A Foot Note on The Mark Driscoll Affair.

I don't think Timmis' bullying  went as far as punching people 
- at least I hope not

This blog majors in the collection and study of the assertive characters and cults which emerge from fundagelicalism's smelly underbelly; e.g. Benny Hinn, Mark Driscoll. Bill Johnson, Mark Stibbe, Ken Ham, Charles Taze Russell, Cowboy Sorenson, Patsie Slapmangle....etc. I suppose I ought to include Donald Trump who has become very much linked with America's Christian-right as their champion and defender*. But in actual fact Trump is so badly behaved that even many American fundagelicals are loathe to admit him to the Christian-right fold. To resolve the dilemma some of them have likened Trump to Jeroboam I in the Old Testament, a man who became God's chosen defender of Judaism: Jeroboam I overthrew the corrupt Solomonic dynasty although he himself was a very flawed character. In spite of Trump's corruption you will find that some Christian right-wingers offer much less leeway to Christians who disagree with them than they do to Trump! After all, he is their champion!

So today I want to give a warm welcome to my latest capture of fundagelical wild life....may I introduce Steve Timmis (pictured above) ex-CEO of the organisation "Acts 29".  You know there's likely to be something wrong when a group are spiritually conceited enough to believe they are writing the authoritative next chapter of Acts! This looks like it's going to be one of those New Testament nostalgia sects; that is, a group who believe the solution to the woes of Christian community is to copy early church practices to the letter, thus presenting (in their view) a Christian witness unsullied by time. The consequence is that they develop a very long list of rules of how Christians should behave.

As I have said before I don't go around especially looking for these less than nice Christian sects and characters but rather they occasionally fly out of the woodwork across my line of sight and I endeavour to capture and study them.

***

Up until I had read the news section of March's edition of Premier Christianity I hadn't heard of Timmis, but he's well qualified for my "Abominable Christians" display cabinet. He has been accused by 15 people who served under him of a pattern of spiritual abuse and intimidation. IVP, the evangelical publisher, will no longer be selling Timmis' books and is quoted as saying  "In hindsight we now realise that the style of the close church community advocated in these books lacked sufficient safeguards against abusive control". That's the trouble: IVP needed hindsight; why was hindsight needed? After all there is long history of Christian cults to learn from and so why weren't the safeguards already in place? I'll be coming back to this subject of safeguarding later.

Premier Christianity magazine refers us to an article in Christianity Today that reported the case. Premier Christianity also tells us why this case is linked to abominable Christian, Mark Driscoll (Pictured below) Viz:

This is not the first time Acts 29 has been plagued with allegations of poor behaviour by its leaders. In 2014 , the Acts 29 co-founder and megachurch  pastor Mark Driscoll was removed from his position due to multiple  accusations of bullying.

For more on the the Mark Driscoll affair see here and here.

Evangelical strong man: A sequence showing Driscoll morphing into the Hulk although I have to say I can't tell the difference 

Reading the story in Christianity Today I find disturbing parallels with "Socialist Gospel" preacher Jim Jones of Jones Town infamy: He too was a bully, a fear inspiring charismatic leader who would suffer no contradiction. He required unconditional surrender to his regime of things. He wasn't satisfied with anything less than complete domination and complete acquiescence to his views. Discipline in the cult was harsh.  His "People's Temple" was an extension of his own personality and ego.

Now let's compare Timmis: In the Christianity Today article we read this:   

Fifteen people who served under Timmis described to Christianity Today a pattern of spiritual abuse through bullying and intimidation, overbearing demands in the name of mission and discipline, rejection of critical feedback, and an expectation of unconditional loyalty.

With a church that demands such high levels of involvement and buy-in, anything seen as taking away from that mission may be deemed selfish, sinful, and cause for discipline

One couple said they were confronted for missing an impromptu barbeque with their gospel community in order to spend planned family time with their kids. They were accused of not putting the mission of the church first. Several who took interest in ministry opportunities outside the mission for their gospel community—which could shift or change under Timmis’s orders—also received pushback, told not to pursue an outside Bible study or social time or not to volunteer with a local coffee shop or summer camp. Students in the university town were discouraged from returning home to their families over the summer—it was seen as a sign that they weren’t really committed to the life of the church.

From the inside, this kind of heavy shepherding seemed by design, with Timmis seeking to mentor and disciple his flock into a church that operated “24/7” and spanned all areas of life. At the least, Timmis implied these expectations set them apart from other congregations in a good way.

“If Steve is challenged in any way, which he always takes as a threat, then the tables are turned and the challenger is made out to be the one at fault,” said Tinker, who saw the same pushback emerge during the decade his son, Michael, was a member of Timmis’s church. “This is classic manipulation.”

“However, in reality it means you need to agree with Steve’s mission and vision. And the sense in The Crowded House that it is the right or best way to do mission and be biblically faithful means you are left with the feeling that if you disagree you are somehow disagreeing with the Bible, or somehow falling short of God’s ideal, or not really giving up your life for Christ.”

Michael Tinker said some at The Crowded House were led to believe that he and his wife were walking away from their faith. Paul and Sharon Goodwin, who left in 2011, listed the elders’ characterizations of them leading up to their departure: divisive, unpastorable, disobedient, “not loving Jesus enough,” “always been troublemakers.”

I think these quotes are enough to show Timmis' conceited opinion of himself and his need for complete control. This control was achieved by the spiritually intimidating insinuation that disobedience to Timmis was tantamount to disobedience to God and therefore courts divine displeasure worthy of punishment: In short Timmis himself was playing the role of a little god and felt deeply insecure if he was crossed. Obviously, the outcome was nothing like the awful Jones Town end game but the prototypical antecedents are all in place and are recognisable. As with Jones Town, Timmis vision of church was to be a total life experience for those who joined it:... a church that operated “24/7” and spanned all areas of life.

Just like the Christian apologists for Trump it seems unlikely that Timmis is going to be very accommodating toward those Christians with whom he disagrees. And yet regarding his own sins Timmis pleads that he is "a sinner saved by grace" and claims "neither infallibility  nor impeccability". Well, don't we all claim God's grace from such a platform of moral failure? But somehow I don't think Timmis would be so gracious toward those who believe his cultish vision of church to be wrong, wrong, wrong. One rule for him.......?

Although Christianity has the long term (sometimes very long term!) effect of subverting authoritarian headship, its message of subversion is very implicit in the Bible and set against it is the fact that New Testament Christianity came out of authoritarian times of brutal public punishments. Therefore, just as with slavery the immediate Biblical impact about leadership is ambiguous: One's moral quality is tested by how one copes with the choices here. It's not a surprising that evangelicalism, in particular in its fundamentalist manifestation where we find jingoistic promises of absolute certainty in doctrine and practice, evangelicalism tends to attract authoritarian and controlling egotists like Timmis.

As I said in my two blogs on the Driscoll affair, evangelicalism's temptation toward epistemic arrogance and an inability to distinguish between headship and leadership leaves it with little immunity when self-assured and bumptious characters like Driscoll and Timmis appear on the scene. Therefore evangelicalism's lack of sufficient safeguards against abusive control trace back to deficiencies in its leadership doctrines. Fortunately many evangelicals are sensible enough to eventually see through the bluff that is being played on them by authoritarian headships and unless the wool is thoroughly pulled over their eyes, they realise that they remain free vote with their feet and their wallets even if the Timmins and Driscolls of this world may try to disabuse them of this privilege by labelling this ultimate deterrent as profane and worldly.

Real power in terms of their opportunities to act is found among the laity. In this connection  we can  derive some consolation from the fact that time was called on Timmis' and Driscoll's activities.  But having said that the power of the laity is not explicit in evangelical teaching and this opens the way for abusive characters like Driscoll and Timmis to pop up every now and again and fool some of people for some of the time. Moreover, many immature Christians actually prefer the cloying atmosphere of authoritarian communities perhaps because it takes them back to a second (or even first) secure childhood where personal responsibility is not so onerous. But such is fertile ground for leadership charlatans, some of whom succeed in infecting a whole community with their mental foibles.

Footnote:
* Trump is also linked with the paranoid fantasies of the conspiracy theorists: He was once a guest on professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones's show. Also there is this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_America_News_Network