Why you should not attend Mark Driscoll’s church
January 21, 2013 17 Comments
Today, Mark Driscoll tweeted this. It says, “Praying for our president, who today will place his hand on a Bible he does not believe to take an oath to a God he likely does not know.” Of course, President Obama is a confessing Christian.
Yesterday, my minister, Ben Ries, preached a sermon on The Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. The text of the parable says this,
Jesus put before them another parable: “The Kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not saw good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The lsaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
A few verses later, in response to a question from his disciples, Jesus explains the parable and informs them that “the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.”
Ben went on to explain that we are called to be the wheat and not the reapers. He highlighted Jesus’s point that we are incapable of discerning the wheat from the weeds and, therefore, that we shouldn’t try to do so because in doing so we will inevitably pull up both wheat and weeds.
I wish that Driscoll had read this teaching of Jesus before tweeting that last message. And the tweet is especially damning considering that it came on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It is damning because King, facing people who denied him justice and committed violence against him because of the color of his skin and his commitment to God’s righteousness, never accused the most virulent racists of being weeds. He never said that those who persecuted him, often in the name of Jesus, were weeds. He never had the hubris to think that God’s grace wouldn’t extend to his political enemies or that he had the divine wisdom to discern the weeds from the wheat.
No. King lived as if all were beloved and saved by God. King, in other words, lived this teaching of Jesus. Driscoll, on the other hand, clearly lacks this spiritual wisdom. He has put himself in the place of angels – in the place of God? – and therefore has proven himself unfit to be the spiritual leader of other people.
My suggestion is that you do not attend a Mars Hill church because you will find yourself being led by someone spiritually and theologically unfit for such leadership. Instead, I recommend going somewhere where you will hear sermons like the one I heard yesterday.
Grace and peace.
Why is Mark spiritually and theologically unfit to lead a church?
This is my question as well.
Because he is insisting that he knows which people are the “wheat” and which are the “weeds.” This is in direct opposition both to the aforementioned parable, and to Matthew 7:1-2, which like the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, insists that God will treat you the way you treat other people. ALL other people.
Hey Travis,
So, I was initially hesitant to post this simply out of respect for your respect for Driscoll. However, I felt strongly enough about this that I felt I should say something. Specifically, since Mars Hill has started a new congregation just a few short minutes from our house I thought I should say something for someone who might come across this thinking about attending the church. In short, I do feel strongly that Driscoll’s ministry does more harm than good (not saying that there is no good being done there).
As you know, Driscoll is a controversial figure. From his cussing in the pulpit to his stance on stay-at-home dads and his definitions of masculinity to his neo-Calvinism to his complementarianism to accusations of spiritual abuse through the church’s discpline practices he has come under fire (from former members and outsiders). And, generally speaking, I disagree with him on most of these things. (Thus, my opinion that he’s not a very good theologian.) Of course, while this means I wouldn’t attend a Mars Hill church for these reasons, I haven’t felt it necessary to discourage you or others from looking to him and his ministry for theological teaching and/or pastoral guidance.
However, I am deeply troubled by this most recent statement and believe it is one more example (like his cussing in the pulpit to the many other examples of him saying stupid stuff on social media, such as this: http://robertcargill.com/2011/07/14/mark-driscoll-responds-after-his-elders-sit-him-down-offers-no-apology/) that demonstrates a lack of wisdom on his part. Simply put, I don’t think unwise people should be pastors, and, like I say in the post, I think he is often unwise.
My issues go deeper than that, though. The theological hubris necessary to declare a confessing Christian one who doesn’t believe in the Bible or God is one that is deeply troubling to me. I use the phrase “theological hubris” on purpose. The more I have studied God and the ways of God the more I have become humble in the claims about other people I am willing to make in God’s name. I believe this is the proper response to the God of the Bible. Driscoll takes the exact opposite stance.
The number of times Obama has declared that he believes Jesus is the Son of God who died for the forgiveness of sins is truly amazing. It is amazing because he continues to have to affirm it in the face of people who simply won’t believe him. For political or other reasons his wholly Evangelically orthodox proclamations about Jesus’s atoning work on the cross are ignored or deemed to be lies.
Driscoll is not stupid. Indeed, he’s quite brilliant in a lot of ways. He knows this cultural context. He tweeted it *during* Obama’s second inauguration. So, Driscoll declared this either imputing dishonest and misleading intent to Obama’s public confessions of faith or he is saying that his politics makes it so that it is impossible for Obama to actually be a Christian no matter what he believes about Jesus. (Or he is convinced by the conspiracy theorists who are convinced Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya, which again would prove a lack of wisdom on his part.) If the former, then his spirit is not one of grace and charity to fellow Christians and, therefore, folks who are seeking, searching, and questioning in faith should not look to him for guidance because they will not find someone with the spirit of a fellow traveler but of a lawgiver. I simply don’t think pastors are to be Moses (i.e. givers of divine law), so I don’t believe those who act that way should be pastors.
If the latter, which is what I and others in this comment stream fairly assume based on the context of the tweet, then he believes that stances on political policies are doctrines of orthodox faith. This I wholeheartedly reject (as you know from the sermon you heard me preach a few months ago: https://jamesmccarty.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/the-message-of-the-prophets-in-a-time-of-elections/). I feel quite strongly about several political stances – which grow out of my faith! – and think fellow Christians are sometimes wrong to vote one way or another. To argue, even fervently, over those issues seems to me to be right and good. However, to declare that any individual political stance or collection of political stances proves the validity of one’s faith is, as far as I’m concerned, to be an act of great arrogance. In other words, I believe it is sin.
I pointed to King in my post. I mentioned Lincoln’s second inaugural in my sermon. As you know, I’ve spent years studying Desmond Tutu’s life and theology. The thing that is amazing about these three people is that they refused to ever question the validity of the faith of people who used scripture to declare them pagans, heathens, devils, and demons because of their politics. In South Africa, the Dutch Reformed Church (a group of people who also had a form of neo-Calvinist theology, for what that’s worth) declared it a Christian theological truth that blacks are inferior to whites and that the races should be forever separated. These people Tutu has always considered fellow Christians. He has always referred to them as brothers and sisters in the faith. Now, as far as I’m concerned, the apartheid-era DRC was espousing theological heresy, but they never ceased to be Christians. At least, we are not the one’s able to judge whether in their persons they were Christians or not. Only God can do that. I can say this teaching or that policy is unfaithful, but not them as persons. Driscoll does not have that spirit. Rather, he believes he can discern such things. This goes against the parable in the post and the example of Paul in 1 Corinthians who continued to call a people who said the resurrection fo the dead had already happened and who condoned a man having sex with his mother-in-law brothers and sisters. Yes, Paul declared without question the error of these positions, but he never denied them their status of being fellow Christians.
Travis, you once attended a church service in which the preacher that day declared the church you regularly attended as not actually part of “the Church.” In other words, said you weren’t really a Christian. Driscoll did a similar thing to Obama, but instead of making that declaration based on theological/doctrinal differences (which he probably has with Obama’s denomination the UCC) in the context of a church service, he made it publicly based on political differences in the context of an inauguration. This, it seems to me, is much worse than what that preacher said in the service you visited. And, for what it’s worth, I don’t think people should submit themselves to the teachings of that preacher you heard that day or Driscoll because of their assumed ability to discern wheat from weeds in the here and now.
Put more bluntly, I don’t think people should look to someone as a pastor who would have the arrogance to declare that Obama and, I assume, the millions of people who think like him politically and/or theologically, don’t believe in the Bible or God. Because, truth be told, I have every reason to believe he would say the same thing about me (since I’m sure he’d have even bigger problems with some of my theological and political beliefs). And he’d say the same thing about hundreds of good, faithful people I know who think in similar ways.
If he won’t recognize me as a Christian because of my politics then I can’t recognize him as qualified to be a pastor. I’m a Christian, and a pastor should be able to recognize one when they see one. Otherwise, they lack spiritual discernment and wisdom and are unfit for the role. It’s really that simple.
Hey James,
I’m a first time reader of your blog (just stumbled upon it today!). I really enjoy your perspective, the topics you broach, and your boldness in the things you openly/publicly say.
I don’t think you’re wrong in openly confronting Driscoll and Mars Hill followers, as others in the comments state. I think many evangelicals of the more progressive or liberal bent (sorry if I’m assuming your positions, I just thought this based upon your writing) get called out when they push back against conservative evangelicals. And conservative evangelicals get let off the hook for making (sometimes blatantly) judgmental, arrogant, and essentializing statements about the way American Chritsianity should be, because they hold the media spotlight and majority.
So in some ways, I think your confrontation of Driscoll and Mars Hill is not judgmental, but in fact accurate. And I don’t consider your approach of judging Driscoll’s judgmentalism actually makes you judgmental. I think public pastors like Driscoll and others need to be held accountable for their actions and words, not only because of their inaccuracy, but also because of the vast influence they hold.
Thanks for the words of support, Paul. It’s good to connect with you on here!
This passage is not about exercising judgment, but carrying out judgment. The “saints will judge the world”, even the “angels” (1 Cor. 6). Similarly, “the spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one” (1 Cor. 2). Jesus is telling us not to try to bring justice on unbelievers (that is reserved for God), but to wait until the appointed time when God executes judgment against evil. Indeed, if we were not able to simply identify unbelievers as unbelievers, we would have a rather difficult time knowing where in the world we should go to preach the gospel! We have the mind of Christ. The Holy Spirit gives us the gift of discernment. Nothing Driscoll said was inconsistent with Scripture.
On the other hand, I would admonish you to be careful with your words about a fellow believer. One statement like that does not make someone “spiritually and theologically unfit for leadership”. If you disagree, fine, but don’t tell people not to go to Driscoll’s church because of it. You don’t like Driscoll judging Obama, but you certainly held nothing back when judging Driscoll!
here here!!
What then should be said about a professing Christian whose policies promote and pay for abortions–even late term ones; whose thinking has “evolved” to now embrace the degradation of marriage, and who is a serial liar. Is this the fruit of a man in communion with God?
1. The government does not pay for abortions. That would be a direct violation of the Hyde and Stupak amendments if it were true. It is against federal law for the government to fund abortions or abortifacient drugs.*
2. Those Christians who endorse same-sex marriage do not view it as a degradation, or they wouldn’t support it. These same Christians also support and affirm traditional man-woman marriage just like conservative Christians. The difference is that they believe that other forms of marriages can also be just as sacred.
3. I’m assuming you’re referring to the current U.S. President? Please give me a citation regarding lies Obama has told, because I’m drawing a blank. Otherwise, I will have to assume you’re talking about Romney, whose presidential campaign was based in a non-stop stream of easily-verifiable falsehoods.
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* Birth control pills are NOT an abortifacient. They work by preventing ovulation (the process by which new eggs are released into the woman’s body so they can be fertilized). No egg means no possibility of conception. If you have not conceived at all, then there is nothing whatsoever that can be aborted.
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Found this through Facebook. I don’t know Mark Driscoll, never heard him preach unless it’s something controversial. I assume he believes in the bible, Jesus, etc. I assume he loves his neighbor, I assume he has a healthy flock full of sinners. I don’t understand why he would tweet something like that. He knows that only God can judge a man’s heart. I do know that as Christians were so full of bullshit when it comes to the judging issue. We judge people everyday, if not on a conscious level, then subconsciously. But that’s probably bullshit too. Mark Driscoll needs to repent for making that comment, pure and simple. Nothing more nothing less.
For those who believe that I have shown the same disrespect to Driscoll as he gave to Obama (or a worse disrespect?), I maintain that it is qualitatively different to declare that a confessing Christian is one who does not believe the Bible and likely doesn’t know God than it is to declare a fellow Christian unfit for pastoral leadership. There are millions (billions?) of Christians who shouldn’t be pastors. To judge the authenticity of someone’s faith is of a whole other category than to gauge whether a fellow Christian should exercise spiritual authority over others. I have no doubts that Driscoll is a Christian despite my many theological differences with him. I do have doubts, however, that people should look to him for spiritual leadership.
They may be qualitatively different, but I believe that both exercises of judgment are within our authority as members of Christ’s church. The Pauline epistles actually encourage and admonish us to exercise judgment in dealing with those who profess Christ in these types of matters. Paul told the church at Corinth not to associate those who practice immorality yet still profess Christ. Reminds me of a passage from Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship: “Cheap grace is…baptism without church discipline.”
Note that I’m not saying that you don’t have the authority to make the judgment about Driscoll’s spiritual leadership, I’m just saying its an incorrect judgment. Driscoll’s views on Calvinism (Calvin’s thought has fundamentally altered Christian theology whether you like it or not) and complementarianism are, I think, pretty mainstream in light of the -historical theology- of the church.
As far as Obama goes, by their fruits you shall know them. Obama has a habit of saying a lot of things that don’t reflect reality. He is the most pro-abortion president in history. There’s no way you can get around that. Planned Parenthood was a major supporter of all of his national campaigns. If you think federal law actually prevents taxpayer dollars from going towards abortion, learn the concept of the *fungibility of money*. There’s no need to go through the laundry list of his terrible record on this issue. He’s also had a penchant for violating religious liberty (take the HHS abortion-pill mandate and contraception mandate that Hobby Lobby and Catholic organizations are suing over) and arrogantly mocking conservative Christians (calling them bitter, etc.). And if I have to convince you that these positions stand in direct contradition to what Scripture teaches and what government should do as “God’s servant for our good” (Rom. 13), then there is no hope for this conversation.
Now ask yourself – is this a guy who has *likely* (Driscoll’s word) been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb?
Hunter,
Thanks for your considered reply. While I’m much more Arminian than Calvinist, I have no problem recognizing Calvinism as an important stream of the Christian tradition. Whether Driscoll’s form of neo-Calvinism is even faithful to the mainstream of Calvinist thinking is beside the point. Driscoll is clearly a Christian brother, albeit one with whom I disagree.
Regarding your last question, my answer is an emphatic yes – I am wholly convinced that Barack Obama is a Christian and believe his Christian beliefs guide, to some extent, his public policy. I actually don’t think one’s political stance on abortion is a be-all-end-all test of one’s status as a Christian. I guess, in your words, that means there’s no hope for this conversation between us. I think you are mistaken about that and am sorry you feel that way.
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