Early on in my college
days I felt a little bit adrift on the sea of life. I was stuck trying to find
the answer to one question: What did it mean to be a man?
Along this journey, I
was introduced to the sermons of a heavy-hitting pastor from Seattle: Mark
Driscoll. His up-front and in-your-face style of preaching captured my
attention. I had never heard anyone teach with such vigor and passion before.
I remember listening
to his sermons on what it meant to be a man and, while I was a bit alarmed by
some of the things he said, I was excited that someone was finally helping me
navigate the uncertain terrain of emerging adulthood. His clarion call to
leadership and outward strength seemed right to me at the time. Even if it
wasn’t spot on with everything, it gave me some vision for a path forward –
something to “grow into” as I yearned to become a good man.
I spent hours
listening to his sermons while I exercised, worked, and drove.
And then…
I stopped listening.
I’m not exactly sure
why I did, but I did. Perhaps I had finally transcended my Kierkegaardian
Ethical stage (the philosophy nerds can enjoy that joke).
The reason I’m
relating this story to you is to suggest that I’ve had my own “complicated” relationship
with Mark Driscoll. I’ve gone back and forth on whether I think he’s a prophet
for a new generation or a pompous windbag spilling bad theology.
Whenever I read
stories like this
one that The Stranger ran in 2012 I’m more persuaded to the latter.
This week’s discovery
of some viciously
choice words by Driscoll under the pseudonym of William Wallace II further
suggests to me (in the words of Rachel Held Evans) that Driscoll is “severely
disturbed”.
Nevertheless, I’m not
particularly interested in lowering the gavel on whether or not God has
actually called Driscoll to ministry or whether his ministry is doing more harm
than good. Furthermore, I’m not
interested in judging someone on the words they wrote/said almost 15 years ago.
While I have my thoughts on the matter, I’m more interested in reflecting a bit
on the nature of spiritual leadership in light of Driscoll’s more authoritarian
model.
1) Spiritual Leadership is Sensitive to the
Situation
One of the things that
I’ve been consistently bothered by is the often cookie cutter approach to
leadership that Driscoll and his compatriots exemplify. It’s as if they believe
that complex life situations can be filtered through a pre-determined set of
protocols that will produce the “godly” outcome that they desire. Two of the
most significant issues that Driscoll and other Mars Hill leader do this with
are homosexuality and gender roles. While these issues do have appropriate
answers, the way you get to the answer is just as important as the answer
itself. A genuinely attuned spiritual leader will not force all delicate
situations through the same series of steps. They will be sensitive to the
situation and craft a way forward that attends to the unique details of each
context and issue. It bothers me that a lot of people are trying to become
little Mark Driscoll’s and handle life the way HE thinks is best while
forgetting to become little Christ’s and adopt his multi-faceted application of
instruction.
2) Spiritual Leadership is Strong but Gentle
I think this is the
leadership principle that cuts the divide between those who absolutely love
Driscoll and those who hate his guts. Driscoll is preeminently strong in the
way he delivers his instruction. Even though his “angry-young-prophet days” are
over, he still touches down like a tornado in a trailer park when he preaches.
I get it. That’s his
“thing”.
But whatever a
Christian teacher’s “thing” is, it should be reflective of the whole of what
Jesus showed regarding being a teacher. Yes, Jesus overturned the tables of the
moneychangers in the Temple (Matthew 21), but he also declared that he was
humble and gentle at heart (Matthew 11:29).
We can learn from this
that there is a time and a place for all things as a teacher. It is thoroughly
inappropriate to adopt an imbalanced approach to a teaching ministry. It’s
wrong to be too humble and gentle, but it’s just as wrong to be too strong. The
Golden Mean is what we’re looking for (another philosophy allusion for you
philosophy nerds) and I’m afraid that Driscoll hasn’t learned what that looks
like.
3) Spiritual Leadership is Instructive not just
Insistent
Our day and age is
filled with people looking for passion. It’s often misconstrued as the mark of
a person worth following. For some reason, people tend to flock towards those
who are charismatic and engaging. It almost doesn’t even matter if they have
any real substance to their message – they just need to be PASSIONATE!
While I think that
Driscoll does sometimes use Scripture merely as a prop for his next rant, I’m
not specifically commenting on that here. What I want to suggest here is that
genuine spiritual leadership is instructive not just insistent. What does that
mean?
Well, first off, it
means that a Christian teacher should go beyond the “what” and the “why” of
their message and explain the “how”.
It’s not enough to just insistently tell people that they need to change
their behavior. It’s incumbent on the teacher to explain what that process of
change might look like.
1 Timothy 1:5 says
that the goal of instruction is love – and love is worth explaining. What does
it look like to love someone else? You can tell me 5 ways to Sunday that I need
to love someone, but what does that mean?
If leadership is
merely insistent, then it is failing the people. Leadership should first and
foremost be instructive.
………………..
In the future, I do
hope that Driscoll and the other leaders at Mars Hill church will come to
realize some of these important elements of spiritual leadership. It doesn’t
look promising as of right now, but thankfully God is an involved party in this
debacle.
So for now we pray.
May God grant us all
grace as we seek to do his will and love him with our whole hearts.
3 comments:
Dave, this is a good piece. I appreciate that you shared some of your own sense of vulnerability and confusion about masculinity during college -- into which uncertainty Driscoll boldly stepped with his (harshly) clear vision of Christian manhood. And I like that you can still acknowledge the help that Driscoll offered to you, even as you have grown away from his ethos. I was hoping that you would comment on this recent hullabaloo. It seemed very much in your wheelhouse, knowing your concern for issues of gender, sexuality, and theological anthropology. You have responded with your usual pastoral sensitivity and academic “edge.”
I wonder – what do you suppose Mark Driscoll’s theological mistake is, at the end of the day? He believes that God has hardwired certain gender scripts into men and women. To ignore these is to disobey. So is Driscoll’s error only that he has added unnecessary elements to this God-given script? More aggression and machismo than an attentive reading of Ephesians requires? I know, too, that you have admired Karl Barth in the past. I wonder how you see his insistence on Christ as the fundamental “script” for human beings intersecting with (qualifying? complementing? displacing?) gender scripts.
Collin, thanks for the kind words my friend.
In short, I think Driscoll’s theological mistake is most likely an imbalanced/naïve analysis of human persons. He fails to appreciate the variegated reality of human existence (i.e. not all men are the Übermensch and that’s ok). He mistakes his strong complementarian perspective to be THE definitive word on the matter and then methodologically blasts anyone who might disagree.
I honestly don’t mind entertaining a complementarian or egalitarian perspective on the issue of gender roles. I actually think there are compelling biblical/philosophical/theological arguments for both sides. However, it’s entirely outrageous for someone to be so closed-minded and obstinate that even challenging him on the issue produces vitriolic ridiculousness. If Driscoll was God and had perfect knowledge, then the issue would be settled. Given the fact that he (and everyone else who developed and holds to a strong complementarian perspective) are fallible human beings, then their perspective needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Epistemic humility, right?
So, I think that Driscoll has interpreted the relationship between genders according to one vein of Christian tradition and then added his own spice to it. His mistake then is to assume that his analysis gets it all right. For his suggestions to stand, he has to do a lot of work arguing against an egalitarian perspective (giving clear REASONS why it’s inadequate) and then offering compelling reasons why his complementarian perspective more adequately accounts for revelation and reality.
I think Barth adds a refreshing/interesting twist on the theology of gender by suggesting that both male and female are NECESSARY for full expression of humanity. The “human script” is not complete without the I/Thou relationship expressed between the two genders. This captures the real need for male and female – a reality that is somewhat lost in many churches, etc.
Unfortunately, the need for both male and female seems to suggest a difference between the two. You wouldn’t NEED another if they were exactly the same as you, right? The “difference” bit is where a lot of people get hung up these days. The cultural search for the androgynous human being attempts to quell any claims that there is any significant/real difference between male and female.
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, I do like a lot of what Barth has to say. I realize he ends up (in a lot of people’s eyes) as a closet complementarian, but I think his view is closer to what John Coutt’s calls a “mutual submission egalitarianism.”
So much more I want to say, but Dave--I love those tree features, and they strike me as some of the /basic/ qualities of good parenting. I continue to find familial, and especially marital, spheres reliable templates for thinking about spiritual relationships----in this case, that of the pastoral one. Looking forward to talking soon.
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