Seattle — Seattle megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll has written a letter to his congregation to explain recent controversies, including the marketing campaign intended to place the book, “Real Marriage,” on The New York Times best-seller list.
Driscoll has been an influential pastor within Reformed evangelical circles for several years, helping to found a church-planting network called Acts 29. His own Mars Hill Church attracts some 14,000 people at 15 locations in five states each Sunday.
In recent months, however, reports have emerged that Driscoll plagiarized some of the material in his books. And earlier in March, World magazine reported that Driscoll hired a firm to buy copies of the book he penned with his wife, Grace, so that it would top the best-seller lists.
In a letter posted on Reddit on March 15, Driscoll apologized for using the marketing strategy.
“I am sorry that I used this strategy and will never use it again,” he wrote. “I have also asked my publisher to not use the ‘#1 New York Times bestseller’ status in future publications and am working to remove this from past publications as well.”
The church’s spokesman, Justin Dean, confirmed that a letter from Driscoll to Mars Hill Church was posted to the church’s internal network as “a private family communication.”
In the letter, Driscoll said he would quit social media for the rest of 2014 to “reset” his life.
He said he will not do as many speaking engagements in the future. “I don’t see how I can be both a celebrity and a pastor, and so I am happy to give up the former so that I can focus on the latter,” he wrote.
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