the cult of personality & the mega church pastor

Some years ago while I was attending a bible study lead by Wayne Taylor at Calvary Fellowship in Seattle, after one our sessions a grad student came up to me with a question about the Greek text of 1Thessalonians. At least that was the pretext for striking up a conversation that ended up taking more than an hour. It turned out that grad student was a devotee of John MacArthur. I had never read or heard MacArthur but I could remember some fuss about his views on "Lordship" when I was in graduate school over 30 years ago. The dispute didn't hold any interest for me. I was reading a lot of Emil Brunner at the time in preparation for my thesis, MacArthur was not the sort of stuff you read in graduate school.

Anyway, it was plain to me that grad student was a fervent disciple MacArthur. For some reason this sort of thing irritates me. I get put out about uncritical devotion to christian leaders, it is cultish and I had my fill of it growing up in a church were there was plenty of this sort of thing. So I did a little baiting, told grad student that MacArthur's soteriology (doctrine of salvation) was considered by some a minor departure from orthodoxy. This discussion didn't go anywhere since I didn't remember the details of the controversy.

Some time later, grad student went to Wayne Taylor and reported that I was a despicable heretic because I dared to question MacArthur. I found this out months later chatting with one of the associate pastors at Calvary Fellowship. This illustrates a very unhealthy aspect of mega church pastors. It isn't John MacArthur's fault that grad student had this attitude but the mega church model which focuses a great deal of attention on the the super star pastor promotes a sort "big brother" scenario. If the name on the lips of nearly every member is the name of the head pastor, if most discussions center around the person of the head pastor, at some point this becomes idolatry.

For those of use who grew up with a cultural memory of el Duce, der Fuhrer, Stalin; reading 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451 ... walking into a "church" which seats thousands of people with a huge stage and a projected image of "the anointed" preaching from a dvd or a live feed from the central campus ... all of this is pretty unsettling. But what is most disturbing is running into "the faithful" who like grad student are uncritical, unthinking, mindlessly devoted to a man who is a sinner saved by grace but far far far from perfection. People like grad student should give mega church pastors nightmares. But they don't seem to. These pastors seem to be more worried about their critics, how to silence them. When they should be worried about their non-critics.

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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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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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