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I haven’t been able to get this “church discipline” discussion off my mind.

First of all, thank you to all of you who have made this a vibrant and thoughtful conversation. As I said in my original post, I am agreement with most of you that the disciplinary process as described was inappropriate at best.

As for Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church, I guarantee that stories like this are not going to win them a lot of fans. Articles like this thoughtful one, written by frequent iMonk commenter Wenatchee the Hatchet (who left MHC a few years ago), suggest that practices of church discipline and accountability at MHC have long been of concern to observers. The web has been buzzing about Matthew Paul Turner’s articles, and more blogs have sprung up in their wake for those who feel they’ve been abused in authoritarian church settings.

Second, the more I’ve thought about this matter, however, the more I’m thinking that the shame of this story is that the “church discipline” aspect of this whole matter was unnecessary. That makes the rest of the story even sadder.

Why do I say “unnecessary”? Because this story provides a clear case study of the lack of relational wisdom that plagues many church communities. And that’s what I’d like us to consider today.

For purposes of discussion, once more, we will accept the story at face value. As I understand it, here is what happened.

• One night, Andrew acted inappropriately with a woman other than his fiancee. (They did not have sexual intercourse.)
• The next day, he felt guilty about what he had done and determined to tell his fiancee.
• That night they went to their community group together.
• After community group, they walked to his car and they had a hard conversation, during which Andrew confessed what had happened.
• His fiancee understandably became upset and went back into the house.

Before the church ever got involved, Andrew set himself up for problems. What happened next led even further in the wrong direction, until the whole situation blew up in his face.

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