What did the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill actually accomplish?
Revisiting Christianity Today's foray into viral true crime podcasting
Back in the fall of 2014, I experienced a profound change of personality, from a well-balanced person passionate about varied issues to a single-minded spokesman for the true crime podcast Serial. In the much quieter days of 2014, the genre of “true crime podcast” did not exist in its current form until producer Sarah Koenig’s rehashing of a murder case from 1999.
Serial set records for downloads at the time and has influenced a generation of cynical podcast detectives with grating vocal fry. As the podcast progressed, the populace hungered for a big reveal in the final episode, only to be let down by Koenig basically shrugging and saying “I dunno.” The anticlimactic ending left listeners wondering if the venture was really worthwhile or if it was all about the friends we made along the way.
Concurrently happening in the fall of 2014 was the downfall of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, documented by Christianity Today’s podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill (“Rise and Fall”). The podcast carefully, painstakingly documented the ascendance of firebrand pastor Mark Driscoll to the peak of evangelical influence and the ensuing collapse of the church under the weight of his narcissism.
With its catchy theme song, emotionally-involved host, and traumatized interviewees, Rise and Fall provided American evangelical Christendom with its own Serial moment in 2021. The pod’s popularity is undeniable, and it even cracked the Top 10 of the Apple Podcast charts. But as its popularity grew, a growing number of people began asking questions not dissimilar to those asked about Serial.
What did this actually accomplish? Was this a worthwhile endeavor? Was this more helpful than harmful?
Now that over a year has passed since the height of the podcast’s popularity, let’s evaluate Rise and Fall. Why did CT release this podcast seven years after Mars Hill’s dissolution? Does Rise and Fall really help us move forward or keep us stuck in the past?
Why did Christianity Today see fit to document the inner workings of unhealthy church politics in such a public fashion?
If we are speaking only of the story itself, the podcast’s wide release may seem misplaced. After all, the problems within Mars Hill Church also ended with Mars Hill’s dissolution. Right?
Mark Driscoll, the unrepentant central figure of this saga, is completely irrelevant in the world of American evangelicalism. (Seriously, look at the ratio of his Twitter follower count to the number of retweets or at the volume of Google searches over time).
He has largely faded from prominence, and his wrongdoings have already been reported by Christian and secular media alike. It is unlikely that those who attend Mark Driscoll's church or follow his teachings are unaware of his history. In that case, is a widely disseminated podcast about the events at Mars Hill Church necessary or warranted? Is there a need for an accountability piece?
History Often Rhymes
Rise and Fall’s release is particularly timely in today's cultural landscape, and indeed the lessons from the events at Mars Hill Church will be relevant until we have rooted out systemic abuse throughout the church.
Since Mars Hill, examples of abuse of different varieties and severity within prominent Christian institutions abound. The stories of abuse may seem distant, but they are not.
The #MeToo movement exposed abuse at the top of the American evangelical Christian world, with such influential figures as Bill Hybels, Carl Lentz, and Ravi Zacharias all named as perpetrators of sexual misconduct or assault within the last few years. Speaking generally, in many of these cases, the characters were different but the story was the same: charismatic leaders perpetrated abuse and the institutions surrounding them failed to prevent the abuse or failed to respond with appropriate accountability, whether due to negligence, denial, or deliberate malfeasance. These nauseating stories seem to repeat ad nauseam.
Spiritual abuse is so common but it often doesn’t make the same headlines as in most cases it is not illegal. But one does not have to look far to find these examples: so many folks I have talked to have had a negative experience with a church, a small group leader, a pastor, a mentor figure, a college ministry, a summer camp, or a youth group. If it hasn’t happened to you, I guarantee it’s happened to someone you know.
The rot of abusive and careless leadership persists in the institutions of American evangelicalism. Recognizing this fact, Rise and Fall invites us to increase our vigilance and take action.
Are the institutions you participate in set up to stop abuse of authority?
In the final episode of Rise and Fall, one of the ex-staff members at Mars Hill gives a warning to us listeners, that our takeaway from this story should not be “Oh I would never do that” or “I would never let myself get into that situation.” Rather, we should react by seeing ourselves in this story of a corrupted organization that inflicted spiritual trauma on many.
Rise and Fall helps us recognize the patterns of spiritually abusive leaders and organizations. Mars Hill Church collapsed after Driscoll resigned in 2014 due to an exodus of members and donations rendering continuation a financial impossibility. But, as we have seen in recent years, so many other organizations and leaders persist without real accountability for their wrongdoing. Those stories are a lot more widespread and underreported than we might care to realize, and Rise and Fall challenges us to recognize and react.
It is too easy to think that this type of scandal would not happen in our own churches. Maybe, you might say, these things happen in problematic mega-churches with celebrity pastors, but not the one where I know the church staff and go to congregational meetings. I hope that’s true. But that’s how it always seems until it suddenly doesn’t.
It would be cynical and understandable to forsake the Church and our institutions entirely, even if we want to maintain our faith. We have to work to believe that they are redeemable and still capable of being agents of redemption despite our experiences.
Why? We are implored directly to not forsake any part of the body in believing that we are superior. We are also quite directly ordered to prune the unhealthy branches that produce no fruit. Further, we are called to believe that redemption is possible despite fallible human structures.
In the tagline of each episode opening, Cosper states that Rise and Fall is about “the mystery of God working in broken places.” In some of the most powerful portions of the podcast, Cosper speaks to some of the former perpetrators within the Mars Hill system and details the subsequent peacemaking and redemption that has transpired since then. He also repeatedly references how many parishioners cite Mars Hill as a place of profound spiritual growth despite its flaws and how it ended.
Rise and Fall invited us to do more than just be entertained or experience catharsis. In this podcast, we have a roadmap to build a strong foundation in the institutions in which we participate. We have to use the story of Mars Hill to ask hard questions and effect change in our institutions. We need to implement appropriate internal systems and controls to prevent, detect, and correct instances of spiritual, sexual, and emotional abuse. Absent leadership driving this change, we need to stand up and advocate for those changes ourselves.