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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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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The Right of Private Judgment & Totalitarian Mega Churches

In the mid '70s I heard Peter Toon a church historian form the UK give a lecture series on The Right of Private Judgment and the Reformation. Toon focused on the rights and responsibilities of private judgment. What some people are calling the "New Calvinism" has a deeply ironic twist in that it is being promoted by Papal Pastors at totalitarian Mega Churches where the right of private judgment has been taken away. The head pastor has replaced the Pope and his interpretation of the scriptures has been put above criticism. Anyone who dares to openly question his teaching is ostracized or removed from membership.

Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church in Seattle is a case in point. Driscoll's exegesis is generally pretty loose. He assumes that his audience is too ignorant to see this. He supports his questionable teachings on sexual ethics, marriage & family, gender roles, and many other popular themes with highly dubious exegetical tactics. He would be blasted out of the room if he presented these readings in a scholarly forum. But at Mars Hill Church his teaching is above criticism. If you are a member of HIS church you do not question HIS teaching.

This is a very common scenario at mega churches. These fellows are not capable of dealing with dissent. When they step into the pulpit they are infallible. They may not claim this in so many words but their policy of repressing dissent carries a subtext of infallibility.



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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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