A Decade Ago, Janet Mefferd Accused Mark Driscoll of Plagiarism

By the end of 2014, Mars Hill Church closed its doors

When discussing the demise of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA, many people peg the beginning of the end as being Janet Mefferd's November 21, 2013 radio interview with Mark Driscoll. In that interview, Mefferd accused Driscoll of plagiarism and he accused her of having "sort of a grumpy day."

In hindsight, perhaps one could view the Strange Fire conference deception in October, 2013 as the beginning of the end of Mars Hill Church, and indeed Mefferd began her interview by asking Driscoll about the John MacArthur conference. In fact, Driscoll never really answered her question about whether or not his books were confiscated by MacArthur’s security detail. On Twitter, Driscoll said the church security men confiscated the books Driscoll was giving away, but he declined to answer Mefferd directly about what happened. Please see Darren Wiebe's eye witness account for more on the controversy. According to Wiebe, Driscoll lied about his books being confiscated. See also my interview with Sutton Turner and Dave Bruskas. Bruskas, in particular, was grieved by his participation in the PR stunt.

In any case, the late Fall of 2013 was the start of a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year for Rev. Driscoll and his fellow executives at Mars Hill. The situation burned both Driscoll and Mefferd. Under duress, Mefferd later apologized for her approach in the interview, but she did not retract her claims of plagiarism. Driscoll still has that scandal associated with him.

Mefferd's interview seemed to break open the flood gates that eventually brought me and others into reporting on the church. I wasn't sure at first that Mefferd was correct in her claim that Driscoll failed to cite Peter Jones’ work properly, but I quickly came to believe she was right. Eventually I discovered problems in more of his books and created a chart to map it all. From there, problems with church finances, leadership, scamming the New York Times best-seller list, bullying personnel, and more snowballed into my blog becoming an almost daily read for those interested in news about the church.

If you want to listen again to the interview, here it is:

Over the next year, I plan to revisit key events in the Mars Hill saga a decade later. It may be hard to believe for some that ten years have gone by. The excellent podcast — Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Church — produced by Christianity Today and hosted by Mike Cosper helped to tell important stories and stimulated important reflection about the meaning of those events. Now a decade later, Lord willing, there may be a book coming up from me providing a history of that year. Watch this space and sign up for updates.