Sola Sisters: security

A dust-up recently occurred at the Strange Fire Conference (a conference exposing the theological errors of the charismatic movement), in which megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll (who is a charismatic) showed up at the conference and tried to hand out his books, probably for the purpose of "correcting" what he sees as the errors of the cessationist movement. Initial reports of what happened (including Driscoll's own Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds) were that security had seized Driscoll's materials. They didn't. I was on the phone in almost real time with friends of mine at the conference who were told by a member of the security detail what actually happened.

This is what I was told: Mark Driscoll was NOT a registered participant for this event, and his materials had not been cleared for distribution. Every vendor present at Strange Fire had to go through an extensive vetting process before being allowed to set up their tables. When security explained this to Driscoll, Driscoll continued to try to give out the materials. He was told by security that they would help him take his materials back to his car, and he told them he would like to give them to Grace Community Church as a gift. They accepted this "gift," (Driscoll's words), and when they parted company with Driscoll, Driscoll immediately began broadcasting via social media that his materials had been seized. It was a bald-faced lie.

Mark Driscoll went in with an agenda to kick up a fuss, and get his books into the hands of GTY personnel. Only, the GTY folks were far more kind and gracious in dealing with him than he probably thought they would be, and he literally had to force his books on them.

Mark Driscoll to the GTY personnel: "Why don't y'all just take 'em and do whatever you want with 'em."

Mark Driscoll on his twitter feed: "Security confiscated my books."

I would also like to point out that Driscoll slandered the security personnel at GTY by claiming they did something that they did not do, and he has yet to publicly apologize for that. By all accounts, the security personnel who dealt with Driscoll are godly, humble men who were just doing their jobs, and as the video evidence proves, they did their jobs with Mark Driscoll very kindly and graciously (you can read more about that here). All of the people who comprise the security team at GTY are real people, and are all members of the body of Christ. Just because nobody in Christendom knows the names of the GTY security personnel doesn't mean that they aren't every bit a part of the body of Christ as all the rest of us no-namers out there. It also doesn't mean that they can just be used as a means to an end for a Celebrity Pastor with an agenda. I might potentially like to see a public interaction between MacArthur/Driscoll at some point (which Driscoll has publicly asked for), but it surely cannot be like this, not with Driscoll gatecrashing an event at which he was not a paid registrant in order to pass out unvetted materials, and then leveraging himself up over the no-name bodies of security personnel to get what he wanted. That's not right.

Video of what happened: