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Imagine being in a church where you’re told you can’t have a public opinion on anything without the approval of your pastor. Imagine being in such a cult that your church controls what you post on Facebook. We’re not talking about publishing heresy or sin but having an opinion that your pastor simply doesn’t like. You may remember from a few weeks ago, the Stronger Men’s Conference hosted by James River Church in Springfield, Missouri, turned into a spectacle more befitting a Las Vegas strip club than a Christian gathering. The controversy erupted when Mark Driscoll, a prominent and often...

Yesterday, we reported that Mark Driscoll was booted from the stage by the conference host, Pastor John Lindell, who interrupted him and told him he was “done.” Driscoll was criticizing the conference for having a male stripper perform on a stripper pole while ripping his shirt off and dancing in a sexually charged manner. Unfortunately, but not unsurprisingly, Driscoll later returned to the stage with Lindell to apologize and say that he should have handled his grievances privately—a complete and total cop-out. But also at this conference was a completely ridiculous and absurd stunt. The stunt included a person driving...

Early Sunday evening, controversial pastor (see endnotes) and noted plagiarizer Mark Driscoll took to Twitter to complain that his new book “New Days, Old Demons: Ancient Paganism Masquerading as Progressive Christianity” got him suspended from Amazon. He claimed the online retail giant was trying to “silence the word of God and faithful Bible teachers” and urged followers to purchase it from his website instead. While it’s true that his book wasn’t available on Amazon at the time of his tweet, it’s also true that it wasn’t available anywhere. Not at Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, Thriftbooks, or Powells. Driscoll’s...

Mark Driscoll highlights the heretical view embedded in the Word Faith Movement's view of Christ's "finished work" on the cross at Calvary. A good snippet almost lost on the interweb. This video was edited and uploaded for use in this post: http://religiopoliticaltalk.com/jesus-descension-into-hell/ The full sermon this was clipped from can be listened to here: https://youtu.be/epv-JO4JEQM

Mark Driscoll finally made it official: He’s starting a new church in Phoenix. The culmination of a comeback that has been gaining steam over the past year, the former Mars Hill pastor announced the news of The Trinity Church on Monday by email, Twitter and a new website. In a folksy video on the site, which begins with a “howdy” from Driscoll, the pastor said he and his wife, Grace, sitting by his side, were “hoping, trusting, praying, planning and also a little” — he made a jokey grimace — “worrying about planting a church here.”

Less than a year ago, Mark Driscoll, an evangelical pastor, was flying high. His hometown Seattle Seahawks were in the Super Bowl, and the brash pastor scored a big, faith-fueled interview with five of the team's top players, including quarterback Russell Wilson. But in a remarkably fast fall from grace, Driscoll resigned Tuesday as pastor of Mars Hill Church, a congregation he founded 18 years ago and turned into a force in the mostly secular Pacific Northwest. In a statement, Mars Hills' board of overseers said Driscoll hadn't committed any acts of "immorality, illegality or heresy" -- sins that have...

"My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” – Mary worshipping God in Luke 1:46–47 Mary was simply a very godly young woman who loved the Lord and trusted in Him despite great risk to her own reputation. She repeatedly appears as a devout woman who loved God and was a loving mother to Jesus. Contrary to some aberrant teaching, she did not remain a virgin, but mothered other sons such as James and Jude, who visited Jesus with Mary during His ministry (Matthew 12:46; Mark 3:31–35; Luke 8:19–21) and later became pastors who penned...

Mars Hill Church pastor Mark Driscoll spoke Wednesday to over 50,000 people during an outside church service commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. The event, which took place outside the collapsed capitol building in Port-au-Prince, was hosted by Churches Helping Churches, a global church partnership co-founded by Driscoll to help rebuild churches devastated in the wake of a natural disaster. Addressing a sea of Haitians that crowded the five-way intersection to attend the rally, the Seattle-based pastor shared the Gospel based on Galatians 4:4-7 on the difference between a son and a slave. He taught that although Haiti...

With Mitt Romney campaigning...his Mormon religion is coming under increasing scrutiny. SNIP Now Mark Driscoll, pastor of the high-profile Seattle-based Mars Hill Church, has added his voice to the fray -- agreeing that Christians should consider Mormons as members of a "cult" and not "brothers and sisters in a common faith." Writing on his website Tuesday, Driscoll goes on at length about the various definitions of a cult. He is careful to say that Mormonism has "outgrown" the popular culture and sociological definitions of a cult because of its enormous growth and general acceptance in the nation. But, Driscoll writes,...

Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Wash., recently spoke on the gift of tongues as described in the New Testament as part of his "Acts: Empowered for Jesus' Mission" sermon series. The conservative Reformed, or New Calvinist, Christian minister laid out his arguments as to why he believes the gift of speaking in tongues did not end with Jesus' apostles in the first century. Cessationists, such as influential pastor and traditional Calvinist John MacArthur, believe that 1 Corinthians 13:8 and other Biblical passages indicate that the divine ability to speak in other languages or an unknown tongue...

Mars Hill is a mega church in Seattle that has made front page news in the Seattle Times. Seems the media wants to demonize Christian churches that have internal problems. I was wondering if anybody here has the inside scoop. Seems our church invited a new church, 'The Seattle Church' over to share our space and sermon for one Sunday. I'm wondering if this is a spin off of Mars Hill. When I do a Google Search to get information on 'The Seattle Church', it always comes up with Mars Hill. Seem the pastor of The Seattle Church was a...

Victoria Osteen, wife of megachurch preacher and New York Times bestselling author Joel Osteen, is now facing withering criticism online for a viral video clip in which she is shown telling congregants at Lakewood Church that obedience, worship and church attendance is not for God but themselves. "I just want to encourage every one of us to realize when we obey God, we're not doing it for God—I mean, that's one way to look at it—we're doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we're happy," she said in the 36-second clip posted on YouTube, with her husband smiling...

Seattle megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll recently came to the defense of fellow Christian minister Joel Osteen, while admitting that his "Reformed brothers like to treat Pastor Joel like a pinata." In a recent interview with The Gospel Coalition, the Mars Hill Church pastor was asked to comment on a segment of his new book, Who Do You Think You Are?, that mentions "appreciated people" who "exchange grumbling for praying, competing for celebrating, bitterness for thankfulness, performing for serving, and boasting for encouraging." The interviewer, TGC's associate editor Matt Smethurst, asked Driscoll, "What's an 'appreciated person'? Isn't that what Joel Osteen...

ooks by megachurch Pastor Mark Driscoll have been pulled from 180 Christian stores. LifeWay stores have temporarily suspended sales of his books, including "A Call to Resurgence" and "Real Marriage." "LifeWay Stores and LifeWay.com are not selling Mark Driscoll's books while we assess the situation regarding his ministry," the company said in a statement. lRelated Lauren Bacall on writing: The most complete experience I've ever had Jacket Copy Lauren Bacall on writing: The most complete experience I've ever had See all related 8 Driscoll founded Seattle's Mars Hill Church in 1996; it has grown to a reported 13,000 attendees and...

To understand the current unrest at Mars Hill Church, you have to go back to 2007. In the autumn of that year, Mars Hill was an emerging evangelical powerhouse, attracting national attention for its combination of ultraconservative theology and rock ’n’ roll posturing. It had grown over the previous decade from a Bible group in pastor Mark Driscoll’s living room to a multi-campus institution drawing 4,000 attendees to services every week. Paul Petry, Mars Hill’s pastor of families and member care at the time, says that roughly 1,600 of those 4,000 people had joined the church as full-fledged members—they’d taken...

PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) A satellite church affiliated with controversial Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll was vandalized early Tuesday (April 24) and a group calling itself the “Angry Queers” has reportedly taken responsibility. Stained glass and other windows were broken at the Mars Hill Church, according to a post on the Facebook page of Pastor Tim Smith. “Neighbors of the church reported seeing several young adults in black masks throwing large rocks into the windows,” a church news release said. “Police stated that a bank in the area was also vandalized in the same way and that they believe the vandalism was...

I don’t always see eye-to-eye with Mark Driscoll but - confession time! – I admire the Seattle-based pastor’s ability to take on sacred cows. “Should Christians stay away from yoga because of its demonic roots? Totally. Yoga is demonic,” asserts the Irish-American Protestant. “If you just sign up for a little yoga class, you're signing up for a little demon class.” Certainly, the obscene profits New Age instructors are making from yoga appear Satanic. Another welcome gem: “See, after church tonight you will go home and you will eat chicken, not human, because of the spread of Christianity. You think...

Anne Rice is in a season that many, if not all, Christians experience: the great joy of coming to personally embrace the love, forgiveness, and new life that Jesus offers is then followed by the troubles and trials of learning the teachings of the Bible and living with fellow Christians. Truthfully, both are difficult. Every Christian struggles, to varying degrees, with different parts of the Bible because they call us to repent of beliefs we formerly held and ways in which we formerly behaved. Anne Rice struggles with the Bible's opposition to homosexuality and its teachings on gender roles. She...

One the of leading three evangelical prophets of America who has recently visited Australia, Mark Driscoll, preaching pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, openly declares that the subject of delightful 'Christian sex' is a proper topic for discussion. Lillian Kwon writing for the ‘Christian Post’, and reprinted in ‘Christian Today Australia’, explored Mark Driscoll's credentials and his topic saying that The Song of Songs is said to be the most erotic and exciting book in Scripture. Driscoll says that it literally describes an intimate relationship between a husband and a wife. "At Mars Hill Church, we believe that 'all...

Mark Driscoll, the pastor of Seattle-based Mars Hill Church, will preach at the famed Crystal Cathedral in Southern California Sunday, June 14, and will appear on the “Hour of Power.” Crystal Cathedral is home to the Rev. Robert Schuller and his successful television ministry but has seen some decline in size and influence in recent years. Financial difficulties have caused the church to lay off staff and sell office space. Mars Hill, on the other hand, is among America’s booming churches. Driscoll preaches a “masculine” form of Calvinist theology that emphasizes the toughness of Jesus and Christianity. He also regularly...