Mark Driscoll Launches New Official Website

Markdriscoll.org is down now and has been for a couple of days. There’s also some kind of issue with his 501(c)(3) “Learning for Living”. Apparently that’s also a trademarked name for one of Alistair Begg’s ministries.

H/T Janet Mefferd on Facebook.

I will refer to the famous words of Leo Amery to restate my opinion on “Pastor” Driscoll - “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

http://markdriscoll.org/

At HuffPo there’s a statement from Mars Hill disavowing any connection. They say they’ve transferred the domain name to him.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/27/mark-driscoll-website_n_637489…

All serious issues with Driscoll aside, can people really trademark phrases like “Learning for Living”? Or “unleashing God’s word one verse at a time”?

At some point is “big time” ministry becoming a pure business competing in a limited marketplace trying to maximize their market share and maximizing their name recognition and exposure? Oh…and maximizing its donations.

It’s possible that Driscoll felt he had to do something to preserve his intellectual property. With Mars Hill closing in 2 days, I’ll bet that none of his sermons and articles will be available on the new church’s website. He and Mars Hill probably had some preexisting agreement about his intellectual property. Most mega churches do something like that.

All that said, I don’t like seeing the Driscoll flag flying online

Well, I guess I’m glad to see that the site is back up.

Apparently there is litigation pending in regards to the ResultSource / MH Global Fund - Warren Throckmorton has more, including this doozy of a letter from an attorney to the attorney for Driscoll, Bruskas, and others.

Here’s a quote:

Karen:
As I have expressed to you since our first conversation regarding this matter last spring,
above all else, my clients’ desire to have their claims brought before a Christian mediator.
And as I described to you in my email of December 16, there are a number of offenses they
would like to bring to mediation, though they are aware that some of the concerns they
have expressed and hope to address in mediation cannot be remedied through a lawsuit. I
know of many other MH members, not just my clients, who wanted Mars Hill Leadership
to mediate, or at least talk with them about very serious offenses. Every plea, though, was
ignored; the only way your clients will even consider mediation, it appears, is if they
perceive a sufficient threat from a RICO lawsuit. It should never have come to this, but that
is what your clients have demanded.
Unlike many of the private offenses suffered for which there is no legal remedy for my
clients, the RICO claims discussed below are public in nature and have judicial remedies.
They are public in nature because the conduct alleged impacted tens of thousands of
donors, not just my clients. RICO in cases such as this functions much like qui tam actions
(lawsuits brought by whistleblowers under the False Claims Act), creating a powerful tool
for “private attorneys general” and “one that can be applied successfully in the area of
religious fraud.” See, Jonathan Turley, Laying Hands on Religious Racketeers: Applying
Civil RICO to Fraudulent Religious Solicitation, 29 Wm. and Mary L. Rev. 441, 445
(1988). The fraudulent practices (predicate acts) alleged in the RICO complaint, in addition
to causing direct harm to my clients, inflicted similar injuries on countless donors. The
lawsuit, if necessary, will amplify the voices of all those injured donors.

So unfortunately this chapter of history is not nearly closed yet.