The Ethos of Mark Driscoll: Rhetorical Analysis of a Sermon in the

 The Ethos of Mark Driscoll: Rhetorical Analysis of a Sermon in the Context of a Preacher’s Public Reputation By Benjamin Sherick
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta
April 2015
Supervised by Dr. Tania Smith
Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfillment for the requirement for the degree
of Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Communication Studies
i ABSTRACT
This honours thesis seeks to understand rhetorical processes as they relate to Christian
preaching. Specifically, it seeks to understand to what extent the ability to persuade
relies on ethos as an aspect of identification. Through an analysis of a sermon by Mark
Driscoll, the controversial former pastor of the now defunct Mars Hill Church in Seattle,
the project answered two sub-questions: 1) how does Mark Driscoll construct and
present intrinsic ethos within the bounds of a sermon? and 2) to what extent is Driscoll’s
extrinsic ethos a factor in the audience’s interpretation of the pastor’s overall ethos?
Conducting a rhetorical analysis supplemented by interview data, the researcher found
that reputation played a subtle role in the persuasive process, potentially disrupting
Driscoll’s attempts at garnering identification with his audience.
ACKNOWLDGEMENTS
A huge debt of gratitude is due to my supervisor, Dr. Tania Smith. Without your
input, this project would not exist. Thank you for showing continued interest in this
thesis, and for encouraging me in my strengths and challenging me in my weaknesses
throughout this process. Your constant feedback and encouragement has enabled me to
grow in my confidence as both a researcher and as a writer. I cannot say thank you
enough.
Thank you to my fiancé, Jenelle Wagner, and to my parents, Denise Daniel
Bodden and Graham Sherick, for your constant love, support, and patience during the
writing of this project. I would not have finished this project without your constant
interest and encouragement. Thank you for pushing me to the end and supporting me
all the way through. I am blessed to call you my family.
As well, thank you to the numerous friends and family that showed interest in
this project, and acted as a sounding board for my ideas. Those conversations planted
the seeds that eventually germinated into this finished project. Thank you.
Finally, thank you to my honours cohort for offering helpful insight and
challenge. I often joked that you were less of a class and more of a support group. I wish
you all the best of luck in your future endeavors.
iii Table of Contents
ABSTRACT............................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLDGEMENTS............................................................................................................ iii INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 1 RHETORICAL SITUATION AND ARTIFACT ................................................................................. 4 Origins: The Rise of Mars Hill Church ................................................................................................ 5 Mark Driscoll: No Stranger to Controversy ....................................................................................... 5 Constantly Embroiled in Controversy: Driscoll’s Resignation and the End of Mars Hill Church .......... 7 The Artifact: “What Are the Scriptures?”........................................................................................ 12 THEORY AND METHOD ......................................................................................................... 14 Constructing the Rhetorical Situation ............................................................................................. 15 Selecting the Sermon ..................................................................................................................... 16 Generating the Unit of Rhetorical Analysis ..................................................................................... 17 Rhetoric ............................................................................................................................................. 18 Rhetorical Analysis............................................................................................................................. 18 Persuasion ......................................................................................................................................... 19 Identification...................................................................................................................................... 20 Ethos .................................................................................................................................................. 21 Intrinsic Ethos .................................................................................................................................... 22 Extrinsic Ethos.................................................................................................................................... 25 Conducting Qualitative Interviews ................................................................................................. 28 Limitations of Interview Data ............................................................................................................ 31 ANALYSIS.............................................................................................................................. 32 Interview Participants .................................................................................................................... 32 Intrinsic Ethos ................................................................................................................................ 35 Content .............................................................................................................................................. 35 Use of Biblical Passages ..................................................................................................................... 38 Use of Secondary Sources.................................................................................................................. 41 Use of Humour................................................................................................................................... 43 Diction and Figures of speech............................................................................................................ 45 Passionate Delivery............................................................................................................................ 47 Concluding Statements and Prayer ................................................................................................... 49 Summary of Intrinsic Ethos ................................................................................................................ 51 Extrinsic Ethos................................................................................................................................ 52 Findings from Group 1 ....................................................................................................................... 52 Findings from Group 2 ....................................................................................................................... 55 v Giving the Benefit of the Doubt......................................................................................................... 57 Extrinsic Ethos as a Factor.................................................................................................................. 58 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................ 60 Further Research............................................................................................................................ 61 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 63 APPENDIX A .......................................................................................................................... 68 Mars Hill Church Statement of Faith (Mars Hill Church, n.d.-­‐b) ....................................................... 68 APPENDIX B .......................................................................................................................... 71 Interview Questions ....................................................................................................................... 71 P a g e | 1 INTRODUCTION
A pastor stands in the pulpit on a Sunday morning and faces the congregation.
Drawing on the book that both the pastor and the congregation agree to be the holy,
inspired words of God, he preaches with conviction and fervor. This is a rhetorical act.
On a weekly basis, clergy around the world attempt to both persuade parishioners
about the truth of the Christian faith and to elicit a response, creating a relationship.
Preaching is a call to action. It is an attempt at relating.
In the third pew, a dedicated churchgoer sits skeptically. Although she agrees
with the propositions coming from the pulpit, she remains unpersuaded. This does not
stem from disagreement with either the source material or the worldview being
espoused, but rather from something more personal. For one reason or another, her
knowledge of the pastor’s offstage persona causes a disconnect to occur. The speaker is
not credible. In other words, the pastor’s ethos prevents the parishioner from identifying
with the pastor.
According to classical conceptions, rhetoric is concerned with persuasion.
Aristotle (c. 335/1984) defined rhetoric as “the faculty of observing in any given case
the available means of persuasion” (p. 24). Rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke (1969)
later suggested that an additional motive of rhetoric was to cause identification between
the rhetor and the audience: to create a connection (p. xiv). Woodward (2003) notes that
Burke relied heavily on Aristotle’s foundation of rhetoric, particularly the concept of a
rhetor’s ethos, in constructing his theory of identification. Aristotle states that in order to
persuade (and Burke would later add, to cause identification), the rhetor must carefully
construct and portray an appealing persona within the context of the rhetorical act. This
is the rhetor’s intrinsic ethos. However, this is only half the equation. Audiences are also
involved in the process of identification, and they interpret the rhetor’s ethos. Their
interpretation can be influenced by the rhetor’s extrinsic ethos, or reputation. For this
reason, Isocrates suggested that it was also important for rhetors to mind their extrinsic
ethos as much as their intrinsic ethos.
This project seeks to understand how a contemporary pastor’s ethos affects his
audience’s ability to identify with the speaker and potentially be persuaded by his
claims. In other words, to what extent does the ability to persuade rely on ethos as an
aspect of identification? To answer this question, this project seeks to answer two
additional sub-questions about a pastor’s ethos. First, how does a pastor construct and
present intrinsic ethos within the bounds of a sermon? Second, to what extent is a
pastor’s extrinsic ethos a factor in the audience’s interpretation of the pastor’s overall
ethos? A pastor’s intrinsic and extrinsic ethos will either enable or prohibit identification,
which in turn will enable or hinder persuasion. These same conclusions can be applied
to rhetors more generally.
The researcher has selected the case of Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church as
the focus of his research. Mark Driscoll was the highly controversial co-founder and
lead pastor of Mars Hill Church, a large multi-campus church based out of Seattle. For
most of his career and especially throughout 2014, Driscoll attracted controversy like a
lightning rod. Driscoll resigned from his position in October 2014, amidst increased
criticism of both him and his church. This led to the dissolution of Mars Hill Church in
December 2014.
This thesis begins by orienting the reader to the rhetorical situation of Mark
Driscoll and Mars Hill Church in Chapter 2. The reader is given vital information about
the origins, rise, and eventual dissolution of Mars Hill, and the controversial nature of
Mark Driscoll. Chapter 3 narrates the methods of research undertaken for this thesis.
The reader will be walked through the initial research on Mars Hill Church and Mark
Driscoll, the selection of the sermon, the generation of the critical framework for the
rhetorical analysis, and the process of the qualitative interviews. The reader will also
find justification and explanation for the selected rhetorical concepts and theories used
in this thesis. Chapter 4 focuses on the analysis and findings of the thesis, beginning
with discussion of Driscoll’s intrinsic ethos and ending with analysis of his extrinsic
ethos.
This study fills a gap in the scholarship relating to rhetoric and preaching. A
search using the University of Calgary library search engine yielded few scholarly
works directly related to this project’s research question. This search was conducted by
combining the Christian genre terms “preaching” and “sermon” with the rhetorical
terms “ethos”, “identification”, and “rhetoric.” While much scholarship exists about
identification (i.e. Baxter & Taylor, 1978; Davis, 2008) and ethos (i.e. Benoit, 1990; Braet,
1992; Hannah & Avolio, 2011; Leff, 2009; Rummel, 1979) from a rhetorical perspective,
P a g e | 3 as well as religious and theological scholarship about preaching (i.e. Augustine,
426/1958; Campbell & Cilliers, 2012), sources explicitly linking preaching and rhetoric
in a way that helped answer the research question are rarer. For this reason, the
researcher selected sources that spoke on rhetorical theory more generally (i.e. Aristotle,
c. 335/1984; Burke, 1969; Too, 2008; Woodward, 2003) and then adapted those sources
to the discussion of preaching.
As a persuasive act of public speaking, preaching is rhetoric that occurs on a
weekly basis. Through this case study of a sermon by Mark Driscoll in light of his
reputation, this project will make the links between preaching and rhetorical theory
explicit. It will apply rhetorical concepts such as identification and ethos to preaching in
a way that has rarely been done.
RHETORICAL SITUATION AND ARTIFACT
Before proceeding, the reader must understand the context of the chosen case
study. This chapter lays forth the narrative of Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church in
three sections: The origins and rise of Mars Hill Church, the increasingly controversial
nature of lead pastor Mark Driscoll, and the eventual resignation of Driscoll and
dissolution of Mars Hill. The chapter concludes with a brief introduction to the artifact,
Driscoll’s sermon “What Are the Scriptures?”
This chapter provides important background information about Mars Hill
Church and particularly Mark Driscoll. This information is provided early so that the
reader may become familiar with the case, and see why this case constitutes an
intriguing object of study. The nature of the case informed the selection of the theories
and methods. Further, the context of the situation is necessary in order to understand
the analysis and findings.
This chapter does present some preliminary findings, as researching the
rhetorical situation is an important first step in rhetorical analysis. In Chapter 3, the
research process will be narrated. This includes the online research undertaken to
understand and narrate the rhetorical situation, as well as the reasons for selecting the
sermon, “What Are the Scriptures?”
Many of the online sources in the following chapter no longer exist online. In
many cases, Driscoll removed controversial statements from the Internet following
outcries from critics. Additionally, many online sources were found on either
marshill.com or theresurgence.com. These websites were both maintained by Mars Hill
Church. When the church dissolved at the end of December 2014, the content of these
websites was removed from the Internet. For this reason, some sources cited below are
cited through quotes from other sources or articles. In other cases, the sources cited
below are no longer accessible. This is because the original sources have been removed
from public view.
P a g e | 5 Origins: The Rise of Mars Hill Church
Mars Hill Church was a high-profile American megachurch, which dissolved at
the end of 2014. This section relates the history of Mars Hill Church, as told on its
website (Mars Hill Church, 2015). Mars Hill Church was co-founded in 1996 by Mark
Driscoll, Leif Moi, and Mike Gunn. According to the church’s website, “The church
began as a Bible study group in the home of Pastor Mark and his wife Grace” (para. 3).
Over the course of the next 18 years, the church would grow in size, prominence and
influence under the leadership of Mark Driscoll.
Mars Hill Church grew into a multi-site phenomenon from humble beginnings
as a local Seattle house of worship. Mars Hill Church first dabbled in a multi-campus
structure after a decade of existence, when it opened a second campus in Shoreline,
Washington. Additional campuses were opened later that same year (para. 23). Mars
Hill Church continued to open campuses throughout Washington, and expanded to
Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2009. By the end of its run, Mars Hill Church had planted
campuses in five states: Washington, New Mexico, California, Oregon, and Arizona.
Mars Hill Church transcended the common conception of “church” due to its
size alone. In 2011, Mars Hill Church hosted “the largest church service ever in the
Pacific Northwest” (para. 29) at the CenturyLink Field (at the time known as Qwest
Field) sports stadium for Easter Sunday. Attendees from all Mars Hill campuses were
asked to attend the service, and the church reported attendance of 17,500 people.
Similarly, the church reported that “on April 20, 2014, over 25,000 people gathered at
Mars Hill Church locations or watched [the church’s] Easter service online” in
celebration of Easter Sunday (para 34). The size of Mars Hill Church made it a giant,
and it seemed to be growing continuously.
Under Mark Driscoll, a number of auxiliary ministries were launched to support
Mars Hill Church, as well as the global church. Particularly, Driscoll helped found the
Acts 29 Church Planting Network in 2000 (para. 6), a group dedicated to training and
equipping new pastors and churches. Driscoll served as the organization’s president for
a number of years before amicably passing the torch.
Mark Driscoll: No Stranger to Controversy
Mars Hill Church, and Mark Driscoll in particular, were no strangers to
controversy. Driscoll’s brash and polarizing preaching style attracted many followers,
but also drew a number of critics. Driscoll was outspoken and opinionated, and his
shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach to social media often landed him in hot water.
In 2006, following a scandal in which prominent evangelical pastor Ted Haggard was
discovered to have abused meth and solicited a male prostitute, Driscoll published a
blog post offering practical advice to fellow pastors on how to avoid temptation.
Among other thoughts, he offered this insight:
Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and
liberties with their wives. At the risk of being even more widely despised than I
currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not
uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes
feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity,
which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not
sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank
about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him
either. (Driscoll, as quoted in Goldstein, 2011, para. 2)
This type of boys-will-be-boys attitude seems to absolve pastors of responsibility for
their own actions, while placing undue responsibility on their wives. Further, Sandler
(2006) pointed out on Salon.com, “This argument is as illogical… as it is demeaning.
How she looks should have no bearing on this” (para. 4). Additionally, Driscoll’s
comment betrays an attitude towards women that would later play a large role in
inciting the controversy that led to his resignation. In the face of wide criticism, Driscoll
eventually issued an apology for his remarks (King, 2006). The original blog post is no
longer accessible online.
A second instance of social media flare-up took place some years later, when
Driscoll posted a comment on Facebook that read, “So, what story do you have about
the most effeminate anatomically male worship leader you’ve ever personally
witnessed?” (as cited in Miller, 2011, para. 1). The harsh, demeaning, and
condescending post again ignited criticism. Some critics equated Driscoll to a high
school bully (Clark, 2011). Others speculated on the culture of Mars Hill. In a blog post
discussing Driscoll’s comment, Evans (2011) wrote, “Mark has developed a pattern of
immaturity and unkindness that has remained largely unchecked by his church” (para.
9). Again, Driscoll (2011) apologized for his actions, calling the Facebook comment
P a g e | 7 “flippant” (para. 12) and thanking “all [his] critics who sometime[s] have good wisdom
that helps [him] out” (para. 16). The Facebook comment was later removed.
Controversy and criticism erupted a third time on January 21, 2013. The same
day that Barack Obama was sworn into office for his second term, Driscoll took to
Twitter and tweeted, “Praying for our president, who today will place his hands on a
Bible he does not believe to take an oath to a God he likely does not know” (as cited in
Zaimov, 2013, para. 2). The tweet was widely criticized by Christian leaders who
maintained that “the tweet [was] insensitive and [did] not reflect a proper Christian
attitude” (Zaimov, 2013, para. 4), especially when one considered that Barack Obama
“[had] confessed on many occasions to being a Christian” (para. 5). The tweet has since
been removed from Driscoll’s Twitter page.
These three incidents demonstrate a pattern of behavior. In each instance,
Driscoll spoke or acted flippantly. The public perceived those actions or words
negatively and reprimanded Driscoll for being arrogant, condescending, bullying, or
unkind. In some cases, Driscoll apologized; in some cases the offending remarks were
removed. However, the cycle often repeated, indicating Driscoll had not changed his
behavior. He appeared to not have taken the criticism and the reprimands to heart in a
way that led to real change. For Christian onlookers, this type of prideful stubbornness
seems incongruent with the expectations of pastoral character.
Constantly Embroiled in Controversy: Driscoll’s Resignation and the
End of Mars Hill Church
Towards the end of 2013 and throughout 2014, Mark Driscoll found himself
constantly embroiled in controversy. The ever-present controversy eventually led to
Driscoll’s resignation in the fall of 2014. Lacking the guidance of their founder, the Mars
Hill organization dissolved at the end of December 2014.
The string of controversy seems to have begun around November 21st, 2013,
when Christian television host Janet Mefferd interviewed Driscoll. Mefferd began the
interview (Shiningthe Light, 2013) by questioning Driscoll about an incident where he
made an unsolicited appearance outside of a conference hosted by another evangelical
pastor (2:09) and asking about his upcoming book (7:18). The interview eventually took
a turn when Mefferd, gently at first, accused Driscoll of plagiarizing another Christian
scholar (9:52). Halfway through the interview, Mefferd pointed out Driscoll’s failure to
properly quote or cite source material for his book. Driscoll responded by downplaying
the possible plagiarism. He assured Mefferd that the other scholar was in fact a dear
friend, and that much of the material used in the book came from “sitting down over
meals, and him talking and [Driscoll] listening” (10:45). Mefferd, unsatisfied with the
response, pressed the issue. Mefferd expressed her trouble over the apparent
appropriation of another person’s intellectual property (11:32). Driscoll responded
defensively, accusing Mefferd of being “accusatory and unkind” (11:52). He expressed
displeasure with the interview and attributed Mefferd’s concerns to her having “kind of
a grumpy day” (12:08). Mefferd continued to discuss other instances where Driscoll
failed to properly cite his source material, at which point Driscoll again downplayed the
seriousness of the accusation by conceding that he may have made a mistake and was
in fact suffering from an illness (13:08). Throughout, Driscoll sounded condescending
and defensive.
Relevantmagazine.com (2013) reported that following the interview, Mefferd
posted images of the problematic pages. In a bizarre turn of events, Mefferd eventually
removed all indications of the incident from her website, including the images of the
allegedly plagiarized pages. She also apologized to her audience for inciting the
controversy, saying, “Creating such dissension with the Christian community was
never my aim” (Throckmorton, 2013, para. 8). Two days later, one of Mefferd’s
producers resigned over the situation, stating, “All I can share is that there is an
evangelical celebrity machine that is more powerful than anyone realizes. You may not
go up against the machine” (Merritt, 2013, para. 2). The implication was that Mefferd
had received pressure to recant her previous accusations. In his article on the rise and
fall of Mars Hill Church, Woods (2014) explained that this first controversy “fed
perceptions that Driscoll was intolerant of criticism” (para. 12).
Controversy struck again soon after. On March 5, 2014, World Online magazine
posted an article titled “Unreal Sales for Driscoll’s Real Marriage.” The article claimed
that Mars Hill Church had paid an external marketing company a sum of at least
$210,000 to guarantee Real Marriage, a marriage book co-authored by Driscoll and his
wife Grace, would make it onto the New York Times best-sellers list (Smith, 2014, para.
1). Although not technically an illegal act (Smith, 2014, para. 11), the move had an air of
dishonesty and deceitfulness about it. This type of dishonest action seemed incongruent
P a g e | 9 with expectations of a pastor’s character. Additionally, Woods (2014) pointed out that
through this act, “the perception that [Driscoll] felt he was untouchable was fed” (para.
13).
Shortly after the Real Marriage controversy, Driscoll issued an open letter, which
was published in its entirety on Releventmagazine.com (2014). In the letter, Driscoll
briefly but directly addressed the Real Marriage controversy, calling it “manipulating a
book sales reporting system, which is wrong” (para. 13). He apologized, and promised
to “never use it again” (para. 13).
Driscoll also indicated the steps he was taking in light of the recent controversies.
This included an extended break from social media, which was to last “at least the
remainder of the year” (Relevantmagazine.com, 2014, para. 16). Additionally, Driscoll
stated that he would be “doing much less travel and speaking in the next season” (para.
17), as well as scaling back on media interviews and adhering to a less strict writing
regimen.
A relative peace settled at Mars Hill Church until the summer. On July 27, 2014,
Matthew Paul Turner published a selection of highly offensive posts made by Driscoll
in 2000 on a Mars Hill Church web forum. In the same blog post, Turner provided a link
to a pdf of the full forum thread (Turner, 2014). The comments, made under the
pseudonym William Wallace II, were highly crass, misogynistic, and homophobic.
Driscoll had alluded to making these posts in his 2006 book Confessions of a Reformission
Rev. Driscoll’s initial post began, “We live in a completely pussified nation” (William
Wallace II, 2000a, para. 1). The first post was essentially a long diatribe on the state of
Christian men, who Driscoll believed had been emasculated by too strong a female
influence in the church. Pointing to the book of Genesis, Driscoll berated Adam as “the
first of the pussified nation, who kept his mouth shut and watched everything fall
headlong down the slippery slide of hell/feminism when he shut his mouth and
listened to his wife” (William Wallace 11, 2000a, para. 2). Driscoll expressed dismay as
men became passive and effeminate through listening to the influence of their mothers,
wives, and women in general. “The culture and families and churches sprint to hell
because the men aren’t doing their job and the feminists continue their rant that it’s all
our fault and we should just let them be pastors and heads of homes and run the show”
(William Wallace 11, 2000a, para. 6).
In subsequent posts, Driscoll’s comments grew even more vulgar and offensive.
Driscoll refers to homosexuals as “Damn freaks” (William Wallace 11, 2000b, para. 2)
and finishes a post with the quip, “I’d tell you to kiss my ass, but I’m afraid you’d take
me up on it” (William Wallace 11, 2000b, para. 2).
Throughout his posts, Driscoll took an incredibly condescending tone towards
women. In one post, he wrote, “I speak harshly because I speak to men. A woman
might not understand that. I also do not answer to women. So, your question will be
ignored.” (William Wallace 11, 2000c, para. 1-2). This attitude betrays a problematic
disdain for women that runs as an undercurrent throughout the online posts.
Concurrent with the release of the offensive blog posts, Driscoll communicated
with his church via video released on the Mars Hill Church website. In the video,
Driscoll addressed some of the emerging controversy and his silence on the issue.
During the course of the video, Driscoll confided that some of the difficulty the church
had experienced resulted from the anonymity of its accusers:
As well, one of the things that has been complex is the fact that a lot of the people
that we are dealing with in this season remain anonymous. And so we don’t
know how to reconcile, or how to work things out with, with people because
we’re not entirely sure who they are. (Mars Hill Church, 2014, 6:16).
This comment infuriated former members of the church, who had openly criticized the
church and identified themselves in the process. Frustrated critics took to the streets,
organizing a peaceful protest of the church to take place on Sunday, August 3, 2014 (as
reported by Throckmorton, 2014a).
For many, the revelation of the offensive comments, combined with the tone-deaf
response of the church, seemed to be the final straw, and the church’s situation began to
spiral out of control. Days after the comments were made public, external members of
the church’s Board of Advisors and Accountability resigned (Throckmorton, 2014b;
2014c). Acts 29 Church Planting Network removed its co-founder, as well as Mars Hill
Church, from membership for what they considered “ungodly and disqualifying
behavior” (Throckmorton, 2014d, para. 3). Additionally, Acts 29 recommended Driscoll
“step down from ministry for an extended time and seek help” (para. 5). The following
day, Lifeway Christian Stores pulled all Driscoll’s books from their shelves
(Throckmorton, 2014e). On August 21, 21 former Mars Hill pastors brought formal
P a g e | 11 charges against Driscoll (Throckmorton, 2014f). Additionally, nine then-current pastors
expressed concern with the governance of the church (Throckmorton, 2014g).
Throughout this whole time, frustration with the leadership and culture of Mars
Hill Church bubbled beneath the surface. Many outsiders expressed concern about the
culture of Mars Hill. Stories about overreaching church discipline contracts used to
force members to repentance are quite troubling. The story of Andrew, as told by
Matthew Paul Turner (2012a; 2012b), provides just one example.
Andrew was a former member of Mars Hill Church. He became heavily involved
in the church through volunteering and serving. Having cheated on his fiancée, he
confessed his “sexual sin” to the leadership of the church, who began a process of
restoration involving numerous meetings with various pastors and church leaders of
different levels. Eventually, Andrew grew exhausted of the process and began to feel
manipulated by the church. Mars Hill Church sent Andrew a “church discipline
contract” which specified what repentance would look like in his situation. Some of the
steps included regular meetings with church group leaders and pastors, detailed lists of
“sexual and emotional history with women” to be shared with the church leaders, and a
prohibition on “pursu[ing] or dat[ing] any woman inside or outside of [Mars Hill]”
(Mars Hill Church, n.d.-a, para. 2).
Andrew felt the church’s contract was a controlling and manipulative measure.
He felt “that the contract was legalistic, voyeuristic and controlling. [He] felt like it was
putting them [Mars Hill Church] in the place of God, determining when [his] heart was
right or repentant enough” (Turner, 2012b, para. 7). After careful deliberation, Andrew
informed Mars Hill Church that he refused to sign their contract and would instead be
leaving the church. Andrew was informed that Mars Hill Church would consider him
as “leaving as a member under discipline not as a member in good standing” (Turner,
2012b, para. 11), and that his church discipline would be escalated. A friend later
informed Andrew that the church had distributed a letter to its members about
Andrew’s situation, with explicit directives on how members were to interact with
Andrew. In essence, Mars Hill members were to shun Andrew (Turner, n.d.).
Unfortunately, stories like Andrew’s are not uncommon. Websites like
joyfulexiles.com and welovemarshill.com serve as forums for former members and
employees to tell their stories of spiritual abuse and manipulation. These websites serve
as online support groups for those who feel they have been wrongly treated by Mars
Hill.
At the end of the tumultuous summer of 2014, Driscoll returned from vacation to
issue a response. On August 24th, in front of his church, Driscoll announced that he
would take an extended break from ministry. The video and transcript of this
announcement was subsequently posted to the church’s website (Mars Hill Church,
2014b). A visibly emotional Driscoll expressed remorse for the controversy he had
caused (4:14). While discrediting and diminishing some of the public criticisms levied
against him (6:25), Driscoll did acknowledge his confusing silence on the issues (6:53),
the wrongness of the aforementioned web forum comments (7:15), and the criticisms of
his personality (8:44). Driscoll also revealed the steps he planned to take in addressing
the growing controversies (11:44). These included a break of at least six weeks while the
charges against him were investigated. This meant no preaching and no work.
Additionally, he suspended all speaking appearances, postponed a book, and would
not respond to criticism on social media.
Only a few short months later, on October 14, Driscoll submitted his resignation
to the church of his own accord. By the end of October, Mars Hill Church elected to
dissolve as an organization, with its various campuses becoming autonomous churches.
This dissolution took place at the end of December 2014, with the remaining Mars Hill
Church campuses dissolving into eleven individual churches. Thus ended the saga of
Mars Hill.
The Artifact: “What Are the Scriptures?”
In the fall of 2013, Mark Driscoll preached a sermon titled “What Are The
Scriptures?” The sermon was originally delivered at Mars Hill Church’s U-District
campus in Seattle, near the University of Washington. The sermon was later posted as
both an audio podcast and a video podcast to Mars Hill’s iTunes podcast page on July
27th, 2014, concurrent with the emerging controversies. In the sermon, Driscoll
discusses the nature and authenticity of the Bible. He attempts to convince his
congregation (and his global listeners) of the veracity of the Bible’s claims, and its
relevance as a guiding authority in one’s life.
P a g e | 13 The sermon follows a fairly simple structure. Driscoll begins the sermon with a
brief introduction to the Bible, posing the question, “What are the scriptures?” (Driscoll,
2014, 1:51). Driscoll lists a number of facts about the Bible’s authorship including
timeframe, geographic location, genres, and structure. Driscoll also states the first (of
many) and perhaps most important “Big Idea”: “The whole Bible’s about Jesus” (4:25).
Driscoll then proceeds to make a number of statements about the Bible,
accompanied by illustrations and examples. He states that the Bible is the unequaled
word of God. He states that it is an authoritative text. He shows that Jesus frequently
quoted from the Bible. Finally, Driscoll states that Jesus claimed to be the fulfillment of
the Bible.
Following these introductory remarks and statements, Driscoll begins to unpack
the authorship of the Old Testament. His main claim is that the Old Testament
prophets, acting on behalf of God, the divine author, authored the Old Testament. This
means that the Bible is the inspired word of God. For Driscoll, this fact should lend
weight to the claim that the Bible is a more authoritative text than any other.
Driscoll then proceeds to examining the New Testament. He states that the New
Testament builds upon and completes the foundation of the Old Testament. Again, he
states that humans inspired by and acting on behalf of God authored the New
Testament. Like the Old Testament, it is the inspired word of God. He makes a point of
contesting the claim that the New Testament is a document that was compiled and
edited later. Driscoll also emphasizes that eyewitnesses wrote the New Testament. This
is meant to lend credibility to the text.
Next, Driscoll walks the audience through an in-depth interpretation of Isaiah
52:13-53:12. Reading slowly and interjecting often, Driscoll explains to his congregation
how the entire passage prophesies the life of Jesus. In doing so, Driscoll hopes to use
this sample as evidence that the entire Bible is about Jesus.
Driscoll then concludes with an appeal to his audience. He pleads with them to
read the Bible and internalize it. He asks them to stand up boldly for their faith in the
face of opposition. He asks them to respect the authority of the Bible. Driscoll then
closes the sermon with a prayer that his audience would take his sermon to heart, and
at the very least start reading their Bibles.
THEORY AND METHOD
This chapter describes the theories and methods used to analyze Mark Driscoll’s
ethos in the sermon “What Are the Scriptures?” It narrates the process taken by the
researcher from the initial stages of researching Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church,
through the selection of the sermon to the rhetorical analysis of the sermon, concluding
with supplemental qualitative interviews.
The narration of the research methods mirrors the four steps taken by the
researcher, beginning with the construction of the rhetorical situation from Internet
sources. Relying on his own familiarity with Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church, the
researcher turned to a number of online sources to corroborate his knowledge of Mars
Hill’s origin and rise, and to demonstrate the controversial persona of Mark Driscoll.
Online research was also used throughout the writing of this thesis to stay up to date on
the developing situation of Mars Hill Church through the second half of 2014.
Next, this chapter explains the process of selecting the sermon “What Are the
Scriptures?” Justification is provided for the selection of this sermon over others. Key
features of the sermon are highlighted that made it a preferable artifact for analysis.
The chapter proceeds to justify the use of rhetorical analysis in analyzing the
sermon. The researcher justifies his use of generative criticism. Key rhetorical theorists
and concepts are defined, explained and justified. The key concepts rhetoric, persuasion,
identification, intrinsic ethos, and extrinsic ethos are introduced. These concepts are
defined and explained, drawing on the work of Aristotle, Isocrates, Burke, and
Woodward. The use of these theories and concepts is also justified.
Finally, the reader is introduced to the interview method, which was used to
provide supplemental evidence to the rhetorical analysis. The process of selecting and
interviewing participants is explained. Limitations to the interview data are also
acknowledged.
P a g e | 15 Constructing the Rhetorical Situation
The researcher originally selected the case of Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill
Church due to his familiarity with the pastor. Having followed Mark Driscoll for a
number of years, even attending Mars Hill on one occasion, the researcher was aware of
the Driscoll’s widespread influence through online sermons, books, guest speaking
appearances and social media. The researcher was also aware of Driscoll’s controversial
persona both within and without the bounds of Evangelical Protestantism. The
researcher recalled first reading Driscoll’s controversial social media comments about
effeminate male worship leaders and criticisms of Barack Obama, as well as the
subsequent backlash to those comments. The researcher also recalled reading critiques
of Driscoll by bloggers such as Matthew Paul Turner. Even within the researcher’s own
personal network, Driscoll struck a controversial figure. In designing this project, the
researcher recognized that his interest in ethos and preaching intersected with Driscoll’s
controversial reputation, and Driscoll was selected as the object of analysis.
After selecting Driscoll as the case, the researcher endeavored to corroborate his
own knowledge of Mars Hill Church’s origins and his recollections of Driscoll’s
reputation. This was done through online research. The history of Mars Hill Church
supplied in the previous chapter summarizes information found on the church’s
website. To demonstrate Driscoll’s controversial reputation, the researcher sought to
find notable instances where Driscoll’s comments had incited controversy. The aim was
to find the original Twitter, Facebook, or blog postings, as well as reactions to those
comments. Google searches relating to Mark Driscoll became the primary research tool.
In many cases, Driscoll’s original comments had been removed. In these cases, the
researcher used secondary sources where Driscoll’s original comment was quoted.
Relevantmagazine.com could be relied upon to provide neutral reporting on Driscoll’s
actions, while bloggers such as Matthew Paul Turner and Rachel Held Evans provided
more subjective criticism. Warren Throckmorton’s blog on patheos.com included both
objective reporting and commentary.
As this research was conducted over the course of the summer of 2014, the
researcher became aware of the brewing storm at Mars Hill Church, primarily through
Throckmorton’s blog. The researcher began monitoring the situation more closely,
conducting daily Google searches on Mars Hill Church and Mark Driscoll to stay up to
date with the latest news. Throckmorton reported multiple times daily on the unfolding
drama in Seattle over the course of the summer. New outlets like the New York Times
also ran some coverage of the mounting controversies. The researcher continued to
follow the coverage closely, through Driscoll’s resignation and the eventual
announcement that Mars Hill Church would dissolve. These sources were eventually
used to construct a timeline of the controversies of 2014.
This research ended up being limited, as Mars Hill Church shut down its online
platforms following its dissolution. Both marshill.com and theresurgence.com were
taken offline, removing a number of key sources that had previously been consulted in
constructing the rhetorical situation. Any further refinement of the rhetorical situation
was thus severely hampered after December 2014.
Selecting the Sermon
As the researcher conducted his online research of Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill
Church, he subsequently embarked on the process of selecting a sermon. This was as
simple as listening to a number of sermons that Mars Hill Church had released as audio
podcasts via iTunes. The researcher began listening and evaluating sermons that had
recently been released by Mars Hill Church. Since Driscoll was on vacation and absent
from the pulpit at the time, these ended up being archived sermons.
“What Are the Scriptures?” was selected for a number of reasons. First, strategies
for identification are clearly evident. Driscoll knows his audience is primarily
comprised of university students. He goes to great lengths to tailor his message to that
demographic. Driscoll carefully selects metaphors, anecdotes, and evidence that he
believes will bridge the gap between himself and his audience. This allows for a rich
analysis of his strategies as a rhetor.
Second, “What Are the Scriptures?” was selected due to the timing of its release.
The sermon was posted during Driscoll’s absence from the pulpit, and happened to
coincide with the emerging controversy. Any podcast listener following the news out of
Seattle would have originally heard this sermon at the same time as the controversy
developed. The sermon may have been interpreted through that filter. This leads to
interesting questions of the role of reputation and ethos in persuasion.
P a g e | 17 Third, this sermon is a fair snapshot of Driscoll’s preaching. The sermon’s
content is fairly typical of a sermon about the Bible. Driscoll does not say or do anything
noteworthy or controversial during the sermon. He does not preach in an overly angry
style or in an overly affectionate style, as he does in some other sermons. Driscoll’s tone
throughout is neutral and moderate. Additionally, Driscoll makes use of some of his
more common anecdotes, illustrations and catchphrases. For these reasons, “What Are
the Scriptures?” is a fair and balanced representation of Driscoll’s preaching.
The use of this sermon may rightly be questioned. Some might reason that a
sermon more clearly connected by content to the recent controversy would have been a
better choice. Perhaps using a sermon in which Driscoll directly addressed issues such
as church leadership, church discipline, or gender would be appropriate. Alternatively,
perhaps a better analysis could be conducted on Driscoll’s address to Mars Hill Church,
in which he faced the controversy head on prior to his sabbatical and eventual
resignation. Could these not provide more fertile soil in which to analyze Driscoll’s
ethos? These are valid questions. However, since this project focuses on Driscoll’s ethos
as a preacher, questions of content become secondary. The obviousness of Driscoll’s
attempts to construct positive ethos and draw identification from his audience, as well
as the release date of the sermon, outweigh any issues of content. Further, this sermon
was selected because it deals with religious topics rather than cultural topics.
Generating the Unit of Rhetorical Analysis
With the background compiled and the artifact selected, the researcher had to
select a method for analyzing Driscoll’s ethos in “What Are the Scriptures?” Since the
researcher was generally interested in preaching as rhetoric, and specifically interested
in the effect of Driscoll’s ethos on his audience, it was natural to select rhetorical analysis
as the mode of criticism.
This section explains the method of rhetorical analysis and defines the key
theoretical concepts used in analyzing “What Are the Scriptures?” The researcher has
selected the concepts rhetoric, persuasion, identification, intrinsic ethos, and extrinsic ethos.
In the following paragraphs, these concepts will be defined and explained by drawing
on the works of Aristotle, Isocrates, Burke, and Woodward. This section takes a topdown approach to discussing the theories, beginning with the broad term rhetoric, and
walking through the concepts down to the bedrock terms of intrinsic and extrinsic ethos.
The discussion of these theories and concepts is organized from macro to micro, rather
than chronologically. For example, even though Burke wrote centuries after Aristotle
and Isocrates, his theory is discussed before. This is done so that the reader will gain an
understanding of how certain theories work within and contribute to other theories.
The reader will gain an understanding of the complex interplay of these theories: how
intrinsic and extrinsic ethos conspire to result in identification between the pastor and
the audience, which enables persuasion, the ultimate goal of rhetoric.
Rhetoric
Aristotle (c. 335/1984) defined rhetoric as “the faculty of observing in any given
case the available means of persuasion” (p. 24). This classical definition suggests that
the desired outcome of a rhetor is persuasion. Rhetoric is the tool that achieves said
outcome. As Aristotle (c. 335/1984) argued, rhetoric is an art primarily “concerned with
the modes of persuasion” (p. 22). Within this wide umbrella exist a number of concepts
and strategies that aid in obtaining the ultimate goal of persuasion.
Under this definition, sermons may be classified as rhetoric. Week in and week
out, pastors around the world prepare to persuade their congregation from the pulpit.
When sermons are viewed as a form of rhetoric, one understands that pastors search for
the most effective strategies to convince their audience that what they preach is true,
and spur their audience towards a certain worldview and lifestyle.
If Mark Driscoll is considered a rhetor, then this definition suggests he
necessarily had at least one goal in preparing his sermon: to persuade his audience that
the Bible is true, trustworthy and authoritative. Further, viewing “What Are the
Scriptures?” as rhetoric suggests that Driscoll used certain strategies and tactics in order
to persuade his congregation. By classifying sermons as rhetoric, the researcher can ask
how Driscoll attempted to persuade his audience, and explore the strategies used in the
sermon.
Rhetorical Analysis
Rhetorical analysis is “the process of systematically investigating and explaining
symbolic acts and artifacts for the purpose of understanding rhetorical processes” (Foss,
1996, pp. 6-7). Foss (1996) explains that this type of analysis is focused on symbolic acts
such as speech. It also aims to understand the rhetorical processes at work within the
P a g e | 19 symbolic act (p. 7). Since preaching is an oral form, it qualifies under Foss’ definition of
a symbolic act. Additionally, the aim of this project is to understand the function of ethos
in preaching. In other words, its goal is to understand an element of the rhetorical
process. Rhetorical analysis is therefore a natural fit.
This project uses a generative criticism as described by Foss (1996). Generative
criticism involves the generation of a unit of analysis by the critic (Foss, 1996, p. 484).
The unit of analysis is the theoretical and conceptual lens through which the critic
examines the artifact (Foss, 1996, p. 483). To generate a unit of analysis, the critic selects
theories and concepts that help “explain significant features of the artifact” (Foss, 1996,
p. 484). These theories are then applied to the artifact.
Persuasion
As stated above, rhetoric is primarily concerned with modes of persuasion.
Persuasion has already been discussed, but it must now be defined. Simons (2011)
succinctly defined persuasion as “human communication designed to influence the
judgments and actions of others” (p. 24). Persuasion is the act of influencing another
towards a change in decision or behavior. It is not merely trying to change a person’s
mind; it often involves getting them to act in a specific manner.
Simons’ definition of persuasion is relevant to this project. “What Are the
Scriptures?”, like all of Driscoll’s numerous sermons, is an attempt to influence the
congregation’s judgment and actions in regards to the Bible. Driscoll attempts to
persuade his congregation that the Bible is an authoritative and trustworthy book.
Further, Driscoll attempts to persuade his congregation to engage in one simple act:
Read the Bible. In so doing, Driscoll attempts to persuade in a more subtle way. He
hopes to influence their thinking about Christianity, to the end of seeing people
converted to Christ.
Using the concepts of rhetoric and persuasion in conjunction, it is up to the
researcher to determine how exactly Driscoll goes about persuading his audience in this
sermon. The researcher must explore the strategies used by Driscoll, determine why
those strategies were used, and evaluate whether they were successful in persuading
the audience.
Identification
Under the umbrella of rhetoric and persuasion is Kenneth Burke’s concept of
identification. In A Rhetoric of Motives, Burke (1969) acknowledged that persuasion has
been the traditional goal of rhetoric, while suggesting that his concept of identification
might be an additional rhetorical motive (p. xiv). In fact, Burke suggested that
identification was a necessary first step towards persuasion. Burke (1969) famously
wrote, “You persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech,
gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his” (p. 55).
Burke showed that rhetorical communication depends on commonality. Two people
may only communicate as long as they share a common language. Persuasion is no
different, except in addition to common language the speaker and the listener must
speak the same “language” of values, ideas, etc. Through shared “language”, the rhetor
finds alignment with his or her audience, allowing the audience to more easily follow
the rhetor down the path towards persuasion. This process is known as identification.
Building on the work of Burke and others, Woodward (2003) concisely defined
identification: “It is a good starting point to consider identification as the conscious
alignment of oneself with the experiences, ideas, and expressions of others: a
heightened awareness that a message or gesture is revisiting a feeling or state of mind
we already ‘know’” (p. 5). Central to this definition is the idea that the audience must be
aligned with the speaker. Once common ground has been established, the audience is
more easily persuaded.
Identification is a significant concept because it acknowledges that rhetoric is not
a one-sided process. Rather, there is interplay between the rhetor and the audience.
While the rhetor uses rhetoric to determine the available means of persuasion and then
employs those means to construct a persuasive argument, it is up to the audience to
interpret the argument. The audience is not merely a receiver of the message; they are
the interpreters of the message. In Woodward’s (2003) words, “Audiences are the
‘judges’ of messages” (p. 6). The audience always enters the rhetorical situation with
certain expectations about what they are going to hear and whom they are going to hear
it from. These can range from the content and structure of the message to the character
of the speaker. Audiences hold presuppositions about what constitutes a valid and
compelling argument, based on their worldviews and beliefs. They also hold
presuppositions about what constitutes credibility in a speaker for the same reasons. A
P a g e | 21 key component in the process of fostering identification is fulfilling the expectations of
the audience. Woodward (2003) writes, “Expectations affirmed are often identifications.
Expectations denied are potential sources of alienation” (p. 14). Speakers must affirm
their own credibility and gain identification through meeting the audience’s
expectations in order to be persuasive.
This project seeks to understand how the audience’s interpretation of Mark
Driscoll as a rhetor affects his ability to persuade. The concept of identification opens up
the rhetorical process from a narrow view focused only on the rhetor’s strategies to a
broad model that acknowledges the audience as interpreter. Using identification allows
the researcher to interrogate how the audience interprets Driscoll as a rhetor.
Ethos
Ethos, as described by Aristotle in Rhetoric, is one of three modes of persuasion.
Aristotle (c. 335/1984) writes, “[The first mode of persuasion furnished by the spoken
word] depends on the personal character of the speaker” (p. 24). While the other two
modes, pathos and logos, focus on the audience’s emotion and the message’s logic
respectively, ethos focuses on the speaker. Specifically, ethos is concerned with the
character presented by the speaker. This is a strong appeal. Aristotle (c. 335/1984)
stated, “[A speaker’s] character may almost be called the most effective means of
persuasion he possesses” (p. 25). Aristotle explained that ethos compels persuasion so
strongly by indicating credibility. He writes, “Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s
personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We
believe good men more fully and more readily than others” (Aristotle, c. 335/1984, p.
25). When a rhetor presents a character that the audience interprets as appealing, they
begin down the path towards persuasion.
Aristotle’s conception of ethos laid the conceptual foundation for Burke’s theory
of identification. Woodward (2003) demonstrates how Burke built his theory upon the
classical discussions of Aristotle. According to Woodward, Burke drew on Aristotle’s
work in order to understand the audience side of the rhetorical equation. Further, Braet
(1992) specifies that identification may also play an important role in the audience’s
interpretation of the rhetor’s ethos: “an audience which sees itself reflected in the
speaker will give ethos and thus trust” (p. 313). Ethos and identification are thus
connected: Ethos leads to identification, while identification contributes to ethos.
This project employs the concept of ethos for two reasons. The use of
identification as a concept cannot be justified without also employing its underlying
concept of ethos. More importantly, however, analyzing ethos allows this project to focus
on Mark Driscoll as a rhetor rather than on the content of the sermon. The research
question of this project is completely concerned with analyzing ethos.
Intrinsic Ethos
Intrinsic ethos refers to the ethos presented by the speaker within the bounds of
the rhetorical act. Aristotle’s explanation of ethos centered upon how the rhetor portrays
character in a speech. He wrote, “This kind of persuasion, like the others, should be
achieved by what the speaker says, not by what people think of this character before he
begins to speak” (Aristotle, c. 335/1984, p. 25). For Aristotle, prior reputation is not a
factor in rhetoric. Ideally, the audience approaches the speech objectively, and
formulates judgment based on the speech alone.
The concept of intrinsic ethos allows the researcher to objectively analyze
Driscoll’s character in answering research sub-question one, how does a pastor
construct and present intrinsic ethos within the bounds of a sermon? By examining
Driscoll as he presents himself in the sermon, the researcher may both evaluate what
type of character Driscoll is presenting, as well as the success of this ethos in garnering
identification and leading to persuasion.
In order to evaluate intrinsic ethos, the researcher will focus on Driscoll’s
presentation of the three components of ethos described by Aristotle: Knowledge, virtue,
and goodwill. Braet (1992) argue that audiences attribute positive ethos to a rhetor when
they recognize the presence of these three components in a rhetorical act: “True
credibility results when the audience attributes three qualities to the speaker because of
what is said; these virtues are good sense, virtue and goodwill” (p. 311). By searching
for these elements in Driscoll’s sermon, the researcher may determine 1) what kind of
ethos Driscoll presents, and 2) whether he is successful at garnering identification and
leading to persuasion.
Aristotle’s first concept is virtue. Smith (2004) explains, “Aristotle defines virtue
as the ability to produce and preserve the good”, which is equated with happiness (p.
7). Further, Smith explains that Aristotle believed virtue was a character trait marked by
the ability to make moral choices that would lead to preserving happiness (p. 7). In
P a g e | 23 order to create positive ethos, a speaker must demonstrate in the speech that he or she
has the capacity to determine and choose the path that will lead to the most good.
However, the attribution of virtue is not reliant on the rhetor alone. As we have
seen, rhetoric is a two-sided equation involving a speaker and an audience. Recall as
well that Woodward (2003) suggested that audiences are the judges of messages.
Therefore, virtue lies in the eye of the beholder. A speaker must mirror the audience’s
values and beliefs back to them. Smith (2004) explains that audiences have different
standards and presuppositions about what constitutes virtuous behavior. It is up to the
rhetor to discern this standard, and adjust accordingly (p. 7). Since the audience
interprets the message, the speaker must demonstrate what the audience thinks is
honorable. This is not to say that they must demonstrate what is actually honorable, for
the audience’s perception of the honorable may not actually be honorable (Smith, 2004,
p. 6). Once the audience sees its own values and beliefs in the speaker, ethos is
attributed, identification can occur and the audience can be persuaded.
In the case of Driscoll, virtuous behavior is most likely built upon the foundation
of the Bible. Driscoll is a Christian pastor, preaching in a Christian church. The
Christian worldview is primarily founded upon the teachings of the Bible. Further,
“What Are the Scriptures?” is a sermon in which Driscoll attempts to convince his
audience that the Bible is an authoritative text upon which to build ones life. Unless
Driscoll does not actually believe what he is preaching, it can be assumed that he would
look to the Bible as a guideline for virtuous behavior.
Analysis of Driscoll in “What Are the Scriptures?” required identifying instances
where Driscoll demonstrated virtue. The researcher sought to answer a number of
virtue-related questions:
•
What is virtuous behavior, according to the sermon audience?
•
Did Driscoll discern and adjust to the audience’s expectations of virtuous
behavior? How is this demonstrated?
•
How did Driscoll demonstrate an ability to discern and choose a path of
behavior that leads to the greatest possible good?
Aristotle’s second component of ethos is wisdom. This may also be interpreted as
“good sense, practical wisdom, sagacity, expertise, [or] intelligence” (Smith, 2004, p. 10).
Essentially, this component deals with the demonstration of what the speaker knows.
Smith (2004) writes, “What is clear from early on in the Rhetoric is that a public speaker
must know a great deal to be successful” (p. 10). Throughout a speech, the speaker must
establish his or herself as a knowledgeable person. This is not a narrow knowledge, but
a vast and broad knowledge. Smith elaborates, “Aristotle describes five ‘chief’
intellectual virtues: scientific knowledge, art, practical wisdom, intuitive reason, and
philosophic wisdom” (p. 10). As one can see, there is a wide range of knowledge
available to the speaker in order to demonstrate ethos.
The researcher had to determine if and how Driscoll portrays himself as a
knowledgeable speaker by posing the following questions:
•
How does Driscoll demonstrate that he is knowledgeable?
•
Does Driscoll convince the audience that he is knowledgeable?
•
Does Driscoll show expertise in regards to the Bible? Does he seem
knowledgeable more generally?
Finally, Aristotle discusses the third component of ethos: goodwill. Goodwill may
best be understood as similar to friendship, with some notable differences. Smith (2004)
writes, “Friendliness appears consistent with Aristotle’s brief description of goodwill:
the speaker should share the best advice out of goodwill… as one would share the best
advice for the sake of a friend” (p. 12). Goodwill is an attitude of the speaker towards
others. Speakers who demonstrate goodwill show that they have the audience’s best
interests at heart through the message.
The main difference between goodwill and friendliness is the matter of
reciprocity. Smith (2004) writes, “Aristotle begins by arguing that those who wish good
for others have goodwill if they are not seeking reciprocation” (p. 12). He elaborates,
“Goodwill is wishing good for others for their sake; it is the beginning of friendship” (p.
12). Reciprocity implies closeness with the audience that is not necessarily present in
goodwill. Goodwill is a more distant, but still benevolent, relationship with and attitude
towards the audience.
To evaluate Driscoll’s goodwill, the researcher asked the following questions:
•
How does Driscoll demonstrate goodwill towards the audience?
•
Does Driscoll seem to be motivated by his own gain, or by the best interest
of his congregation?
•
Does Driscoll say or do anything that might indicate a lack of goodwill?
In answering these questions about Driscoll’s virtue, knowledge, and goodwill, it
was extremely important that the researcher remain objective. Since Aristotle asserted
P a g e | 25 ethos was confined to the bounds of the speech, the researcher had to pay special
attention so as not to let knowledge of Driscoll’s reputation interfere with answering
sub-question one. The researcher had to temporarily bracket off knowledge of the
controversies of the summer of 2014 in order to remain objective.
Extrinsic Ethos
While intrinsic ethos is limited to the speaker’s presentation of character in the
speech, extrinsic ethos widens the scope to include prior knowledge of the speaker. This
concept appears in the works of many Classical scholars, but here we focus on Isocrates.
Like Aristotle, Isocrates placed a high value on a speaker’s ethos. The main difference
between Aristotle and Isocrates’ conception of ethos deals with the rhetor’s reputation.
For Isocrates, ethos is closely related to a speaker’s moral character and
reputation. Rummel (1979) asserts, “Isocrates’ idea of rhetorical perfection is closely
related to his concept of moral excellence” (p. 26) Leff (2009) agrees, stating that
Isocratean ethos “incorporates the reputation of the speaker based upon things said and
done before beginning the speech” (p. 307). Benoit (1990) takes this one step further:
“For Isocrates, ethos is the speaker’s prior reputation, developed during life. It is the
most important mode of persuasion because it lends weight to all of the words of the
speaker” (p.258). Therefore, extrinsic ethos is synonymous with reputation.
Isocratean ethos is perhaps best summed up in the following passage from the
Antidosis:
Moreover, anyone who wishes to persuade others will not neglect virtue but will
devote even more attention to ensuring that he achieves a most honourable
reputation among his fellow citizens. Who could fail to know that speeches seem
truer when spoken by those of good name than by the disreputable, and that
arguments acquire more authority when they come from one’s life than from
mere words. The more ardently someone wants to persuade his audience, the
more he will strive to be a gentleman… and to have a good reputation among the
citizens. (as cited in Too, 2008, p. 77)
In this passage, Isocrates clearly states an important idea. Isocrates demonstrates
that the goal of a speaker should be to achieve good repute with potential audiences.
This is clear when he says, “Anyone who wishes to persuade others will not neglect
virtue but will devote even more attention to ensuring that he achieves a most
honourable reputation among his fellow citizens” (Too, 2008, p. 77), and later, “The
more ardently someone wants to persuade his audience, the more he will strive… to
have a good reputation among his citizens” (Too, 2008, p. 77). Persuasion is thus
directly tied to reputation. A speaker of disrepute will not be persuasive, no matter how
correct or true the speech is. Isocrates is suggesting that ethos, particularly extrinsic
ethos, has the ability to supersede logos in the minds of the audience. Poor reputation can
block persuasion.
Good repute should be a goal of the speaker because reputation has a direct
effect on the credibility of the speaker and the audience’s willingness to be persuaded.
He poses the question, “Who could fail to know that speeches seem truer when spoken
by those of good name than by the disreputable, and that arguments acquire more
authority when they come from one’s life than from mere words [?]” (Too, 2008, p. 77).
The idea is that a reputable and honourable rhetor is more easily believed. Audiences
are more likely to trust, and therefore be persuaded by a speaker of high regard.
Conversely, a rhetor of shady moral character or disreputable status is likely to draw
distrust, or at the very least cautious skepticism, from the audience. If a speaker is well
thought of, that reputation lends credibility to the speech itself.
Isocrates’ suggestion that “arguments acquire more authority when they come
from one’s life than from mere words” (as cited in Too, 2008, p. 77) has strong
implications for Christian preachers. In the letter of 1 Timothy, the apostle Paul writes
to Timothy, his young protégé, and explains the qualifications necessary for church
leadership:
Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, soberminded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard,
not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage
his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if
someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care
for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up
with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be
well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of
the devil. (1 Timothy 3:2-7)
Among the listed qualifications, Paul explains that a leader in the church “must be
above reproach,” “respectable,” and “well thought of by outsiders.” They must exhibit
P a g e | 27 strong character through marital fidelity, self-control, sobriety, hospitality, and
gentleness. Paul finds these character attributes so important that they are reiterated. In
a letter to Titus, another young protégé, Paul gives similar instructions:
This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order,
and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— if anyone is above reproach,
the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the
charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God's steward,
must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a
drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, selfcontrolled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy
word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and
also to rebuke those who contradict it. (Titus 1:5-9)
In this passage again, Paul explains that church elders and overseers, those
tasked with leading the church, must be “above reproach” and exhibit strong moral
character such as hospitality, self-control, uprightness, holiness, discipline, and
goodness. From these two passages, we gather that Paul believed honor and good
repute to be of the utmost importance for those tasked with leading the church and
teaching the doctrines of Christianity.
We are given some insight into the reasons for the focus on reputation by turning
to the church father Augustine. In his handbook on preaching, On Christian Doctrine,
Augustine (426/1958) writes, “The life of the speaker has greater weight in determining
whether he is obediently heard than any grandness of eloquence” (p. 164). Here,
Augustine echoes Isocrates’ comment, “arguments acquire more authority when they
come from one’s life than from mere words” (Too, 2008, p. 77). Although Augustine
acknowledges that true words spoken by a person of poor character or poor standings
may still be persuasive, he insists that a speaker will be more effective when their life
mirrors the content of their speech, or as the cliché goes, when they practices what they
preach.
Isocrates, Paul, and Augustine show that it is greatly important that speakers
(preachers or otherwise) live lives that reflect the convictions of their rhetoric. This
lends credibility to the speaker and authority to the speech. It aids in the persuasion of
the audience.
As demonstrated in the previous chapter, Driscoll is a controversial figure. While
he may be effective at constructing intrinsic ethos, his extrinsic ethos has the potential to
overshadow a single sermon. The researcher used the concept of extrinsic ethos to
understand how reputation factors into the audience’s response to Driscoll’s message.
Conducting Qualitative Interviews
It was desirable to the researcher that this project not only speculated on issues of
audience response, but that it could also demonstrate the affect that Driscoll’s intrinsic
and extrinsic ethos had towards garnering identification and leading to persuasion.
Therefore, this project also involves qualitative, semi-structured interviews. These
interviews were designed to add supplemental data that would support or question the
findings of the rhetorical analysis.
Discussing various research methods, Neuman and Robson (2012) explain, “the
focus [of interviews] is on the members’ perspectives and experiences” (p. 252). These
types of data were exactly what the researcher wanted to use to supplement the
findings of the rhetorical analysis. After undergoing the process of gaining ethics
approval from the University of Calgary, the researcher began designing and carrying
out the interview component of this study.
Since it was impossible for the researcher to interview actual members of the
Mars Hill Church congregation in person because of the significant distance from
Calgary to Seattle, an audience was simulated for the purpose of the interviews. Driscoll
shares a religious ideology with a significant portion of his congregation. A simulated
audience needed to share this same ideology. Therefore, the research sought to recruit
Protestant, evangelical, North American practicing Christians.
Participants were selected using a nonprobability sampling method best
described as purposive sampling. Neuman and Robson (2012) define purposive
sampling as “situations in which an expert uses judgment in selecting cases with a
specific purpose in mind” (p. 132). Participants were selected based on the following
criteria:
1. Participants ideally reflected Driscoll’s podcast audience, who would have
had access to both the podcast and the news of the recent controversies
without being members of the church. For this reason, and due to the
P a g e | 29 inherent time, resource, and scope limitations of an undergraduate thesis,
residents of southern Alberta were asked to participate. The researcher’s
network in southern Alberta Christian communities enabled him to
recruit six participants rather quickly. Four of the participants resided in
Calgary, while one resided in Cochrane and another lived in Airdrie.
2. Data would be more relevant if participants closely resembled Driscoll’s
original audience. Therefore, participants needed to be professing
Protestant evangelical Christians, preferably belonging to a church with
similar theological views to Mars Hill Church. To demonstrate this
criterion, participants were asked to read and demonstrate agreement
with Mars Hill’s statement of faith (See Appendix A). However in order to
avoid bias or similarities in the answers, all selected participants attended
different churches. This lead to a breadth in the denominational traditions
represented within the umbrella of Protestant Evangelical Christianity.
3. Since Driscoll originally preached this sermon to members of a church
campus in Seattle’s university district, it was preferably that participants
be in their twenties, similar to the audience who first heard Driscoll
preach the sermon. Ideally, there would be equal gender representation,
and a variety of education levels in order to diversify the potential
responses.
As indicated above, six participants of similar age agreed to participate in the
interviews. Participants were recruited from the researcher’s personal network. Three
men and three women were selected to participate. The youngest participant was 24
years of age, while the oldest was 29 years of age. Participants had a variety of levels of
education, from diplomas to completed undergraduate degrees to ongoing graduate
schooling. To avoid bias, special care was paid to selecting only one participant from
any church. This led to a diversity of Christian expression and opinion. Participants
were recruited via e-mail and Facebook, which were methods approved by the
University of Calgary ethics committee.
Once participants were selected, the pool of participants was divided into two
experimental groups. Since this study is primarily a rhetorical analysis, supplemented
with data from human participants, it was not necessary to design a carefully controlled
psychological or scientific experiment. However, the researcher believed that
manipulating the variable of reputation knowledge would help to answer the research
question and sub-questions. In Group 1, participants were asked to listen to one
sermon, and interviewed about its effect afterwards. Group 2 was asked to first read a
New York Times article and blog post from Matthew Paul Turner about Mark Driscoll
before listening to the sermon. The article, “A Brash Style That Filled Pews, Until
Followers Had Their Fill” (Paulsen, 2014) was originally published on August 22, 2014,
and outlined some of the controversy Driscoll and Mars Hill Church had undergone
over the course of that summer. Turner’s blog post, “Mark Driscoll’s Pussified
Nation…” (2014), was the same blog post that originally revealed Driscoll’s 2000
comments under the pseudonym William Wallace II. Turner’s blog post contained only
six lines of commentary, and was primarily comprised of an excerpt from Confessions of
a Reformission Rev, excerpts of the damning quotes, as well as a link to the full pdf. The
research was conducted in this way to examine whether Driscoll’s extrinsic ethos
overshadowed his intrinsic ethos.
Both groups of participants were shown the full video recording of the sermon,
omitting the prologue. By showing participants the video, they experienced the sermon
as closely as possible to those actually present in Driscoll’s church. This allowed them to
see non-verbal elements of his ethos, such as his clothing, appearance, mannerisms,
posture, and demeanor.
Once participants had finished watching the sermon, they were asked a number
of questions about their perception of Driscoll, his ethos, and his ability to create
identification with his audience (Appendix B). They were asked whether he was
successful in creating common ground with the audience and in persuading the
audience. They were asked about his attitude to his audience, and whether he seemed
knowledgeable on his topic. Additionally, they were asked about their ideal
characteristics of a pastor, and if Driscoll fit that profile. All participants were asked the
same questions, in the same order, with some exceptions. First, only participants in
Group 2 were asked Question 4, which related to the Matthew Paul Turner blog post
and the New York Times article. Second, since the interviews were semi-structured and
qualitative, participants were asked spontaneous questions relating to their experience
of the sermon as was deemed appropriate by the researcher. These were done to clarify
previous answers, expound on personal reactions, or pursue topics that emerged on the
spot. Finally, on the rare occasion, questions were posed out of order by accident. By
P a g e | 31 conducting the interviews in this manner, the researcher was able to gauge actual
audience reactions to the sermon, allowing him to supplement his own analysis with
human data. The researcher than incorporated this data within his own rhetorical
analysis where appropriate to supplement or interrogate his claims.
Limitations of Interview Data
The interview data is limited in its reliability and its generalizability. Because of
the small sample size, it is possible that data collected from these participants
constitutes an anomaly. The findings of this project may be limited to the six
participants that took part in the study. These findings could also be unique to the
geographic location, and the Christian audience. While this data may spark some
interesting insights, it would still be necessary to interrogate those findings with future
research.
ANALYSIS
With the theoretical framework and methodology now established, this chapter
analyzes Driscoll’s intrinsic and extrinsic ethos in “What Are the Scriptures?” The
chapter is divided into three sections. The first section briefly introduces the six
interview participants. Although the interview data merely supplements the rhetorical
analysis, the researcher has elected to introduce the participants first so that readers
may gain some understanding of the perspectives represented by the participants.
Additionally, this early placement allows the reader a fuller understanding of who said
what in a way that will be easy to follow. This should lend clarity to their comments as
the reader proceeds through the two analysis sections.
The second section describes how Driscoll constructs his intrinsic ethos within
the sermon. Focusing exclusively on Driscoll’s ethos in the sermon, the researcher
describes the various strategies Driscoll uses to build positive intrinsic ethos.
Additionally, the researcher highlights some additional factors that may contribute
negatively to Driscoll’s ethos. The researcher’s own analysis is supplemented minimally
by the interview data.
The third section shows how extrinsic ethos becomes a factor in Driscoll’s
persuasive attempt. Incorporating the interview data more heavily, the researcher
describes how Driscoll’s controversial persona and especially the recent controversies
contribute to a negative extrinsic ethos. The reader will see how Driscoll’s extrinsic ethos
ultimately competes with his intrinsic ethos.
As the focus of this chapter is Driscoll’s intrinsic and extrinsic ethos in the sermon
“What Are the Scriptures?” (Driscoll, 2014), the sermon is referenced and quoted
extensively. All quotations are time stamped in the format hour:minutes:seconds (i.e.
1:01:03). These timestamps refer specifically to the audio version of the sermon, and
may be different for the video version, as they differ in length.
Interview Participants
As a condition of participating in this study, the researcher guaranteed
anonymity to all participants. For this reason, any profile of the participants cannot be
P a g e | 33 complete, and must be vague. All participant names in this chapter are pseudonyms
assigned by the participant based on their gender. While the researcher will indicate
each participant’s denominational affiliation, the specific churches of each participant
are not indicated. It is important to note that although a participant attends a
denominationally affiliated church, participants may not themselves identify under that
denominational category. All participants were in their twenties. For the sake of
classification and anonymity, the researcher has categorized the participants as either
“20-23”, “24-26”, or “27-29”. Each participant’s level of education is also indicated in
this profile, since Driscoll relies heavily on metaphors geared towards college students.
Finally, the researcher has also indicated the level of knowledge each participant had
about Driscoll prior to watching the sermon.
As indicated in the previous chapter, the pool of participants was separated into
two experimental groups in order to gauge the effect of Driscoll’s reputation on the
participant’s reception of the sermon. Participants in Group 1 were not given any sort of
information about Mark Driscoll prior to watching the sermon. Any reputational
information held by this group had been accumulated by them prior to the interview.
This group contained Courtney, Emily, and Kyle.
Courtney was a 24-26 year old female. She had post-secondary experience,
having attained a post-secondary diploma. Courtney attended a Baptist church,
affiliated with the North American Baptist Conference. Overall, Courtney demonstrated
a low to moderate knowledge of Driscoll. She stated that she had listened to
approximately three sermons by Driscoll, “a long time ago.” She indicated that Driscoll
was a controversial figure, and that he was known for being blunt and abrupt, although
she also observed that his audience sometimes appreciated this. She stated that he had
written a book on sex and marriage that was controversial. She also stated that she
knew he had been involved in a recent controversy, although she had not taken time to
look into it herself. During the interview, she acknowledged that this controversy might
have been an instance of cyber bullying, but did not know any further details.
Emily was also a 24-26 year old female. She had completed a Bachelor’s degree at
a public university. Emily attended a non-denominational Protestant Evangelical
church. Like Courtney, Emily also had a low to moderate knowledge of Driscoll. Emily
explained that Driscoll was either the current or former pastor of Mars Hill Church,
which she noted was a well known church. She also explained that Mark Driscoll was
well known. She acknowledged that Driscoll had been involved in some sort of scandal,
but did not know any details. Emily had never listened to Driscoll’s preaching.
Kyle was a 27-29 year old male. Kyle had completed two Bachelor’s degrees. He
attended a Nazarene church affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene denomination.
Kyle had no knowledge of Mark Driscoll, besides recognition of the name. Watching
“What Are the Scriptures?” was Kyle’s first experience with Driscoll.
Responses given by Group 1 were contrasted with those given by Group 2. In
order to understand extrinsic ethos as a factor, the reputational knowledge of Group 2
participants was manipulated. This is the group that was asked to read the New York
Times article and the Matthew Paul Turner blog post prior to watching Driscoll’s
sermon, in order to understand how knowledge of reputation affected reception. Group
2 contained Scott, Rudy, and Liz.
Scott was a 24-26 year old male. He had completed a Bachelor’s degree from a
private Christian college. Like Courtney, Scott also attended a Baptist church affiliated
with the North American Baptist Conference. Scott demonstrated the highest level of
knowledge of all participants. Scott knew that Driscoll had been the head pastor of
Mars Hill Church in Seattle and had founded a church-planting network. Unlike the
other five participants, Scott had actually attended Mars Hill Church and seen Driscoll
preach in person. He also indicated that he had watched numerous video excerpts and
full sermons of Driscoll’s preaching. Scott noted that Mars Hill Church was originally
known for being tech-savvy church, but the focus eventually shifted onto Driscoll’s
personality. Scott described Driscoll as an opinionated, conservative Evangelical. He
described Driscoll’s preaching style as assertive and almost angry. Scott also knew
Driscoll had been involved in recent controversies, but was not knowledgeable about
the details. He had read a blog post about Driscoll leaving the church, had read
Driscoll’s letter of resignation, and had read part of an apology by Driscoll for his style
of leadership.
Rudy was a 27-29 year old male. He had achieved a diploma from a technical
school. Rudy attended a church affiliated with an Australian church movement that
broadly falls under the umbrella of charismatic Pentecostalism. Rudy also
demonstrated a high knowledge about Driscoll. He knew that Driscoll had been the
former pastor of Mars Hill Church, which he acknowledged was defunct. Rudy
described Driscoll’s theology as reformed and Calvinist. He also described Driscoll as
P a g e | 35 hyper-masculine, which drew an audience but also alienated others. He indicated that
pride and arrogance had eventually led to Driscoll’s resignation.
Liz was a 24-26 year old female. She had achieved a Bachelor’s degree from a
public university and was currently undergoing graduate studies at a seminary. Liz
attended a Christian and Missionary Alliance church. Liz demonstrated some
knowledge about Driscoll. She knew that he was the pastor of Mars Hill Church in
Seattle, and that he had recently resigned. Liz also assumed that he had authored some
books. She described him as a popular speaker. Overall, Liz demonstrated a low to
moderate knowledge of Driscoll.
Intrinsic Ethos
In “What are the Scriptures?”, Driscoll employs a number of strategies in order to
either build positive intrinsic ethos, or directly garner identification with his audience.
As we have seen, ethos and identification have a reciprocal relationship: ethos enables
identification, and identification contributes to ethos. This section discusses how Driscoll
is able to produce positive ethos in the sermon by highlighting a number of strategies at
work. It also highlights some factors that might detract from Driscoll’s intrinsic ethos, or
contribute to negative intrinsic ethos. In this section, interview data is used only
sparingly, to support the researcher’s own observations and analysis. This section
suggests that overall, Driscoll is able to demonstrate positive intrinsic ethos, although in
some instances he does seem to inadvertently portray negative intrinsic ethos.
Content
Driscoll’s intrinsic ethos is bolstered by the content of his sermon. Although the
concept of logos is usually used to discuss the logical argument of a rhetorical act, in this
case quality content reflects on Driscoll as a speaker. This sermon stands as a defense
for the Christian worldview. It defends the book that the worldview is constructed
upon. By defending the truth of a common worldview, Driscoll may demonstrate virtue
to the audience. Further, Isocrates suggested that great rhetoric deals with grand
subjects, such as “the right course of action for a city or the right conduct for an
individual” (as quoted in Rummel, 1979, p. 30). These are subjects that bear upon the
life of the hearer. They are subjects that benefit the listener. For a Christian audience, a
sermon on the relevancy and legitimacy of the Bible constitutes a noble subject. By
selecting a topic that benefits his congregation ostensibly more than it benefits himself,
Driscoll may be interpreted as showing goodwill to his audience.
One function of this sermon is to defend the legitimacy and the truth of the Bible.
Driscoll opens his sermon with the statement:
We’re talking about the scriptures, we’re talking about the Bible and I know that
up on campus they’re talking about it as well. Women’s studies classes, history
classes, sociology classes, anthropology classes. You cannot avoid the impact of
scripture on the canon of Western literature and history. So you guys are going
to hear all kinds of negative, pejorative things about God’s Word, and I want to
give you a bit of an overview of what God’s Word actually is and is not. (1:54)
Immediately, Driscoll sets himself up as a defender of the Bible and by extension, a
defender of truth. He positions secular academia as an adversary. He tries to convince a
Christian audience that their common worldview is under attack, but he has arrived to
save the day. Driscoll proceeds to use his sermon to give facts about the Bible such as
authorship, geographical origin, and genre, but also to offer insight into its value,
relevancy and legitimacy.
Further, Driscoll explains that he is merely trying to tell the truth, which he
believes is found in Christianity. He appeals to his audience, “Follow the truth
wherever it leads and you’ll end up loving Jesus.” (48:22). Driscoll establishes himself as
a guide, pointing the way towards truth. In so doing, he invites the audience to trust
him as a guide. He asks the audience to allow him to point the way towards the truth.
Thus, the audience may interpret Driscoll’s virtue in the sermon. Driscoll
positions himself within the sermon as a crusader for truth. He asks his audience to
place their trust in him, that he will guide them away from falsehood towards the truth.
If his audience does this, they assume that he is trustworthy, and thus attribute virtue.
Additionally, by positioning himself as a defender of truth, Driscoll may also convince
the audience of his virtue. If a Christian audience believes that their worldview is under
attack, as Driscoll has convinced them, they naturally look for a savior to defend them.
Driscoll emerges as that savior, who courageously steps forward to battle the forces of
falsehood and secularism. The virtue of courage is attributed to him. This increases his
intrinsic ethos.
P a g e | 37 The audience may also interpret goodwill through Driscoll’s content.
Throughout the sermon, Driscoll alludes to a number of “big ideas”: “Read your Bible”
(3:25), “The whole Bible’s about Jesus” (4:25), “You don’t understand the Bible if you
don’t love Jesus” (13:09), among others. The thesis of Driscoll’s message is that the Bible
is a book that points the reader to faith in Jesus. It leads the reader to Christianity.
Adopting this worldview has implications on the rest of a person’s life, as they
ostensibly would begin to try to model their morality on an interpretation of Biblical
precepts. To a Christian, then, preaching on the Bible in a way that defends its
legitimacy is a significant and noble task. The truth of the Bible is a noble topic. This
sermon benefits the listener.
Driscoll also expresses hope that his congregation would begin to read their
Bibles more. This shows Driscoll has selected a topic that he believes has benefit for the
audience. This can be seen near the conclusion of the sermon, when he prays:
And Lord God, if they forget everything I have said, may they pick up their Bible
tomorrow and read it. May they do the same the next day. May they do the same
the next day. May the do the same everyday until their faith becomes sight and
the Jesus they have read about embraces them. (1:05)
In her interview, Emily noted that the topic Driscoll was preaching on was
important. Emily said, “It seems like a good subject to talk on.” She observed that she
would have liked to know if the topic was specifically chosen because Driscoll knew he
was preaching to college students. The researcher observed that preaching about the
Bible to an audience of University students is helpful because the congregation may be
comprised primarily of two types of listeners: Christian listeners and skeptical listeners.
Christian listeners benefit from Driscoll’s sermon because they walk out of the sermon
edified and affirmed in their belief. They feel more confident in the truth of their beliefs.
They are also equipped to refute contrary opinions about the Bible. From an evangelical
(i.e. concerned with evangelism) point of view, Driscoll’s sermon is also important for
skeptics, because it may serve to persuade the listener to believe the propositions of the
Bible, leading to faith in Christ.
By preaching this sermon in this way, Driscoll contributes to his intrinsic ethos by
demonstrating goodwill. The audience believes that Driscoll is preaching not for his
own benefit; he assumedly already reads his Bible often. Rather, he is preaching as an
advocate of the benefits of biblical literacy. He preaches so that the audience may reap
the benefits of in-depth biblical study. By preaching on a topic that benefits his audience
more than it benefits himself, Driscoll may be interpreted as demonstrating goodwill.
The content of the sermon may contribute to Driscoll’s intrinsic ethos in a third
manner that was not immediately obvious to the researcher until after analyzing the
interview data. Participants repeatedly stated that going into the sermon, they were
more concerned about the content of the sermon than the character of the speaker. A
number of participants mentioned that any feelings of guardedness they had based on
Driscoll’s reputation as a controversial pastor were disarmed by Driscoll’s content.
Courtney (Group 1) and Liz (Group 2) described feelings of caution going into the
sermon, but explained that those feelings subsided as the sermon progressed. They
indicated that this was largely due to the fact that they generally agreed with what
Driscoll said. This indicated to the researcher that the focus for these participants was
more on the sermon than on the pastor. Emily explained that a pastor with a poor
reputation could preach a theologically correct sermon and still have a great impact.
When asked if Driscoll’s reputation affected her reception of the message, she replied
that it hadn’t because of what he said:
I think it depends on the way you approach it. Because I was thinking, is what
he’s saying true? And then if I agreed with it, then I’m like, yes, what he’s saying
is true, so you keep listening. And then if he wasn’t saying truth, I probably
would have zoned out a bit more.
Emily summarized her feelings on this topic this way: “It’s not that I go in saying this
guy is a bad man who did something bad so I’m not gonna to listen to him. It’s more
like, does that align with what scripture says?” These three respondents indicated that
the primary concern was the truth of what they were being told. It was not about who
the speaker was, but what the sermon was. While the behavior and reputation of a
pastor demonstrates that he actually practices what he preaches and bolsters his
extrinsic ethos in that way, intrinsic ethos may be depend more importantly to a
Christian listener on strong and correct logos.
Use of Biblical Passages
Driscoll’s intrinsic ethos additionally benefits from his use of numerous and
various biblical passages. During the course of the sermon, Driscoll demonstrates an
incredible knowledge of the Bible. He often quotes lengthy passages from memory, and
P a g e | 39 paraphrases just as often. In so doing, Driscoll portrays an intrinsic ethos of knowledge.
The audience is given overwhelming evidence to believe that Driscoll is knowledgeable
on his topic.
Most respondents found that Driscoll demonstrated expertise and intelligence.
This comes primarily from his ability to quote the Bible from memory, without
reference to either his notes or the Bible itself. Examples of this in the sermon are to
numerous to mention because of the frequency with which they occur. During the
sermon, it does not seem that Driscoll has come with a list (even a long list) of passages
to prove his point. Rather, the listener is given the distinct feeling that Driscoll has used
his time to study and arm himself with a large arsenal of Biblical passages, which he is
able to deploy at will. With the exception of an in-depth explanation of Isaiah 52-53 near
the end of the sermon, Driscoll rarely looks at the pages of his large Bible or any
prepared notes. His eyes are focused on the audience as his mind supplies biblical
support to whatever point he makes.
By relying on memory more than the actual text in supplying his source
information, the audience is shown the character of a knowledgeable rhetor. Driscoll
increases his intrinsic ethos by performing expertise and knowledge on the stage. He so
clearly knows the Bible that the audience believes he has devoted an extensive amount
of time to not only preparation for the sermon, but general biblical study as well. The
audience may trust Driscoll more because he seems like an expert on the Bible.
Interview participants in both Group 1 and Group 2 found that Driscoll seemed
to be highly knowledgeable about the topic he was addressing. Courtney stated:
He seemed very knowledgeable and he didn’t refer to his notes a lot. He was
very engaged with the audience and he wasn’t glued to his notes, like he was
very much quoting stuff that he knew and he quoted Scripture that he didn’t
necessarily seem to have written down and he looked like he had done a lot to
kind of learn about this.
Other participants noticed the same thing. Emily said, “He also seemed like he had a
really good understanding of Scripture, because he was just quoting off Scripture, like,
this reference, that reference, this reference.” When asked what caused him to view
Driscoll as knowledgeable, Rudy replied:
His recitation of Scripture, seemingly from off the top of his head. Just how he
knows, he’s able to join something from say the Old Testament into the New
Testament and he’s not reading from a script and it doesn’t seem like he has a
script memorized. It’s all just imparting knowledge that he has from his own
training and experience through studying of Scriptures and philosophers and
theologians and such.
To these participants, Driscoll demonstrated a distinct expertise through the recitation
of memorized portions of the Bible, almost at will as the moment warranted.
This vast knowledge of the Bible reflected positively on Driscoll’s ethos. This
could be for three reasons. First, the majority (four of six) of participants listed a good
understanding and knowledge of the Bible as an incredibly important expectation of
pastors. By demonstrating knowledge of the Bible as he did, Driscoll fulfills their
expectation and increases his ethos in their eyes. He demonstrates a value that they
already hold.
Second, knowledge of the Bible implies an attempt to live by its moral
guidelines. This emerged primarily with Kyle, who described Driscoll as a man of
strong character. When probed on this point, he responded that he believed “the things
you speak about say a lot about you.” From the sermon, Kyle believed Driscoll to be
very articulate and biblically literate. Kyle explained that since Driscoll is so
knowledgeable about the Bible, he has obviously immersed himself in its study. Kyle
finished, “As a Christian, I believe that somebody who does that has strong character.”
Although this line of reasoning is predicated on the assumption that reading the Bible
leads to moral character, what is important here is that simple demonstrations of
knowledge equated to positive intrinsic ethos for Kyle. Therefore, through
demonstrating knowledge about the Bible, Driscoll comes across positively.
Finally, Driscoll’s intrinsic ethos is bolstered through his perceived expertise.
When discussing pastoral ideals, Emily explained that she felt Western culture tends
towards trusting experts. If a person is able to demonstrate that they have obtained a
certain level of expertise in a given area, they are more able to persuade others. Emily
felt that Driscoll matched this ideal: “He seemed to know a lot about the Scriptures and
a lot about the history. He seemed to be pretty educated.” Through Driscoll’s
performance of an expert’s ethos, the audience may be more willing to accept that
Driscoll knows what he is talking about, leading to persuasion.
P a g e | 41 Use of Secondary Sources
In this sermon, Driscoll does not rely heavily on the use of secondary sources to
support his argument. Rather, his logical proofs come almost exclusively from the Bible.
He uses the text to support the text. Alternatively, he seems to rely on common sense
proofs. He seems to assume that his audience will simply agree with what he is saying.
Driscoll’s only secondary support comes from Christian apologist C. S. Lewis and Old
Testament scholar Gerhard Von Rad. Driscoll also name drops a number of
philosophers without delving into the substance of their claims. While this may initially
demonstrate knowledge, a skeptical listener may actually interpret these instances as
intellectual laziness, and therefore attribute negative intrinsic ethos to Driscoll.
One of the rare moments that Driscoll uses a source other than the Bible is his
invocation of C. S. Lewis. Driscoll adopts Lewis’ term “chronological snobbery,”
warning his audience:
Whatever you’re reading today, whatever is hip and avant-garde today, be
careful of what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery.” Chronological
snobbery means this: “Well, they used to believe this because they’re [sic] stupid,
and we believe this because we’re smart. And a long time ago, people weren’t as
smart as us.” Mmm, have you met any people? They’re not all that smart. Um,
we tend to think we’re smarter than we are, and we tend to think they’re dumber
than they were. (8:19)
Here, Driscoll briefly acknowledges Lewis’ term, but goes on to make a common sense
argument: That people today are not necessarily smarter than people of ancient times.
This claim is not supported by any actual data. Although it may initially appear that
Driscoll builds his argument upon Lewis, he merely uses Lewis as a prop to perform
knowledge.
The same is true of Driscoll’s reference to Gerhard Van Rad. In the sermon,
Driscoll explains:
Hundreds of times, Gerhard Von Rad, he’s a Old Testament scholar, he says that
more than 200 times, the Old Testament prophets say what? “Thus sayeth the
Lord.” How many of your profs have never said that in class? How many have
never heard that in class? They give you a lecture and then, “Thus sayeth the
Lord.” You’re like, “I don’t think so, I don’t think so, I don’t think so, I don’t
think so.” So the prophets of the Old Testament, they’re making claims that
professors do not. (14:53)
Here again, it appears that Driscoll supports his argument by invoking another scholar.
In actuality, Driscoll only uses Von Rad to demonstrate a fact (Old Testament prophets
use the phrase “Thus sayeth the Lord” more than 200 times), and then proceeds to a
common sense argument that is not necessarily true: Professors are not as authoritative
because they do not claim to speak on behalf of God. While it may initially appear that
Driscoll builds his argument on the work of another scholar, the claim he makes is in
fact his own.
Finally, Driscoll twice references a number of philosophers. In one instance,
Driscoll actually claims to have read various philosophical works:
One of my minors in college, I studied philosophy. I read Hume, I read Kant, I
read Mills, I read Kierkegaard, I read everything I could get my hands on. I
wanted to know all the philosophical systems and all the views of the world and
all the ways to come to decisions. I never heard anybody say, “Thus sayeth the
Lord. God is in me and he has a word for you through me.” Never read that.
What I heard was a lot of human speculation. I didn’t hear any divine revelation.
I heard a lot of words about God; I never heard a word from God. That’s the Old
Testament.
From this quote, the listener assumes that Driscoll has done his homework. He has
researched and studied various philosophical systems, and has arrived at the
conclusion that the Bible is superior. On further inspection, however, Driscoll does not
actually contrast the Bible’s claims with those of the philosophers he mentions. He relies
on the same common sense argument as he did when referencing Von Rad. This
argument only works if the “common sense” is in fact common with his audience.
This sparing use of secondary sources in making his argument may reflect poorly
on Driscoll, especially with college students who are constantly taught to support
claims with data. Again, this point of analysis is primarily concerned with logos, but in
this case, poor logos may contribute to negative intrinsic ethos. By using the names of
scholars and philosophers as props in his sermon without actually building his
argument upon them, a skeptical listener may interpret Driscoll as intellectually lazy. In
the case of this sermon especially, where Driscoll assumes he is speaking to University
students, simply using the Bible to support the Bible may not be enough. Thus, any
P a g e | 43 perception of knowledge accumulated through his use of the Bible may be tarnished by
his lack of secondary sources, leading to negative intrinsic ethos.
This exact problem was observed in the interviews. Scott, Driscoll’s harshest
critic among participants, felt that the constant reference to the Bible was actually a bad
way of making his arguments. Scott felt that Driscoll acted like he had great evidence
that supported his claim, even though it wasn’t necessarily that strong. He observed
that Driscoll’s whole case was built upon the Bible. Driscoll name-dropped a number of
philosophers, but never actually engaged with their arguments. Scott explained, “When
you rattle off a bunch of names, you’re telling me you know the names, but you’re not
convincing me you’ve read them.” He also observed that Driscoll only quoted one
theologian throughout the entire sermon. He felt again that this was a bad way to make
an argument: “If you’re making a case for something, you should reference a variety of
experts.” Again, although Scott’s criticisms are more about the logos of Driscoll’s
sermon, they also impact his intrinsic ethos. By failing to incorporate a variety of
secondary sources into his sermon, the perception of Driscoll as a knowledgeable rhetor
is diminished, contributing to negative intrinsic ethos.
Use of Humour
As one watches the sermon, it becomes apparent that one of Driscoll’s draws as a
rhetor is his sense of humour. He is supremely funny and witty. Even the most ardent
Driscoll opponent would find it difficult to watch the sermon without surrendering at
least one involuntary chuckle. By using humour, Driscoll is able to disarm the audience
and draw their engagement. However, in his attempt at humour, Driscoll often butts
against the line of propriety. In some instances, Driscoll’s jokes, though eliciting
uncomfortable laughter, seem to go too far. This reflects poorly on him as a rhetor, and
diminishes his portrayal of goodwill and knowledge.
Two problematic instances arise where Driscoll’s humour may negatively affect
his intrinsic ethos. Early in the sermon, Driscoll claims that non-Christians make a habit
of stealing the metaphors of the Bible: “That’s why even the unbelievers, when they
can’t come up with better metaphors, they steal ours. The rainbow, that was ours. That
was ours. Just throwing it out there” (9:20). Driscoll makes this joke to uproarious
laughter. While his immediate audience may find this joke hilarious, it remains a
problematic statement.
This joke is problematic because it uses the Pride movement as comedic fodder.
By making light of a highly sensitive topic, Driscoll goes a step out of line with his
humour. Recall that Aristotle’s explanation of knowledge included discernment.
Driscoll may demonstrate a lack of discernment in choosing his comedic targets by
making light of such a sensitive topic and poking fun at so vast a community of people.
This lack of discernment reflects on him negatively, and may lead to negative intrinsic
ethos.
The second instance occurs midway through the sermon. Expounding on the
difficulty of understanding some of Paul’s writing in the New Testament, Driscoll
enumerates a number of examples. The problem comes when addressing the doctrine of
predestination:
You’re like, “Oh really? God’s playing Duck Duck Damn? Really? ‘Duck. Duck.
Damn! Duck, duck. Damn!’ Really?” (33:02)
In this instance, Driscoll’ congregation laughs, but hesitantly. In the interviews, Emily
responded similarly. She found this particular instance troubling. During the sermon,
Emily chuckled uncomfortably at this joke, and then exclaimed, “That’s bad.” When
asked to explain this reaction to the joke, she explained:
Predestination is such a hard topic, and for myself even, I struggle to think that
God would purposely condemn some people to Hell. So to make light of it, and
say ‘He’s playing duck, duck, damn’ as if God is just randomly choosing people
and wants to condemn them to Hell, I just didn’t think it was very appropriate. It
was making fun of something that’s very serious and that I don’t know if it’s the
best thing to be making a joke about.
As Emily points out, Driscoll makes light of an incredibly serious topic: The
eternal salvation of people’s souls. Driscoll depicts God playing a game with the souls
of innumerable people, the outcome being their banishment to “an eternal Hell of
conscious torment” (29:54), a phrase he uses only moments earlier. This is at best an illadvised attempt at humor. To create a joke that basically equates cosmic torture with a
game comes across as insensitive and cruel.
With this joke, the audience again calls Driscoll’s discernment into question.
Additionally, the audience may question Driscoll’s general goodwill towards all people.
How can Driscoll simultaneously joke about the eternal torment of those with beliefs
P a g e | 45 different than his own, and try to persuade them of the truth of Christianity? Again,
Driscoll’s intrinsic ethos is negatively affected, and his persuasive power is limited.
Diction and Figures of speech
Through both his diction and his figures, Driscoll demonstrates knowledge of his
audience. Since this sermon was originally preached at Mars Hill’s U-District campus, it
is likely that the congregation comprised both university students as well as regular
Mars Hill attendees. Driscoll uses this knowledge to select certain lexicons that will
resonate with his audience. This is a strategy of identification. In attempting to find
common ground with his audience, Driscoll bypasses the usual route of ethos and cuts
straight to identification. In so doing, Driscoll’s ethos is bolstered, as the audience sees
its own experiences and values reflected back.
Driscoll’s vocabulary can be primarily categorized into either a “Christian
vocabulary” or a “University vocabulary”; each of these vocabularies is meant to
resonate with a certain segment of his audience. The Christian vocabulary is
unavoidable. Driscoll is a Christian pastor preaching a Christian sermon in a Christian
church. However, the use of a Christian vocabulary is not used merely out of necessity.
Driscoll strategically uses certain words and ideas from a Christian vocabulary to relate
to church-going members. Conversely, the University vocabulary is meant to resonate
with university students, the highly educated, and even secular skeptics. Each of these
vocabularies is meant to denote a certain set of beliefs, values, and knowledge that
create identification with the audience.
Driscoll’s use of a Christian vocabulary extends beyond mere necessity. He uses
this vocabulary as a strategy of identification. A few examples stand out in this regard.
First, Driscoll recounts a story from Luke 24 where Jesus, on two separate occasions
after his resurrection, appears to groups of his disciples and explains the Old Testament
law to them in such a way as to indicate that it foreshadowed his coming. Driscoll puts
it in the following terms: “After he died and rose, Jesus held two big Bible studies that
were amazing” (11:37). He goes on to call these “The most amazing Bible stud[ies] in
the history of the world” (12:05). Using “Bible studies” as a metaphor in this situation
does something in the mind of his Christian listeners. First, it takes the scripture being
taught and colors them in a more contemporary and familiar light. Most churchgoers
are presumably familiar with some sort of Bible study experience. Second, this idea of
Bible study experiences triggers in the mind of the listener a shared experience with
Driscoll. By discussing Jesus’ teaching in terms of a Bible study, Driscoll signals that he
is familiar with the experience of attending a Bible study. This invites identification
with other Christians who have had similar experiences.
Two other examples of Driscoll’s use of Christian vocabulary use Christian
words with humorous effect that invites identification. Introducing a passage of the
Bible from 2 Timothy, Driscoll quips “Any of you who grew up in a Baptist church, you
had to memorize this to get your button” (43:30), referring to a common practice within
Baptist churches of rewarding certain spiritual tasks such as Bible memorization with a
button or medal. After reading the verse, Driscoll exclaims, “We just found all the
Baptists” eliciting mild laughter from the audience (43:36). This stereotyping of the
Baptist denomination by referring to “buttons” serves as a strategy of identification.
Any one familiar with the tasks and rewards of a typical Baptist church is immediately
aware of the humor of the comment. They are in the know. They are part of the joke.
The sharing of this joke between the preacher and audience member serves to create
common ground between the two, leading to identification.
The second example is similar. Trying to prove the point that the Bible was not
merely made up by people, Driscoll exclaims, “People didn’t just sit down and say,
‘Mmm, today I’m going to write Leviticus. I’ve got nothing to do… Leviticus” (45:46).
This elicits much laughter from the audience. This use of Christian vocabulary is similar
to the Baptist joke, but is a little more inclusive. Driscoll relies on a common view of
Leviticus as tedious and boring to invite identification. If you understand the premise of
the joke, as with the Baptist joke, then you share an experience with the preacher. This
puts you and the preacher on common ground, leading to identification.
Much more than simple necessity for preaching, Driscoll uses a Christian
vocabulary to invite identification with his audience. This is a highly effective strategy
for identification with a Christian audience. Scott, one of two participants that actually
attended a Baptist church, found that Driscoll’s vocabulary aided in the identification
process. By referencing specific shared experiences or understandings within
Christianity, Driscoll is able to create common ground with his audience.
While a Christian vocabulary allows Driscoll to signal shared beliefs and
experience to other Christians, a University vocabulary allows Driscoll to demonstrate a
shared experience with the University students present in the audience. Throughout the
P a g e | 47 sermon, Driscoll uses words that would be very familiar to University students in the
hopes of relating to that segment of his audience. Driscoll refers to people “doing their
homework” (7:16), community college, grades, classes, professors, and fraternities.
University students will automatically recognize this vernacular. When Driscoll
discusses University life, it seems as if he discusses it from first-hand experience.
Driscoll notably discusses his own college experience when he says, “One of my minors
in college, I studied philosophy” (20:42). Here, Driscoll specifically references his
college days. In light of this, his use of words and metaphors signaling University read
as first-hand experience. This allows college students to identify with Driscoll through
shared experience. Driscoll is one of them, one of the educated elite.
As well, Driscoll constantly illustrates his points by using college metaphors. He
describes the Pharisees in the following way: “These are guys who aren’t just in
community college… They’re finishing up their PhD, or they’re the professors at the
local university” (13:35). He describes Jesus’ disciples as “a small class of twelve that he
chose for a three-year program” (17:53). A number of interview respondents noted the
fact that Driscoll at one point refers to “dirty frat guys” (30:40). These metaphors and
illustrations again demonstrate a familiarity on Driscoll’s part with the college
experience. This creates an area of shared experience and common ground between
Driscoll and that segment of his audience, allowing identification to occur.
This may enhance Driscoll’s intrinsic ethos in the eyes of that segment of the
audience. Presumably, someone who has attended University possesses a great deal of
intellect. By comfortably using a University vocabulary and signaling that shared
experience, Driscoll subtly enhances his credibility as a knowledgeable speaker. While
this is only tangential, and needs to be reinforced by actual displays of knowledge
throughout the sermon, this is beneficial for Driscoll.
Passionate Delivery
As Driscoll approaches the end of his sermon and begins his final point, an indepth interpretation of Isaiah 52-53, he begins using increasingly passionate delivery.
While this strategy is likely a pathos appeal meant to influence the audience’s emotions,
it may also increase Driscoll’s intrinsic ethos. Driscoll begins performing the role of the
impassioned devotee, the convicted Christian. In so doing, he demonstrates the virtue
of faithfulness. The audience may interpret this performance as virtuous and place their
trust in Driscoll that he deeply values what he is preaching. However, this strategy may
also backfire, as the audience may feel that Driscoll is trying to manipulate their
emotions. This may lead to a lack of trust and a diminishing of Driscoll’s intrinsic ethos,
causing alienation.
While Driscoll’s delivery vacillates between restraint and passion throughout the
sermon, the beginning of his interpretation of Isaiah 52-53 marks a turning point. As
Driscoll becomes enflamed with passion toward the subject of his sermon, his delivery
ramps up in intensity. His rhythm becomes faster as he pleads with the audience to
accept what he is saying. His voice increases in volume. He furrows his brow. He
begins motioning wildly with his hands, pointing, waving and making fists. He begins
using schemes of repetition more commonly. For example, he employs the
homoioteleuton “…by God” in the declaration, “And we would consider him cursed of
God, smitten by God, afflicted by God, condemned by God and rejected by God and all
of that’s true” (53:24). He employs the anaphora “There is no concept of love…”:
There is no concept of love apart from the cross of Christ. There is no concept of
life from the death of Christ. There is no concept of love across from the
substitution of Christ. (54:57)
He also employs the anaphora “God is…”: “God is good. God is holy. God is righteous.
God is judge. And God demands that our debt to him be paid.” (55:22). He also uses
crossover parallelism in the statement, “That in the garden, we substituted ourself [sic]
for God, and on the cross God substituted himself for us” (54:16). The combined effect is
that Driscoll acts out emotions of passion and urgency, which he likely hopes will
translate to the audience.
In this instance, Driscoll is performing the virtues of devotion and faithfulness.
He is demonstrating his passion not only for his message, but also for the subject of the
message: Jesus. He demonstrates total surrender to his belief. For a Christian audience,
this is virtuous. Passion is not simply an emotion, it is also a virtue. It communicates
total commitment to the worldview. In acting out that commitment, Driscoll compels
the audience to attribute positive intrinsic ethos.
Some interview participants noted that passionate delivery was an incredibly
effective tool. Courtney stated of Driscoll, “He’s very intense and he’s very passionate.
He’s really animated and he’s easy to listen because he feels very convicted of what he’s
saying and there’s a lot of excitement in his voice about what he’s talking about.” She
P a g e | 49 believed that Driscoll’s passion helped to bolster his message. Likewise, Rudy found
that Driscoll’s passion helped drive his message home:
He’s very confident… so when you listen to him talk about it, you don’t have
that measure of, ‘He doesn’t even believe what he’s talking about himself.’ So
that leads you to the conclusion of, okay, I have to take what he’s saying more
seriously than if he was not sounding as confident.
These participants describe that Driscoll is excited about his topic. He cares deeply
about his subject in a way that is contagious. This lends weight to his claims.
However, this strategy may also backfire on Driscoll. Emily picked up on
another effect of this passionate delivery. Although she described Driscoll as passionate,
she also mentioned that Driscoll seemed to be presenting a desired emotion to his
audience: “He’s almost good at acting in a way. Like, not in a bad way, but you could
tell that he was acting to put across an emotion.” She elaborated, “He seems passionate.
I think he believes what he’s saying. It’s really hard to draw that line of, is someone so
passionate or is someone just putting on a front. But he seemed genuine, I think, for the
most part.” Kyle also picked up on this acted emotion, and described it as somewhat
alienating. He stated, “I don’t love it when I feel emotionally manipulated a little bit, so
that was probably the only thing that I didn’t like.” This suggests that the passionate
delivery, while mostly helpful, may need to be used in a strategic way so as not to
alienate the audience or make them feel manipulated.
Concluding Statements and Prayer
Driscoll finishes his sermon by presenting a number of hopes and expectations
he has for his audience. Following these closing remarks, he concludes the sermon with
a prayer. In these closing moments, Driscoll most clearly demonstrates goodwill
towards his audience.
As Driscoll approaches the end of his sermon, he tells the congregation in no
uncertain terms what he hopes to have accomplished:
I want you to leave here tonight having firm faith in the Word of God. I want
you to pick it up and study it to learn about Jesus. I want you to take the
questions you have and pursue them vigilantly and diligently seeking answers
for the rest of your life, even those parts that are hard to understand. When the
Word of God is ostracized, when it is marginalized, when it is criticized, I want
you to be the ones who have the courage to stand up and to say, “No, actually, I
do love Jesus. I don’t mean to be mean or angry, but I also think that, uh, facts
matter and we should follow the truth wherever it actually leads so let me tell
you what the Bible actually says. Let me tell you what Jesus actually does. Let me
tell you what Christianity actually is.” And I need you to have the courage to
stand up and to be truthful and to be honest and to be loving and to be humble,
but to say that if this is the book that God wrote, then this is a book that is to be
respected, beginning with the people of God to whom it was written. (1:03:05)
In this section of the sermon, Driscoll enumerates a number of desires he hopes to have
imparted to the congregation. Through a series of repeated statements beginning with
“I want you…”, Driscoll reveals his motivation for preaching the sermon.
First, Driscoll preached in the hope that his words would lead to a belief that the
Bible is a true book, the Word of God. He hopes his congregation will leave with “firm
faith” (1:03:08) in the veracity of the Bible. Further, Driscoll hopes that his congregation
will actually take the time to familiarize themselves with the words of the Bible. He
desires that his congregation will “study [the Bible] to learn about Jesus” (1:03:12). This
demonstrates a degree of goodwill towards the audience, in that he desires what is best
for the audience in terms of their intellectual wellbeing. Driscoll does not want his
congregation to merely take his word on the issue. He wants them to pursue truth
themselves. This is further demonstrated in his next desire, which is that his
congregation would take their questions and “pursue them vigilantly and diligently
seeking answers” (1:03:14). According to this sermon, Driscoll’s purpose is not to spoon
feed his congregation the answers. Rather, he hopes to equip them with the tools to do
their own thinking and to arrive at the truth themselves. Finally, Driscoll hopes that his
listeners would stand up for the Bible in the face of opposition. Driscoll passionately
pleads, “When the Word of God is ostracized, when it is marginalized, when it is
criticized, I want you to be the ones who have the courage to stand up” (1:03:24).
Driscoll wants his listeners to be defenders of the faith, able to argue for what they
believe.
From these concluding remarks, it is clear that Driscoll seeks his audience’s
spiritual wellbeing. He wants them to grow and mature in their faith. This goal implies
that Driscoll does not seek his own good from the sermon, but that of the audience. He
P a g e | 51 operates out of care. This may be interpreted as goodwill, contributing positively to
Driscoll’s intrinsic ethos.
Some interview participants did notice that Driscoll seemed to care very much
about the wellbeing of his audience. Without referencing a specific example, Courtney
commented that Driscoll “seemed like a father that didn’t’ want their kids to go
wrong.” She perceived goodwill towards the audience, elaborating, “He cared so
deeply for these people even though he may not know them that well. He seemed to
have a really deep care for them and a deep concern for the issues that they’re facing
right now.” Kyle, acknowledging that it is hard to ascertain these types of things from a
single sermon, also believed that Driscoll cared about his audience, citing the language
in the conclusion: “His language at the end kind of implied that when he was saying
that they were his friends, I guess, and that he cared about them and that Jesus cared
about them.” While these types of instances are not common in the sermon, they may be
interpreted as goodwill. This enhances Driscoll’s positive intrinsic ethos, and lends to his
credibility as a speaker and pastor.
Summary of Intrinsic Ethos
Driscoll is a compelling figure. It is clear that he is both a talented and
experienced rhetor. He is clearly comfortable in the pulpit. Further, he is able to
demonstrate the elements of intrinsic ethos (virtue, goodwill and knowledge) in a
number of ways. Driscoll clearly knows his topic, as evidenced through his extensive
use of the Bible. His passionate delivery may imply virtues that resonate with a
Christian audience. He is able to tailor his language to both segments of his audience,
inviting identification. His purpose, as explained at the conclusion of his sermon, is to
benefit his congregation. These elements contribute to positive intrinsic ethos.
However, Driscoll is not a perfect rhetor. In particular, some aspects of his
sermon hint that he may not demonstrate knowledge as much as one initially believes.
The lack of secondary support for his arguments hints at intellectual laziness. Further,
his poorly thought out jokes may indicate a lack of sensitivity and discernment.
Overall, Driscoll is able to perform an incredibly appealing ethos. Even his most
ardent critic would be hard pressed to find only negative things to say about his
preaching. Without commenting on his extrinsic ethos, his ethos as confined to this
sermon invites identification and does enable persuasion.
Extrinsic Ethos
While Driscoll may be able to accumulate positive intrinsic ethos in his sermon,
his extrinsic ethos may overshadow and prohibit identification and persuasion. This
section examines how extrinsic ethos is a factor in Driscoll’s persuasive power. To
examine this issue, the researcher relies more heavily on the interview data than
previously. By comparing responses from Group 1 and Group 2 to questions relating to
identification and to Driscoll’s persona, the researcher is able to see how reputation and
extrinsic ethos is a factor in Driscoll’s persuasive attempt.
The researcher acknowledges that this section is limited in a number of ways.
The use of interview data is highly subjective, and may not be generalizable or reliable.
Just because the six participants here responded to Driscoll’s extrinsic ethos in a certain
way does not mean that all people will respond in the same way. Nevertheless, the
researcher believes some interesting observations about extrinsic ethos may be found by
comparing interview data from both groups.
Findings from Group 1
Interesting differences emerged between the two experimental groups in their
responses to the interview questions, especially questions about Driscoll’s reputation
and persona. Respondents in Group 1, with little to no knowledge of Driscoll’s
reputation, reported being only moderately affected by Driscoll’s reputation. They also
described Driscoll in generally favourable terms.
When asked to describe Driscoll’s persona in the sermon, participants from
Group 1 described Driscoll in favorable terms. Courtney described Driscoll as a
passionate individual, commenting, “He’s very intense and he’s very passionate. He’s
really animated and he’s easy to listen because he feels very convicted of what he’s
saying and there’s a lot of excitement in his voice about what he’s talking about.” Kyle
made similar comments, stating, “He’s a very passionate follower of Christ, he cares a
lot about what he believes.” While passion is generally considered an emotion, Kyle’s
statements equate “passion” with “devotion”. His comments reveal that Kyle
interpreted Driscoll not only as passionate, but a passionate Christian. In other words,
Kyle believed Driscoll displayed faithfulness and conviction to his beliefs. Driscoll’s
P a g e | 53 commitment to Christ (and sharing that faith) is among his priorities. This appeared to
contribute to positive ethos with the respondents, perhaps because passion can be
equated with spiritual fervor or devotion. Speaking about false prophets, Jesus stated,
“You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:20), the idea being that the devout
will yield good “fruit” while fakers will eventually produce bad “fruit”. A Christian
audience would consider passionate devotion to Christianity, and particularly to Jesus,
an example of good fruit. Thus, passion equates to “good Christian”, which in turn
equates to good ethos.
Group 1 also described Driscoll as quite knowledgeable about the topic on which
he spoke, as evidenced by his extensive knowledge of biblical passages. Courtney
described how Driscoll was able to engage with the audience because he did not need
to rely on his notes. As mentioned before, this aspect of Driscoll’s persona appealed to
Group 1 for multiple reasons. Emily perceived Driscoll as an expert in his field, and
therefore was more willing to trust him. Kyle believed that demonstrating knowledge
of the Bible indicated in-depth study, and commented, ““As a Christian, I believe that
somebody who does that has strong character.”
Finally, Courtney described Driscoll as a caring individual and compared him to
a loving father. Kyle also highlighted Driscoll’s language at the end of the sermon,
indicating care for his audience. This indicates that Driscoll was perceived as full of
goodwill. He
In sum, these respondents, described Driscoll in overall favorable terms. Based
almost entirely on the sermon they watched, they described Driscoll in a very positive
way. Driscoll’s intrinsic ethos indicated a number of positive attributes that the
participants felt reflected well on Driscoll.
Driscoll’s intrinsic ethos still competed with his extrinsic ethos for some of these
participants who knew a little about Driscoll. When asked questions regarding
identification, Courtney, who alluded to Driscoll’s involvement in a cyber-bullying
incident but admitted limited knowledge of the facts, felt guarded going in to the
sermon. According to her, this was because of Driscoll’s controversial reputation. These
fears were displaced as the sermon progressed, mainly since she felt the content of the
sermon did not raise any red flags. However, she did feel that depending on the
content, she might be guarded listening to future Driscoll sermons.
The other participants in this group had less knowledge about Driscoll, and were
far less affected by Driscoll’s controversial reputation. Emily stated that she was not
affected at all by Driscoll’s reputation. She focused much more on the truth of the
message: “It’s not that I go in saying this guy is a bad man who did something bad so
I’m not gonna to listen to him. It’s more like, does that align with what scripture says?”
She described her mindset this way:
I think it depends on the way you approach it. Because I was thinking, is what
he’s saying true? And then if I agreed with it, then I’m like, yes, what he’s saying
is true, so you keep listening. And then if he wasn’t saying truth, I probably
would have zoned out a bit more”
In this case, Driscoll’s reputation was much less important than the content of his
message, as discussed above. Kyle admitted that he had no knowledge of Driscoll prior
to listening to the sermon and was therefore not affected by Driscoll’s reputation at all.
Overall, participants from Group 1 reported that they could identify on some
level with Driscoll. When respondents had limited or no knowledge of Driscoll’s
reputation, they generally felt like they could consciously align themselves with his
experiences or beliefs. Courtney highlighted a section of the sermon in which Driscoll
discusses the difficulties of understanding the Bible as a section that caused
identification. Driscoll explains in the sermon, “Sometimes when we read the Bible, we
feel stupid. Sometimes we read the Bible, we feel stupid. Sometimes we read the Bible,
we just don’t understand” (34:22). Driscoll goes on to say, “Sometimes it takes years to
understand parts of the Bible. Sometimes it takes decades to understand parts of the
Bible” (34:56). Courtney felt like this passage of the sermon caused her to identify with
Driscoll. He was clearly familiar with the difficulty of understanding some Biblical
passages. Since this was a struggle she had encountered in her own life, this created
common ground between her as the audience and Driscoll as the speaker. She saw that
aspect of her own experience reflected back at her.
Emily and Kyle identified with Driscoll more generally. Their identification
stemmed from a common set of beliefs. Emily admitted that she identified with Driscoll
due to shared beliefs about the Bible’s truth. Kyle admitted that it was hard to identify
with Driscoll due to a lack of personal knowledge about him. However, Kyle did
related to Driscoll generally as a Christian to a Christian. He also agreed generally with
what Driscoll said in the sermon. In these cases, shared religion and worldview served
P a g e | 55 as an arena for identification to take place. Both audience and speaker shared
worldviews. While they may disagree on some of the more nuanced issues of their
worldviews, shared religion generally served as common ground.
Since these participants had little to no knowledge of Driscoll’s extrinsic ethos, the
reciprocal process of identification and intrinsic ethos would understandably not be
impacted by Driscoll’s reputation. As we have seen, Driscoll is incredibly effective at
demonstrating positive intrinsic ethos. Without knowledge of Driscoll’s reputation, the
audience basis their interpretation of Driscoll as a rhetor on the sermon alone. This
enables an audience with little to no knowledge of Driscoll’s extrinsic ethos to identify
with him more easily, based on the strategies outlined above.
Findings from Group 2
Group 2 differed substantially in their answers to questions regarding Driscoll’s
reputation and ethos. These participants were far more affected by Driscoll’s reputation.
This is a predictable finding, as these participants were asked to actively consider
Driscoll’s reputation immediately prior to hearing the sermon by reading the Matthew
Paul Turner blog post and the New York Times article. These participants tended to
describe Driscoll more negatively than participants in Group 1. As well, Group 2
participants were less likely to identify with Driscoll.
When asked to describe Driscoll’s persona in the sermon, in light of what they
had read or knew about him, participants in Group 2 described Driscoll much more
negatively than participants in Group 1. Rudy described Driscoll as confident to the
point of brashness. Liz indicated that Driscoll might have a tendency to be too harsh.
Scott described Driscoll as angry, intimidating, aggressive and controlling. Scott
specifically addressed his body language, such as frequent blinking, heavy breathing
and posture, which communicated menace, anger and frustration. Based on the blog
post by Matthew Paul Turner (2014), Scott and Rudy both described Driscoll as
chauvinistic, homophobic and degrading. Rudy also described Driscoll as a
contradictory figure, with his onstage persona differing from his offstage persona,
stating, “He’s very human”, indicating that Driscoll represents a flawed figure. Scott
went so far as to describe him as “a shitty dude.”
For Group 2, Driscoll’s reputation also affected their ability to identify and be
persuaded by Driscoll much more. Rudy noted that reputation impacted his view of the
sermon. Early in the interview, he expressed that he entered the sermon guarded, but
chose to let that go and engage with the sermon on its own terms. However, his
interview indicated that reputation might have coloured his view more subtly. Rudy
admitted, “I was waiting for him to start yelling.” He also stated that pride and
arrogance, accusations often levied against Driscoll, could be found if one looked for
them. However, Rudy indicated that he preferred to try to remain objective.
Rudy was also impacted directly by Driscoll’s comments in the Matthew Paul
Turner blog post. This became apparent when Rudy was probed on his reaction to
Driscoll’s aforementioned Pride joke. When this joke occurred during the sermon, Rudy
laughed and said “Oh boy”. When asked about this, Rudy related the joke to the
Matthew Paul Turner blog post and stated that he expected that sort of flippant
homophobic remark from Driscoll. Ultimately, this reflected poorly on Driscoll. Rudy
called Driscoll a “jackass” and elaborated:
You’re trying to make a point, but you’re making yourself sound so immature
and denigrating that you negate your entire point and you just sound like an
idiot. When I said ‘Oh boy’, I’m like ‘I knew it, I knew he was going to say
something like that.”
With Rudy, we see the effort to maintain objectivity and engage with the
rhetorical act on its own terms. This is a conscious decision in spite of the known
extrinsic ethos of the rhetor. However, the rhetor’s reputation still looms over the act,
subtly shaping the expectations of the audience.
Scott, the participant with the most knowledge about Driscoll, presented another
interesting reaction to Driscoll’s extrinsic ethos. Scott felt that he could not identify with
Driscoll specifically on terms of Driscoll’s reputation. While Scott noted that Driscoll’s
arguments and language were familiar, he still felt that he could not identify with
Driscoll. Rather, he didn’t want to identify with Driscoll. Scott admitted that based on
his knowledge of Driscoll, he had no desire to identify with the pastor. He said, “I don’t
want people to see that association.” In this case, identification with Driscoll is equated
with association. Since Driscoll may be perceived as an unsavory character,
identification with him leads to guilt by association.
Scott also indicated that he tried to maintain objectivity while listening to
Driscoll, but his high level of knowledge about Driscoll’s reputation did not permit this.
He said that the New York Times article and the Matthew Paul Turner blog post coloured
P a g e | 57 his view of Driscoll, and he engaged with the sermon through that lens. This gave him
incredibly negative feelings towards Driscoll. Scott explained that the article and the
blog post damaged Driscoll’s ethos, and that effect was compounded over time as Scott
began reading the negative qualities he preconceived into the sermon. Driscoll’s
reputation caused Scott to perceive Driscoll as authoritative, aggressive, intimidating,
angry, controlling, and insulting. He stated that Driscoll’s whole presentation reminded
him of a cult leader. Overall, this impeded his ability to even listen to Driscoll. Scott
explained, “It’s like if a man insulted me and then went to share his opinion, I’d have a
hard time hearing his opinion.” In this case, a high degree of knowledge of the rhetor’s
reputation negatively affected his rhetorical act. The rhetor was perceived with an
incredibly negative extrinsic ethos, ultimately disrupting identification and perception.
In the case of Group 2, the extrinsic ethos they were presented with disrupted
Driscoll’s persuasive attempt. These participants described viewing the sermon through
the lens of Driscoll’s reputation. While some of these participants tried to maintain
objectivity, knowledge of Driscoll’s reputation subtly shaped their expectations. These
participants were less likely to identify with Driscoll, and more likely to describe him
negatively. Even when trying to dismiss Driscoll’s negative extrinsic ethos, these
participants inevitably had to acknowledge it by downplaying or diminishing it. Even
when they tried to dismiss the elephant in the room, they still had to account for the
elephant in some way.
Giving the Benefit of the Doubt
An interesting and unexpected response to Driscoll took place in both groups.
Regardless of the degree of knowledge regarding Driscoll, practically every participant
acknowledged that Driscoll could not fully meet his or her expectations as a rhetor. In
instances where Driscoll fell short, either in his intrinsic ethos or in his reputation, these
participants were willing to give Driscoll the benefit of the doubt.
This response may be predicated upon the Christian belief that humans are sinful
by nature, which necessitated the life and death of Jesus. Repeatedly, Driscoll was either
contrasted with Jesus, or was acknowledged as a flawed human. In listing the sources of
her expectations for pastors, Courtney included Jesus as a key example of correct
leadership. Emily likewise qualified her description of the ideal pastor by stating, “It’s
really hard because if you put your ideal pastor together, that person would never exist,
you know? Like, the ideal pastor would be Jesus, which we can’t actually have.” Rudy
found commonality between Driscoll and any potential critics, asserting, “He’s as
flawed as the rest of us.” Liz summed this up clearly, saying:
The thing about Mark Driscoll that I’ve kind of, the conclusion about him that
I’ve kind of arrived at, is that I think we have this ideal of what a pastor should
be and what we want a pastor to be, but really nobody is gonna fit that, because
everybody is sinful and that’s what I think about Mark Driscoll, is that he doesn’t
fit that criteria to a T, and certainly, like, he’s got, like the blog talked about, he
has this past history that’s not particularly God honoring, he has this past history
to him, which makes it clear that he’s not a perfect person, and he never will be, I
think he would be the first person to admit that, so he’s never gonna meet all the
criteria to be a perfect pastor.”
This led all the participants to approach Driscoll with an interesting attitude,
regardless of their personal feelings about him. In one way or another, all participants
seemed willing to some extent to give Driscoll the benefit of the doubt. Whether it was
acknowledging that they could not condemn his bad behavior for a lack of information,
acknowledging that every person is flawed and imperfect, observing that no human can
live up to the ideal, or dismissing instances of poor behavior as a lack of discernment,
all participants were quick to not condemn Driscoll outright. Even Driscoll’s harshest
critic among the participants, Scott, who admitted to wanting to paint Driscoll in a
negative way and could not overcome the obstacle of his reputation, displayed
hesitation to condemning Driscoll outright and acknowledged that depending on the
context, he would be more lenient. Repeatedly, participants expressed a desire to judge
Driscoll and the sermon on its own terms, bracketing off any knowledge of his
reputation or past behavior. Although these inevitably colored the lens through which
the sermon was viewed, the participants expressed a desire to maintain objectivity.
Extrinsic Ethos as a Factor
By comparing the responses from Groups 1 and Group 2, we see that reputation
does have an effect on identification, although it may not be as pronounced as expected.
Group 1 was far more likely to claim identification with Driscoll, while Group 2 was
more hesitant to do so. Those with no knowledge of Driscoll’s reputation were much
P a g e | 59 less guarded going into the sermon. As knowledge of reputation increased, so did
guardedness and criticalness of Driscoll. Those with the most knowledge about
Driscoll’s reputation were the least likely to hear him out or be willing to identify.
However, the effect of reputation was perhaps more subconscious than
conscious. Overall, participants seemed willing to give Driscoll the benefit of the doubt
and attempted to remain objective. Participants from both groups indicated that true
content was a higher priority than good reputation in their evaluation of Driscoll. As
long as the content of the sermon was perceived as true, most participants were willing
to engage with the sermon on its own terms. The truth of the sermon was more
important than the ethos of the speaker. As well, participants tended to consciously
choose to remain objective. Regardless of their knowledge or preconceptions about
Driscoll, they did their best to remain objective. They also downplayed possible
instances of negative behavior, writing them off as either ignorance or poor
discernment.
It must be stated again that these findings may not be generalizable or reliable.
However, they do indicate that reputation does in fact impact the rhetorical process.
While a reciprocal process takes place between identification and intrinsic ethos,
extrinsic ethos has the potential to disrupt or even overshadow that process. In Driscoll’s
case, knowledge of his reputation colours how he is viewed. These perceptions had to
be dealt with by the interview participants. They could indulge the perceptions and
paint Driscoll negatively, as in the case of Scott. They could bracket them off, as in the
case of Rudy. They could attempt to remain objective, as in the case of Liz and Emily.
However, it is clear from these interviews that extrinsic ethos did affect the process of
identification and persuasion.
CONCLUSION
This project sought to understand to what extent the ability to persuade relies on
ethos as an aspect of identification. To answer this question, the project asked two subquestions about Mark Driscoll’s ethos: 1) how does Mark Driscoll construct and present
intrinsic ethos within the bounds of a sermon? and 2) to what extent is Driscoll’s
extrinsic ethos a factor in the audience’s interpretation of the pastor’s overall ethos? The
researcher found that Driscoll constructed positive intrinsic ethos through displays of
virtue, goodwill and knowledge. Additionally, Driscoll’s negative extrinsic ethos had the
potential to overshadow his intrinsic ethos, disrupting identification and persuasion.
Some unexpected findings were revealed. By critically analyzing one of Driscoll’s
sermons and interviewing a number of twenty-something year old Christians, it was
found that reputation did not have as large an impact on respondents as expected.
Participants repeatedly expressed their desire to remain objective while listening to
Mark Driscoll. Although they had varying degrees of knowledge about Driscoll’s
reputation and also had many preconceived notions about Driscoll, almost all
respondents expressed a desire to give Driscoll the benefit of the doubt and engage with
his sermon on its own terms. Many participants noticed that Driscoll’s reputation had
the potential to affect their view of the sermon. Participants seemed to try and bracket
off knowledge of Driscoll’s reputation so as not to allow it to color their reception of his
sermon. Where this was not possible, participants still remained conscious of the fact
that their own knowledge of Driscoll’s reputation was affecting their view of him. In
this way, it can be concluded that the effect of reputation was consciously minute for
these participants. They constantly downplayed the negative and controversial aspects
of Driscoll’s reputation, and reminded themselves that he, like themselves, were
imperfect humans.
While the link has yet to be explored, it may be interesting to interrogate whether
this is a unique sentiment for Christians. It may be that since these participants share a
worldview supposedly predicated on concepts of sin, forgiveness, graces and mercy,
P a g e | 61 that these participants are more likely to discount personal failings in a rhetor. This
could cause the lack of overt impact from reputation.
However, reputation did have some impact in perceptions of Driscoll’s ethos.
Although Driscoll carefully and successfully constructs positive intrinsic ethos through
his sermon, his negative reputation may overshadow that ethos. Driscoll’s intrinsic and
extrinsic ethos are therefore in conflict. This leads to the conclusion that rhetors must be
mindful of their reputation. It may not be enough to simply craft great intrinsic ethos.
Extrinsic ethos must be carefully maintained as well.
Further, Driscoll’s overall ethos did seem to impact the identification. Participants
who evaluated Driscoll only on his positive intrinsic ethos were more likely to identify
with him, while those that evaluated Driscoll based on his negative extrinsic ethos were
less likely to identify with him. Some expressed a desire to not be associated with such a
controversial figure.
A final unexpected finding of this study was the role of logos, specifically content,
in the identification and persuasion process. Based on the findings of this study, it
seems that accurate content was more likely to enable identification than good overall
ethos. A number of participants expressed that it was the content of the sermon, and not
the character of the speaker, that mattered most to them as an audience. Many
expressed that bad theology would have been more detrimental than bad ethos. If the
sermon had not reflected truth consistent with their worldview, they would have been
more likely to tune Driscoll out.
In sum, reputation and ethos must be carefully considered by a rhetor, but
perhaps no more than any other aspect of the rhetorical process. Reputation and ethos
may not exhibit an overt impact on the audience, but it does subconsciously shape their
opinions of the rhetorical act. Reputation serves to strengthen one’s argument, without
necessarily undermining it. However, that danger does also exist. For this reason,
rhetors must pay special mind to their overall ethos, both intrinsic and extrinsic.
Further Research
Due to the limitations inherent in this study, a number of avenues for future
research exist to interrogate the findings of this thesis. Undertaking future research may
help the findings set forth in this thesis to be more generalizable or reliable.
First, this project could be carried out in exactly the same manner, only with
more interview participants. By doing this, a researcher would be able to determine if
the findings hold consistently. If the findings of a larger project with more interview
participants were consistent with this project, the findings could be more generalizable.
Second, it is possible that the findings of this project are limited to a Christian
audience. As discussed above, it is possible that the Christian worldview makes the
participants in this study amenable to discounting the rhetor’s reputation and focusing
on the content. First, a future researcher could explore whether the findings of this
project are actually related to the Christian emphasis on forgiveness, grace and mercy,
or if the findings of this project relate to some other factors. Additionally, a comparison
could be carried out between a Christian subset and a secular subset to determine what
role worldview plays in the effect of reputation.
Next, the findings of this group may be generational. It is possible that Christians
from a different generation value the role of ethos and reputation more than the
generation examined in this study. By carrying out the same study with an older subset
of Christians, these links could be determined.
Finally, the same study could be conducted, but shifting the focus off of ethos and
on to pathos or logos. As well, a study could be conducted examining the interplay of all
three. This could lead to some possibly interesting conclusions about preaching as
rhetoric.
P a g e | 63 REFERENCES
NOTE: Some online items have been taken offline at the time of writing, and this is
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charges of plagiarism against Mark Driscoll; apologizes to audience [Blog post].
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APPENDIX A
Mars Hill Church Statement of Faith (Mars Hill Church, n.d.-b)
WHAT WE BELIEVE
THE SCRIPTURES
We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the verbally inspired word
of God, the final authority for faith and life, inerrant in the original writings, infallible and God–
breathed (2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21; Matt. 5:18;John 16:12-13).
THE GODHEAD
We believe in one Triune God, eternally existing in three persons––Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;
co–eternal in being, co–eternal in nature, co–equal in power and glory, having the same
attributes and perfections (Deut. 6:4; 2 Cor. 13:14).
THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST
We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became man without ceasing to be
God, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary, in order that He
might reveal God and redeem sinful man (John 1:1-2, 14; Luke 1:35). We believe that the Lord
Jesus Christ accomplished our redemption through His death on the cross as a representative,
vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice, and that our justification is made sure by His literal, physical
resurrection from the dead (Rom. 3:24; 1 Peter 2:24; Eph. 1:7; 1 Peter 1:3–5). We believe that
the Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God, where,
as our High Priest, he fulfills the ministry as Representative, Intercessor, and Advocate (Acts
1:9-10; Heb. 7:25, 9:24; Rom. 8:34; 1 John 2:1–2).
P a g e | 69 THE PERSON & WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
We believe that the Holy Spirit is a person who convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and
of judgment; and that He is the Supernatural Agent in regeneration, baptizing all believers into
the body of Christ, indwelling and sealing them unto the day of redemption. (John 16:8–11; 2
Cor. 3:6; 1 Cor.12:12–14; Rom. 8:9; Eph. 5:18)
THE TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF MAN
We believe that man was created in the image and likeness of God, but that through Adam’s sin
the race fell, inherited a sinful nature, and became alienated from God; man is totally depraved,
and of himself utterly unable to remedy his lost condition (Gen. 1:26-27; Rom. 3:2223, 5:12; Eph. 2:1–3, 12).
SALVATION
We believe that salvation is the gift of God brought to man by grace and received by personal
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose precious blood was shed on Calvary for the forgiveness of
our sins (Eph. 1:7, 2:8–10; John 1:12; 1 Peter 1:18–19).
ETERNAL SECURITY AND ASSURANCE OF BELIEVERS
We believe that all the redeemed, once saved, are kept by God’s power and are thus secure in
Christ forever (John 6:37–40, 10:27–30; Rom. 8:1, 38-39; 1 Cor. 1:4–8; 1 Peter 1:5). We believe
that it is the privilege of believers to rejoice in the assurance of their salvation through the
testimony of God’s Word which clearly forbids the use of Christian liberty as an occasion to the
flesh (Rom. 13:13-14; Gal. 5:13; Titus 2:11–15).
THE MINISTRY AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS
We believe that God is sovereign in the bestowing of spiritual gifts. It is, however, the believer’s
responsibility to attempt to develop their sovereignly given spiritual gift(s). The baptism of the
Holy Spirit occurs at conversion and is the placing of the believer into the Body of Christ. We
also believe that particular spiritual gift(s) are neither essential, nor do they prove the presence
of the Holy Spirit, nor are an indication of deep spiritual experience (1 Cor. 12:7, 11, 13; Eph.
4:7–8). We believe that God does hear and answer the prayer of faith, in accordance with His
own will, for the sick and afflicted (John 15:7; 1 John 5:14-15). We believe that it is the privilege
and responsibility of every believer to minister according to the gift(s) and grace of God that is
given to him (Rom 12:1–8; 1 Cor. 13; 1 Peter 4:10–11).
THE CHURCH
We believe that the church, which is the body and espoused bride of Christ, is a spiritual
organism made up of all born–again persons (Eph. 1:22-23; 5:25–27; 1 Cor. 12:12–14; 2
Cor.11:2). We believe that the establishment and continuance of local churches is clearly taught
and defined in the New Testament Scriptures (Acts 14:27, 18:22, 20:17; 1 Tim. 3:1–3; Titus 1:5–
11). We believe in the autonomy of the local churches, free of any external authority and control
(Acts 13:1–4, 15:19–31, 20:28; Rom. 16:1, 4; 1 Cor. 3:9, 16; 5: 4–7, 13; 1 Peter 5:1–4). We
recognize believer’s baptism and the Lord’s supper as scriptural means of testimony for the
church (Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 2:41-42; 18:8; 1 Cor. 11:23–26).
P a g e | 71 APPENDIX B
Interview Questions
1. Please list your name, age, gender, level of education, and the church you
currently attend for the recording.
2. Have you read and agreed with the statement of faith you were sent?
3. What do you know about Mark Driscoll prior to listening to this sermon/reading
the news article?
4. What were your reactions to the Matthew Paul Turner blog post and the New
York Times article? (Optional dependent on respondent)
5. What are your initial thoughts about the sermon? (Elaborate)
6. How would you describe Mark Driscoll’s character?
7. Did you feel like Mark Driscoll did a good job of communicating his message?
Why?
8. Did you feel like you related to Mark Driscoll? Why or why not?
9. Did Mark Driscoll’s personality and/or preaching style help or hinder his
message? Why are why not? What aspects? (Ensure discussion of rhetorical style)
10. Did the vocabulary he used help make a connection between him and you, the
audience? Why or why not?
11. Did you identify with Mark Driscoll?
12. Did knowledge of Mark Driscoll’s personality or past behavior have any affect
on how you received his message? How? Please explain?
13. What virtues/qualities do you expect from pastors? What are the sources of
these values?
14. Do you think Mark Driscoll (either in this sermon or in past behavior),
demonstrates those virtues/qualities? Why or why not?