title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Justice Breyer filed a separate dissenting opinion, joined by the same dissenting Justices, which sought to demonstrate that, starting from the premise of an individual-rights view, the District of Columbia's handgun ban and trigger lock requirement would nevertheless be permissible limitations on the right.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: The Breyer dissent looks to early municipal fire-safety laws that forbade the storage of gunpowder (and in Boston the carrying of loaded arms into certain buildings), and on nuisance laws providing fines or loss of firearm for imprudent usage, as demonstrating the Second Amendment has been understood to have no impact on the regulation of civilian firearms. The dissent argues the public safety necessity of gun-control laws, quoting that "guns were responsible for 69 deaths in this country each day.'"


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: With these two supports, the Breyer dissent goes on to conclude, "there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas." It proposes that firearms laws be reviewed by balancing the interests (i.e., "'interest-balancing' approach") of Second Amendment protections against the government's compelling interest of preventing crime.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: The Breyer dissent also objected to the "common use" distinction used by the majority to distinguish handguns from machine guns: "But what sense does this approach make? According to the majority's reasoning, if Congress and the States lift restrictions on the possession and use of machineguns, and people buy machineguns to protect their homes, the Court will have to reverse course and find that the Second Amendment does, in fact, protect the individual self-defense-related right to possess a machine-gun...There is no basis for believing that the Framers intended such circular reasoning."


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Attorney Alan Gura, in a 2003 filing, used the term "sham litigation" to describe the NRA's attempts to have "Parker (aka Heller)" consolidated with its own case challenging the D.C. law. Gura also stated that "the NRA was adamant about not wanting the Supreme Court to hear the case". These concerns were based on NRA lawyers' assessment that the justices at the time the case was filed might reach an unfavorable decision. Cato Institute senior fellow Robert Levy, co-counsel to the "Parker" plaintiffs, has stated that the "Parker" plaintiffs "faced repeated attempts by the NRA to derail the litigation." He also stated that "The N.R.A.'s interference in this process set us back and almost killed the case. It was a very acrimonious relationship."


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's chief executive officer, confirmed the NRA's misgivings. "There was a real dispute on our side among the constitutional scholars about whether there was a majority of justices on the Supreme Court who would support the Constitution as written," Mr. LaPierre said. Both Levy and LaPierre said the NRA and Mr. Levy's team were now on good terms.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Elaine McArdle wrote in the "Harvard Law Bulletin": "If Parker is the long-awaited "clean" case, one reason may be that proponents of the individual-rights view of the Second Amendment – including the National Rifle Association, which filed an amicus brief in the case – have learned from earlier defeats, and crafted strategies to maximize the chances of Supreme Court review." The NRA did eventually support the litigation by filing an amicus brief with the Court arguing that the plaintiffs in "Parker" had standing to sue and that the D.C. ban was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, had indicated support of federal legislation which would repeal the D.C. gun ban. Opponents of the legislation argued that this would have rendered the Parker case moot, and would have effectively eliminated the possibility that the case would be heard by the Supreme Court.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Immediately after the Supreme Court's ruling, the NRA filed a lawsuit against the city of Chicago over its handgun ban, followed the next day by a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco over its ban of handguns in public housing.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence opposed the arguments made by the plaintiffs in "Parker", and filed amicus curiae against those arguments in both the District and Circuit courts.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Paul Helmke, the president of the Brady Campaign, suggested to D.C. before the Court granted certiorari that it modify its gun laws rather than appeal to the Supreme Court. Helmke has written that if the Supreme Court upholds the Circuit court ruling, it "could lead to all current and proposed firearms laws being called into question."


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: After the ruling, Paul Helmke stated that, "the classic 'slippery slope' argument", "that even modest gun control would lead down the path to a complete ban on gun ownership", "is now gone." Helmke added that, "The Court also rejected the absolutist misreading of the Second Amendment that some use to argue 'any gun, any time for anyone,' which many politicians have used as an excuse to do nothing about the scourge of gun violence in our country and to block passage of common sense gun laws."


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe contended that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, and predicted that if "Parker" is reviewed by the Supreme Court "there's a really quite decent chance that it will be affirmed." However, Professor Tribe has also argued that the District's ban on one class of weapons does not violate the Second Amendment even under an individual rights view.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Erwin Chemerinsky, then of Duke Law School and now dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, argued that the District of Columbia's handgun laws, even assuming an "individual rights" interpretation of the Second Amendment, could be justified as reasonable regulations and thus upheld as constitutional. Professor Chemerinsky believes that the regulation of guns should be analyzed in the same way "as other regulation of property under modern constitutional law" and "be allowed so long as it is rationally related to achieving a legitimate government purpose." However, the dicta in "Heller" suggests that applying a mere rational basis analysis is an incorrect reading of the Constitution and would, in fact, defeat the entire purpose of the Second Amendment.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Cato Institute senior fellow Robert Levy, co-counsel to the "Parker" plaintiffs, agreed with the court's ruling but describes that his interpretation of the Second Amendment would not preclude all governmental regulation of private ownership of weapons:


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Richard Posner, judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, compares "Heller" to "Roe v. Wade", stating that it created a federal constitutional right that did not previously exist, and he asserts that the originalist method – to which Justice Antonin Scalia claimed to adhere – would have yielded the opposite result of the majority opinion.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: J. Harvie Wilkinson III, chief judge of United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, consents to Posner's analysis, stating that "Heller" "encourages Americans to do what conservative jurists warned for years they should not do: bypass the ballot and seek to press their political agenda in the courts."


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Alan Gura, Lead Counsel for Respondent in "Heller" rejects Wilkinson's criticism, stating that "Rather, the Court affirmed the Second Amendment's original public meaning, as confirmed by its plain text. Having determined the Amendment's meaning, the Court showed the proper level of deference to the D.C. City Council's outright repudiation of the constitutional text: none."


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Since the June 2008 ruling, over 80 different cases have been heard in lower federal courts on the constitutionality of a wide variety of gun control laws. These courts have heard lawsuits in regard to bans of firearm possession by felons, drug addicts, illegal aliens, and individuals convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors. Also, cases have been heard on the constitutionality of laws prohibiting certain types of weapons, such as machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and/or specific types of weapons attachments. In addition, courts have heard challenges to laws barring guns in post offices and near schools and laws outlawing "straw" purchases, carrying of concealed weapons, types of ammunition and possession of unregistered firearms. There have been as of May 2019 more than 1,370 Second Amendment cases nationwide which challenged restrictive gun laws of various kinds since the Supreme Court issued its decision in "Heller". In most cases the gun safety law or criminal conviction at issue has been however upheld by the lower courts. Provided with only minimum guidance from the Supreme Court in "Heller" the lower courts were tasked with defining the scope of the Second Amendment rights and the proper standard of review for evaluating Second Amendment claims in the aforementioned cases.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: The courts have upheld most of the above-mentioned laws as being constitutional. The basis for the lower court rulings is the dicta in the paragraph near the end of the Heller ruling that states:


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Consistently since the Heller ruling, the lower federal courts have ruled that almost all gun control measures as presently legislated are lawful and that according to UCLA professor of constitutional law Adam Winkler: "What gun rights advocates are discovering is that the vast majority of gun control laws fit within these categories."


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Robert Levy, the executive director of the Cato Institute who funded the Heller litigation has commented on this passage describing constitutionally acceptable forms of prohibitions of firearms: "I would have preferred that that not have been there," and that this paragraph in Scalia's opinion "created more confusion than light."


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Similar to the lifting of gun bans mentioned previously in the settlements of lawsuits filed post-"Heller", in "US v. Arzberger", also decided post-"Heller", it was noted:


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: The D.C. government indicated it would continue to use zoning ordinances to prevent firearms dealers from operating and selling to citizens residing in the District, meaning it would continue to be difficult for residents to legally purchase guns in the District. Additionally, the District enacted new firearms restrictions in an effort to cure the constitutional defects in the ordinance that the Supreme Court had identified in "Heller". The new provisions were: (1) the firearms registration procedures; (2) the prohibition on assault weapons; and (3) the prohibition on large capacity ammunition feeding devices. In response, Dick Heller challenged these new restrictions filing a civil suit named "Heller v. District of Columbia" (Civil Action No. 08-1289 (RMU), No. 23., 25) where he requested a summary judgment to vacate the new prohibitions. On March 26, 2010, the D.C. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina denied Dick Heller's request and granted the cross motion, stating that the court ""concludes that the regulatory provisions that the plaintiffs challenge permissibly regulate the exercise of the core Second Amendment right to use arms for the purpose of self-defense in the home.""


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Dick Heller's application to register his semi-automatic pistol was rejected because the gun was a bottom-loading weapon, and according to the District's interpretation, all bottom-loading guns, including magazine-fed non-assault-style rifles, are outlawed because they are grouped with machine guns. Revolvers will likely not fall under such a ban.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: On December 16, 2008, the D.C. Council unanimously passed the Firearms Registration Emergency Amendment Act of 2008 which addresses the issues raised in the Heller Supreme Court decision, and also puts in place a number of registration requirements to update and strengthen the District's gun laws.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion for the majority provided Second Amendment protection for commonly used and popular handguns but not for atypical arms or arms used for unlawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns. Scalia stated: "Whatever the reason, handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid." "We think that Miller's "ordinary military equipment" language must be read in tandem with what comes after: "[O]rdinarily when called for [militia] service [able-bodied] men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time." 307 U. S., at 179." "We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns." "It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service – M-16 rifles and the like – may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment's ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty."


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: On July 24, 2014, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled, in "Palmer v. District of Columbia", that the District's total ban on the public carrying of ready-to-use handguns is unconstitutional. In its decision, the Court stated: "[ . . . ] the Court finds that the District of Columbia's complete ban on the carrying of handguns in public is unconstitutional. Accordingly, the Court grants Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and enjoins Defendants from enforcing the home limitations of D.C. Code § 7-2502.02(a)(4) and enforcing D.C. Code § 22-4504(a) unless and until such time as the District of Columbia adopts a licensing mechanism consistent with constitutional standards enabling people to exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms. Furthermore, this injunction prohibits the District from completely banning the carrying of handguns in public for self-defense by otherwise qualified non-residents based solely on the fact that they are not residents of the District."


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg said that "all of the laws on the books in New York State and New York City" would be allowed by the ruling as "reasonable regulation." Robert Levy has stated that the current New York City gun laws are "not much different" from the D.C. ban that has been overturned. The National Rifle Association and other gun-rights advocates have not ruled out suing New York City, especially over the definition of "reasonable regulation".


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Southern District of New York Magistrate Judge James Francis has said that, prior to "Heller", it would not have been considered unreasonable to require a defendant to surrender a firearm as a condition of pretrial release. Specifically, according to Judge Francis:


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: "Maloney v. Rice" (a.k.a. "Maloney v. Cuomo" and "Maloney v. Spitzer"), originally held that the 2nd Amendment does not apply to the states in the Second Circuit. The case involved a state ban on Nunchaku sticks (a martial arts weapon) in New York. In a memorandum opinion dated June 29, 2010, the Supreme Court vacated the Second Circuit decision in "Maloney" and remanded for further consideration in light of the holding in "McDonald v. City of Chicago" that the Second Amendment "does" apply to the states. The Second Circuit has remanded the case to the trial court.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: The NRA has filed five related lawsuits since the "Heller" decision. In four Illinois lawsuits, the NRA sought to have the Second Amendment incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment, causing the Second Amendment to apply to state and local jurisdictions and not just to the federal government. Three Illinois lawsuits have been negotiated and settled out of court involving agreements that repeal gun ban ordinances and did not result in incorporation of the Second Amendment to state and local jurisdictions. The fourth NRA lawsuit against Chicago was rejected. The NRA appealed the case to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. On June 2, 2009, the Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's decision, based on the theory that Heller applied only to the Federal Government (including the District of Columbia), and not to states or their subordinate jurisdictions. This opinion directly conflicts with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' earlier decision, holding that "Heller" applies to states as well.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: On June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit's decision in "McDonald v. City of Chicago" and remanded it back to Seventh Circuit to resolve conflicts between certain Chicago gun restrictions and the Second Amendment.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Similarly, three Illinois municipalities with gun control measures on the books that previously had banned all handguns have rescinded their handgun bans. These cities were Morton Grove, Illinois, Wilmette, another Illinois village, and Evanston, Illinois which enacted a partial repeal of its handgun ban.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: In "Ezell v. Chicago", decided July 6, 2011, the Seventh Circuit reversed a district court decision that the post-"McDonald" measures adopted by the City of Chicago were constitutional. The Chicago law required firearms training in a shooting range in order to obtain a gun permit, but also banned shooting ranges within the City of Chicago. The city had argued that applicants could obtain their training at gun ranges in the suburbs. The opinion noted that Chicago could not infringe Second Amendment rights on the grounds that they could be exercised elsewhere, any more than it could infringe the right to freedom of speech on the grounds that citizens could speak elsewhere.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: On January 14, 2009, in "Guy Montag Doe v. San Francisco Housing Authority", the San Francisco Housing Authority reached a settlement out of court with the NRA, which allows residents to possess legal firearms within a SFHA apartment building. The San Francisco lawsuit resulted in the elimination of the gun ban from the SF Housing Authority residential lease terms. Tim Larsen speaking for the Housing Authority said that they never intended to enforce its 2005 housing lease gun ban against law-abiding gun owners and have never done so.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: On January 10, 2014, in "Morris v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers", the District Court struck down a Corps of Engineers regulation barring possession of loaded guns in recreation areas surrounding Corps dams. The court held that tents are akin to homes, and under "Heller", Second Amendment rights are protected.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: The decision in "McDonald v. City of Chicago", which was brought in response to Heller and decided in 2010, did invalidate much of Chicago's gun purchase and registration laws, and has called into question many other state and local laws restricting purchase, possession, and carry of firearms.


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Justice Stevens later called the decision "unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the Supreme Court announced during my tenure on the bench" and called for a Constitutional amendment overruling it".


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: Stephen Halbrook, a lawyer and Second Amendment analyst who successfully argued three firearms-related cases before the Supreme Court, concluded the majority's opinion in Heller "relied on text, history, and tradition." Halbrook asserted that the individual right to bear arms was not an invention of gun rights activists in the preceding few decades, but was in fact a textualist interpretation confirmed by the historical context of the Second Amendment. This included the English Declaration of Rights of 1689, as well as "post-ratification commentary, antebellum judicial opinions, Reconstruction legislation, and post-Civil War commentary."


title: District of Columbia v. Heller

text: The Court's statement that the right secured by the Second Amendment is limited has been widely discussed by lower courts and the media. According to Justice John Paul Stevens, he was able to persuade Justice Anthony M. Kennedy to ask for “some important changes” to Justice Scalia’s opinion, so that the final version of "Heller" “should not be taken to cast doubt” on the many gun laws existing in the United States.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Daniel Handler (born February 28, 1970) is an American author, musician, screenwriter, television writer, and television producer. He is best known for his children's book series "A Series of Unfortunate Events" and "All the Wrong Questions", published under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket. The former was adapted into a Nickelodeon film in 2004 as well as a Netflix series from 2017 to 2019.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler has published adult novels and a stage play under his real name, along with other children's books under the Snicket pseudonym. His first book, a satirical fiction piece titled "The Basic Eight", was rejected by many publishers for its dark subject matter.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler has also played the accordion in several bands, and appeared on the album "69 Love Songs" by indie pop band The Magnetic Fields.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Sandra Handler (née Walpole), a retired City College of San Francisco dean, and Louis Handler, an accountant. His father was a Jewish refugee from Germany. His mother is distantly related to British writer Hugh Walpole. Of his early religious upbringing, Handler said, "I had a fairly standard Reform Jewish upbringing, I guess, in terms of the religious side of it." He has a younger sister, Rebecca Handler. He attended Commodore Sloat Elementary, Herbert Hoover Middle School, and Lowell High School. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1992. He was awarded the 1992 Connecticut Student Poet Prize, which he has said he won by ripping off Elizabeth Bishop. He is an alumnus of the San Francisco Boys Chorus.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler has been a voracious reader since childhood. The first book he bought as a child was "The Blue Aspic" by Edward Gorey, of whom he is a fan. He enjoyed the writings of William Maxwell and Roald Dahl.


title: Daniel Handler

text: He is married to Lisa Brown, an illustrator he met in college. They have a child, born in 2003. They live in an Edwardian house in San Francisco.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler has expressed ambivalence about his wealth and the expectations it creates. He often donates money to charitable causes. Handler and his wife have also donated $1,000,000 to Planned Parenthood, and he has supported the Occupy Wall Street movement.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler describes himself as a secular humanist and an atheist. He describes himself as having developed a "feminist consciousness" while in college.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Six of Handler's major works have been published under his name. His first, "The Basic Eight", was rejected by many publishers for its subject matter and tone (a dark view of a teenage girl's life). Handler has said the novel was rejected 37 times before being published in 1999.


title: Daniel Handler

text: "Watch Your Mouth," his second novel, was completed before publication of "The Basic Eight". It follows a more operatic theme, complete with stage directions and various acts. "Watch Your Mouth"s second half replaces the opera troupe with the form of a 12-step recovery program, linguistically undergone by the protagonist. In April 2005, Handler published "Adverbs", a collection of short stories that he says are "about love." It was followed in 2011 by "Why We Broke Up", which received a 2012 Michael L. Printz honor award. Handler's 2015 novel "We Are Pirates" is about a modern-age pirate who "wants to be an old-fashioned kind of pirate." His most recent novel, "All the Dirty Parts", was published in 2017 and "takes the blunt and constant presence of a male teen's sexuality and considers it with utmost seriousness".


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler served as a judge for the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship in 2012. In 2016, he founded Per Diem Press, a poetry competition for young writers. He awarded $1,000 to three winners and published a chapbook of their work.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler wrote the bestselling series of 13 novels "A Series of Unfortunate Events" under the Snicket pseudonym from 1999 to 2006. The series is about three orphaned children who experience increasingly terrible events after their parents die and their home burns (at the hands of a man named Count Olaf and his troupe of associates). Snicket acts as the orphans' narrator and biographer. Handler narrated the audiobooks for three books in the series before handing back the narrating job to the original narrator, Tim Curry.


title: Daniel Handler

text: From 2012 to 2015, Handler published the four-part series "All the Wrong Questions" under the name Lemony Snicket; the books explore Snicket's childhood and V.F.D. apprenticeship in the failing town Stain'd-by-the-Sea. He has also written other children's novels under the Snicket name, including companion books to his two Snicket series, and children's books such as "The Composer is Dead" and "The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming".


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler was in two bands after college, the Edith Head Trio and Tzamboni, but his music received little attention until "69 Love Songs", a three-album set by The Magnetic Fields on which he played accordion. In the box set of the project, Handler interviews band leader Stephin Merritt about the project. He also appears in Kerthy Fix's and Gail O'Hara's 2009 documentary "Strange Powers," about Merritt and the Magnetic Fields.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler has played accordion in several other Merritt projects, including The 6ths and The Gothic Archies, the last of which provided songs for the "A Series of Unfortunate Events" audiobooks. In 2006, a Gothic Archies album was released with all 13 songs from the 13 "A Series of Unfortunate Events" audiobooks, along with two bonus songs.


title: Daniel Handler

text: In the audio commentary on the film adaptation "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events", Handler plays a song about how depressing it is to have leeches in a film.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler wrote the lyrics to the song "Radio", performed by One Ring Zero, and "The Gibbons Girl", by Chris Ewen's The Hidden Variable.


title: Daniel Handler

text: In 2017, Handler wrote the play "Imaginary Comforts", "and The Story of The Ghost of The Dead Rabbit", which was performed at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. The satirical play follows the intertwining lives of three characters and is inspired by the grief Handler felt after his father's death.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler has also had some success in film. He produced the screenplay for "Rick", based on the Verdi opera "Rigoletto", as well as "Kill the Poor", based on the novel by Joel Rose.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler was involved in the screenwriting process for the film "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" but was ultimately removed from the project. After writing eight drafts of the script for Sonnenfeld, he was replaced by Robert Gordon in May 2003. Handler approved of the changes that were made to his original screenplay. "I was offered credit on the film for screenwriting by the Writers Guild of America," Handler said, "but I didn't take it because I didn't write it. I felt like it would be an insult to the guy who did."


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler submitted a commentary track for the DVD version alongside director Brad Silberling. In character as Lemony Snicket, he derides the Lemony Snicket in the film as an impostor and plays the accordion and sings about leeches rather than pay attention to the film. Many times during the track, he shows great sympathy towards the Baudelaire children and implies that he is being held captive by the director to do the commentary.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler was a writer on the Netflix series "A Series of Unfortunate Events", also contributing lyrics to the show's theme song, which varies each episode. The show has won several accolades, including a Peabody Award in 2017 for excellence in children's and youth programming.


title: Daniel Handler

text: At the November 2014 National Book Awards ceremony, Handler made a controversial remark after author Jacqueline Woodson was presented with an award for "Brown Girl Dreaming". During the ceremony, he said that Woodson was allergic to watermelon, a reference to the racist watermelon stereotype. His comments were immediately criticized; Handler apologized and donated $10,000 to We Need Diverse Books, and promised to match donations up to $100,000. In a "New York Times" op-ed published shortly thereafter, "The Pain of the Watermelon Joke", Woodson wrote that "in making light of that deep and troubled history" with his joke, Handler had come from a place of ignorance, but underscored the need for her mission to "give people a sense of this country's brilliant and brutal history, so no one ever thinks they can walk onto a stage one evening and laugh at another's too often painful past".


title: Daniel Handler

text: In February 2018, Handler signed an online pledge to boycott conferences that do not have and enforce harassment policies. Underneath his comment, author Kate Messner recounted an incident in which Handler had made inappropriate jokes directed at her, such as "Are you a virgin, too?!" and "These children's book events always turn into orgies!" This led to many other women accusing Handler of verbal sexual harassment at book conferences; among the public accusations are stories of Handler telling a woman he had just met to kiss a random stranger, making crass comments to a teenage girl and walking off without apology when confronted, referring to a stranger as a "hot blonde" and making a "uni-ball" double entendre in front of young children. The incident occurred during the larger Me Too movement.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler apologized for his behavior, saying, "It has never been my wish to insult any of my professional colleagues", "my sense of humor has not been for everyone", "as a survivor of sexual violence, I also know very well how words or behaviors that are harmless or even liberating to some people can be upsetting to others", and "I am listening and willing to listen; I am learning and willing to learn." After this, Wesleyan University students began to protest Handler's upcoming planned commencement speech at the university. In March 2018, Wesleyan president Michael S. Roth announced that Handler had withdrawn from the appearance, to be replaced by Anita Hill.


title: Daniel Handler

text: Handler has published a variety of books under the name Lemony Snicket, most notably the 13 books in the Unfortunate Events series. These books are listed under Lemony Snicket bibliography.


title: Yoni

text: Yoni (; sometimes also ), sometimes called "pindika", is an abstract or aniconic representation of the Hindu goddess Shakti. It is usually shown with "linga" – its masculine counterpart. Together, they symbolize the merging of microcosmos and macrocosmos, the divine eternal process of creation and regeneration, and the union of the feminine and the masculine that recreates all of existence. The "yoni" is conceptualized as nature's gateway of all births, particularly in the esoteric Kaula and Tantra practices, as well as the Shaktism and Shaivism traditions of Hinduism.


title: Yoni

text: "Yoni" is a Sanskrit word that has been interpreted to literally mean the "womb", the "source", and the female organs of generation. It also connotes the female sexual organs such as "vagina", "vulva", and "uterus", or alternatively to "origin, abode, or source" of anything in other contexts. For example, the Vedanta text "Brahma Sutras" metaphorically refers to the metaphysical concept "Brahman" as the "yoni of the universe". The "yoni" with "linga" iconography is found in Shiva temples and archaeological sites of the Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia, as well in sculptures such as the "Lajja Gauri".


title: Yoni

text: Yoni (Sanskrit: योनि), appears in the "Rigveda" and other Vedic literature in the sense of feminine life-creating regenerative and reproductive organs, as well as in the sense of "source, origin, fountain, place of birth, womb, nest, abode, fire pit of incubation". Other contextual meanings of the term include "race, caste, family, fertility symbol, grain or seed". It is a spiritual metaphor and icon in Hinduism for the origin and the feminine regenerative powers in the nature of existence. The "Brahma Sutras" metaphorically calls the metaphysical concept "Brahman" as the "yoni of the universe", which Adi Shankara states in his commentaries means the material cause and "source of the universe".


title: Yoni

text: According to Indologists Constance Jones and James D. Ryan, the yoni symbolizes the female principle in all life forms as well as the "earth's seasonal and vegetative cycles", thus is an emblem of cosmological significance. The yoni is a metaphor for nature's gateway of all births, particularly in the Shaktism and Shaivism traditions of Hinduism, as well as the esoteric Kaula and Tantra sects. "Yoni" together with the "lingam" is a symbol for "prakriti", its cyclic creation and dissolution. According to Corinne Dempsey – a professor of Religious Studies, yoni is an "aniconic form of the goddess" in Hinduism, the feminine principle "Shakti".


title: Yoni

text: The "yoni" is sometimes referred to as "pindika". The base on which the linga-yoni sit is called the "pitha", but in some texts such as the "Nisvasa tattva samhita" and "Mohacudottara", the term "pitha" generically refers to the base and the yoni.


title: Yoni

text: The reverence for yoni, state Jones and Ryan, is probably pre-Vedic. Figurines recovered from Zhob valley and dated to the 4th millennium BCE show pronounced breasts and yoni, and these may have been fertility symbols used in prehistoric times that ultimately evolved into later spiritual symbols. According to David Lemming, the yoni worship tradition dates to the pre-Vedic period, over the 4000 BCE to 1000 BCE period.


title: Yoni

text: The yoni has served as a divine symbol from ancient times, and it may well be the oldest spiritual icon not only in India but across many ancient cultures. Some in the orthodox Western cultures, states the Indologist Laura Amazzone, have treated the feminine sexual organs and sexuality in general as a taboo subject, but in Indic religions and other ancient cultures the yoni has long been accepted as profound cosmological and philosophical truth, of the feminine potential and power, one mysteriously interconnected with the natural periodic cycles of moon, earth and existence.


title: Yoni

text: The yoni is considered to be an abstract representation of Shakti and Devi, the creative force that moves through the entire universe. In tantra, yoni is the origin of life.


title: Yoni

text: The colonial era archaeologists John Marshall and Ernest Mackay proposed that certain polished stones with holes found at Harappan sites may be evidence of yoni-linga worship in Indus Valley Civilization. Scholars such as Arthur Llewellyn Basham dispute whether such artifacts discovered at the archaeological sites of Indus Valley sites are yoni. For example, Jones and Ryan state that lingam/yoni shapes have been recovered from the archaeological sites at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, part of the Indus Valley civilisation. In contrast, Jane McIntosh states that truncated ring stones with holes were once considered as possibly yonis. Later discoveries at the Dholavira site, and further studies, have proven that these were pillar components because the "truncated ring stones with holes" are integral architectural components of the pillars. However, states McIntosh, the use of these structures in architecture does not rule out their simultaneous religious significance as yoni.


title: Yoni

text: According to the Indologist Asko Parpola, "it is true that Marshall's and Mackay's hypotheses of linga and yoni worship by the Harappans has rested on rather slender grounds, and that for instance the interpretation of the so-called ring-stones as yonis seems untenable". He quotes Dales 1984 paper, which states "with the single exception of the unidentified photography of a realistic phallic object in Marshall's report, there is no archaeological evidence to support claims of special sexually-oriented aspects of Harappan religion". However, adds Parpola, a re-examination at Indus Valley sites suggest that the Mackay's hypothesis cannot be ruled out because erotic and sexual scenes such as ithyphallic males, naked females, a human couple having intercourse and trefoil imprints have now been identified at the Harappan sites. The "finely polished circular stand" found by Mackay may be yoni although it was found without the linga. The absence of linga, states Parpola, maybe because it was made from wood which did not survive.


title: Yoni

text: The term "yoni" and its derivatives appear in ancient medicine and surgery-related Sanskrit texts such as the "Sushruta Samhita" and "Charaka Samhita". In this context, "yoni" broadly refers to "female sexual and procreative organs". According to Indologists Rahul Das and Gerrit Meulenbeld known for their translations and reviews of ancient Sanskrit medical and other literature, "yoni" "usually denotes the vagina or the vulva, in a technical sense it also includes the uterus along with these; moreover, yoni- can at times mean simply 'womb, uterus' too, though it [Cakrapanidata's commentary on "Sushruta Samhita"] does so relatively seldom". According to Amit Rupapara et al., "yoni-roga" means "gynecological disorders" and "yoni-varti" means "vaginal suppository". The "Charaka Samhita" dedicates its 30th chapter in Chikitsa Sthana to "yoni-vyapath" or "gynecological disorders".


title: Yoni

text: In sexuality-related Sanskrit literature, as well as Tantric literature, yoni connotes many layers of meanings. Its literal meaning is "female genitalia", but it also encompasses other meanings such as "womb, origin and source". In some Indic literature, yoni means vagina, and other organs regarded as "divine symbol of sexual pleasure, the matrix of generation and the visible form of Shakti".


title: Yoni

text: The colonial era Orientalists and Christian missionaries, raised in the Victorian mold where sex and sexual imagery were a taboo subject, were shocked by and were hostile to the yoni iconography and reverence they witnessed. The 19th and early 20th-century colonial and missionary literature described yoni, lingam-yoni, and related theology as obscene, corrupt, licentious, hyper-sexualized, puerile, impure, demonic and a culture that had become too feminine and dissolute. To the Hindus, particularly the Shaivites, these icons and ideas were the abstract, a symbol of the entirety of creation and spirituality. The colonial disparagement in part triggered the opposite reaction from Bengali nationalists, who more explicitly valorised the feminine. Vivekananda called for the revival of the Mother Goddess as a feminine force, inviting his countrymen to "proclaim her to all the world with the voice of peace and benediction".


title: Yoni

text: According to Wendy Doniger, the terms lingam and yoni became explicitly associated with human sexual organs in the western imagination after the widely popular first "Kama Sutra" translation by Sir Richard Burton in 1883. In his translation, even though the original Sanskrit text does not use the words lingam or yoni for sexual organs, Burton adroitly sidestepped being viewed as obscene to the Victorian mindset by using them throughout in place of words such as penis, vulva, and vagina to discuss sex, sexual relationships and human sexual positions. This conscious and incorrect word substitution, states Doniger, thus served as an Orientalist means to "anthropologize sex, distance it, make it safe for English readers by assuring them, or pretending to assure them, that the text was not about real sexual organs, their sexual organs, but merely about the appendages of weird, dark people far away." Similar Orientalist literature of the Christian missionaries and the British era, states Doniger, stripped all spiritual meanings and insisted on the Victorian vulgar interpretation only, which had "a negative effect on the self-perception that Hindus had of their own bodies" and they became "ashamed of the more sensual aspects of their own religious literature". Some contemporary Hindus, states Doniger, in their passion to spiritualize Hinduism and for their Hindutva campaign have sought to sanitize the historic earthly sexual meanings, and insist on the abstract spiritual meaning only.


title: Yoni

text: Within Shaivism, the sect dedicated to the god Shiva, the Shakti is his consort and both have aniconic representations: lingam for Shiva, yoni for Shakti. The yoni iconography is typically represented in the form of a horizontally placed round or square base with a lipped edge and an opening in the center usually with a cylindrical lingam. Often, one side of this base extends laterally, and this projection is called the "yoni-mukha". An alternate symbol for yoni that is commonly found in Indic arts is the lotus, an icon found in temples.


title: Yoni

text: The yoni is one of the sacred icons of the Hindu Shaktism tradition, with historic arts and temples dedicated to it. Some significant artworks related to yoni include the Lajja Gauri found in many parts of India and the Kamakhya Temple in Assam. Both of these have been dated to the late 1st millennium CE, with the major expansion of the Kamakhya temple that added a new sanctum above the natural rock yoni attached to an older temple being dated to the 16th-century Koch dynasty period.


title: Yoni

text: The Lajja Gauri is an ancient icon that is found in many Devi-related temples across India and one that has been unearthed at several archaeological sites in South Asia. The icon represents yoni but with more context and complexity. According to the Art Historian Carol Bolon, the Lajja Gauri icon evolved over time with increasing complexity and richness. It is a fertility icon and symbolizes the procreative and regenerative powers of mother earth, "the elemental source of all life, animal and plant", the vivifier and "the support of all life". The earliest representations were variants of aniconic pot, the second stage represented it as the three-dimensional artwork with no face or hands but a lotus-head that included yoni, chronologically followed by the third stage that added breasts and arms to the lotus-headed figure. The last stage was an anthropomorphic figure of a squatting naked goddess holding lotus and motifs of agricultural abundance spread out showing her yoni as if she is giving birth or sexually ready to procreate. According to Bolon, the different aniconic and anthropomorphic representations of Lajja Gauri are symbols for the "yoni of Prithvi (Earth)", she as womb.


title: Yoni

text: The Lajja Gauri iconography – sometimes referred to by other names such as Yellamma or Ellamma – has been discovered in many South Indian sites such as the Aihole (4th to 12th-century), Nagarjunakonda (4th century Lajja Gauri inscription and artwork), Balligavi, Elephanta Caves, Ellora Caves, many sites in Gujarat (6th century), central India such as Nagpur, northern parts of the subcontinent such as Bhaktapur (Nepal), Kausambi and many other sites.


title: Yoni

text: The Kamakhya temple is one of the oldest "shakta pithas" in South Asia or sacred pilgrimage sites of the Shaktism tradition. Textual, inscriptional and archaeological evidence suggests that the temple has been revered in the Shaktism tradition continuously since at least the 8th-century CE, as well as the related esoteric tantric worship traditions. The Shakta tradition believes, states Hugh Urban – a professor of Religious Studies primarily focusing on South Asia, that this temple site is the "locus of goddess' own yoni".


title: Yoni

text: The regional tantric tradition considers this yoni site as the "birthplace" or "principal center" of tantra. While the temple premises, walls and mandapas have numerous depictions of goddess Kamakhya in her various roles, include those relating to her procreative powers, as a martial warrior, and as a nurturing motherly figure (one image near the western gate shows her nursing a baby with her breast, dated to 10th-12th century). The temple sanctum, however, has no idols. The sanctum features a yoni-shaped natural rock with a fissure and a natural water spring flowing over it. The Kamakhya yoni is linked to the Shiva-Sati legend, both mentioned in the early puranic literature related to Shaktism such as the "Kalika Purana".


title: Yoni

text: Every year, about the start of monsoons, the natural spring turns red because of iron oxide and "sindoor" (red pigment) anointed by the devotees and temple priests. This is celebrated as a symbol of the menstruating goddess, and as the Ambubachi Mela (also known as "Ambuvaci" or "ameti"), an annual fertility festival held in June. During Ambubachi, a symbolic annual menstruation course of the goddess Kamakhya is worshipped in the Kamakhya Temple. The temple stays closed for three days and then reopens to receive pilgrims and worshippers. The sanctum with the yoni of the goddess is one of the most important pilgrimage sites for the Shakti tradition, attracting between 70,000 and 200,000 pilgrims during the "Ambubachi Mela" alone from the northeastern and eastern states of India such as West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. It also attracts yogis, tantrikas, sadhus, aghoris as well as other monks and nuns from all over India.


title: Yoni

text: In esoteric traditions such as tantra, particularly the Sri Chakra tradition, the main icon (yantra) has nine interlocking triangles. Five of these point downwards and these are consider symbols of yoni, while four point upwards and these are symbols of linga. The interlocking represents the interdependent union of the feminine and masculine energies for the creation and destruction of existence.


title: Yoni

text: Yoni typically with linga is found in historic stone temples and panel reliefs of Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. In Cham literature, yoni is sometimes referred to as "Awar", while the linga is referred to as "Ahier".


title: Cádiz CF

text: Cádiz Club de Fútbol, S.A.D., known simply as Cádiz, is a Spanish professional football club based in Cádiz, Andalusia.


title: Cádiz CF

text: Founded in 1910, the club competes in the La Liga, holding home games at Nuevo Mirandilla, with a seating capacity of 20,724.


title: Cádiz CF

text: Salvadoran legend Mágico González played for the club during the 1980s/1990s, and is widely recognized as the best player to ever play for the team.


title: Cádiz CF

text: Between 1929 and 1977, Cádiz played in either the second or third tier of Spanish football. In 1977, Cádiz achieved promotion to La Liga for the first time. Since then Cádiz has played fourteen seasons in the first tier, as well as spending several at the second level.


title: Cádiz CF

text: The first documented game of Cádiz CF was played against Cádiz Sporting Club on Thursday, 8 September 1910. Cádiz CF won it 1–0. Two days later on 10 September 1910, several Cádiz citizens appealed to Civil Government to register a club under the name Cádiz Foot-Ball Club. One of the founders was José Rivera y Lora, the first Cádiz president. A year later, in 1911, two other important events of Cádiz football took place: the foundation of the Español Foot-Ball Club and the inscription of Cádiz Foot-Ball Club to the Federación Sur (Southern Football Federation). The Civil War interrupted the organization of competitions and Cádiz CF only played friendly matches, among others, against teams such as Betis and Celta de Vigo.


title: Cádiz CF

text: Cádiz played the first complete season 1939–40 in Segunda División after the Spanish Civil War. The club finished 1st in the Group 5 with 11 wins in 14 games. That season the coach position was occupied by Santiago Núñez, who was also a player, and the key roles were played by Roldán, Díaz, Mateo, the goalkeeper Bueno, future Real Madrid player, and Camilo Liz, who decades later became the technical secretary of the club. During the following 3 seasons Cádiz was far away from repeating that success. Cádiz first reached La Liga in 1977–78, after having spent two decades in the second division. It took place on 5 June 1977, with a 2–0 victory at Ramón de Carranza against Tarrasa. Relegated after just one season, the club returned in 1980, managing a further 13-year stay. In August 1981, before returning to La Liga, Cádiz won its first Ramón de Carranza Trophy. They beat Sevilla (led by coach Miguel Muñoz) 1–0 with the goal scored by Dieguito. Among them there were such important players in Cádiz history as Bocoya, Juan José, Hugo Vaca, Dos Santos, Amarillo, Luque, Linares, Pepe Mejías, Dieguito (Escobar), López (Choquet) and Mané.


title: Cádiz CF

text: Often led by the skills of Salvadoran Mágico González, the club managed to maintain its top flight status in the 1990–91 season, thanks to youth graduate Kiko (and 25 minutes of his inspiration against Real Zaragoza), who picked up the offensive burden after González left. During the late 1980s and early 1990s the club became known as "The Yellow Submarine", due to its capacity of "coming afloat" every year at the end of each season and remain in the top division, despite having been "sunk down" during most of the campaign.


title: Cádiz CF

text: However, in just two seasons, Cádiz dropped down two levels. In 1995 Cádiz was on the brink of extinction due to financial issues. The investment group no longer invested in the club and declared the suspension of payments. A group of cadistas, headed by Antonio Muñoz and Manuel García, had the negotiations with the creditors, reorganized the club and started managing it directly from the city of Cádiz. After a long spell in "Segunda División B" the club was finally promoted in 2003, spectacularly returning to the top level in 2005, after taking the championship with a last-day victory at neighbours Xerez CD. The match was played on 18 June 2005, and ended up with 2–0 Cádiz win in the presence of 8000 Cádiz fans, arrived in Xerez.


title: Cádiz CF

text: However, Cádiz was eventually relegated back to the second tier, in the 37th and penultimate matchday of 2005–06. Cádiz finished in the 19th position, 4 points away from 16th place, which could secure the club a place in La Liga. For the following campaign, former Spanish international Oli took the reins of the team, being sacked after only a few months. With him the club won just 4 from 11 matches.


title: Cádiz CF

text: In June 2008, Cádiz dropped another level returning to the Segunda División B. However, after just one season, it managed to return to the second division, but was immediately relegated in the 2009–10 campaign. Cádiz finished in 19th place, falling just one point behind the teams in 17th and 18th positions, which guaranteed them a place in the Segunda División. Performance of such experienced players as Raúl López, Andrés Fleurquin and Enrique Ortiz was the major asset to the successful 2008–09 season. Cádiz became the champion of the Segunda División B, having a successful season with 24 wins, 7 draws, and 7 losses in 38 matches.


title: Cádiz CF

text: During the 2015–16 the club finished its season in Group 4 in 4th place and qualified for the promotion playoffs, they beat Racing Ferrol, Racing Santander and Hércules and therefore promoted back to Segunda División after 6 years. The key match against Hércules took place on 26 June 2016, at the Ramón de Carranza stadium. Cádiz won it 1–0.


title: Cádiz CF

text: On 29 September 2019, Cádiz CF organized trials in Mumbai, India. For the second time, the club gave an opportunity to more than 250 Indian students to win a scholarship to live and train in Spain. As a result, three players were selected: Harshika Jain, Veer Gondal and Arnav Gorantala. Their stay in Spain began on January, 2020.


title: Cádiz CF

text: In the beginning of the 2019–20 season, Cádiz repeated its best start record as per first ten league games of a single season. This record dates 80 years back to the 1939–1940 season. Head coach Álvaro Cervera admitted the good start of the season and said:


title: Cádiz CF

text: On 28 December 2019, Manuel Vizcaíno Fernández was appointed as chairman of the board of directors for the next six years, along with the directors Jorge Cobo and Martín José García Marichal.


title: Cádiz CF

text: On 2 March 2020, Cádiz CF confirmed that an unnamed American investor of great economic strength became one of the club's shareholders. Despite acquiring a minority of shares, the investor's goal is expanding his presence in the club and helping the Andalusian club with the promotion to La Liga. The president of the club Manuel Vizcaíno revealed the plans of using new resources to modernize the infrastructure, facilities and other areas of the club.


title: Cádiz CF

text: On 12 July 2020, Cádiz CF was promoted back to the Primera División after 14 years. On 20 September 2020 Cádiz won its first La Liga match (2:0 away win over Huesca) since the previous campaign in the league. On 5 December, Cádiz CF won a home game for the first time in the season, setting another historic moment in the process: in fact, goals by Álvaro Giménez and Álvaro Negredo secured a 2–1 final result against Barcelona. Plus, on 21 February 2021, they managed to block Barcelona once again, as the match ended up in a 1–1 draw: a penalty by substitute Álex Fernández equalized the initial opener by Lionel Messi (also from the penalty spot).


title: Cádiz CF

text: On 4 April 2021 in a league game Mouctar Diakhaby of Valencia denounced an alleged racist aggression by Cádiz defender Juan Cala. The game was briefly halted after Valencia players walked off the pitch. The tests carried out by LaLiga and the RFEF showed that the complaint was false, so the judge declared Juan Cala innocent.


title: Cádiz CF

text: On 2 May 2021, Cádiz won 1–0 at Granada in Los Cármenes. With 40 points in the standings, Cádiz CF mathematically achieved survival in LaLiga Santander.


title: Cádiz CF

text: Note: this list includes players that have appeared in at least 100 league games and/or have reached international status.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Mark A. Driscoll (born 1970) is an American evangelical pastor and author who founded the now defunct Mars Hill Church. He is the senior and founding pastor of the Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, which was founded in 2016.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In 1996, Driscoll co-founded Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington. In March 2014, Mars Hill Church had 14,000 members in five states and fifteen locations. He also founded The Resurgence (a theological cooperative) and co-founded other parachurch organizations, such as Acts 29 Network, Churches Helping Churches, and The Gospel Coalition. He has written for the "Faith and Values" section of "The Seattle Times", "OnFaith", and the Fox News website. Driscoll has also authored a number of popular Christian books, including "A Call to Resurgence".


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll has been described as "an evangelical bad boy, a gifted orator and [a] charismatic leader" who is "hip yet hard-line". A conservative evangelical, he favors "vintage" aesthetics and a "down to earth", "aggressive" preaching style. Controversy has surrounded his teachings on gender roles, his alleged plagiarism, and the culture of fear and abuse that allegedly existed during his tenure at Mars Hill.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In the summer of 2014, Driscoll faced public criticism and formal complaints from Mars Hill staff members and congregants due to alleged abusive behavior. In August 2014, the board of Acts 29 Network removed him from its membership and urged him to step down from ministry. On October 14, 2014, Driscoll resigned from Mars Hill Church. Within three months of Driscoll's resignation, Mars Hill Church was dissolved leaving each church to either close or become autonomous.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In 2021, Mark Driscoll was the subject of a popular podcast called "The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill", which chronicled Driscoll’s history of misconduct.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll was born on October 11, 1970, in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He was raised Roman Catholic in the Riverton Heights area of SeaTac, Washington, which he described as "a very rough neighborhood" where serial killer Ted Bundy had picked up victims. He is the oldest of five children and the son of a union drywaller. He described a difficult family history of abuse and crime, writing: "The men on my father's side include uneducated alcoholics, mental patients, and women beaters. ... One of the main reasons my parents moved from North Dakota to Seattle was to get away from some family members when I was a very young boy."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In high school, he met his future wife, Grace Martin, daughter of Gib Martin, an evangelical pastor. In 1989, he graduated from Highline High School in Burien, Washington, where he served as student body president, captain of the baseball team, editor of the school newspaper, and the "most likely to succeed" in his graduating class. At age 19, as a college freshman, Driscoll converted to evangelical Christianity. The same year, according to Driscoll, "God spoke to me ... He told me to marry Grace, preach the Bible, train men, and plant churches ... I began preparing to devote my life to obey [God's] call for me." He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication from Washington State University with a minor in philosophy and holds a Master of Arts degree in exegetical theology from Western Seminary.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: After graduation, Mark and Grace relocated to Seattle, where they attended Antioch Bible Church and worked with that church's college ministry as volunteers. Mark was hired as an intern a few months later. Through his internship, Mark met Mike Gunn, who worked for an Athletes in Action ministry at the University of Washington, and Lief Moi, a radio show host. The three men began to discuss planting an "urban, postmodern" church in Seattle. Greg Kappas, the pastor responsible for Antioch Bible Church's new church planting ministry, mentored the three and helped them develop their plans.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll, Lief Moi, and Mike Gunn founded Mars Hill Church in spring 1995 and officially launched it in fall 1996. The church first met in the Driscolls' home. By spring 1997, the church had relocated and expanded to two services. Driscoll later reflected that he was "not ready" when he planted Mars Hill at age 25.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Later in 1997, he was invited to speak at a Leadership Network pastors' conference in California. The speech he made inspired many within the nascent emerging church movement and, according to Driscoll, shifted the movement's focus from reaching Generation X to reaching the postmodern world. As a result, Mars Hill Church and Driscoll were thrust into the national spotlight: he was interviewed on National Public Radio and "Mother Jones" magazine published a feature on the church. Mars Hill Church grew from 160 members in 1996 to 350 in 1999.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In 1998, Driscoll and David Nicholas founded the Acts 29 Network ("Acts 29"), a church planting network, in response to people approaching Driscoll for advice on planting churches. The goal of this parachurch organization was to plant 1000 new churches around the world "through recruiting, assessing, training, funding, and coaching." Acts 29 started slowly under Driscoll's tenure, with 11 churches at its inception and 17 by 2003. At that point, it began to grow rapidly, reaching 50 churches by 2006 and 410 churches by 2011. The majority are still located in the U.S., with 38 churches in 16 other countries.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: According to "Salon", Driscoll structured Acts 29 to match his own "strict orthodoxy and views" on theology and politics, while allowing latitude in cultural specifics. Among other specifics, prospective Acts 29 church planters must be led by men.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In 2006, Driscoll founded The Resurgence, a "theological cooperative" to support Acts 29 and Mars Hill Church. The Resurgence aims to train church leaders in conservative reformed theology. It has three main branches: "Re:Lit", a publishing house; "Re:Train", a missional training centre; and "Re:Sound", a music arm.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll, Mars Hill's first paid pastor, had been its main preaching pastor and public face since its inception. As the church grew, he began to train other elders and deacons, moving himself into a more executive role in setting vision and continuing to preach. By 2006, the church counted 4000–5000 weekly attendees at three campuses in the Seattle region. In that year, Driscoll claimed that he had reached a personal crisis due to his "overwhelming workload"—at this time he was the principal authority in Mars Hill, president of Acts 29, president of The Resurgence, an author, and an international traveler with speaking engagements. He was, by his own account, sleeping only two to three hours per night and began to fear that he would die early from a heart attack. Ultimately, in 2006–2007, he began to restructure the church and claimed he was going to divest power. Within Mars Hill, he publicly stated that he resigned as "legal president", president of the elder board, and chief of staff, while retaining his roles as public face and preaching pastor.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Prior to the reorganization, Mars Hill was governed by a full council of two dozen church elders (including Driscoll) who had equal voting authority and voted on major decisions, and a five-member council of "executive elders" (also including Driscoll) who handled daily operations but deferred to the full council for major decisions. According to then-Mars Hill pastor Paul Petry, in summer 2007, Driscoll "replaced the [executive council] with yes-men" and began to make major decisions--such as purchasing a $4 million new building--without consulting the full council.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In September 2007, Driscoll proposed changes to the bylaws that would grant indefinite terms of office to the "executive elders". Driscoll and proponents of the changes argued that the church had outgrown its original governing structure, while opponents contended that the changes consolidated power with Driscoll and his trusted lieutenants. Paul Petry and another pastor, Bent Meyer, both dissented from the changes. In response, Driscoll fired both from their jobs. A Mars Hill forum posting reported—without naming the pastors—that one was fired for "displaying an unhealthy distrust in the senior leadership" and the other for "disregarding the accepted elder protocol for the bylaw deliberation period" and "verbally attacking the lead pastor [Driscoll]."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: The morning after Petry and Meyer were fired, Driscoll said to his pastors and other church leaders at a conference: "Yesterday we fired two elders for the first time in the history of Mars Hill. ... They were off mission, so now they're unemployed. This will be the defining issue as to whether or not you succeed or fail. I've read enough of the New Testament to know that occasionally Paul puts somebody in the wood chipper."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In addition to the loss of their jobs, both were put on ecclesiastical trials to review their church membership. Petry was charged by Driscoll and the other elders with "lack of trust and respect for spiritual authority" and "improper use of confidential information", the latter charge because Petry had discussed the bylaw changes with church deacon Rob Smith, who was not part of the council of elders but had been asked to join. Petry was permitted to respond to the charges, but was not allowed to attend his full trial. The elders came to a unanimous conclusion that Petry was no longer qualified to be a church elder. Driscoll urged his congregation to shun Petry's family.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Meyer was given a "gentler" ecclesiastical trial but chose to resign. Rob Smith had written an email to the elders calling for a fair trial for Petry and Meyer; Smith said that in response, Driscoll told his congregants to stop giving to Agathos, an independent economic development charity that Smith also ran, causing donations to drop by 80 percent.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In 2014, Petry, Smith, and Moi all joined--and, in some cases, organized--online protests against Driscoll. Commentators linked the summer 2014 "unrest" at Mars Hill to the structural changes of 2007, along with other developments in Driscoll's career.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In March 2009, Driscoll was involved in an ABC "Nightline "debate entitled, ""Does Satan Exist?"" Driscoll and Annie Lobert, founder of the Hookers for Jesus Christian ministry, argued for the existence of the devil against the philosopher Deepak Chopra and Carlton Pearson, a former fundamentalist minister and author of "The Gospel of Inclusion". A commentator described the debate as "contentious", with all participants taking "uncompromising" positions. Driscoll argued that a belief in both Satan and God was an essential tenet of Christianity. Driscoll has also been featured on the program discussing other topics including the Ten Commandments and sex.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: After the catastrophic 2010 Haiti earthquake, Driscoll and James MacDonald founded Churches Helping Churches to help churches rebuild after catastrophic natural disasters. They helped to rebuild dozens of churches in Haiti and Japan. Driscoll first flew to Haiti shortly after the earthquake, and set up a partnership between his church and Jean F. E. St. Cyr, a Haitian pastor. Mars Hill Church donated $1.7 million in medical supplies.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: On March 29, 2012, Driscoll resigned as President of Acts 29 and from the Council of The Gospel Coalition, turning his responsibilities over to Matt Chandler. Commenting on the transition, Chandler said, "[the Acts 29 board was] running a network of 422 churches on six continents the same way when it was 80 to 100 churches on one continent." Chandler also planned to disentangle Acts 29 from Mars Hill Church; prior to Driscoll's departure, Acts 29 was primarily funded by Mars Hill. By mid-2014, Driscoll was no longer on the board of Acts 29.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll was a founding member of The Gospel Coalition, a fellowship of reformed evangelical churches. On his departure, he wrote he had no "relational conflict with anyone and no disagreement theologically"; rather, he explained that he was reorganizing his priorities and could not keep up with all of his commitments. Driscoll indicated that he intended to devote more of his efforts to Mars Hill Church, more time to his family, and less time to travel.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In May 2013, former Mars Hill elder Dave Kraft filed formal charges (under Mars Hill Church bylaws) of "mistreatment" against Mark Driscoll and other leaders at Mars Hill. He specifically accused Driscoll of being "domineering, verbally violent, arrogant, and quick-tempered." Kraft further argued that this "established pattern of ... behavior" disqualified Driscoll from church leadership. Mars Hill Church's Board of Advisors and Accountability responded, saying that they sent one hundred letters to former elders and staff in an effort to substantiate Kraft's charges. They received eighteen responses, which they reviewed, and determined them to be "non-disqualifying" with respect to Driscoll's leadership position. However, the board did initiate a "reconciliation process" to address "many offenses and hurts that are still unresolved." Dave Kraft worked at Mars Hill from 2005 to 2013 and was Driscoll's personal "coach" during that time.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Michael Paulson, writing for "The New York Times", wrote that while Driscoll has endured criticism from the American political left and liberal Christianity for many years, recent years leading up to and including 2014 saw the rise of criticism from conservative Christians, including Driscoll's former "allies and supporters." According to "The Seattle Times", accusations of plagiarism by talk radio host Janet Mefferd were a "crucial turning point" that drew outside interest into Mars Hill's internal affairs, and prompted inquiries from new critics about the church and how it handled its finances. After hearing of Mefferd's plagiarism accusations, evangelical Christian and Grove City College psychology professor Warren Throckmorton took interest and became a critic of Driscoll and Mars Hill, documenting other examples of perceived plagiarism, abuse reported by former Mars Hill members, and questionable uses of church finances.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: On March 29, 2014, four former Mars Hill elders (Kyle Firstenberg, Dave Kraft, Scott Mitchell, and co-founder Lief Moi) created a blog titled "Repentant Pastor" and posted online "confessions and apologies" related to their leadership roles in Mars Hill. In a joint statement, they wrote, "we recognize and confess that Mars Hill has hurt many people within the Mars Hill community, as well as those outside the community." "Salon" summarized the statements, writing that the former leaders emphasized their failures to "rein Driscoll in" and their complicity with Driscoll's "autocratic" management style. Firstenberg wrote that while the church appeared to flourish, employees lived in constant stress, and "success was to be attained regardless of human and moral cost." Firstenberg added:


title: Mark Driscoll

text: The reputation Driscoll got for being the cussing pastor simply because he used harsh language from the pulpit was nothing compared to the swearing and abusive language he used daily with staff. When people asked me how I liked working at Mars Hill, I would simply say, "It is a great church to attend, but I wouldn't recommend working here." It was well known with the staff that what was preached on Sunday was not lived out Monday morning with the staff.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In a recorded message shown to church members on July 27, 2014, Driscoll discussed the various controversies of 2014. He said that he could "not address some members' discontent ... because the complaints were anonymous." According to Rob Smith, former program director at the church, the anonymity assertion "really touched a nerve" with former members. In response, dissenters organized a Facebook group called "Dear Pastor Mark & Mars Hill: We Are Not Anonymous."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: The following Sunday, "dozens of demonstrators" organized and picketed the Mars Hill Church Bellevue campus (where Driscoll preaches live), calling for Driscoll's resignation. Demonstrators carried placards reading "We Are Not Anonymous" and "Question Mark", and accused Driscoll of bullying, misogyny, inadequate transparency in church finances, and harsh discipline of members. Driscoll was away for his annual summer vacation. A church elder, Anthony Iannicielo, responded that the criticism of Driscoll and Mars Hill "goes with the territory" of running a large church with a long history. In a pre-recorded message, Driscoll said that he had been deliberately "rather silent" during the criticism, that he found it "a little overwhelming and a bit confusing", and indicated that he had no intention of resigning.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: On August 8, 2014, the board of Acts 29 removed both Driscoll and Mars Hill Church from membership. Chairman Matt Chandler wrote, "it is our conviction that the nature of the accusations against Mark, most of which have been confirmed by him, make it untenable and unhelpful to keep Mark [Driscoll] and Mars Hill [Church] in our network." The board of directors of Acts 29 expressed gratitude for Driscoll's work with the Network as co-founder and former President, but declared his recent actions "ungodly and disqualifying behavior." To Driscoll, they wrote, "our board and network have been the recipients of ... dozens of fires directly linked to you ... we are naturally associated with you and feel that this association discredits the network and is a major distraction." They further advised him to "step down from ministry for an extended time and seek help."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Acts 29 had attempted to "lean on" the Mars Hill's Board of Advisors and Accountability (BOAA) to discipline Driscoll, but lost confidence in the board. The BOAA had been set up by Driscoll as his accountability board, rather than the elders of the church. (Members of the BOAA were for the most part professional clergy and businessmen who were not members of the church and hand picked by Driscoll.) The previous month, evangelical leaders and Acts 29 associates Paul Tripp and James MacDonald resigned from the BOAA. Religion correspondent Sarah Pulliam Bailey described Acts 29's decision as "unusual" since "ministries usually leave matters of church discipline up to local churches."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: BOAA Chairman Michael Van Skaik responded, "Men, I told the lead pastors ... that we are making real progress in addressing the serious reconciliation and unhealthy culture issues that have been part of Mars Hill Church for way too long. And we are." He further added that Acts 29 leaders did not contact Mars Hill before acting, and that Driscoll had "changed his ways", and described Acts 29's actions as "divisive". Van Skaik also addressed the formal charges brought against Driscoll under the Mars Hill bylaws, writing "the formal charges that were filed were serious, were taken seriously, and were not dismissed by the board lightly."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: On August 24, 2014, Driscoll announced he would take a six-week "extended focus break" from his pastorship while charges against him were investigated. Later that week, a letter signed by nine current Mars Hill pastors which severely criticized Driscoll was leaked to the public. The letter, written days before Driscoll stepped down, urged him to step down from all aspects of ministry. It included a quote from "internationally recognized" author, pastor and former BOAA member Paul Tripp saying, "This is without a doubt, the most abusive, coercive ministry culture I've ever been involved with." One of the pastors who signed the letter was fired five days later for "rebellion against the church." By September 9, eight of the nine pastors who signed the letter had resigned or been terminated, including worship director Dustin Kensrue. The last of the nine pastors was demoted from pastor to lay elder.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: LifeWay Christian Resources, a Christian bookseller and publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, announced on August 10, 2014 that they suspended sales of Driscoll's books. Marty King, communications director for LifeWay, said, "[we] are not selling Mark Driscoll's books while we assess the situation regarding his ministry." King identified Acts 29's call for Driscoll to step down as "certainly a part" of their decision, along with the "cumulative effect" of other allegations against Driscoll.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll was removed from the speaker roster of several planned "Act Like Men "conferences, which includes other Acts 29 speakers and past Driscoll associates, including James MacDonald and Matt Chandler. He was also removed as closing speaker at the Gateway Church Conference, an annual gathering of thousands of evangelical pastors. Mars Hill Church also cancelled their own Resurgence 2014 conference, planned for October 2014, since several planned speakers had cut ties with Driscoll.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In the fall of 2014, a group of elders released a report on an investigation into accusations of bullying and intimidating behavior by Driscoll made by 21 former church elders. The investigation involved "some 1,000 hours of research, interviewing more than 50 people and preparing 200 pages of information." The report concluded that Driscoll had never been charged with "immorality, illegality or heresy," and considered "some of the accusations against Pastor Mark to be altogether unfair or untrue." Additionally, the report found that many of the "other charges had previously been addressed by Pastor Mark, privately and publicly. Indeed, he had publicly confessed and apologized for a number of the charges against him, some of which occurred as long as 14 years ago." However, elders did find "bullying" and "patterns of persistent sinful behavior" by Driscoll. The board also concluded that Driscoll had "been guilty of arrogance, responding to conflict with a quick temper and harsh speech, and leading the staff and elders in a domineering manner", but was not charged with anything immoral or illegal. Driscoll maintained that he had not disqualified himself from ministry.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Church leadership crafted a "restoration" plan to help Driscoll and save the church. Instead, Driscoll declined the restoration plan and resigned on October 14, 2014, citing concerns for his health and safety. His resignation came as a "surprise" to the church's Board of Overseers, who said in a statement that they had not asked Driscoll for his resignation.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: The journalist Ruth Graham wrote that "there was no single disgrace or crime that brought Driscoll down. Instead, it was a series of accusations: of plagiarism, crudeness, a bullying management style, unseemly consolidation of power, and squishy book-promotion ethics, to name a few." Theology professor Anthony Bradley remarked that while denominational churches have continuity after the departure of prominent leaders, Mars Hill Church was nondenominational and largely built on Driscoll's personal charisma.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: On October 20, 2014, Driscoll publicly stated that prior to his resignation, he and his family were harassed and he had received death threats.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: On July 27, 2015, Driscoll announced that his new ministry had purchased the mailing list and assets of "The Resurgence" from Mars Hill Church and that he and his family had moved to the Phoenix area. On February 1, 2016, Driscoll announced the opening of his new church: The Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Arizona. As of February 2016, the staff roster included two former Mars Hill employees. Texas megachurch pastors Robert Morris and Jimmy Evans were on the church's board. In July 2021, a letter surfaced from 41 elders who served alongside Mark in the Mars Hill years, calling for him to resign from the Trinity Church and step away from ministry completely. In the letter, they detailed concerns that the abuse and behavioral concerns had continued at the Trinity Church, and that Mark had proven himself unfit to lead in a ministry setting.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: According to "The Seattle Times", "preaching and communicating lies at the heart of Driscoll's draw." In another "Seattle Times" article, Driscoll is described as a "hipster preacher" who used "charisma and combativeness".


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll has been described as a "gifted orator" and "charismatic leader". People call him a very compelling speaker, "gifted" and "dynamic and funny, with a potent mix of reverence for Jesus and irreverence for everything else." His public speaking style, he says, is influenced by stand-up comedians like Chris Rock. Crosscut.com described his presentation style as follows:


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Rob Wall, a professor at Seattle Pacific University, links the success of Mars Hill Church to Mark Driscoll's direct answers to complicated spiritual questions: "His style of public rhetoric is very authoritative. Whether it's about the Bible, or about culture, he is very clear and definitive."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In 2009, "The New York Times Magazine" called Driscoll "one of the most admired—and reviled—figures among evangelicals nationwide." In 2011, "Preaching" magazine named him one of the 25 most influential [English-speaking] pastors of the past 25 years.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll is described in a 2014 profile by "Salon" as being the center of a cult of personality, and of using controversy to increase his visibility. "Salon" has also described talk fused with God talk, or titillation more broadly, [as] a key component of the Driscoll brand," adding: "Driscoll's stage persona at times has included tight jeans and an extra button open on the shirt. He once greeted a crowd at the University of Washington by reporting that he had gotten his genitals caught in his zipper before the show and that he would be stopping on time because his wife was at home waiting for him with a cream pie."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: When the evangelical pastor Ted Haggard resigned from church leadership after a sex scandal involving a male escort, Driscoll provoked an uproar by posting the following comment on his blog: "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 later apologized for his statement, stating that he did not intend for his comment to reflect on Haggard's wife personally. After the incident, the "Seattle Times" discontinued Driscoll as one of its religion columnists.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: On July 30, 2014, dissenters released a "controversial, vulgar" rant Driscoll had written under the pseudonym "William Wallace II" in 2000, dubbed the "Pussified Nation" rant. The rant contained "blunt and emotional comments critical of feminism, homosexual behavior, and 'sensitive emasculated' men", and called for "real men" to rise up in the spirit of Scottish warrior William Wallace as depicted in the film "Braveheart". Mars Hill Church had long since deleted their unmoderated "Midrash" discussion board where the forum postings occurred. Driscoll referenced the incident in his 2006 book "Confessions of a Reformission Rev"; in that book, he stated that he believed his intentions were good, but regretted having written the rant. He wrote in 2006, "I had a good mission, but some of my tactics were born out of anger and burnout, and I did a lot of harm and damage while attracting a lot of attention." Driscoll responded to the release of the rant in a letter to his congregation, writing that "the content of my postings to that discussion board does not reflect how I feel or how I would conduct myself today." On September 8, 2014, blogger Libby Anne republished other examples of material written by "William Wallace II" in 2001, and remarked she had "rarely seen an evangelical man assert male superiority and prominence this directly."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: On November 21, 2013, radio host Janet Mefferd accused Driscoll of plagiarism. Mefferd claimed that 14 pages of Driscoll's book "A Call to Resurgence" quoted "extensively and without citation" from Peter Jones's 1999 book, "Gospel Truth/Pagan Lies: Can You Tell the Difference?" and Jones's 2010 book "One or Two: Seeing a World of Difference." Driscoll's publisher Tyndale House stated that they performed a "thorough in-house review" and disagreed that this was a case of plagiarism. Neil Holdway, a plagiarism expert with the American Copy Editors Society, concluded that "Driscoll had not adequately indicated the extent to which he had borrowed Jones's work."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: More allegations of plagiarism in other Driscoll works soon surfaced, including passages from a sermon series companion text, "Trial: 8 Witnesses From 1&2 Peter", which were copied verbatim from passages written by David Wheaton in the "New Bible Commentary". InterVarsity Press, publisher of the "New Bible Commentary", stated that Driscoll failed to properly provide quotation or attribution for the material. The relevant passages were posted online. The allegations soon expanded to include claims that Driscoll used ghostwriters and researchers without giving them proper attribution. As of December 2013, neither Peter Jones, D.A. Carson, nor Janet Mefferd had made any further statements pertaining the case.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Syndicator Salem Radio subsequently removed both the broadcast interview with Driscoll and associated materials from Mefferd's program website and apologized for raising the matter in a broadcast interview. This attempt to shut down the story provoked the resignation of Mefferd's producer, Ingrid Schlueter. In explaining her resignation, Schlueter wrote the following regarding herself and Mefferd:


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll apologized for "mistakes" related to the allegations in a statement released to "The Christian Post" on December 18, 2013.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: On March 5, 2014, evangelical magazine "World" published an article claiming that Mars Hill Church paid a $25,000 fee to marketing firm ResultSource, to manipulate sales numbers of Mark Driscoll's book "Real Marriage" and thereby attain a place on the "New York Times" bestseller list. ResultSource accomplished this objective—the book briefly reached #1 in the "Advice How-to" category—by buying 11,000 copies of the book, using $210,000 of Mars Hill Church's money, from a variety of online sources and payment methods.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability stated that buying a place on bestseller lists violates its ethical standards, but that because this happened before Mars Hill Church joined they were unable to take action. "Christianity Today" described the arrangement as "ethically questionable", and Carl Trueman of religion journal "First Things" decried the revelation, writing, "the overall picture is one of disaster" and "[it] has raised questions not simply about personal integrity but also the very culture of American Evangelicalism."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll had used the apparent success of "Real Marriage" to negotiate a multi-book deal with Christian publisher Tyndale House. The first book under Driscoll's "Resurgence" imprint was "A Call to Resurgence," with plans to publish five to seven books per year. Tyndale House defended Driscoll's alleged plagiarism in "A Call to Resurgence", and affirmed their continuing relationship with Driscoll.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Mars Hill Church responded with a statement, writing, "while not uncommon or illegal, this unwise strategy [of buying one's own books to drive up book sales figures] is not one we had used before or since, and not one we will use again." Mars Hill also claimed that the "true cost" of the effort was less than "what has been reported."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: On March 17, 2014, Driscoll posted an open letter of apology in response to this controversy and others, writing that he will no longer claim to be a "New York Times" bestselling author, and that he now sees the ResultSource marketing campaign as "manipulating a book sales reporting system, which is wrong." He wrote that he was giving up his status as a "celebrity pastor", that he considered his "angry young prophet" days to be over, and that he was reducing his public presence in speaking engagements and on social media.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll was scheduled to appear at Hillsong Church's 2015 Australian and UK conferences. A petition against Driscoll's appearance at the conference collected 3000 signatures, prompting Hillsong Church Senior Pastor Brian Houston to cancel Driscoll's planned speaking event. Instead, the Hillsong conference presented a 30-minute taped interview of Mark and Grace Driscoll interviewed by Houston at the conference.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll is an evangelical Christian. Within that broad movement, he is theologically and socially conservative. On the Bible, he is a literalist and inerrantist. Driscoll's theology draws inspiration from historical theologians, including Augustine of Hippo, John Calvin, and Martin Luther, along with the Puritans, Jonathan Edwards, and Charles Spurgeon. He also respects evangelical leaders such as Billy Graham, J. I. Packer, Francis Schaeffer, and John Stott. His contemporary influences include Lesslie Newbigin and the group he terms the "Missional Reformed Evangelicals": Don Carson and John Piper for theology, and Tim Keller and Ed Stetzer for missiology. Driscoll's combination of theological conservatism and his "missional" embrace of contemporary culture contribute to controversies. In his younger years, Molly Worthen wrote: "Conservatives call Driscoll 'the cussing pastor' and wish that he'd trade in his fashionably distressed jeans and taste for indie rock for a suit and tie and placid choral arrangements. Liberals wince at his hellfire theology and insistence that women submit to their husbands."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Regarding spiritual gifts, Driscoll is a continuationist. Regarding creation, he is a "Historic Creationist". In his book "Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe", Driscoll expressed his respect for John Sailhamer's book "Genesis Unbound"; Driscoll is skeptical of evolution as a part of creationism. Driscoll believes that homosexual behavior is sinful and that marriage is between one man and one woman. Regarding ecclesiastical polity, Driscoll favors an elder-led approach.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll formerly adhered to four point Calvinist theology called Amyraldism, although he characterized his position specifically as new Calvinism to differentiate himself from the more cessationist and non-missional aspects associated historically with Calvinism.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll denies the orthodox Calvinist view of limited atonement and believes instead that Jesus died for "all people" in some sense, and for "some people" (the elect) in another sense. He thinks this position was what John Calvin believed, saying in a humorous tone: "Calvinism came after Calvin ... I will argue that the Calvinists are not very Calvin. I will argue against Calvinism with Calvin ... What kind of Calvinist are you? I'm a Calvin, not a Calvinist, that came later". Driscoll also believes that this position (or slight variations thereof) was held by men like Charles Spurgeon, John Bunyan, Martin Luther, and Richard Baxter.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll distinguished between double and single predestination, and said that unlike John Calvin, he believes only in single predestination.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll has since labelled Calvinism as "garbage" and thus has distanced himself from the set of doctrines altogether.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: The emerging church is a growing, loosely connected movement of primarily young pastors who are glad to see the end of modernity and are seeking to function as missionaries who bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to emerging and postmodern cultures. The emerging church welcomes the tension of holding in one closed hand the unchanging truth of evangelical Christian theology () and holding in one open hand the many cultural ways of showing and speaking Christian truth as a missionary to America (). Since the movement, if it can be called that, is young and is still defining its theological center, I do not want to portray the movement as ideologically unified because I myself swim in the theologically conservative stream of the emerging church.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In the mid-1990s I was part of what is now known as the emerging church and spent some time traveling the country to speak on the emerging church in the emerging culture on a team put together by Leadership Network called the Young Leader Network. But, I eventually had to distance myself from the emergent stream of the network because friends like Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt began pushing a theological agenda that greatly troubled me. Examples include referring to God as a chick, questioning God's sovereignty over and knowledge of the future, denial of the substitutionary atonement at the cross, a low view of Scripture, and denial of hell which is one hell of a mistake.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: On gender roles, Driscoll is a complementarian, believing that men and women have equal worth, but have different roles within the family and the church. He endorses male headship of the home and church. According to a "Mother Jones" profile on Driscoll in 1998, he may have held egalitarian views at one time. He offered church courses in "evangelical feminism" and is quoted as saying "the Bible is clear that men and women are both created by God in His image and likeness and totally equal in every way." In 2003, Driscoll said that he wished he could change the parts of the Bible that he believes restrict women from being pastors.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Male leadership of the church is crucial, according to Driscoll, who believes that God called him specifically to "train men." He traces many modern spiritual and social problems to the acceptance of female leadership. Driscoll describes Eve's temptation by the serpent in the Garden of Eden as "the first invitation to an independent feminism." For Eve to eat the forbidden fruit was, according to Driscoll, "the first exercising of a woman's role in leadership in the home and in the church in the history of the world. It does not go well."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll believes that Christianity has been "feminized". In a 2006 interview with "Desiring God", he said, "The problem with the church today, it's just a bunch of nice, soft, tender, 'chickified' ["sic"] church boys. Sixty percent of Christians are chicks, and the forty percent that are dudes are still sort of chicks. ... The whole architecture and the whole aesthetic [of church buildings and services] is really feminine." In contrast, Driscoll emphasizes what he perceives as macho behavior in the actions of biblical protagonists: he describes Jesus, Paul the Apostle, and King David saying: "... these guys were dudes. Heterosexual, win-a-fight, punch-you-in-the-nose, dudes." He believes that in order to be innovative, the church needs to get entrepreneurial young men involved, who will "make the culture of the future."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Driscoll interprets the Apostle Paul as writing that women are encouraged to be an active part of life and ministry in the church, but that only men can teach other men or become "elder-pastors" (the terms being synonymous). Since Paul's prohibition of female elder-pastors appeals to the Genesis creation story () for its rationale, Driscoll argues that the restriction is permanent and cannot be adjusted for changing culture.


title: Mark Driscoll

text: When the Episcopal Church elected Katharine Jefferts Schori as its first female Presiding Bishop, Driscoll wrote on his blog that "if Christian males do not man up soon, the Episcopalians may vote a fluffy baby bunny rabbit as their next bishop to lead God's men."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: According to Salon.com, "Driscoll has been a key advocate for candid conversations about sexuality among conservative Christians".


title: Mark Driscoll

text: In "Christians Might Be Crazy", Driscoll defends marriage as being between a man and a woman saying "It is clear that Jesus saw the male-female marriage bond of Genesis 1-2 as the prototype for human sexual relationships. Anything outside those boundaries was off limits. Despite this strong evidence, supporters of homosexuality nevertheless often appeal to Jesus, claiming that 'Jesus never condemned homosexuality' or even 'He never mentioned homosexuality'. [...] Jesus was no coward when it came to speaking up in order to rattle conventional thinking and effect change. If He was silent, it was because He saw no need to challenge the position His listeners already held."


title: Mark Driscoll

text: Mark and Grace Driscoll published their first book together, entitled "Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together", in January 2012. It includes a chapter entitled "Can We ___?", discussing a biblical rationale for specific sexual acts that evangelical pastors are considered reluctant to discuss. Driscoll said that the book was written because "only two [Christian] books go into depth on sexuality ... a lot of Christian teaching about sex is answering questions of a previous generation." The Driscolls and Mars Hill Church heavily promoted the book, taking interviews with "The View", "Fox & Friends", and "Piers Morgan Tonight."