Pastor Mark Driscoll
  • Mars Hill Church
  • Pastor Mark Driscoll

Mars Hill Pastor Mark Driscoll hasn't recovered from his last plagiarism scandals, and now he's facing a whole new set of plagiarism charges from an old associate. Warren Throckmorton says that early in his career as a celebrity pastor, Driscoll referred to the importance of three different fields—"Gospel, the church, and culture"—in maintaining a healthy church. But now that Driscoll's woes are in the spotlight, Throckmorton has been approached by someone from Driscoll's past:

Driscoll’s formula has been cited by other church planters and authors since then. However, according to a former close colleague, Ron Wheeler, Driscoll lifted those concepts from work Wheeler did while developing the first Acts29 Network church plant in Mt. Vernon, WA — The Gathering. Wheeler was in the room when the Acts29 Network was organized and spent much time with Driscoll in the early days of Mars Hill Church.

Throckmorton posted several examples of similar wording from pieces written by both Wheeler and Driscoll. Additionally, Wheeler says Driscoll called him on the eve of his book's publication to thank him for his uncredited contribution to the book:

As far as the phone conversation, Mark called and basically said “my book Radical Reformission is being released tomorrow and I don’t remember if I asked you or not, but I used your parachurch, fundamentalism and liberalism categories on the gospel/church/culture model. Thanks bro.“

Go read the whole post. And if you care about this issue and want to see it change, I urge you to read Brendan Kiley's new feature about the problems with Mars Hill Church, and why people are protesting at Mars Hill's Bellevue campus this Sunday at 9:30 am. And if you're willing to lend your support to the protesters on Sunday, I'm sure they'd love to have you.