Mark Driscoll is going viral after being kicked off stage at a Christian men’s conference for how he expressed concern about the conference’s opening act.
The 2024 Stronger Men’s Conference at James River Church in Springfield, Missouri, led by John Lindell, invited Alex Magala to perform as the conference opener. Magala is a former stripper and pole dancer who was featured on Britain’s Got Talent for a dangerous sword-swallowing routine. During the performance, Maglea tore off his shirt, swallowed a sword and climbed up a pole with the sword still in his mouth. The performance, as seen below, was met with roaring applause.
Megachurch has strip-show-like performance at men’s conference. Guest speaker Mark Driscoll spoke out against it and was kicked off stage.
Unbelievable that any church would allow this. Reason #538 not to attend a megachurch.#ChristIsKing @pearlythingz @sovereignbrah @scrowder… pic.twitter.com/Fl2Vd3DDhn
— Caeden (@thecfrazier) April 14, 2024
However, when Driscoll — who has spoken at the conference previously — got up on stage, he condemned the act, calling out the conference leaders for letting in a “Jezebel spirit.” Here’s what he had to say:
“Let me do this: I’ve been up since one o’clock in the morning. The reason I’m hoarse is I have been praying for you and my heart is very burdened for you. And I want to be very careful with this and it’s not what I want to say, but the Jezebel spirit has already been here. The Jezebel spirit opened our event. This is a rebuke and a correction of no one. This is an observation. Before the Word of God was opened, there was a platform. It was a high place. On it was a pole of Asherah. The same thing that’s used in a strip club for women who have the Jezebel spirit to seduce men. In front of that was a man who ripped his shirt off like a woman does in front of a pole at a strip club. That man then ascended. See, our God is not arrogant. He doesn’t ascend. Our God is humble, he descends. And then-“
Driscoll was then cut off by Lindell, who yelled out, “Wrong time Mark!” and walked on stage to kick off Driscoll. As he was leaving the stage, the crowd began to boo, although it’s unclear if it was aimed at Driscoll or Lindell.
Lindell then took over and shared his shock at Driscoll’s statements and called Driscoll out for being “out of line.”
“If Mark wanted to say that, he should have said it to me first, but he didn’t,” Lindell said. “Matthew 18: ‘If your brother offends you, go to him privately.’ I talked to Mark for a half hour. There was not one word of that. He’s out of line. If you want to say it, he can say it to me. You may not agree with me. You may not agree with him. But we are brothers in Christ and there’s a right way to handle this.
“I’m telling you, I’m not going to sit back and watch someone do publicly what they should have done privately,” Lindell continued. “As a pastor and a man of God, I’ll call another man of God out. I love Mark, but he was out of line. I have a responsibility spiritually for this event. We saw 530 people come to Christ. We’re going to conduct ourselves in a Christian manner and we’re going to go according to the Bible, and the Bible tells us how that should have been resolved, and it wasn’t.”
NEW: Pastor Mark Driscoll gets kicked off stage at a men’s conference after he calls out pastor John Lindell for allowing a demonstration from a male stripper.
The incident happened at the Stronger Men’s Conference in Springfield, MO.
After Vegas stripper and ‘sword swallower’… pic.twitter.com/hlDHqHHriY
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 14, 2024
This isn’t the first time the Stronger Men’s Conference has received backlash for their theatrical performances. In 2022, the conference went viral for featuring flaming monster truck stunts.
