Janet Mefferd has apparently received many emails criticizing her for interview of Mark Driscoll on 11-21-2013. In this interview Mefferd brought to light the fact that Mark Driscoll has not correctly given credit to Peter Jones in his latest book. This is plagiarism. Mark Driscoll’s team has gone into overdrive to fight off these charges because his reputation and a lot of money is on the line. During the embarrassing interview Driscoll apparently decided his best option was to end it by hanging up his phone. He had been quite rude to Mefferd up to that point, and terminating the interview just highlighted his rudeness.
Now it seems one of the strategies to attempt to restore Driscoll’s shredded image of a humble, kind, Christian pastor is to claim that he never hung up on Mefferd. Driscoll’s camp has released what they say is the “raw recording” of the interview which provides evidence that back his claim up. You can listen to the short “raw recording” here. Mefferd, in her radio show of 11-22-2013 sharply disagrees with Driscoll’s claim. You can listen to her response below.
I appreciated Mefferd addressing the issue raised by many that she has no right to be so harsh in her interview of a fellow Christian. (She disagrees she was harsh, and I would agree with her.) Her questioning was direct, Driscoll attempted to obfuscate and Mefferd pressed on, attempting to get Driscoll to admit what he did was wrong. Christians just don’t have a good understanding. D.A. Carson addressed this issue quite some time ago in a good article referenced below. Following that is a link to a podcast called “Mortification of Spin” in which Carl Trueman and Todd Pruitt take on the same issue.
The above article, written by D.A. Carson, can be viewed here. The section I wanted to highlight is below:
(1) The sin described in the context of Matt 18:15–17 takes place on the small scale of what transpires in a local church (which is certainly what is envisaged in the words “tell it to the church”). It is not talking about a widely circulated publication designed to turn large numbers of people in many parts of the world away from historic confessionalism. This latter sort of sin is very public and is already doing damage; it needs to be confronted and its damage undone in an equally public way. This is quite different from, say, the situation where a believer discovers that a brother has been breaking his marriage vows by sleeping with someone other than his wife, and goes to him privately, then with one other, in the hope of bringing about genuine repentance and contrition, and only then brings the matter to the church.
The other really helpful resource on this subject is the podcast by Trueman and Pruitt which can be found here. I would urge you to listen to it.
Towards the end of Janet Mefferd’s comments she states that Driscoll and his publisher stand to lose a lot of money because of this scandal. She implies that this may have a lot to do with their rigorous defense. Sadly, money seems to be the bottom line in Christianity way too often these days!
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