the critique is getting better ...

The Touchstone "Mere Comment" The Gospel of Mark (Driscoll) & His Critics by Justin D. Barnard June 29, 2009 is certainly one the better readings of Driscoll's exegetical travesty on the Song of Songs.

I am glad to see some people probing a little deeper in the analysis of what is wrong with the guy in Ballard. I wonder if some philosophy professor might do a short piece on Driscoll's pragmatism, perhaps a comparison with Albert Finney.

the last shall be first ...

Just when you thought nothing more worth reading could be said about the guy in Ballard's teaching on Song of Songs up comes a late blooming flower of wisdom written by David Hegg.

Here is a quote:

For any interested in my take, here it is: My biggest problem is with Driscoll's exegesis of Song of Solomon. He makes the text say stuff that the author doesn't say. The book is filled with mystery and nuance, but Driscoll insists that the author is speaking in graphic terms. What the book describes with art and beauty and literary restraint, Driscoll describes in undressed language. He simply does not teach the book the way it was written.

Secondly, I too agree that Driscoll's method of communication was simply wrong. One of the necessities in biblical preaching is to fit the means of communication to the message being communicated. As I tried to explain in a previous post (Nobility, Approachability, and the Vitality of Truth), MacLuhan was correct in challenging us to understand that "the medium is the message." By choosing the low road in terms of language in order to be what he considers "real", Driscoll has actually drained the nobility, mystery, and sanctity out of marital intimacy in the Biblical book (Song of Solomon) where marital intimacy is most nobly, honorably, and reverently described.

complimentarianism is not the issue ...

I am a card carrying complimentarian and you can ask a couple of my linguist friends Peter Kirk (Chelmsford, Essex, UK) or Cindy Westfall (Hamilton ON) who are both militant egalitarians with whom I have had a few run ins over gender issues, but not recently.

The problem I have with Driscoll is the way he manifests complimentarianism. After listening to him speak for fifteen years I have concluded that he is working for the other side. His teaching on "real men" is right out of a b-grade western from the fifties, one cliche after another, hopelessly trapped in the narrow little blue collar world he grew up in, an easy target for egalitarians. Driscoll's notion of "real men" reminds me of some guys I worked with long ago who were reading Robert Bly and would go into the woods on weekends, sit around a fire wearing breech clothes beating tom toms.


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In the presence of HaShem (The Name)

The prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and John of the Apocalypse all experienced theophanies. Their response to this experience had some common elements. Falling on their face and becoming speechless. In the continuing controversy over the words and actions of Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, I have been told to be patient and watch how this trial by fire will purify Mark's ministry. My question in response to this is, how long should we wait. The person who told me to be patient was introduced to Driscoll at my suggestion some time in 1993. We met him one morning for coffee at Seattle U. I only had one other face to face with Driscoll which was right after he had been on Dobsen's show. But via radio and Internet I have kept track of what he was doing and teaching, not obsessively, sometimes I would go a year without listening once. In 2006 I took some interest in the Desiring God conference, TIm Keller, John Piper, David Wells, Mark Driscoll, and others. I was particularly interested in David Wells strong and negative reaction to the presence and performance of Driscoll. It was at that point that I began, once again, to wonder if there was something not just right with Mars Hill Church. The thought had certainly occurred to me before. Driscoll's pre-MarsHill radio show with Leif Moi "Street Talk" was a foretaste of his sermons at MHC. I remember Mark saying on that show that "Street Talk" had been dumped in Huston Texas because of the teaching on sexuality.

I was reading in the epistle of Jude today where he was describing the sins of the opponents. Two major issues were blasphemy (angels) and promoting immorality. The recent controversy over the Song of Songs sermons at MHC seems to focus on two issues. One is appropriate speech in the pulpit. Another is Driscoll's teaching about sexuality. In other words, some critics seem to focus on how the message is packaged but others are also concerned about the message itself, not just the packaging. The question about packaging, how Driscoll's expresses his ideas raises the issue of blasphemy. Driscoll defends himself by arguing that he doesn't intend to blaspheme. I find that argument weak. The effect is that blasphemy occurs regardless of Driscoll's "intent".

Picture Mark Driscoll in the shoes of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel or John of the Apocalypse, standing in the presence of The Glory of HaShem (The Name). Having had this experience, can you picture Mark Driscoll getting up on stage and talking the way he does? Using The Name of the Messiah in contexts that are both lewd and disrespectful. I find it impossible to picture this. Anyone who had stood in the very presence of The Glory, would, like the prophets be afraid to speak at all.

The second issue is more difficult. Is Driscoll's teaching on Song of Songs advocating immorality? Forget about his pseudo exegesis of the Song, it isn't worth refuting. Richard Hess (Song of Songs, BakerAcademic 2005) in his introduction outlines several ways NOT to read the Song. Driscoll's approach is right there, several places in the list of how NOT to read. Setting hermeneutics and exegesis aside, I don't suspect there would be any hope of reaching a consensus on the activities Driscoll advocates. Some would accept them and others would not. It is too bad we don't have a Pope to settle the issue. I think the very least that could said is that Driscoll is setting up wives who don't agree with him for a falling out with their husbands over this issue. The subtext of Driscoll's message is that wives need to "put out" to keep their husbands out of trouble. There is an implied threat there.

See Bart Barber's Driscoll promote[s] fellatio to the status of Christian ordinance

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Howlers - the driscolls on gender roles

If you were so unfortunate to have subjected yourself to the whole series on Song of Songs at Mars Hill last year it would have been easy to over look some really serious distortions of the New Testament because you were overwhelmed by the truly breath taking exegetical abuse of the Song of Songs.

I have it on very good authority that Grace Ann Driscoll is an intelligent and highly capable person who was on her way to a stellar career in the secular job market when she decided to say home and be a mom. So when I listened to the opening remarks in this clip from the Stay at Home Dads Q&A session, I was suffering some cognative dissonance when she made an allusion to 1Tim. 5:8 to support the Driscoll view on gender roles.

I spent the morning looking over the greek text of 1Tim 5:1-16. There are some really interesting problems in this passage, for example the identity of subject for manthanetwsan "learn" in 5:4 is not perfectly clear. The subject could be the widows or the members of the family. The way you read verse eight will be entirely dependent on how you solve this problem. I.H. Marshall (ICC) gives a thorough discussion of the issues. There are a number of other ambiguities in this text which require substantial linguistic and hermeneutical analysis to resolve.

One thing we can be absolutely certain about. This passage says nothing, zero, about stay at home dads or wives who go to work.

Grace Ann Driscoll is certainly smart enough to understand this. If she had sat down with her English bible and taken the time to read a chapter or so of the context it would have been very plain that the issue here is how to minister to widows in the early church. There is no mention of bread winners or housewives. The two groups involved are widows and family. The only gender roles in this passages are widows and the pressing question is what qualifies a woman to become an official widow in the church, supported by the church.

So I suspect that what goes on in these Q&A sessions after Mark Driscoll's sermon is a sort proof texting of the party line. We have an official MHC position on house husbands and we have our list of proof texts. No one dares to actually do any exegesis. That would be dangerous. You might come up with the wrong answer.

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Pure Water

It is late summer. You are hiking through a wilderness in north eastern Siberia with a local guide. You come to a mountain stream and ask the guide if it is safe to drink. He tells you the water has been tested and it is ninty nine percent pure. Has the guide really answered your question? Should you drink the water?

In 2006 John Piper told us that he drew a lot of flack when he invited Mark Driscoll to speak at the 2006 Desireing God conference. Piper's defense has been repeated and quoted so many times that it should be inscribed on a brass plaque and mounted on front door of his church. The essence was that Mark Driscoll was "sound" on the essentials of reformed dogma.

I have been periodically sampling Mark Driscoll's teaching for over fifteen years. My question to John Piper: How much poison does it take to kill you?

Mark Driscoll seems to have a policy of mixing a little poison into each message. His argument is that our culture is addicted to poison and you will get a bigger audience if you mix a little poison with the water. This small amount of poison isn't going to hurt these people since they have developed a high tolerance to these substances. This is pragmatism, the worst kind.

Titus 1:9 NRSV: He must have a firm grasp of the word that is trustworthy in accordance with the teaching, so that he may be able both to preach with sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it.

In this passage the words rendered "sound doctrine" could also be translated healthy teaching. My question to John Piper: Is Mark Driscoll's teaching healthy?

Mark Driscoll's forays into marriage and family topics sound to my ears extremely unhealthy. It isn't just Driscoll's ludicrous misreading of the Song of Songs. His whole program for remapping the gender roles in the family is bad medicine which will kill the patient.

Driscoll is attempting to baptize the "traditional values" of the 1950s small town working class (blue collar) culture. That project isn't going to fly and a lot damage will be done in the process. I can remember the impact Bill Gothard had forty years ago promoting a similar agenda. Every time "Basic Youth" came to town, the mental health professionals would see a huge aftershock of confused, depressed and troubled people.

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Song of Songs - MacArthur

The most signficant point made by John MacArthur in
The Rape of Solomon's Song was one on hermeneutics. Be sure to print this statement on paper and fold it into your bible at the first page of Song of Songs.

We're assured moreover that the shocking hidden meanings of these texts aren't merely descriptive; they are prescriptive. The secret gnosis of Solomon's Song portray obligatory acts wives must do if this is what satisfies their husbands, regardless of the wife's own desire or conscience..

MacArthur has nailed it. Pay attention.

Old Testament Poetry:
Psa. 137:9 Happy is he who
takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rock!

As I have stressed several times in this blog, I am culturally a great distance from John MacArthur. I am not an evangelical. My concern about this is Mark Driscoll's egregious abuse of scripture. The points MacArthur makes about hermeneutics and application are the same points I would make. Driscoll's treatment of the Song of Songs is both ridiculous and profane. The point I want to stress is that his exegesis is silly. He should be laughed at as well as anathematized. I will leave the anathemas for the church leaders. I am content to just laugh at him. Driscoll is doing something really stupid and he is doing it in public. Ignorant people are buying into it.
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Personal & Public Virtue in Titus

The Epistle to Titus is a difficult book. It isn't hard to read or understand. The teaching is hard to accept. IMO, if the church was filled with people modeled after the virtue lists in this epistle, the cultural impact would be close to zero. When Phil Johnson took his stand against Mark Driscoll on March 9th (see Pork Roast) he quoted from Titus. I had not recently done any work in the Pastorals so I decided to take a new look at Titus. I will be honest, I find the book offensive. It seems like it is written by some goody two shoes with a list of rules; Do this, Don't do that. While I agreed with the main thrust of Phil Johnson's critique of Driscoll, I inhabit different galaxy from Mack Arthurism. With regard to Driscoll's trip, I am a co-belligerent with Johnson, not an ally. I started reading anarchist poetry in my early teens, believe me I am not on the same page with Phil Johnson or Mark Driscoll.

Driscoll's model of apologetics is to win arguments against famous opponents. The dragon slayer approach. This is high school football captain mentality at work here. I am not impressed. A lot of other people are not impressed. I know, they tell me. Some of them are 25 years old. The idea that Driscoll is doing a perfect job communicating the "gospel" to the youth is a bit naive. Talk to someone from a racial minority who has attend his church.

Driscoll's message is offensive both in content and style of delivery. It isn't how he says it that bothers me. It is what he is saying, the subtext of contempt for christians that disagree with his worldview. I am a pacifist. I didn't go to Vietnam. I was a CO and did two years of alternate service in a residential drug rehab center which was established and ruled by Driscoll's father-in-law in the late '60s. When I listen to Mark Driscoll talk, I hear a constant subtext of hatred directed at my generation and what we stood for in the late 60s. I have every reason to be annoyed at Driscoll's arrogant presumption that he has a corner on the market when it comes to biblical truth. To my ears, he sounds like a deputy sheriff from Alabama during the race riots in the early '60s.

But Driscoll has an audience, he gathers crowds that would not listen to my generation. I think this is the main reason why John Piper puts up with Mark Driscoll. To set aside the message of Titus because Driscoll is a crowd pleaser is typical evangelical pragmatism. The end justifies the means. I am of two minds about this. A straight forward reading of Titus seems to require a church leader to be a sort of bland conformist inoffensive cultural nonentity. I noticed that I.H. Marshall tried to do an end run around this but it wasn't successful. I would be willing to accept a confrontational style of delivery, but one in the tradition of Francis A. Schaeffer, which identifies with and participates in the secular/pagan culture, suffering along side of those who are lost and hurting, without the subtext of contempt for the other christians who don't agree with you. That subtext has to go, or Driscoll will remain on my hit list.

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Alice Cooper in the "Pulpit"

Take all the worst qualities of Bob Jones Sr., Robert B. Thieme and package them in the stage presence of Alice Cooper and what do you end up with? Mark Driscoll. This is neo-fundamentalism with all the authoritarian despotism of 50's style KJV thumpers dished up with the legendary stage presence of Alice Cooper.

I have been working my way through the greek text of Titus with a little help form I.H. Marshall and slogging through the tedious lists of virtues while in the back of my mind I see Mark Driscoll up on the stage presenting to all the world the perfect anti-model of what we find in Titus. Driscoll's rhetoric is abrasive, foul mouthed, confrontational, rude, crude, blasphemous, bigoted, nasty, pornographic and occasionally mean.

This appeals to a certain kind of person, the kind of people who want to be told what to think so they don't have to do any thinking of their own. In every age there have always been hordes of people willing to follow and submit to "Big Brother" so they can turn their minds off and suck up the party line, the propaganda, without question.

The main reason I find this so disgusting is that friends of mine who used to have good sense are buying it. They must have, quite literally, lost their minds.


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Tribal Power Structures and the Mega Church

In the summer of 1968 I did my obligatory out of culture experience by spending two months in El Salvador living with a missionary in Gotera and basically wasting time since I was not fluent in Spanish. I was a hiker and mountain climber so I spent a lot of time walking the roads and the trails early in the day before the heat became intolerable and before the afternoon thunder storm. It was a drought year and people were starving. The thunder storms were only once every three days which is too dry for the rainy season.

On one of my walks I encountered another gringo, which was truly a rare event in '68. Always happy to speak some english, I chatted with him for a while. He was an anthropologist working for the peace corps. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was studying tribal power structures. I thought that was a bizarre way to spend your time but didn't say as much.

That fall I enrolled in a cultural anthropology course and began to get a better grasp on tribal power structures. The Mega Church phenomenon has been studied at great length using numerous different frameworks for analysis. The Tribal metaphor seems a very useful one. We have a chief, the senior pastor, we have a counsel of elders, "the board". The management style can differ dramatically from tribe to tribe. The elders have a substantial authority in some tribes but in others they are pawns who bow to every whim of the chief.

The word on the street is that Mars Hill Church is headed in the direction of one man rule. Mark Driscoll has been accused recently in the NY Times of centralizing his authority by removing elders who disagree with him. That is certainly an old story.

On the other hand, who trusts the NY Times? Certainly not me. The news media are always lairs, gluttons, evil beats. I can picture a scenario where a leader of a church might be compelled by a conflict between the vision which is central to the ministry and several elders who were disrupting things to take action to keep the ship on course. The picture that the NY Times presents isn't the whole story, it never is.

There are other aspects of Mars Hill Church which raise a concern, reports form eye witnesses and participant observers. People talk about Mark ... Mark ... Mark, not about Jesus but Mark. After the service, away from the church, it still goes on, "kissing up to Driscoll" , never a critical word, never a doubt or a question. This sounds a lot like Community Chapel, a sad tale, which was over with before the Mars Hill babies were born.


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Who Does Mark Driscoll Hate the Most?

Who Does Mark Driscoll Hate the Most?

Why do I want to push the stop button when I am listening to a web cast of Driscoll preaching? Well, quite frankly, I get the felling that I am being attacked by someone who hates people like me. I don't get it. I am not gay. I am not fat. I don't vote democrat (or republican). I don't have an inferiority complex. I don't do kiddie porn. I never was a 'hippie'. What is it about people like me that Driscoll hates. The answer is simple: The 1960's, the people who were part of the cultural revolution.

When I first met Driscoll he was clerking in a bookstore in Greenwood (North Seattle). I had heard about him. He makes a lot of noise. I knew his father-in-law very well when I was in my teens and 20s but I was long gone when Mark became a regular visitor in that household. When Driscoll came back from college and started doing "street talk" on the radio I would tune in now and then and listen. I noted right away that Driscoll was a generation bigot. He hated 'hippies' with a passion. I suppose this has something to do with growing up blue collar in Seattle which is a northern clone of San Francisco. The war between the hard hats and the flower generation was still in progress when Driscoll was born into the world of hard hats. In the end the hard hats lost the war. The flower children and the neo-pagans took over the culture and nowhere is that more evident than in Seattle. So Driscoll hates what he calls 'hippies' because his people lost the war and now he would like to put the culture back where it was in 1955 and it just isn't going to happen.

Driscoll seems to have adopted the notion that the hard hat world view is somehow connected with Jesus. This is so silly it hardly deserves refutation. Jesus didn't join a union, watch football, drink bud, have a dragon tattooed on his biceps, wasn't a carpenter, didn't have a job, took his disciples away from their jobs ... and generally caused a social disruption where ever he went. Jesus was the antithesis of Mark Driscoll's model of "true manhood".


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Mark Driscoll and the New Fascism

I listened to the first five minutes of the sermon Marriage and Men starting with the opening prayer and Mark Driscoll wasn't even half finished with the prayer before I was already thinking of Mussolini. I did a google on Mark Driscoll and fascism found out that I am not alone. What really blows my mind is the friends of mine who were on the extream left of the evnagelical movment about forty years ago are now falling down and worshiping Mark Driscoll. Reminds me of Rinocerous by Ionesco.

I have been keeping an ear tuned to Mark Driscoll since he first went on the radio in Seattle in the early '90s. I now see something like a neo-pagan fertility cult packaged in an authoritarian rhetoric which would make Joseph Goebbels sit up and listen. This fellow Mark Driscoll isn't just a pastor at Mars Church in Seattle, he is the leader of an international movement. Driscoll isn't "nibbling at the edges of stale ideas" he has consumed and digested the rotten beast tusk and all.


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Blasphemy: Naming the Name

In Leviticus 24:10-16 we see a case where a man of mixed heritage commits a capital crime by naming the name and cursing. As always, there are disputes about what exactly this text means, but one thing seems clear, the crime committed involved dishonoring HaShem (The Name).

This is at the heart of the issue involving pastoral discourse at Mars Hill Church. Phil Johnson focused on language and topics that he considers unfit for pulpit ministry. But Mark Driscoll's regular habit of invoking HaShem Yeshua in the context of disparaging off color, lewd, sexually loaded language, aimed at belittling other peoples faith in Yeshua, is an egregious violation of the principle in laid out Ex 22:27 MT (English Ex 22:28).


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