If he’s not posting on his feed, then who is?
In a recent post, we noted that “Pastor” Mark Driscoll appeared on the Jeremy Boering Show and told his audience that he doesn’t know his social media handles, doesn’t know what is being said about him, doesn’t know what the comments are, and doesn’t respond to critics.
We called him out for this because he’s had a Twitter/X account for 20 years which he routinely uses to respond to critics, make comments, and address what’s said about him. These statements prompted Joel Berry to chime in.
After reaching out to several people, and then having some folks within his sphere discretely contact us, and then later publicly, we learned that what Driscoll is saying is apparently true: he doesn’t look at or run his social, and hasn’t since 2020.
Instead, someone is posing as him and has “permission” to speak in his trademark bombastic tone and employ his mannerisms, using first-person pronouns in a way that would lead folks to think that Driscoll is personally responding and commenting, even though he isn’t.
This arrangement is not mentioned anywhere in his bio, however, and therefore anyone getting a reply from the account would have no reason to suspect they aren’t receiving a personal response.
To be clear, we’re not talking about a managed account like Joel Osteen, where someone posts fluffy quotes all day, nor are we talking about generic “announcement”- type content like these posts: no one believes Driscoll is personally writing these.
Instead, we’re talking about personalized posts and replies that make unreserved and unqualified use of first-person pronouns and the word “I.”
Put another way, when Joel Berry expressed gratitude to Driscoll for being a great teacher, Mark wasn’t actually hearing that or being personally honored.
This also may explain why Mark got up and preached a sermon in which he repeatedly lied about us. He didn’t actually know any of the details of what he was railing against, despite giving the impression that he was previously interacting with us in the comments, and he may have just been given a brief overview by whoever manages this account. To be clear, he still lied to his congregation, but it may not have been as openly malicious as believed.
Now, this is not to say that Driscoll never jumps in or never posts the occasional thing; at this point we don’t know that, but if we are to take him at his word, he never does.
So who does run them?
Pastor Landon Chase, the CEO of RealFaith ministries, who also happens to be Driscoll’s son-in-law, says that he’s the man behind the curtain and has been overseeing the interns running the account since 2020.
When we raised the issue of pastors having someone pretend to be them, we were told that this practice is a “very common practice with Christian influencers.” In a similar vein, some commentors said that we need to apologize to Driscoll.
That’s not going to happen.
We believe that if you give someone free rein to pose as you and speak as you, in a practice that apparently has been going on for years, then you own whatever is said.
And it’s not like this arrangement is not advantageous to Driscoll; it protects and reinforces the brand while giving him a layer of protection and plausible deniability.
It’s also patently dishonest.
Protestia publisher David Morrill says it this way:
Notably, the revelation from Berry and other folks punishing back seems to have triggered something with Driscoll’s account, because for the first time this “intern” behind the curtains has made an appearance.
Good to finally meet him/her.
