The Elephant Room 2 – Still Missed One or Two
February 2, 2012
I have now spent several days ruminating over the Elephant Room, Round 2. I have what amount to two reactions that I feel comfortable making in a public forum. First, I am left with the same major objection after the telecast that I had before the telecast: Exactly what qualifies as a “diverse” perspective to the reformed Evangelical crowd represented by MacDonald and Driscoll? The guests certainly didn’t (and still don’t) seem all that diverse to this Pentecostal turned Episcopalian. Second, while my convictions as an Evangelical have been waning over the last four years, I think the Elephant Room (as a concept and in execution) provides a silver lining to the otherwise gloomy outlook I have had.
I work at an interdenominational school with nearly 1,500 students and over 100 employees. I am a member of the Bible faculty; administratively, I run various programs, head up staff and student projects, provide professional development training and serve as the spiritual director. We have students and staff that span the three branches of Christianity (Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox), and we have students that have no Christian affiliation. In short, I understand pastoring a diverse crowd of folks, and it was my idea to take our Bible faculty to this conference. I was excited for the opportunity, and excited to have another chance to spend time interacting in a meaningful way over our commonalities as a teaching staff.
The Elephant Room 2 line up consisted of James MacDonald (Harvest Bible Chapel), Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill), T.D. Jakes (The Potter’s House), Jack Graham (Prestonwood Baptist Church), Steven Furtick (Elevation Church), Crawford Loritts (Fellowship Bible Church), and Wayne Cordeiro (New Hope Oahu). Now, what you should read in the line up is probably fairly obvious, “Our round table discussion between ‘diverse’ perspectives involves seven pastors – of them, seven are Conservative Evangelical Protestants, two are reformed, two are Pentecostal/Charismatic, and two belong to the SBC.” Now, I traveled in Pentecostal circles long enough to understand that diversity is a rare commodity for organizations that are in the midst of what we might call “institutionalization.” They are trying to secure their brand, guarantee their lineage, solidify their influence, etc. – I get it. Nonetheless, I looked at the lineup and had to reread the website’s “about” page, because I was sure I had missed something. Nope, there it was again, “The Elephant Room features blunt conversations between seven influential pastors who take differing approaches to ministry. No keynotes. No canned messages. These are ‘the conversations you never thought you’d hear.’”
While I know many of our readers will agree with me on this point, there is, apparently, a storm of controversy brewing over how outrageous it was for Macdonald to invite certain pastors to his “blunt conversation.” Many of Driscoll and Macdonald’s colleagues in the Reformed tradition are beside themselves over the interactions with T.D. Jakes (see here, here, here and here). For me, though, the attempt was not daring enough. Why didn’t we get to see ministers like Bishop N.T. Wright, Fr. Alberto Cutie, Fr. Miguel Diaz, or Rev. Tom Brock mix it up with these elite seven? I don’t mean to be too snarky, but I think the answer is obvious when halfway through the conference T.D. Jakes quipped that pastors needed to “quit being superman, and start being Ms. Lane” (the point being, that sometimes pastors need saving too), Driscoll almost reverted to high school locker room antics, shouting and posturing about how he’s not into “that stuff” (which, perhaps, was only bested by his sage observation that often we put too much focus on the failure of the men when pastors are guilty of sexual sin. He said that we never pay enough attention to the guilt of wives when pastors go outside of the marriage) I was disappointed that the groundbreaking conversation of the day was how to racially integrate congregations, and not how to take the hateful edge out of the militant Evangelical agendas against women and the GLBT community.
It wasn’t all that bad, though. Which, you may not believe, I mean with all sincerity. Something that did emerge, proving to be quite encouraging, was the emotional tone at the close of the conference. Macdonald was quite clear (and most of the others agreed heartily), that he was done with the Evangelical ethos that demands Christians be defined by what they are against instead of what they are for. He reflected on the day, then asked the others to share their gleanings, and the result was a blissful moment of transparency and vulnerability where some of America’s most influential Evangelicals said, “Yeah, you’re right, my church needs to accept all who claim Christ, not just the ones that want to sign my doctrinal statement” (all, except for Monkey-boy, who declared that the day’s conversations amounted to a whole lot more “fun” than he expected he’d have). Some even lamented the fact that the day’s proceedings had not been influenced by an even wider array of Christian leaders.
So, in short, the conference was a little disappointing, because the Evangelical notion of theological diversity is still quite narrow. However, there were great moments where it was obvious that the Spirit of God was driving these leaders to a broader ecumenical vision – that part was really exciting, actually. Consequently, a few parting thoughts on the periphery of my memory: I respect Driscoll less than when I started, I love T.D. Jakes (who knew?), I still can’t believe that Jack Graham opened by saying that the SBC isn’t a denomination, rich white guys that run churches (like the rich white guys that run congress) still have no connection to what the poor, disenfranchised or minorities of America are dealing with on a daily basis, Steven Furtick is my new man-crush (seriously, he is bad ass – I want to be his friend, or watch him cage fight Mark Driscoll), and I see a future where a whole lot of angry little bloggers get a lot of mileage out tired theological fights like “modalism.”
I Hate End Notes – The End
September 30, 2011
Publishers have defiled the work of at least two of my favorite authors, and I am sure there are more to come. What is the dubious nature of these putrescent literary obscenities? End Notes. There is a disturbing trend in which even books that are geared toward educated readers are being published without footnotes. This is unacceptable and I demand that all such activity cease and desist immediately. I present two comparisons to make my case, N.T. Wright and Miroslav Volf. I do understand that their careers and ministries resemble the body of work produced by bands like Aerosmith or Metallica. In Rock n’ Roll and Metal terms, they were purists, pounding audiences with unadulterated music – archetypes of a genre - then, as they became more popular, their music had to become more accessible to the
tastes of the consumerist masses. They turned out music that had the obvious gloss of marketing and brand recognition. Music producers and agents did to their music what publishers are doing to the likes of Wright and Volf.
In fairness, the analogy fails on some points, I know. Wright and Volf have a pastoral duty to make the kinds of important things they say to Christendom accessible to all of the Church. I just don’t think that those of us who see the utility of footnotes should have to suffer through reading works with end notes, that’s all. Here are a couple of examples for you to make your own comparison. First, look at the Grawemeyer winning book by Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace. You’re not even done reading the first ten pages before you realize the depth of study that went into Volf’s writing. You get comments, asides, and further discussion about the content that drives the thesis of the book. It’s like you’re in a dialogue of 
sorts with the author. The Climax of the Covenant, is a great example of the same kind of experience being created with footnotes from the work of Bishop Wright. On the other hand, you get to works like Wright’s “Justification” or Volf’s “Free of Charge” (the book I am currently reading), and you have a completely different experience waiting for you. There is no longer the comfort of knowing you can glance down and get bibliographic information for a source, further insight from the author, or an explication of some complicated point. No, No… now you have to devise some system for keeping your place in two locations of the book: your progress in the material and your progress in the notes must be maintained simultaneously. I know what you might be thinking, “what a lazy bastard!” And, ordinarily, I might agree with you if it wasn’t for the fact that this causes more than the inconvenience of having to have two bookmarks (which, incidentally, you’d think the publisher could provide for the premium price we’re paying for books these days). It is about the fact that I am taken out of the rhythm of my reading to go looking for information
that might as well be easily accessible at the bottom of the page. Now, if the examples I cited were more popular works like Wright’s, “Surprised by Hope” that is intended for the consumption of laity, then I could understand the use of end notes (or no notes at all).
There are, then, at least three reasons I hate End Notes. First, I like the feeling of “dialogue” that footnotes seem to create between me and the author. Not unlike when the groundbreaking series Saved by the Bell used Zack Morris to break the “fourth wall” over and over again. I feel like the barrier between me and the author is lessened when I get the notes (some of them amounting to nothing more than asides, which I like). Second, I get into a rhythm reading. It’s like a dance – the author leads my thinking around the virtual room of my mind, moving to the beat of the argument that is being unfolded. When I have to stop to go read an end note, I feel like the band has quit playing in the middle of the song. My mental interaction with the argument of the book is interrupted when I have to go fishing for a note. Lastly, it’s just inconvenient.
Three Relationships Every Christian Should Have
May 24, 2011
I can tell that I have been out of a degree program for a year. In trying to write a simple review for Miroslav Volf’s new book on Allah, I have become lost in the thrill of critical writing. I have only covered four chapters and already have more than two thousand words. Needless to say, this review may become my Chinese Democracy – Axl and I can sit in a dark corner together and twitch about the genius nobody appreciates.
So, I am going to take a short break from my opus of academic book reviewing, and post in a more parochial direction. I spend a lot of time watching people and thinking about relationships. I am especially interested in people who are either very successful or utterly disastrous at maintaining their relationships. I don’t necessarily intend this post to be about a certain type of relationship, whether it be romantic, filial, congregational, or professional. I think my advice applies to all relationships. In fact, I have begun to notice a trend. What makes the difference between people who fail in their relationships and those who are successful? I don’t think it is time spent. The people I know whose records are poor in the relationship department spend what might be inordinate amounts of time worrying about their relationships. I don’t think it is sincerity. The people I know that struggle in the interpersonal arena are some of the most sincere people I have met. I don’t even think it is communication skills. I can think of a couple of specific examples – people who are very good at getting their feelings across. Their relationships? Total disaster.
I think one of the major contributing factors is imbalance in the type of relationships that people maintain. In my humble opinion, people who want healthy, happy relational experiences should be cultivating three types of relationships in their lives. If we want a happy, healthy church, then we need to be facilitating these relationships within our communities.
First, everyone should have at least one “Mentor” relationship in their life. I fully expect that I will never arrive at a place where I no longer need someone to provide wisdom and insight. I am somewhat of a “perspective miner.” I have several mentor relationships in my life, and I make contact with them regularly – not just to get help with trouble. I have sought out people who live the kind of life to which I aspire, and have submitted myself to them in order to learn. I have access to some individuals that many may see as inaccessible, but you’d be surprised how willing people who God has used in tremendous ways are to invest in other’s lives. When I see people in my life that seem to be struggling with some element of their lives, when I see Christians that seem to be struggling with some element of their faith, these people often have no mentoring relationships. These kinds of relationships seem easy to come by in most institutional settings like schools. They seem more difficult to come by in professional settings like corporations. Oddly, the place you would expect to see the most mentoring happening, the church, is the place where I see people struggling the most to find and benefit from a mentor. The significance of a mentor relationships does not come in having successful tactics modeled for you. The significance of a mentor relationship comes from the fact that you are personally willing to acknowledge that someone is “over” you. We all have had parents, pastors, and principals. It doesn’t mean that we were all willing to submit to their authority. A mentor relationship done right, is a process of acknowledging that you need someone to mold your life. This is a relationship where you are almost entirely the beneficiary. Yes, mentoring offers rewards, but the amount of benefit you receive from a mentor is decidedly in your favor.
Second, everyone should have strong peer relationships. This may seem like the default setting of most people’s interpersonal lives, but you’d be surprised how many people I run into that do not have genuine peer level friendships. I have a few relationships that make my life worth living. They are people who genuinely “get” me. I do not have to temper my personality or my words. I do not have to wonder how they feel about me. They accept me for who I am, and (importantly) they can hear the inner me without fear of rejection. This is perhaps an issue that comes in degrees. The degree to which I need people to accept and interact with my true self may be different from what others need. I can say this, though, people who I know that have trouble with relationships have no outlet for what is really going on inside of them. A real peer relationship is a process of giving and receiving from the other person, it is mutually beneficial.
Third, everyone should have disciples. I imagine most people will immediately see the common sense of the previous two categories. However, I am not so certain everyone always appreciates how much a mentor needs to have a mentee. So, at the same time mentors are pouring into our lives and peers are enriching our lives – we NEED to be giving ourselves up for others. Many of us have run into a peculiar, even paradoxical, bit of wisdom in living life: when things get tough, you must seek out people for whom you can sacrifice yourself. Nothing gets you out of life’s tough spots like helping someone else out of a tough spot. It is actually quite remarkable what a sense of responsibility for the welfare of other people can do for Christians. (Let’s be clear here; I am not talking about becoming the spiritual police or a legalist - I am talking about giving yourself up to make someone else better). Without fail, I ask people who are having a hard time being in community, if they are discipling anyone. Without fail, they always give me a look of questioning my sanity. As if to say, “why would I, in my broken down state, have anything to give someone else.” The answer, of course, is that people rarely need you to be perfect or for you to have all the answers. They need you to share your life with them. If you are a Christian and you are not giving yourself up in real (and sometimes painful) ways, then you are missing out on what it means to imitate Christ – and all of your relationships will suffer.
There you have it, my pastoral advice for the week. Go out and enjoy community with God’s people!
A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter
May 2, 2011
Here is the homily I delivered this last Sunday at St. John’s Cathedral – for those morbidly interested in such things. Sometimes the church posts audio on its web page – if so, I’ll update with a link.
O’ Lord, help us to hear your Spirit in our hearts, though our ears listen to human words; give us the humility to obey your word and the strength to perform your will. Amen.
My first real crisis of faith came to a head in the passenger seat of a Saturn SL nearly twelve years ago. My tour of duty in Bible College was nearing its end, and a series of negative experiences had sent me into an existential tail spin. I had long been at odds with the particulars of life as an ultra-conservative Evangelical, but as is often the case; it was an untimely death that had me questioning the basic assumptions of life and faith. Its funny how life’s biggest questions are the easiest to ignore when things are going well, and how those questions fight their way to the surface of our lives when we ignore them for too long.
And, so, as I argued with a friend in the car that evening about such lofty questions as the problem of evil and the weaknesses of Anselm’s ontological argument; I waxed eloquent, building the best case against the existence of God that my burgeoning education could muster. After an extended period of such ranting that close friend, who was sitting in the driver’s side seat, gently corrected me with an unexpected response. It was the very response that Jesus gave to Thomas in this morning’s Gospel reading. My friend, Jeremiah, actually had the audacity to reply to my argument by saying, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
That response was so unexpected that my rhythm was broken and my ranting stuttered to a stop. I stared at him in stunned silence as the words he spoke sank in, and rage began to boil up in my heart and spill out of my mouth. I was, I thought, building a case against God that even Job would be proud of, and here was Jeremiah suggesting that I was blessed, – blessed! -because I, unlike Thomas the Apostle, had little to no hope of ever experiencing God in such a tangible way.
I wasn’t angry, because the statement was painfully true (though, it was) or because the statement contained some kind of parochial wisdom that flew in the face of my highly sophisticated and philosophically secular doubt (though, it surely did). I was angry, because those words, first spoken by Jesus, carried the same indictment that he directed at the Pharisees earlier in his ministry. In that moment of indignation, I imagine I felt like the Pharisees must have when Jesus told them that it is a wicked and adulterous generation that seeks a sign. I was angry, because like the Pharisees, I sought to apprehend truth on my own terms – to possess it like a piece of personal property, to manipulate it, to make it do my bidding. I wanted to have a relationship with God that was based on my own knowledge, where he made displays of his existence and of his power at my whim for my comfort and for my peace of mind.
While all of us have undoubtedly struggled with the existence of God or the reality of Jesus’ presence in our own lives, I would never suggest that everyone here has doubts for the same reasons that I do. Let’s be honest, though, who here has not fantasized about how much better we would be as Christians, if only Jesus would just show up in the flesh at our bedside some evening? But, of course, just as the issue was never a simple matter of intellectual certainty on my part, the interaction between Thomas and Jesus in the twentieth chapter of John’s Gospel in not simply a matter of establishing empirical evidence for the bodily resurrection. While doubt may plague us, and may at times seem insurmountable, we would be foolish to assume that doubt is not also pervasive in every other area of our lives. We would also be foolish to believe that the real danger of doubt is found in the potential that something or someone does not exist as we believe, rather than in the clear fact that if we submit to belief then we must also act accordingly. If we accept something as truth, as corresponding to reality as it really exists, then we must also be compelled to adjust the way we live in relationship to that reality. My drive home after church this morning will look quite a bit different if I develop a sudden and healthy skepticism for either traffic laws or the laws of physics.
As a simple demonstration of my point, you don’t have to go far in the Gospels to find disbelief. Indeed, the Gospel narratives are riddled with religious folk, simple folk, military folk, educated folk, well every kind of folk really who just cannot seem to understand what Jesus is up to. In the light of the overwhelming disbelief that was pointed in Jesus’ direction, I have often felt rather sorry for the Apostle Thomas and his nom de guerre, that dubious title of “doubter,” that wicked schoolyard taunt that “one of these things is not like the other.” When, in fact, he fit right in with the other Apostles in dismissing the report that Jesus had risen from the dead. I am sure the other Apostles are merely biding their time before it catches on that they all dismissed the women who first returned with the report that the tomb was empty and Jesus was raised from the dead long before Thomas had a chance to shine as the savant of skepticism. Of course, if we had a nickel for every time a man foolishly dismissed the report of a woman…
Clearly faith and belief are an issue in as much as they allude to our trusting God. And to the degree that faith and belief are concerned with the resurrection, they are essential. The Apostle Paul ties the effectiveness of the atonement and our justification to the resurrection, proclaiming that if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then we above all others are to be pitied. We see in this morning’s Lesson from 1 Peter that the Apostle Peter ties our participation in a “living hope” to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Last Sunday Bishop Vono identified our participation in the events of holy week and Paschal celebrations as a necessary “tune-up” to our faith. We can also see, then, that the Apostle John intends his Gospel to confront readers with the fact that God has initiated the process of reconciling creation back to himself through the work of the incarnate Word– but it is up to us to walk in the light, to shun the darkness, to embrace the reality of the resurrection. Faith, especially pertaining to the resurrection, is less about convincing yourself intellectually that a person might come back to life from death, and more about being resolute in your conviction that life lived in light of the resurrection looks much different than life outside of that reality.
Bishop N.T. Wright points out that for John’s Gospel the resurrection especially matters, because “John is a theologian of creation at heart. The Logos, the Word, who was always to be the point of convergence at which the creator and creation came together, is now, in the resurrection, the point at which the creator and the new creation are likewise one.” The living hope of which the Apostle Peter speaks is the reality that we are adopted into the family of God, because Jesus has been raised from the dead. Because Jesus is alive, we can be sons and daughters of the almighty. We see in Jesus’ appearances to his disciples after the resurrection not only a substantiation of his claims to be the Son of God, but also what must have been an initially startling realization on the part of his followers that they would now have to live into the reality of their citizenship in the Kingdom of God.
This brings me back to my story about my crisis of faith many years ago, and the wry question that Jesus leaves hanging thick in the air as he squares off with Thomas. Jesus asks Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me?” What is, perhaps, most telling about this interaction is the fact that even though Jesus immediately follows this question with his own confession that not all of his followers will have the opportunity to “see and believe” as Thomas does, he asks in response to Thomas’ pronouncement of him as “my Lord and my God.” This is significant, according to Wright, because Thomas has now become the spokesperson for the disciples in identifying what John has been compelling his readers to identify all along; “Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through believing there is life in his name.” Certainly, there have been many biblical scholars that have written long lists of what different political, religious and socio-economic sects within Judaism expected to see when the Messiah returned. However, it wasn’t until Thomas’ proclamation that someone saw who the Messiah was in reality. Thomas saw God in human flesh, albeit a new kind of flesh recently returned from death, with his own human eyes. Where others had looked upon the same person and saw something completely different, Thomas now acknowledged the reality that Jesus and the Word were one and the same.
We may not have the opportunity to see Jesus in the flesh with our human eyes. My friend’s use of Jesus’ declaration that those who see with only the eyes of faith are blessed was undoubtedly an indication of how God speaks to us through each other. You see, though my initial reaction was one of anger, I was able eventually to recognize that my anger came from being exposed to the light. I didn’t have trouble believing that God exists or trouble believing the Gospel’s account of who Jesus is. I was having trouble believing in a God that existed as a construct within my mind. Faith in Christ through the resurrection is a matter of learning how to live in response to that reality, how to experience that living hope. Any attempt to filter that reality or to remake God in the flesh in our own image will necessarily produce a belief system that is riddled with doubt – one that cannot withstand scrutiny. And, so, it is my hope that we all determine in our own hearts to acknowledge the reality of who Jesus is and to submit our lives to the task of living in response to the reality of his resurrection.
Amen.
What is at stake in the “Gender Roles” debate?
April 19, 2011
My previous post seemed to prompt a myriad of other questions from readers and from my own ruminations. There can be little argument that gender roles have been and will continue to be an issue for much of the Christian church for many years (perhaps generations) to come. This all prompts the beginning of what has become an important exercise for me. Whenever I get into the middle of a polemical debate, eventually I want to know what people are protecting; and, so, I begin deconstructing the various arguments trying to find out what is at stake for each group in the argument. Unfortunately, sometimes the breadth of the issue extends beyond my personal expertise. The argument over gender roles is quickly turning into one of those discussions that obviously has pertinence in a variety of fields – effectively dismantling my ability to efficiently tease out the prominent theological issues. There seems to me to be clear interference in identifying theologically sound gender roles coming from cultural narratives. Even the soft sciences point to the fact that much of our gender identity comes from environment. Consequently, the loop I get stuck in comes, in part, from the fact that those soft sciences identify religion as one of the environmental factors that produce sexism (here is an example of what I mean). So, what are the questions that best identify what is at stake when we discuss gender roles and their practical impact on Christian theology? Here are a few of the things that I have been thinking about and researching as I try to identify some of the root issues.
1. To what extent, if any, does the biological function of gender play? Namely, there are some writing from the Christian perspective that seem invested in framing gender roles within the confines of anatomical differences, why? There are, of course, a series of questions that follow - and this will require the most exploration, because I know the least about it. Does your reproductive function (your maleness or femaleness) actually have bearing on anything outside of, well, reproduction? In other words, does having a certain anatomical characteristic extend beyond the anatomy’s actual function? In an entirely biological sense, I am a male because my body produces “small, typically motile gametes, esp. spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring.” Is that the end of gender distinction? Do the hormones that cause my body to serve a certain reproductive function also program my personality to only serve a certain social function? Does that programmed social function constitute the will of God for my life? In fact, by the 1990′s we have an interdisciplinary field trying to explain how these questions get answered – sociobiology.
2. Are some Christians trying to prop up their bibliology? Here, I must confess a personal bias. I have read many evangelical scholars that essentially paint themselves into a corner on this issue. Many have attempted to defend certain notions of inerrancy and infallibility in our modern translations only to retreat to defending them in the manuscripts, only to retreat to defending them in autographs, only to defending them in “essential” New Testament material (see this text by G.K. Beale for a discussion of the “erosion” as he calls it)
3. Are some Christians trying to prop up their ecclesiology? Let’s be honest, the huge ordination debate centers on the fact that traditionalist understandings of gender roles prevail in most churches. A few articles that interact with some different nuances of the issue are here, here, here, and here.
4. Are some Christian men trying to prop up their patriarchy? Here is an even-handed text that addresses these (and other) kinds of questions.
5. What is the real (if any) significance that Jesus was male, and how is that significance offset by a robust Mariology in the Church?
6. How much of Scripture’s account regarding this material is meant to be prescriptive; and how much is, by virtue of context, only descriptive?
I don’t currently belive that there is a clear-cut answer to all of these types of questions. I think gender and gender identity is created by a variety of things, but I can assert with certainty at least one thing: whatever differences gender identity and roles introduce, there is no value difference between men and women and to the extent that our theology allows men to be held above women our theology is wrong.
So, what do you think is really at stake in the debate over gender roles? What do you think people are protecting?
Mars Hill Church, Mark Driscoll, and Gender Roles
April 14, 2011
If you are a student of theology searching through sources that are immediately obvious (Mars Hill Church’s web page) and easily attainable (the publications of Pastor Mark Driscoll) concerning the theology of Mars Hill Church, you will find nothing surprising, nothing indecent, nothing “out of the ordinary.” This was, frankly, a little bit surprising, indecent, and unexpected to me. You see, much of my experience with Mars Hill Church, and Mark Driscoll by way of extension, is through those that attend services at a Mars Hill campus or through those that listen to Mark’s sermons. Without fail (no, really) these conversations always lead to a discussion regarding Mark’s theology on gender roles; particularly gender roles and how they are played out in the church and home. Now, admittedly, many of my more recent conversations have been driven by my own morbid curiosity concerning these issues. As such, I am the one that brings up the gender role “issue.” However, my most recent encounter with this theology comes via a concerned friend attending a Mars Hill Church.
I know I am late to this party. Bloggers have been bashing and defending Mark for years. The reason I enter the fray now is in order to faithfully walk with a friend in need. Consequently, though I am late, I wonder if two or three years after the brouhaha I am not seeing the practical incarnation of Mark’s theology in the lives of his parishioners. Still, it bears telling that after reading everything I could get my hands on for free and after watching what seemed like pertinent sermon archives on YouTube, I am mostly annoyed over how little I am actually annoyed by Mark’s writing and preaching when it comes to matters of orthodox theology. Sure, his tone is brash, his words are poorly chosen at times, and he mostly lacks theological finesse; but which of these things could not also be said of me? The lion’s share of his doctrinal writing is done in the style and quality of most reformed theology. So, after adjusting for things that I would personally not like to be nitpicked on, I am not left with a lot to attack.
Then there is the ministry niche he is filling. Mark has made his mark in the church market by bringing in the elusive 20-35 male crowd. He has published quite a bit of material directed toward discipling Christian men on how to be good husbands and fathers. How did he do it? Well, here is where most people have been fighting. Dr. Richard Beck of ACU has a very evenhanded approach to understanding the practical/pastoral theology of Mark Driscoll and why it makes waves in the broader Christian community. In short, Mark’s advocates claim that he has given men permission to be real men, and Mark’s detractors claim that he has created a haven for misogynists and their sympathizers. Dr. Beck’s blog (here and at the end of this post) answers with an eloquent “yes” on both counts.
Mark should be applauded for an attempt to bring genuine masculinity into an environment whose controlling narrative is fundamentally feminine and feminizing. Conversely, Mark’s teaching is not always accurate in depicting genuine masculinity. Instead, much of what Mark props up as complimentarian gender distinction finds its locus in misogyny. To borrow Dr. Beck’s words,
“I think this is because there is a great deal of confusion about what we mean by “masculine.” In psychology, the word “masculinity”, due to its gender overtones, has been largely replaced by the term “agency.” Agency/masculinity is associated with motives for control, power, independence, and dominance. These are, stereotypically, “masculine” traits, but women can be highly agentic as well. If agency means power, control, and dominance then it seems clear that “masculine” traits will struggle to find a place in the Christian ethic. This was precisely Nietzsche’s concern about Christianity: Christianity preaches a passive “slave ethic.””
Consequently, Mark is an “agentic” guy and he interprets his “agency” as genuine masculinity. So, what is the best way for Christian men to be genuinely masculine in the Christian sense? If you read Mark’s publications the answer is for men to exert control, power, independence, and dominance over their wives and children. Hmm, that sounds familiar. Where have we heard it before?
One more quote from Dr. Beck is helpful I think:
“I’ve {Dr. Beck} argued in Thought #1 and #2 that Driscoll should not be so easily dismissed. The question he’s raising–Why are males not more attracted to church?–is worth asking. And one of his diagnoses on this issue–Church leaders are chickified–has some merit to it.
But the dark side of Driscoll’s ministry is its chauvinism and misogyny. And this criticism is also valid for certain impulses one finds in the Christian men’s movements. Specifically, the assertion of masculinity implies a suppression of women and a restoration of male power over women. To be a “Christian man” means “reclaiming” and “taking back” leadership roles in both the family and the church. Men use spiritual warrant to assert power over women.”
The danger is when Mark uses biblical exegesis in that very “evangelical argumentum ad baculum” way to proof text gender roles that he superimposes on biblical texts. Why is this problematic? It is problematic, because this theology has created a normative expression of gender in the Mars Hill Community that cannot be contradicted, because of an appeal to Scriptural authority. If one does not meet the expectations of those normative gender roles, then one is looked down upon for not submitting to God. In short, if you are a member of Mars Hill Church and want to participate as a leader (even at the lowest rung) in discipleship or fellowship, then you cannot deviate from the established gender roles. If you want to lead a small group and you are a man, then you had better be fulfilling Mark’s vision of genuine masculinity – read dominant, controlling, and powerful. If you want your family to belong and you are a woman, then you had better be fulfilling Mark’s vision of genuine femininity – read submissive, controlled, and weak. So, what happens if it makes better sense for a family if the mother works and the father stays home to raise the children? You come up for “review” with the leadership of the church, that’s what. A man who will stay home with his children while his wife works comes under the same kind of scrutiny as a man who is cheating on his wife. It becomes a question of whether said man is “fit to lead.” This is justified, because, apparently, Mark’s Bible says so.
Exegetically, Mark takes too many liberties in 1) giving narrow definitions for terms that are either contextually or culturally bound in the text, and in 2) insisting that such notions be applied to the lives of Christians as if they were the actual theological principles found in the texts, and in 3) using wisdom literature as prescriptive rather than descriptive.
For an instance of #1 and #2, in this broadcast posted on YouTube, you can see the basic hermeneutical approach utilized by Mark and his wife. They use 1 Timothy 5:8 which says, “but a man that will not provide for his own and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever” as an injunction against both a father that would stay home and take care of his family in order for his wife to work, and as an injunction against a father that allows his wife to work outside of the home - at all. Mark even goes as far as to acknowledge that some have complained that he takes the Bible out of its cultural context, but does nothing to answer the criticism.
As far as 1 Timothy 5 is concerned, a larger issue than even the cultural expression of gender role is the fact that Paul is clearly not talking about “every man.” Paul is giving instruction to widows, their families, and their churches. Paul tells them that some of them are merely husbandless, and some of them are “true widows.” Those women who find themselves husbandless are to return to their parents. In which case, Paul explains that the parents of husbandless women that will not care for her have denied the faith and are worse than an unbeliever. Apparently, Timothy’s church was full of rich, heartless bastards that wouldn’t even take care of their widowed daughters, because it was easy to let the church community do it instead. This comes from only a simple reading of the whole text of Timothy. No fancy Greek translation, no obscure historical-cultural background. Mark Driscoll is superimposing what he wants the text to say onto a text that seems to fit the bill. I think we call that proof texting? In fact, if anyone would take the time to read it, I surmise that I could easily dismiss most of his readings in Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, 1 Peter 3, and Titus 2 on the basis of the same kind of sloppy hermeneutics.
For an instance of #3, in Pastor Dad he states that Proverbs 19:13 proves that the sorry state of modern families is due to the fact that women have undermined the authority of the husbands by “chirping” at them constantly and turning their children into ruinous fools by proxy. The verse says, “A foolish son is ruin to his father, and a wife’s quarreling is a continual dripping of rain.” I’m sure it is obvious to everyone how he came to those conclusions? Interestingly, this kind of exegesis is damaging to the actual principle at hand. Why can we not just appreciate the wisdom of Scripture in identifying the importance of harmony in the home? Why does this verse prove gender roles? Go ahead; replace any of the characters in the verse with another member of the family. For instance, what if son and father is replaced with daughter and mother – what if a wife’s quarreling is replaced with a husband’s quarreling? Does it change the theological principle? No. Does it change the verse’s utility as a proof text for gender roles? Uh-oh. Furthermore, and perhaps more problematic, why does Mark have to rely on Scripture’s wisdom literature in such a prescriptive manner for so much of his theological stance on gender roles?
What is ultimately the case, in my experience, is that only people who have the luxury of indulging their personal biases and living out their “ideal self” are ever so pedantic about moralizing issues like gender role. Sure, there are lots of chauvinist men out there that would have their wives in their proper place – the home; but how many of them earn Mark’s salary? Sure, there are lots of misogynists out there that think women are gullible and weaker than men, but how many of them are as charismatic as Mark? Mark has the ability to get away with this moralizing, because he is a successful mega-church pastor (and has been since a young age) and is untouched by the realities faced by young professionals, single parents and low-income families alike. This is, of course, a practical explanation of what ultimately originates from a need in the theological framework of most “conservative evangelical” narratives. Meaning this: sure Mark is reaching a historically hard to reach demographic, but he is reinforcing a historically negative social hierarchy based in gender bias. This negative bias is at the root of many patriarchal worldviews, and is defensible from arguments that rely on perspectives that in turn rely on traditionally fundamentalist understandings of Scriptural authority. What’s the cost? Real people, in real modern families, are once again begin taught to objectify women by men of the cloth. Kyrie Eleison.
Some of the interesting material I used preparing for the post
http://theresurgence.com/files/2011/03/02/relit_ebook_pastordad.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WPVxndUcHQ
http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2009/02/thoughts-on-mark-driscoll-while-im.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11punk-t.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.cbmw.org/images/onlinebooks/rbmw.pdf
http://www.dennyburk.com/mark-driscoll-on-women-in-ministry-2/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-goldstein/whos-to-blame-for-pastor-_b_33279.html
Some Questions About the Problem of Evil
November 23, 2010
Okay, fellow humans, help me out with my quandry. Here is a brief overview of the problem of evil, and then some questions.
First, it is an old question. It constitutes one of those objections to our experiences as human beings that require an answer form every generation of Christians. In other words, there is more than one conceptual image at work. Simultaneously, the “problem of evil” demonstrates what seems like inconsistencies in the truth claims inherent in Christianity (specifically) and theism (generally). However, there is some evidence to suggest that the problem is unduly complicated by misunderstanding the nature of those truth claims. For example, in its classic formulation the problem of evil reads like this, “If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil. Evil exists. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn’t know when evil exists, or doesn’t have the desire to eliminate all evil. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.” Perhaps a less technical, but sufficiently succinct way to put it is, “If God (who is completely good and powerful) exists, then how can evil also exist?” Clearly, this creates a neat little problem for Christians and theists. If you deny that evil exists, you seem foolish. If you deny that God is ultimately good or utterly powerful, you seem to be denying the concept of God. Consequently, the argument is set up as an “either/or” – either evil is real or God (as conceptualized by theism, especially Christianity) is real, because they cannot co-exist. This is a decidedly deductive construction of the problem. There are also inductive forms of the problem. In terms of theism, though, the ontological defense of God’s existence is valid and true (and convincing) – therefore, for a theist, inductive forms of the problem of evil and facts about evil “cannot constitute even prima facie arguments against the existence of God,” and are a moot point.
So, briefly, what are the ways in which theists have sought to unravel the apparent contradiction between these two facts?
First, some authors have suggested that suffering and evil are part of God’s plan in “building the soul” of a person. In other words, suffering and evil build endurance, patience, and faith. If you suffer, you are better for it. This, of course, is only as satisfying as the extent to which your imagination allows you to be comfortable. Surely, the suffering that an athlete in training endures is beneficial. The suffering a mother in child-birth endures is beneficial. However, do you think that a small child that suffers through Leukemia receives a benefit commensurate to her suffering? Do you believe that innocent Jews that suffered through the Holocaust and died were benefited from their suffering? So, the extent of the argument may only be appealing to the extent you see a benefit. What if, then, the benefit were eternal?
Second, some theists have tried to posit that “evil” is not a thing or being. It is a result of free will, and so the existence of evil is the consequence of God allowing humanity to have free will. Consequently, God created humanity in his image, and the result as a free agent that may and does choose to act in morally evil ways. Thus, the real conflict exists between God’s desire for humanity to reflect his glory, and for his plan for creation to be executed as conceived. God could force humanity to behave, but he would be violating his own will in providing humanity with a will. In other words, “good” is only good because evil is an option.
Third, and finally, the “Need for Natural Laws” is summarized by Michael Tooley:
“first, it is important that events in the world take place in a regular way, since otherwise effective action would be impossible; secondly, events will exhibit regular patters only if they are governed by natural laws; thirdly, if events are governed by natural laws, the operation of those laws will give rise to events that harm individuals; so, fourthly, God’s allowing natural evils is justified because the existence of natural evils is entailed by natural laws, and a world without natural laws would be a much worse world.”
This touches on Christian notions of Original Sin. When humanity exercised its free will against God’s will, it brought about certain changes in God’s creation that resulted in natural laws and states of affair that created patterns of destruction, violence, and suffering. Consequently, evil is only a problem in the temporal sense. Once Christ returns and sets everything to rights, there will be no “problem of evil” of which to speak. There is an infinitely good, knowledgeable, and powerful God that will have dealt justly with all the suffering and evil caused by humanity’s exertion of free will.
There are others, but I find something interesting in this whole debate. It is the designation of things and events as either “good” or “evil.” The reason I find it interesting is because the very notion of a “problem of evil” is designed to express the contradiction between the existence of a Christian God and the events we experience in life. However, the very language used to conceptualize the problem are dependent on the existence of said “morally good God.” If God did not exist, then neither would the moral designation of the good over and against that of evil. If there is no good God, can there even be evil? Of course, we wonder about the issue of suffering. What is our justification for giving moral designation to suffering? Am I suffering when I experience pain? If God does not exist, how would I have a standard of good by which I could compare the wrongness of suffering or the evilness of violence? How would an atheist that actually framed the question without presupposing that God exists maintain the tension of the original contradiction? Assume the atheist position is correct. There is no God. We have evolved socially, emotionally, morally, etc. If the notions of good and evil are both innate to the evolutionary process of humanity, how do we distinguish between them? Perhaps, I have unfairly changed the topic of the discussion, but I fail to see how the problem of evil exists without the existence of God. Doesn’t that mean that God has to exist?
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
