Throwing Mark Driscoll Under the Bus
Update 5/26/06 - I just got a comment and an e-mail from Tim Challies about this post. In the comment he says I was basically irrational and unfair to his commenters. Earlier in the week he had linked to my post and had not said anything very negative about it, aside from mentioning that I appeared angry, but I suppose he has had a little time to let it bake this week and has thought things over and feels that I was unfair.
In response I will say that I too have had some time to think this post over during the week and that I can largely accept Tim's rebuke. As Adrian Warnock mentions here I was indeed ticked off by what I read on Tim's blog and I did write in anger. Further, as I dashed this thing off in anger I can see that Tim is right in pointing out that I spoke very hyperbolically in saying that the vast majority of folks hurled condemnation at Driscoll. I have no excuse for this. I know that several commenters did condemn Driscoll, at least in my opinion, and I extrapolated from a few to the whole, and in so doing painted with a brush that condemned the whole lot, or at least "the vast majority." I also know there were many there who defended Driscoll and there were others who, though disagreeing with Driscoll, didn't really condemn him personally. In retrospect, I don't know how I could have established who or what constituted a "vast majority," in those comments so I had no basis for saying such a thing.
So, to Tim and the commenters I sincerely apologize and ask for your forgiveness. I will leave the post up and as-is just so that everyone has a record of what I said and so that it doesn't look like I am trying to hide from my critics. And I will ask the reader to consider the biblical and theological arguments I make, as I stand by them, while at the same time asking the reader to forgive me where I have spoken in anger, spoken in unfounded hyperbole and made broad sweeping accusations that would turn out to be false.
This past Friday Tim Challies reviewed Mark Driscoll's new book Confessions of a Reformission Rev. Knowing what I know of Tim and what I know of Mark Driscoll I know that Mark is not the kind of guy that Tim can wholeheartedly embrace, so I was very pleased to see Tim do what I thought was a very fair and even-handed review of the book.
But then I started reading the comments - big mistake. I was already having a bad day. My wife had me painting the bedroom all day and I hate painting anything. Then reading this comment thread was the icing on the cake. I first needed to repent of being a jerk to my wife, but she was actually laughing at me and telling me I was a big baby, so I was not sure if I needed to repent of being a jerk or a big baby, probably both. Then I needed to repent of my attitude toward the commenters on the Challies thread.
The reason I was so steamed over the whole thing is because of the condemnation that the vast majority of the commenters hurled at Driscoll. Tim shared a story from the book that he found offensive - fair enough. But for the commenters it was not sufficient for them to say that they disagreed with Driscoll about this, thought it was inappropriate or something like that, which would have been fine. This was full scale character assassination. It seemed that the driving factor was the desire to condemn the man himself and his ministry - it was not sufficient to merely discuss a particular incident.
Many scholars, pastors and others have called the church's attention to Paul's interaction with fellow preachers in the books of Philippians and Galatians. In Philippians, there is a group of preachers whom Paul commends and in Galatians there is a group of preachers whom Paul condemns.
In Philippians 1:15-18 Paul says the following:
15 It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. 16 The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. 18 But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.
Heinous sin is being committed here. Preachers are using the preaching of the gospel as a means of personal advancement. They are seeking personal advancement through denigrating Paul. In looking at a few commentaries on the passage it seems that these guys may have actually been slandering Paul. Maybe they were saying something along the lines of "how can you trust or listen to a guy in prison, he has proven himself unworthy and unqualified to preach," or something along those lines. Their motives were transparently false.
And yet, in view of all this heinous sin, Paul can only rejoice in their ministries because they are preaching the gospel. Somehow, with hearts full of envy, these guys were able to articulate a clear gospel message and Paul could rejoice in that.
If you go to Galatians you have a different situation - you have preachers who are most likely very morally upright. These were Judaizers who believed that to be truly sanctified one had to submit to Jewish laws. It should not be lost on us that the effect of such teaching most likely would have been to promote greater holiness, at least in terms of adherence to Old Testament standards of holiness. But Paul understood the deeper effect of such a teaching. This teaching would lead to confusion over the relationship between justification and sanctification, and thus would lead to confusion over the gospel.
Further, these guys were not denying the necessity of the atoning work of Christ, of grace and faith, they were simply confusing the order of things in relation to justification and sanctification.
But for these guys, the ones who were ostensibly promoting holiness, Paul invited them to perform surgery on themselves.
The difference is that the folks in Phillipi preached a pure gospel even though their lives were riddled with sin, while the folks in Galatia preached a corrupted gospel, though their lives were ostensibly moral and upright.
The thing that got everyone going over at Challies was a story in which a guy woke Driscoll up at 3:00am to "talk." After beating around the bush Driscoll dragged it out of the guy that he had been watching porn and had masturbated. Driscoll rebuked him and told him to quit sinning. But Driscoll used some earthy language in his rebuke and this is what everyone is so hot about.
If you read the Challies comments you can see that from time to time, someone pops up and says something along the lines of "I don't condone the language Driscoll used and think it was wrong, but Driscoll is a great guy who preaches the gospel and is having a wonderful effect in Seattle." The condemners then rail against these folks for defending Driscoll. But please notice what these "defenders" do - as to the earthy language itself, they are usually somewhere between "that was inappropriate" and "that was downright wrong." Yet, they are condemned because they won't condemn the man and his entire ministry. It's not sufficient for the condemners to say that Driscoll spoke badly, or wrongly, or sinfully, you must condemn the man himself and write off his church and ministry altogether or else you are defending sin.
This is why I go back to Paul in Philippians. In passing, Paul mentions the false motives of the other preachers, but what he wants to talk about is his joy that they are preaching the gospel. Paul is so enamored with the gospel that he can endorse the ministry of those who engage in bald face slander of him personally because they preach the gospel.
And here we have a man in the least churched city in the country who boldly preaches the gospel. For those of you think people are attracted to his church because he has compromised with the culture and has watered down the message you need to think again. Every sermon I have heard Driscoll preach is full of Jesus. He ministers in a city where most people are sleeping with their boyfriends or girlfriends and where more people march in the annual gay pride parade than are evangelical Christians. And yet he calls sin, sin. On a regular basis he says that you are in sin if you are sleeping with someone you are not married to, you are in sin if you are a practicing homosexual, you are in sin if you are greedy, and so on and so on. And he also regularly tells people that if they continue in their sin and don't turn to Jesus they are going to hell, and it is not a metaphorical hell, it is a very hot place. And he always offers Jesus as the cure for sin. He stands against watered down views of the atonement. He practices church discipline. In one sermon I listened to he informed the congregation that the church had a system in place whereby if he ever committed adultery or some other scandalous sin the elders would remove him from office and they, the congregation, were not to plead for his return. He stands against the teachings of friends of his who go off the rails doctrinally.
This is not a church which has been built on a seeker-friendly, emerging, or culturally relevant message. And the church has been built through a great deal of conversion growth. Seattle is not the kind of place where you can get much of a Wal-Mart effect, i.e. where the megachurch grows by stealing people from the smaller churches. I am sure this happens some at Mars Hill, but a good deal of conversion growth.
For those who are appalled at those of us who won't denounce Driscoll for his earthy language, you should be equally appalled at Paul for his refusal to denounce those who are using the preaching of the gospel as a means of personal advancement. You should be equally at appalled at Jesus for refusing to take a public stand against a woman caught in adultery, and instead turning His attention to her accusers. You should be appalled at the way Jesus befriends and offers grace instead of condemnation to those who have transgressed socially agreed upon definitions of what constitutes sin.
Of those who are condemning Driscoll, Justin Taylor says:
Thus far Tim's review has garnered 174 comments--a number of them committing the sin of Graceless Slander Under the Guise of Discernment and Doctrinal Fidelity.
Folks, Paul rejoices when the gospel is preached, even from grossly impure motives. Angels rejoice when a sinner repents. It is a crying shame that people can't rejoice that the gospel is being preached with power in one of the most gospel-barren parts of our country. Justin is right - why must we slander this guy, why can't we rejoice in what God is doing through his ministry? Driscoll and Mars Hill regularly minister to segments of the population that most professing Christians wouldn't be caught dead sharing a meal with. And yet, they are making a dent for the gospel among porn addicts, druggies, and all kinds of sexually immoral people. Mark Lauterbach of Gospel-Driven Life comments on this:
So, here goes my LOG-PULLING. I read Driscoll's book over the weekend and was often moved near to tears by the clear manifestation of a gift and passion to bring the Gospel to people "far off." The folks God brings to him are people who would never shadow the doors of a church, but ones for whom the cross is meant. If they became Christians I am not sure they would be comfortable in the suburban churches I have served. I live in boring suburbia -- and it is boring on purpose. I am surrounded by "nice" people of the same socio-economic status in life as I. I am there because I would be afraid of living among the unwashed sinners of the city.
Without justifying any sin that may be present in his life, I was put to shame by Driscoll's passion and insistence that the advance of the Gospel is not to be trumped by a love of convenience or a desire for safety and comfort. God has graced him with immense fruit and God will continue to work in him as he humbles himself and grows in godliness. Let us pray for him.
If we are unable to rejoice over things like this something is seriously amiss.
Dan Edelen of Cerulean Sanctum did a terrific post the other day called "Who Watches the Watchers," where he took on the heresy hunters of the blogosphere. Graciously, Dan doesn't name names and since I don't know the background of Challies commenters I don't know if any of them are who Dan had in mind. But what Dan described in his post, which everyone ought to read, is what was happening in Challies comments. Dan mentions that almost all of the heresy hunters in the blogosphere are from a reformed background. If that is true that is a shame. I don't know how many of the folks at Challies are from a Reformed background but for all of those who are reformed heresy hunters who call themselves reformed I would call your attention to one example from our tradition that speaks to what is happening at Challies and in the blogosphere at large. In his Resolution #8 Jonathan Edwards said:
Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God. July 30.
Why, if Driscoll's condemners are so certain he has sinned, were there no testimonies of similar sins by themselves? Do these people really believe they do not sin in a similar fashion?
Along those lines I will offer one quibble for my buddy Tim. I'll preface this quibble by saying that almost all of us who are pushing back at the commenters agree that Tim himself gave a fair review, and we don't want to chastize him. But he made one off-hand statement that I believe is worthy of comment. Tim says:
Mark Driscoll is one of those guys I just cannot figure out.
What I would say to Tim and others who are similarly bewildered by Driscoll is "what's to figure out?" The man is a sinner, are you not a sinner also? Does anyone really believe they don't have similar struggles with sin as Driscoll? The apostle Paul never says he can't figure someone else out, or can't understand why someone else who seems to have it so together in some areas, can stumble so badly in others. He knows that sin permeates all that any of us do. Paul doesn't say "I can't figure him out," he says "I can't figure myself out?"
I just wonder if any of the condemners would offer a similar testimony of themselves, a similar struggle with sin. This is what sets the Jonathan Edwards' of the world apart from so many of today's reformed types. When today's reformed types see sin, they are quick to publicly denounce. When Edwards saw sin in others he first turned upon himself to see the roots of the same sin in himself. Before he addressed the sin in others he turned himself to repentance.
This is the point of Jesus' words in Matthew 5:21-30. Jesus is trying to show us that there is a kind of solidarity between us "run of the mill" sinners and murderers and adulterers. When thinking of adultery I am not to think "he is an adulterer," I am to look within and see the same roots of sin in my own life and say "I am the man."
Something is wrong if we can see some particularly heinous sin in Driscoll and not see the corresponding sin in ourselves, even if it is well hidden.
Speaking of sin, Mark Lauterback also helps us keep things in proper perspective:
Mars Hill has seen more adult conversion in ten years than most of the critics combined – myself included. Is this nothing? And I see how hypocritical my criticism is – I find fault with his language and find no fault with years of indifference to the lost. Which is the greater sin?
Mark is right - maybe we ought to have some discussions on whether or not indifference to the lost is a sin. I know it has been a pet sin of mine for years.
And speaking of the lost I had another thought that I think is helpful here. The apostle Paul is the model for polemicists, those who would refute error in others. One of the things to keep in mind is that Paul was an evangelist before he was a polemicist. In fact, all of the apostles who provide us with the biblical materials upon which we base our polemics were first and foremost evangelists. I understand spiritual gifting and all that, and that not everyone is gifted to be an evangelist. Yet, even for those who are not gifted in evangelism there is a real sense in which all of ministry must be pointed in an evangelistic direction and a real sense in which a compassion the lost must animate all we do. I wonder if we developed the same zeal for the lost as we do for polemics if this would make a difference in our polemics? This would not do away with polemics but it would give them a different shape for sure.
In conclusion I commend this comment from one of Mark Driscoll's colleagues to all of you who want to throw Driscoll under the bus. The comment is from David Fairchild of Kaleo Church and is found on Mark Lauterbach of Gospel Driven Life's post called Examples of How to Critique. For all of you who know all you need to know about Driscoll from a couple of paragraphs on Challies blog this might give you a bit more insight into the man you are so quick to condemn.
Quick Update - I just found that my buddy the Cavman has a post on this with a good discussion of "earthy language."
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