Driscoll: I go too far sometimes. Almost every other pastor I know doesn’t go far enough and that’s okay ’cause the church tends to be led by people who are timid and fearful of going too far. I mean, let’s just say this: Right now, name for me the one young good Bible teacher that’s known across Great Britain.
Brierley: Hmm....
Driscoll: You don’t have one. That is a problem. There’s a bunch of cowards who aren’t telling the truth.
Brierley: So you think that the Bible teaches...
Driscoll: You don’t have one. You don’t have one young guy who can preach the Bible that anybody’s listening to on the whole earth.
(Driscoll then tells Brierley that he is annoying, and characterizes his church's ministry as weak and effeminate due to their pastor being a woman.)
As many who have attended Driscoll's Seattle church have attested, his views on things like patriarchy and sexuality are bordering on bizarre, and now he appears to be dismissing any minister who doesn't fit his own criteria for masculinity, and who cannot boast of the numbers that Mars Hill can, with a contemptuous wave of the hand.
Make no mistake, Mars Hill is not the antidote to the baby-boomer megachurch evangelicalism that its devotees claim it is, but is instead its mirror image, only with a younger target demographic with more piercings and ink. When such a high level of success is coupled with near-total unaccountability and then placed into the hands of a young man with no formal theological training (whether it's Mark Driscoll or Chuck Smith), the results -- although seemingly impressive in the short term -- will only be disastrous and harmful toward God's people. I have seen the abuse firsthand countless times, and it never gets any easier to stomach.
But there is good news for all you Seattle-ites who may be tired of watching your Sunday morning sermon on a large-screen TV: just across the lake there's a place you can go that really is different from what you're used to. Sure, Exile Presbyterian Church may not have rock star pastors who preach NC-17 sermons about anal sex or millions of dollars to spend on multimedia technology and state-of-the-art sound systems (read: we're not all that edgy or impressive).
But what we do offer makes up for all that: worship characterized by joy, reverence, and awe, liturgy that situates its participants in the drama of God's redemptive work, no-frills expositional and Christ-centered preaching of the Bible, and at the climax of the event, the feasting by God's people upon the body and blood of Christ.
Unimpressive? Maybe, but such is God's kingdom in this passing age, shrouded as it is in the mystery of the cross and the lamentation that the "not yet" occasions.
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ReplyDeleteWell said. I think that some of us Reformed types will take anyone, including Driscoll and Keller (albeit the latter is more mature and less edgy but still hip) because we are desperate to be noticed. We easily get away from asking what God is seeking in His worship.
ReplyDeleteGlad to know I'm not the only one who is weary of Driscoll's antics. His statement, regardless of his politician-esque protestations to the contrary, is both insulting and entirely missing the point. All of the faithful, day-to-day pastors who toil faithfully, like those in my own church, with no recognition, are by implication wasting their time.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, my wife and I are planning on moving back into the great northwest within the next couple of years; I'm glad to know Exile is there, keep up the good work.
Make no mistake, Mars Hill is not the antidote to the baby-boomer megachurch evangelicalism that its devotees claim it is, but is instead its mirror image, only with a younger target demographic with more piercings and ink.
ReplyDeleteI recall a few years back the WHI interviewing Drsicoll quite positively, even, I think, pointing northwesterners to Mars Hill. But he struck me as a lot of warmed over evangelicalism with a top layer of presdestinarianism. And even more than that how a group of guys who normally had evangelicalism’s number could be so giddy about the newest New Schooler.
This was a bad moment by Driscoll. The whole thing makes me sad. But I am happy that so many people have met Jesus at his church. It doesn't justify the pastors actions, but glorifies the God who works through him and the rest of Mars Hill.
ReplyDeleteBut you're not famous.
ReplyDeleteAs an English listener to the Driscoll interview, I was astonished at how much Mark is still very, very bullish and crass in his choice of words and attitude. Sure, the interviewer was a poor but perhaps accurate representation of the British evangelical church scene with his pastor wife and wonky ideas, but Mark showed a breath taking shallowness towards the UK.
ReplyDeleteOne major question kept coming to my mind as I listened to Driscoll. How the heck has this man got so much applause and adulation from the Gospel Coalition and the such like? How come Carl Trueman has recommended one of his books to be a template for teaching? This interview flagged up more questions as to the judgement of the USA leaders who enthuse over such men.
Incidentally, Mark talks of his love for the UK charismatic network known as New Frontiers. This network is respected without criticism in evangelical churches here especially among the evangelical Anglicans, and the NF worship leader Stuart Townsend has his variety of worship and songs in many evangelical churches. Yet few question the clear hints that NF's leader Terry Virgo sees himself as having apostolic leanings - such is the lack of discernment and ecclesiastical care in this country.
I would appeal to our American brothers to please look to this country and help us by sending trained and called men who are clearly Reformed and Presbyterian to establish churches which are faithful to the model of the Reformation; we only have a few such churches and the rest are free coasting independent evangelicals and Anglicans like those I have mentioned who adore Driscoll.
UK Paul, something tells me Trueman may be re-thinking his endorsement:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.reformation21.org/blog/2012/01/a-poker-tell.php
But Driscoll gets plaudits from TGC because TGC is comprised of Reformed evangelicals, as opposed to Reformed confessionalists.
Zrim,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. Trueman invokes the "poker tell" phrase in his article regarding Mark, but while this is a little confusing for me to understand maybe he basically means Driscoll is showing his true colours in the interview.
Carl has, I suspect, a strong affinity with his english free church and Anglican evangelical friends and their environment in which he was originally converted; note his his friendship with Paul Levy and Vaughan Roberts who are typical of this stance. I cannot speak for his heart and mind, but Carl also tends at least in his blog writings and book recommendations to appreciate men like CJ Mahaney and Mark Driscoll, and then later seem become somewhat ambivalent about them.
There needs to be a far more polemically (without ranting!) and clearly established distance between the teachings of these men like Driscoll and DeYoung and the coalitions they are part of in contradistinction to the Reformed Presbyterian teaching. Then people will be able to understand and hopefully appreciate the differences, and leave behind the compromised teaching of these churches which are so openly admired today, ones which have in reality little in practice common with the aims of the Reformation and covenantal Biblical truth. And to help this process Reformed and Presbyterian churches must, as never before, be healthy and an example of how strong and godly lives and families are best nourished and kept in such an environment.
It is too bad that Mark's own weaknesses (the sermons delivered via video feeds, credobaptism, lack of biblical church government, the questionable sexual ethics in his latest book, and fixation on name recognition of supposedly successful preachers)has eclipsed the obviously righteous criticisms he levels against "weak and effeminate" pastors and churches. And there is no denying that this is a prevalent problem in the U.K. (and the U.S. is by no means exempt). Female "pastors" is only one of the symptoms. This Brierley fellow had it coming to him.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to choose between the two, I'd choose Driscoll ten times out of ten vs. the flaccid evangelyfish, whether of the American or British variety. Let's have a sense of proportion here.
But, David, is obnoxious machismo really the best way to oppose flaccid egalitarianism? So if it’s a sense of proportion you want then how about a sense of decorum and self-comportment, maybe even a hefty dose for the narcissists? Careful, pushing back harder than one gets shoved is so eeeevangelical.
ReplyDeleteZrim, what is obnoxious to me is the effeminate, latitudinarian, doctrine-lite "ministries" of folks like Brierley. Someone should be turning the heavy artillery toward this rubbish. To me it is not "obnoxious", but richly deserved deserts. I cheer it on like when Vader throws the Emperor down the shaft of the second Death Star.
ReplyDeleteThat’s just it, David. I don’t consider Driscoll the sort of heavy artillery needed. What Driscoll brings against egalitarianism isn’t elitism but machismo. And so, if anything inhabiting the CRC these last 14 years has taught me anything it’s that this is just another instance of eeeevangelicals fighting eeeevangelicals, one who wants men to know the world if flat (Brierley) and one who wants women to know their place (Driscoll). But what they each need to know is that not everyone should consider himself a teacher. Only a few should, and one trait of being so called is not only being male but also being formally and ecclesiastically trained and ordained, which doesn’t bode well for our friend the Sultan of Swat.
ReplyDeleteUhh... N.T. Wright? Alister McGrath?
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure in a hundred years no one will know Driscoll, but they will know N.T. Wright for sure.