By 2014, Mars Hill Church in Seattle had grown to 15,000 members across 15 locations. Mark Driscoll, the church’s co-founding pastor, was one of the most influential evangelical voices in America. Then it all collapsed.

The charges against Driscoll didn’t involve heresy. No one alleged immorality or financial fraud, though financial irregularities eventually surfaced. When Mars Hill’s own board of overseers accepted Driscoll’s resignation, they described a man “guilty of arrogance, responding to conflict with a quick temper and harsh speech, and leading the staff and elders in a domineering manner.”

A former elder filed formal charges describing Driscoll as “domineering, verbally violent, arrogant, and quick-tempered.” Two pastors who dissented from Driscoll’s consolidation of power were fired for “displaying an unhealthy distrust in senior leadership.”

It was a catastrophic failure of character dressed up as visionary leadership. And it keeps happening.

Every generation produces its version of the holy tyrant. The names change but not the pattern. Even the titles can vary: senior pastor, ruling elder, or influential layman with the loudest voice in the room. What they share is a widening circle of personal authority and the slow accumulation of wreckage that follows them: broken relationships, silenced dissent, fleeing members, shattered congregations. Read More»

Steven J. Willing | “Protecting The Church From Domineering Pastors” | By Faith | July 27, 2026

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