During our recent road trip, my husband and I re-listened to the incredibly well-done podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.
We found ourselves asking the same question: How could Mark Driscoll still be pastoring a church of thousands of people after this podcast came out?
Time and time again, I see this play out: The people who we believe most “need” to change are often the least motivated to do so.
I’ve heard abuse survivors ask, “Why are WE the ones in therapy? THEY’RE the ones who need therapy!”
This is a fair question. But people who exhibit the kinds of grandiose, controlling traits that made Mark Driscoll so problematic rarely seek help voluntarily. More often, they find a new group of people among whom they can exert control. And all too often, they leave “bodies behind the bus” wherever they go—or, as Henry Cloud writes in his book Integrity, a problematic “wake” behind their boat no matter which body of water they’re in.
This happens in churches, in marriages, and in corporate boardrooms. The titles and settings change, but the dynamics can be remarkably similar.
Why the “One-Up” Rarely Comes to Therapy
As a therapist, I often work with what we might call the “one-down” person (the abuse survivor or the one carrying most of the pain of the relationship) rather than the “one-up” person (the abuser or the person causing most of the pain in the relationship). Not because we don't want to help the one-up person, but because they are rarely the ones seeking help.
Why?
Because genuine change requires more than recognizing that other people are upset with you. It requires a willingness to examine yourself, to acknowledge the harm you've caused, and to allow someone else's experience to challenge your understanding of yourself.
When someone has deeply ingrained patterns of grandiosity and control, empathy can be a significant difficulty. You can spend hours explaining how their behavior hurts you, appealing to both logic and emotion. They may acknowledge some of what you're saying. They may even apologize.
But acknowledgment may never translate into sustained behavioral change.
You can explain the harm. You can demonstrate the pattern. You can offer compassion, patience, and countless opportunities to do things differently. But you cannot do another person's self-examination for them.
And so often, the only thing that finally motivates change is the possibility of losing something the person considers essential to their own well-being or identity. In a marriage, that might mean a partner has one foot out the door, threatening to take the kids with them. Even then, change is not guaranteed. If the “one-up” person believes their partner (and kids) can simply be replaced, they may choose that route instead. All too often, it’s easier to devalue what they’ve had, to “reject you before you can reject me,” and to move on to something new, bright, and shiny rather than fight for what they already have.
The relationship ends. The injured people pick up the pieces. And the person who caused the harm moves on to a new church, a new family, or a new organization.
This is one reason abusive dynamics can repeat themselves for years without the person at the center ever appearing to change.
Do I believe these people are without hope? No. But I do believe that genuine transformation is different from learning how to manage your reputation. And I believe it is extraordinarily difficult for someone who persistently resists accountability to be qualified to serve as an elder, shepherd, true partner, or genuine leader of others.
Shepherding requires more than charisma, biblical knowledge, or the ability to command a room. It requires the capacity to see and care for people as people, rather than as extensions of yourself or instruments of your own vision.
The Problem Isn't Just Behavior. It's Truth.
In John 8:44, Jesus describes the devil as having no truth in him. Not just a little—none. Yet James 2:19 tells us that even the demons believe God exists—and shudder.
How can both statements be correct? After all, those of us who believe the Bible would say that God’s existence is a truthful fact, right?
Think about that. A being can acknowledge God's existence and still be utterly opposed to the truth.
Intellectual agreement is not the same thing as transformation.
I believe this distinction matters enormously when we're talking about grandiosity and self-deception. A person can know the right theology, quote Scripture, preach compelling sermons, and even acknowledge particular mistakes without ever allowing the truth to penetrate the places where it threatens their self-image or requires a genuine about-face, a 180-degree turn—or what I would call true repentance.
Because Truth, for Christians, is not merely a set of correct propositions. Truth is a Person.
And encountering the truth means encountering the One who exposes our self-deception and invites us into something different.
But what happens when a person cannot—or will not—tolerate that exposure?
Watch what happens when someone with deeply entrenched grandiose patterns is confronted with evidence of their own wrongdoing. Rather than sitting with the discomfort, they may deflect, reverse blame, confuse the issue, or recast themselves as the victim.
The conversation somehow becomes about the person who raised the concern rather than the behavior that prompted it.
I encourage you to listen carefully to how Pastor Mark responded when his character was questioned. Look up his public responses. Listen to the words, but pay attention to the patterns, too. How did he respond to criticism? Did he engage with the substance of the concern, or redirect attention toward the people raising it? Did he demonstrate curiosity about the possibility that they might be wrong? Do this with any other “fallen” pastors or politicians in recent years, and I believe you will find some common threads.
The point isn't to diagnose someone from a recording. It's to learn to recognize the difference between a person defending their image and a person genuinely examining themselves.
The Shame Beneath the Grandiosity
There's a therapeutic framework that helps me make sense of some of these dynamics: parts work. Internal Family Systems (IFS) may be the best-known type of parts work currently practiced.
If you've seen Pixar's Inside Out, you already have an accessible introduction to the basic idea. We all have different parts of ourselves that carry emotions, beliefs, protective strategies, and important information about our experiences. These parts aren't bad. They often developed for good reasons, trying to help us survive situations we didn't yet have the resources to navigate.
The trouble begins when a part takes on a role that no longer serves us—or when we become so identified with a protective part that we lose access to other parts of ourselves.
Consider shame.
As children, we gradually learn to recognize how our actions affect other people. Ideally, we develop a healthy conscience: when we hurt someone, we can feel remorse, take responsibility, and make amends. Our own experiences of vulnerability and shame can deepen our compassion for others.
But, if left without comfort or nurture (or if shielded too much from the consequences of our actions), shame can also become something we cannot bear to feel.
Some people learn, early in life, to respond to their own shame not by acknowledging it, but by turning against themselves. Others develop protective strategies that allow them to deny their vulnerability altogether. They may cultivate an image of superiority, infallibility, or exceptional importance that keeps their deeper feelings of inadequacy safely out of reach.
From the outside, these people can look shameless. They seem impervious to criticism, unwilling to apologize, and incapable of admitting fault.
But what looks like an absence of shame may actually be a rigid defense against it.
If the possibility of being wrong feels like the possibility of being worthless and even worthy of utter annihilation, then admitting a mistake is no longer a manageable experience. It becomes a threat to the self. Blame must be redirected. Weakness must be hidden. The person who confronts them must somehow become the problem.
This is not an excuse for abusive behavior, nor does it mean every grandiose person has the same underlying wound. We cannot know another person's inner world simply by observing their behavior. But understanding the protective function of these patterns can help us see why reasoning with someone, pleading with them, or offering them more grace does not necessarily lead to change.
The very thing that could set them free—an honest encounter with themselves—may be the thing they are most determined to avoid.
Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus endured the cross, “despising the shame.” There is something profound here. Jesus did not allow shame to have the final word over him. He endured it without surrendering his identity to it.
At some point in our own maturation, we, too, must learn not to organize our lives around avoiding shame. We must learn to face what is true about ourselves without collapsing into self-hatred or defending ourselves at everyone else's expense. We despise the shame, rather than letting the shame lead us to despising ourselves.
That is part of the work of becoming whole.
The One-Down Person Is Not the Broken One
And this brings me to the people I most want to speak to: the ones left wondering, “Why me?”
Why did I experience spiritual abuse when I genuinely wanted to love God and serve his people?
Why did my marriage become a place where I was constantly questioning my own perceptions, trying harder and harder to make things right?
Why was I the one who had to go to therapy, learn boundaries, examine my childhood, and work through the wreckage?
First, I want to say this: Your willingness to do the work is not evidence that you were the problem.
It may be evidence that you are willing to face the truth, even when it hurts.
The pain you've experienced is not something I would wish on you, and I don't want to romanticize what it has cost you. But the very fact that you're willing to examine your own life—to ask hard questions, to acknowledge your patterns, to grieve what happened, and to consider what needs to change—can become a profound resource for healing.
You have cracks, but you are not broken.
In therapy, we often work to understand what draws us toward grandiose or controlling people, what keeps us in harmful relationships, or what makes us feel we need a grandiose person's power, approval, or authority in order to be okay.
Sometimes these patterns are rooted in childhood. Sometimes they're reinforced by religious teachings about submission, forgiveness, or self-sacrifice. Sometimes a person's deepest virtues—loyalty, compassion, patience, and a genuine desire to love well—are exploited by someone who has learned how to use those virtues to maintain control.
The goal isn't to blame the person who was harmed for having these vulnerabilities. It is to help them recover their freedom.
Because you do not need another person's power to become whole. You do not need their approval to trust your own perception. And you do not need to keep sacrificing yourself to prove that you are loving, forgiving, or faithful.
As you heal, you can learn to recognize the signs of grandiosity and coercive control earlier. You can learn the difference between genuine accountability and an apology designed to end an uncomfortable conversation. You can build relationships in which your perspective matters, your boundaries are respected, and love does not require you to abandon yourself.
You can become more discerning without becoming cynical. You can remain compassionate without making yourself endlessly available to people who harm you.
And you can learn that forgiveness, reconciliation, trust, and access to your life are not all the same thing.
Who Will Shepherd the Shepherds?
I think about the people who were left to pick up the pieces of Mars Hill and other churches with similar types of leaders: the people who lost community, livelihoods, relationships, and a sense of spiritual safety. The people who didn't know whether they would have a job the next day. The people who had entrusted their lives to leaders they believed were safe.
And I think about the congregations and communities those leaders may go on to influence—as Mark Driscoll is doing in Scottsdale to this very day.
May God bless the people who were left to pick up the pieces of Mars Hill and other churches with similar devastating fallout. May they find communities that honor their dignity, leaders who take responsibility for their power, and the freedom to rebuild their lives beyond the shadow of what happened.
What happens when we treat charisma as evidence of character? When we confuse confidence with wisdom, platform with maturity, or an ability to preach the truth with a willingness to be transformed by it? What happens when the people harmed by a leader are left to do all the work of healing, while the leader gets to start over with a fresh audience?
We cannot force another person to face the truth. We cannot manufacture their repentance, supply their empathy, or do their inner work for them.
But we can learn to stop confusing their refusal to change with our failure to love them well.
We can stop waiting for the person who harmed us to become the person we needed them to be before we allow ourselves to heal.
And we can keep becoming the kind of people who are willing to be transformed by the Truth that sets us free—even when it (He) costs us our illusions, our pride, or our place in a particular community.
