Mark Driscoll is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Church, an edgy and influential evangelical congregation in the mission field that is Seattle. I say edgy but do know that Driscoll is thoroughly orthodox in his theology and carries a lot of influence with younger pastors. Apparently he is now blogging (ht: Steve) – I’ve added a link to the side in hopes that he will do so regularly. A Mark Driscoll blog ought to be very helpful and interesting and, at times, pretty funny. The blog is on the still-in-process website of a new venture Driscoll is spear-heading called The Resurgence. In his first blog post he basically introduces himself with a brief bio that is really worth reading.
Driscoll was one of the influential figures in the early days of the conversation and loose network that we now know as the Emerging Church. Some still associate him with it, not knowing that he has distanced himself from what Emergent has become. There’s more on that and other subjects at his blog, but I thought it would be interesting to quote here part of his explantion for leaving:
I eventually had to distance myself from the Emergent stream of the network because friends like Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt began pushing a theological agenda that greatly troubled me. Examples include referring to God as a chick, questioning God’s sovereignty over and knowledge of the future, denial of the substitutionary atonement at the cross, a low view of Scripture, and denial of hell which is one hell of a mistake.