision/anointment and being true to biblical or theological practice is what’s important, whether that aligns with medicine/science is of secondary importance, if at all. I have bipolar disorder and I often experienced coldness, doubt and belittling comments from my ‘counselors’ because mental illness like bipolar disorder don’t fit into their world as God tells it.
I shudder to think of the damage that has been done by attitudes and behaviours just like Driscolls – I’ve seen it and see it for myself even today. People who’s entire lives have been turned upside down because someone else was ‘anointed’ with insight into their lives that they or others believed. It’s one of the most frightening things to me about this kind of Christianity – that this is so common, people getting ‘messages’ and ‘revelations’ all the time that have the power to really affect other people’s lives, and no-one in their own community can even really argue with them because how do you know God didn’t tell them that?
Once, when I was still a new Christian, during a prayer session I had someone go up to the front and ‘deliver a word’ from God to me, a piece of scripture that made it sound as though I had a history of sexual abuse and that God was now cleaning me from that. I don’t have any history of sexual abuse, and I still to this day imagine what people who heard that thought about me and my history, thanks to this ‘revelation’ from God.
The scary thing is that Driscoll probably really does believe what he’s saying because it’s that easy to talk yourself into turning a conclusion you arrive at logically, perhaps with intuition, into something superspiritual when you’re trained to believe that everything has superspiritual meaning. I know because I’ve done it as a Christian and I’ve seen other Christians do it again and again.
One of the most disturbing aspects of Christianity, in my opinion, is the emphasis on “the work of the Holy Spirit” in interpreting their scripture and in divining “the will of God.” All of this gives us homo sapiens so much opportunity to take our pet theories and our irrational emotions, project them into scripture, and claim them as divine. This mindset becomes so fundamental to some people’s cognitive frameworks, even they believe themselves when they lie boldfaced. I know, I’ve done it. It’s very humbling to know how stupid I can be.
My little sister is going on antidepressants I think. I don’t think she’ll be able to get our parents to pay for it…they’ve warmed up to the idea of psychiatry a bit, but that’s only with my ADHD medication. They would be inclined to blame depression on “spiritual issues.” Great, why don’t we just blame mood disorders on woggity-hoggity issues? I hear woggity-hoggity issues can really fuck you up. I’m a very woggity-hoggity man who talks to his head a lot, so I think I’m good.
Sorry, I’m just in my own world talking to myself at this point. Thanks for reading though. I hope all of you find Gawd and stop walking in a woggity-hoggity wasteland of secularism and reasonable inquiry.
No need to apologise.
Just think though, mental disorders probably did a lot more to encourage religious beliefs than rational thinking ever did.
I need my xanax.
Thanks for the trigger warning, I’m not watching, I rather like what’s left of my sanity, thxbai.
I’m gonna go look at pictures of beagles for adoption.
How creepy is it that he’s wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt?
This guy is so full of it. Abusers deny. They don’t just go; “Oh yeah, I molested you but you were too young to remember.” They say; “I have no idea what you’re talking about, I would never do anything like that.”
And yes; it is deeply creepy that he is wearing Mickey Mouse.
+1 for truth.
If I had a dollar for every time my abuser said something along the lines of “you’re imagining things”…
Isn’t he obliged to report such crimes to the police?
Of course he’s making it all up. He even sort of got off a bit by describing the encounter in the hotel room with such detail. I was waiting for page-turning details of her sweat-soaked breasts glistening in the moonlight, *pant-pant*. And what happened when he told the really abusive guy that “Jesus told me, not your wife”? He neglects to mention that the guy probably beat the Jesus out of her that night after the “counseling session”.
This guy has a self-inflated view of himself, an unhealthy control over his congregation, and a lot of their money in his bank account.
See, I can be a psychological counselor too.
Is this guy for real? He tells people they were sexually abused when they were children and then sends them off to confront their abusers, and the abusers just say ‘yeah, that was me’!?! Really!?! I don’t think so. It sounds completely made-up to me.
I’m also very skeptical about his story involving the married couple who’s problems are all down to the wife having a one-night-stand 10 years previously. I find that very hard to believe. Even if you knew without doubt that someone in the marriage had cheated 10 years ago, is it really your place to tell the other spouse? 10 years later? And blame all of the marriage problems on that one thing (I also noted that he chose to say it was the wife that had cheated – thus making it even more terrible in True Christian eyes).
I need to go and look at the baby oncilla to calm me down………..
“I’m also very skeptical about his story involving the married couple who’s problems are all down to the wife having a one-night-stand 10 years previously.”
It fits well within the charismatic framework. And yes, Mark Driscoll has a habit of blaming teh weemen…
Pingback: i see nutjob: mark driscoll’s psychic visions and extrasensory perception « XKV8R: The Official Blog of Dr. Robert R. Cargill
Charlatan!
Anyone notice right at the end he gives it all away. “I’m not right %100 of the time.” Really? That’s curious.
Mark: Yeh, son. I believe you were molested by you grandfather. I just had a vision of your testicles being groped by your mother’s father about 10 years ago.
Troll: Oh, Yeh? That’s interesting? My mom’s dad died in 1976.
Mark: Well I’m not right %100 of the time.
Troll: ….
My favorite example of this comes from personal experience. In the 90s my team, the Indians, beat the Yankees 22-0. I remember the game pretty well. I remember the angle I was sitting at, I remember watching the home runs, I remember being there.
But I wasn’t there. I watched it on TV. I was at other games, but not that one. However clearly I remember it, I was getting it confused with other memories and convinced myself. Memory is definitely a fickle thing.
Does not Mark Driscoll remember the awful time only two hours drive from Seattle, when Wenatchee, WA was consumed in a firestorm of “repressed memories” allegations by a single adopted daughter of the local police chief, who in turn convinced the county prosecutor to charge dozens of members of a local congregation with ritual child sex abuse, including one 68-yr-old man who is supposed to have raped children 3,000 times over two-year period? Many people spent time (some years) in prison for crimes that only existed in a young teen’s imagination, until a district judge in Seattle finally voided the convictions.
If the Seattle media drew attention to Driscoll and the parallels with the Wenatchee cases, he would wilt under the reaction. But will they do it?
Nah. That would take both brains and balls.
Somehow, I doubt it. You could try King 5, though?
Like Driscoll, I have the gift of discernment. I discern that he’s full of s—.
Oh, and I see things, too. When I watch this video, I see an idiot yammering like a fool.