Cooling Twilight

Tag: driscoll

  • Five good things from Mark Driscoll

    Five good things from Mark Driscoll

    Two Driscolls

    Recently I’ve spent a bit of time critiquing some of Mark Driscoll’s viewpoints. And while I continue to find many of his positions highly problematic, I certainly don’t think everything he has to say is bad. So I randomly chose five of his sermons and picked out a paragraph or two from each that I think are pretty darn good.

    I still have a minor quibble here and there with the views expressed in these selections, but in general I think they’re on-target. I have many more issues with the sermons in their entirety, and so in a sense some of these are taken a bit out of context. But the point is that, as much as we may disagree with someone’s style or theology or sense of humor, it’s still worthwhile to look for areas of agreement, to seek greater understanding and to work towards unity.
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  • “These enemy dogs who reject the things of God”

    “These enemy dogs who reject the things of God”

    Conquistadors praying before a battle

    Janie B. Cheaney, in her World Magazine post “How to lose an argument” seems to have just discovered that Mark Driscoll is a “lightning rod.” This is a surprise to her because in her mind Driscoll’s focus has always been on spreading the gospel.

    She links to my piece on Driscoll’s dismissal of careful exegesis of controversial texts, labeling it as “rather creative.” Is that doublespeak for “deliberately manipulative”? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been accused of taking Driscoll’s words out of context, but I have yet to see someone explain exactly how I did so. The most substantive argument against my criticisms has been similar to the one Cheaney employs: that Driscoll is preaching the gospel so we should simply ignore his verbal faux pas.
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  • Driscoll on Evolution

    Driscoll on Evolution

    Dino Driscoll

    In response to my previous post about Mark Driscoll, a commenter on reddit referenced Mark Driscoll’s and Gerry Breshears’ book, Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe. (Hereafter I’ll simply reference Driscoll as the author).

    About that book, another commenter said “In one chapter it plainly stated that the majority of scientists agree that human beings arose about 10,000 years ago.”

    Not one to simply accept an anonymous comment on the internet as truth, I decided to see for myself what Driscoll said about evolution in his book. Among many questionable assertions and conclusions, these quotes seemed particularly problematic:

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  • Mark Driscoll doesn’t want you to study the Bible

    Mark Driscoll doesn’t want you to study the Bible

    Mark Driscoll

    Mark Driscoll recently caused another brouhaha with his views about gender roles. The short version of this latest controversy is that he compared nagging wives to water torture. You can watch the offending segment here.

    But are we really surprised by this sort of thing from Driscoll? By now it should seem par for the course: we know where he stands on these issues, we know that he states his positions in less-than-eloquent ways, we know he characterizes the positions of his opponents in less-than-charitable terms and we know that none of this is likely to change. 

    But in the rush to point out yet another misogynistic statement from Driscoll, a perhaps even more troubling statement from him was overlooked. In the opening of his sermon on Ephesians 5.22−33 and the subject of wives submitting to their husbands, Driscoll says:
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  • The Bible Alone

    The Bible Alone

    The Bible alone

    Mark Driscoll recently tweeted: “The Bible alone gives us the insight we need to understand what’s going on in the world…and what’s going on in us.”

    I realize a single tweet isn’t a full expression of systematic theology, but the idea expressed in that one sentence sums up much of what is wrong with modern American evangelicalism.
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