Category Archives: Mark Driscoll

Mark Driscoll: "I murdered God", "God hates you"

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If Adrian Warnock’s summary of his words is to be believed, in a sermon on the atonement, preached yesterday in Edinburgh, Mark Driscoll said:

A war is brewing over this issue. This is the issue we must be willing to fight over. If we lose this, we lose the gospel. … if you deny this, you have essentially lost the Christian faith …

I MURDERED GOD!

Now Driscoll can confess this of himself if he likes, but he seems to require every Christian to confess the same. Now I have committed a large number of sins, but I do not confess to this particular murder, or indeed to any murder. Continue reading →

Mark Driscoll head to head with Joel Osteen

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Adrian Warnock has posted an interesting video (ten minutes long) of two well-known American preachers head to head. The video is basically part of a sermon by Mark Driscoll, but it includes a long clip from a sermon by Joel Osteen. Driscoll is one of Adrian’s favourites, and has had some generally not so favourable mention on this blog; nevertheless I respect him for his no-nonsense approach. Osteen is, I understand, well known in the USA for his prosperity teaching on TV and radio, but is not so well known here in the UK.

Adrian’s main point in posting this video is to present it as “a model of gracious rebuke”, of Osteen by Driscoll. And indeed it is this. If only Adrian and his other favourite speakers had treated Steve Chalke with this same grace, rather than accusing him of heresy! Then the whole atonement debate would have been a lot less bitter. I too need to take Driscoll as an example of how to show gentle wisdom over such issues.

But I want to look more at the different approaches represented here by Osteen and Driscoll. Continue reading →

Our Parent, who art in heaven?

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TheoBlogian Mike Swalm has started an interesting series In Our Image: The Language of Father and Divine Gender. This takes up among other things some of the issues which I raised here recently, about Driscoll’s God and Molly’s paradigm shift.

In a comment on Part One of TheoBlogian’s series Odysseus wrote:

I don’t know for certain, as I have not double and triple checked the reference, but I was told that in Aramaic, ‘Our Father’ can be translated in a variety of ways, including ‘Our Father/Mother’.

I’m not sure about the Aramaic either, but I know that the Greek word πατήρ pater translated “father” is not always explicitly male. Look for example at Hebrews 11:23, where the Greek literally refers to Moses’ “fathers” (the plural of πατήρ pater), but almost all English translations, even back to KJV and including the very literal Young and Darby versions, render “parents”.

If Moses’ “fathers” were not necessarily male, then Jesus’ Father was not necessarily male. Indeed, we more or less know that he was not, because he has no distinguishing body parts, and men and women are equally made in his image – as I argued in my post on Driscoll’s God.

So, do we need to translate πατήρ pater, the more or less new name which Jesus gave to God, as “Father”? Well, it is not a bad translation or a mistranslation. But I would suggest that “Parent”, while arguably not very elegant, would be just as accurate as a translation. For there is no justification for insisting on a specifically gendered word here.

Driscoll's God: only metaphorically Father?

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Wayne, Henry and I myself have all had a few things to say about Mark Driscoll’s article Theological reasons for why Mars Hill preaches out of the ESV. But I want to express my agreement with him on part of what he writes, near the end:

Theologically speaking, God does not have a biological gender because God is Spirit, without physical anatomy (John 4:24), and is therefore not a man (Numbers 23:19). In using the word “He,” the Bible is not saying that God is merely a man, but rather that God is a unique person who reveals Himself with terms such as “Father” when speaking about Himself. … we acknowledge that Scripture does infrequently refer to God in terms that are more feminine in nature, such as a hen who cares for her chicks (Matthew 23:37). Nonetheless, such language is both infrequent and metaphorical because God is no more a woman than God is a chicken.

This is a good argument (although of course the word “He” is in translations rather than the original). But since, as Driscoll agrees, God is not a man, God is no more a man than God is a chicken. Therefore we must say that masculine language about God, just like feminine language about him, is metaphorical. Thus, by Driscoll’s own argument, God is only metaphorically Father. Indeed, Driscoll seems to confirm that this is his view with the following:

John Calvin said that God uses terms such as “Father” to speak to us in baby talk, much like a parent uses words that their young child can understand in order to effectively communicate with them.

Now I have no problem at all with the statement that God is only metaphorically Father. But I wonder how acceptable this position would be among the Reformed theologians and preachers with whom Driscoll keeps company. For the implication of this being only a metaphor is that it is not an attribute of God, not a part of his actual being, but only a convenient way of talking about him. The Trinity is no longer “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”, but “One who is like a father, One who is like a son, and …”. How acceptable is that kind of reformulation?

Also, if there is no essential way in which God is male or masculine, there is also no way in which human males resemble him more closely than human females do. Indeed this is clear from Genesis 1:27, from the very words “male and female” which (as Henry points out) Driscoll wrongly accuses some translations of omitting.

At this point Driscoll’s position is completely opposite to that of Philip Lancaster, author of Family Man, Family Leader, as quoted at Adventures of Mercy (see also here and here, thanks again to Henry for these links, which I found only as I was well into writing this post):

God is masculine. He is not feminine. He is not an androgyny, a mixture of masculine and feminine.

Lancaster seems to base his generally complementarian teaching about the family on this position. Well, at least he is consistent, but his position does not seem to be the theologically orthodox one, at least if the following from Wikipedia (quoted here) is reliable:

Christianity does not regard the omnipotent God as being male, God the Father is genderless

Driscoll, however, is orthodox on this point:

God does not have a biological gender

but his logic is faulty. In the same article he writes:

Scripture states that God made us “male and female” (for example, Genesis 1:27). Consequently, in God’s created order, there is both equality between men and women (because both are His image-bearers) and distinction (because men and women have differing roles).

Indeed this equality is a consequence of this scripture. But the distinction is not a consequence. Indeed, while “differing roles” may not be contradicted by a shared image of God (and differing gender roles in reproduction are indisputable), the kind of view which Lancaster has, in which leadership is a male attribute, is certainly contradicted by Genesis 1:27.

The previously mentioned Wikipedia article also quotes the radical feminist Mary Daly:

If God is male, then the male is God.

Lancaster’s arguments seem to confirm this. I am glad that Driscoll avoids going down this wrong road. But I fear for some of his complementarian friends. Lancaster already seems to have moved into ideas contradicted by Scripture and rejected as unorthodox. But it seems that these wrong ideas are the only ones logically compatible with complementarianism. So will other complementarians follow? Driscoll manages to be orthodox and a complementarian only because he doesn’t notice that this is a contradiction at the heart of his theology.

Mars Hill Church: on a different planet?

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In some ways I admire the controversial preacher Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church, Seattle. I admire him for his no-nonsense attitude and refusal to conform to the religious expectations of others. But in other ways he infuriates me.

And he has done so again, not so much with his church’s decision to use the ESV Bible as with his allegedly theological reasons for this. It is clear that he simply hasn’t got a clue what he is talking about on the subject of language and translation.

For example, he writes:

when we change the words of Scripture we are changing the meaning of Scripture.

What does he mean here by “the words of Scripture”? If he is referring to the inspired words of the original text, then no one is suggesting a change. But probably he is referring to a translation. If we change a translation, the change may be neutral as far as the meaning is concerned; or perhaps we are indeed changing its meaning. But if the old translation was not correct (or had become incorrect over time because of language change), a change should be a change for the better, the correction of an error. And of course every translation claims to be correct where others were wrong. So this is no argument for any one translation over any other. Indeed if Driscoll really believes this argument he should go back to the King James Version or earlier, on the basis that every new translation is “changing the meaning of Scripture”.

Then he writes:

Romans 3:24 is one of many places where “justification” is spoken of in the original text of Scripture.

I have looked at the original text (well, a scholarly edition of the Greek text) of Romans 3:24 and cannot find the word “justification” there. There are no English words, only Greek ones. In fact this word is not in any of the translations Driscoll quotes, but I guess he is referring to the word “justified”. What I do find in the Greek text is the concept “justification”, expressed in a Greek word. The task of a translator is to find an appropriate way of expressing this concept in a target language like English. That may be with an individual word like “justified”. The problem is that many people today either do not understand this word or misunderstand it (perhaps something to do with text layout!), and so some translators choose a different way of expressing the word. Thus for example the NLT translators express the same concept in the word “God… declares that we are righteous”. Doesn’t that mean exactly the same thing? Who is to say that “justify” is a correct translation and “declare righteous” is not? Of course there might be a subtle theological distinction to be made here, but that is not the point made by Driscoll, who is not known for subtlety. In fact he seems to base his preference either on “justify” being one word rather than two, or else that the choice of King James is as unchangeable as the decrees of the kings of the Medes and the Persians.

Then, on Psalm 8:4, Driscoll writes:

The original text simply says “man,” yet some translations take the liberty to deviate from that markedly:

– and among the alternatives he rejects is “humans”. What, does Driscoll really believe that the word “man” is in the original text, and not a Hebrew word? What planet is he on? In fact there are two different Hebrew words rendered “man” in ESV, ‘enosh with a collective meaning in the first line and ‘adam in the second line. Both of these words can legitimately be translated either “man” (if understood as gender generic) or “human beings”. Why is one right and the other wrong?

I suppose that Mars Hill church is named after the forum in Athens (more correctly the Areopagus, but called “Mars’ hill” in Acts 17:22 KJV although by Paul’s time it did not meet on the hill of that name) in which Paul debated his Christian faith with Greek philosophers. But he could only debate with them, and start the process of Christianising Greek thought, because he spoke a common language with them. However, Driscoll seems to repudiate the idea of speaking a common language with the huge majority of unbelievers in his city, but prefers, even when “writing an article for a non-Christian newspaper”, to retreat into Christian jargon which the readers, even the newspaper editor, don’t understand.

By cutting himself off with a language barrier from most of the people of this earth, Driscoll seems to be positioning himself and his church not so much on Mars Hill as on the planet Mars.

The non-negotiables of the faith, including gender distinctions?

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Adrian Warnock has been reporting on the Desiring God 2006 conference, entitled “Above All Earthly Powers: The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World”.

Now let me first say that I have a lot of respect for the ministry of Desiring God and its leader John Piper. They are doing a great work by emphasising the importance for Christians of desiring God and seeking “a passion for the supremacy of God in all things”. I also greatly appreciate Piper’s support for exercise of the gifts of the Spirit in a properly balanced way.

But Piper is not as careful as he should be at distinguishing between biblical standards and the cultural norms of conservative America. I am not the only one to suggest this. For example, Suzanne McCarthy has referred to a list of roles which Piper considers as suitable for women. I commented as follows on her posting:

Are these rules supposed to be Christian and derived from the Bible? It sounds to me as if they come from a 19th century manual of etiquette. That doesn’t make them necessarily wrong, but nor does it make them right. Piper, Grudem and friends need to distinguish between Christian values and old-fashioned conservative cultural ones. A good course in cross-cultural evangelism, or some in depth first hand experience of a very different culture, would do them a world of good.

and also:

I just read the first half sentence of Piper’s book, and I think this gives the real key to his thinking. That first half sentence is “When I was a boy growing up in Greenville, South Carolina“. It was in that conservative environment, around 50 years ago (according to Wikipedia he was born in 1946, actually in Tennessee), that his cultural values were formed. In the second paragraph we learn that they attended a Southern Baptist church, and that of course further explains the formation of his cultural values. He goes on to describe supposed differences between men and women which he claims “go to the root of our personhood“, but which it seems to me are at least very largely conditioned by the specific cultural and religious context in which Piper grew up. …To summarise, Piper is making the mistake which I am afraid is so common among Americans, especially conservative ones but not only Christians, of simply assuming that their own cultural values are objectively and absolutely right, … There is a woeful failure to understand the distinction between cultural norms and absolute morality.

So, I was really interested to see that Desiring God was taking on the issue of relating to a postmodern world whose cultural norms are very different from those of the conservative South in which Piper grew up.

And what do I find? I am basing this mainly on Adrian’s rather brief summaries of others’ reports, but these are the points which some have considered significant. I have also looked at some of Tim Challies‘ more detailed first hand reports.

The controversial preacher Mark Driscoll spoke about: (as summarised by Adrian, condensing a report by Ricky Alcantar):

Nine issues to contend for:

1) The Bible.

2) The sovereignty of God.

3) The virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

4) We must argue against pelagianism, a denial of original sin.

5) We must contend for penal substitutionary atonement.

6) The exclusivity of Jesus.

7) We must contend for male and female roles.

8) We must contend for hell.

9) We must contend that kingdom is priority over culture.

John Piper, in comments on Driscoll’s talk, spoke as follows about these nine issues (as reported by Josh Harris and quoted by Adrian):

He referenced a point Driscoll had made in his talk about the importance of holding certain unchanging truths in our left hand that are the non-negotiables of the faith while being willing to contextualize and differ on secondary issues and stylistically (these are “right hand” issues).

In principle Piper is making an excellent point here on relating to postmodern culture. But I find it very interesting that what Piper affirms as “the non-negotiables of the faith” are apparently these particular nine points listed originally by Driscoll. Most of these nine points I can accept as important and non-negotiable (although I would want to ask for clarification about point 4, and I would argue that penal substitutionary atonement is only one among several good biblical models of the atonement). But this list is revealing both for what it includes and for what it omits.

For example, it omits any mention of several things which are clearly taught and commanded in the New Testament as norms for all believers, such as baptism and the Lord’s Supper. I refer not to the details of how these are to be administered and what they mean, but their very existence. If such things are not listed as non-negotiables, does that imply that they are secondary issues on which we can differ and which we can abandon for the sake of “contextualisation”, in other words in order to make our Christian faith more palatable to, for example, a postmodern generation? Or are they simply additional non-negotiables, thus implying that this list nine points is to be consider as incomplete?

But my main point here is the inclusion in this list of one item, “7) We must contend for male and female roles”, which seems to me totally out of place here. Tim Challies‘ version of this is “6) We must contend for gender distinctions”, but he actually lists this before “7) We must contend for the exclusivity of Christ”, as if gender roles more important than the exclusivity of Christ! Well, what exactly are the “male and female roles” or “gender distinctions” which we must contend for? Ricky Alcantar’s report says a little more here:

7) We must contend for male and female roleswe’re different. Male elders are to govern. We do not endorse homosexuality.

If Driscoll and Piper’s main point is that Christians should oppose homosexual practice and same-sex “marriage”, I would not disagree with them. But I would wonder why opposing these is listed as a “non-negotiable of the faith” when there is no mention of opposition to any other sins, such as heterosexual sex outside marriage, or greed, or pride. Why is homosexuality considered to be a much worse sin than these others? Is there really a biblical basis for this, or is this a case where (despite “non-negotiable” 9) cultural values are being put before kingdom values?

But it seems that what Driscoll and Piper largely have in mind is gender distinctions in the church, that “Male elders are to govern.” Now it is well known to regular readers here and at Better Bibles Blog that I differ from Piper, and implicitly also from Driscoll, on such issues and on the principles of interpretation of Bible passages which are alleged to teach this. I won’t repeat those arguments here, but will restrict my comments to wondering why they make such a big thing out of this. After all, there are in fact only a very few passages in the New Testament which teach about such gender roles. There is probably more teaching which favours slavery, but I don’t see “We must contend for slavery” among the non-negotiables! It might well have been on similar lists in the early 19th century, but anyone looking at such a list today would recognise how dependent it was on cultural norms which have now been abandoned.

There are many issues which are given far more prominence in the Bible than gender roles but have been omitted from this list of non-negotiables. For example, Paul devotes two long chapters of 1 Corinthians to spiritual gifts, and commands elsewhere

Do not put out the Spirit’s fire. 20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject whatever is harmful.

(1 Thessalonians 5:19-22, TNIV)

But Driscoll and Piper do not list acceptance of spiritual gifts including prophecy as a non-negotiable. Why not? Piper accepts these gifts himself, but maybe he is afraid of upsetting a large part of his audience, cessationists who disagree on this, by stressing their importance. But he doesn’t seem afraid of upsetting those who reject his approach to gender issues. Or is it because he accepts that cessationist arguments are strong enough that this should be considered a legitimate area for disagreement among Christians? Well, the cessationist arguments, largely an indefensible interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13:10, seem to me much weaker than the arguments for alternative interpretations of passages on gender roles in the church. So why can’t Piper and friends accept that here too there is a legitimate area for disagreement among Christians?

It seems to me that Driscoll and Piper are picking and choosing among biblical commands, and not to find issues which really are central to the Christian faith and should really be considered non-negotiable. Instead they have selected a list of points which fit with their personal presuppositions about what is central to the faith, based on their culture as much as on the Bible. Their approach on such matters seems to be similar to that of the scribes and Pharisees of Mark 7, who no doubt justified their teachings from Scripture, but of whom Jesus said:

You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.

(Mark 7:8, TNIV)

So, what should we do? I nearly finished this post here, but decided that this was too negative. I would challenge Driscoll and Piper (if they would listen to me!), and others who might agree with them, to go back to the drawing board and reexamine what really are the central non-negotiables of the Christian faith, the points which are not culturally relative and which are also central to the Good News of Christ. And these are the things which I would recommend them to concentrate on in their preaching to a postmodern generation. Then there will be other things which they will also hold as non-negotiable in principle but in practice might allow to take a less prominent position; here I might include baptism, the Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts, and (from Driscoll’s original list) the virgin birth and hell. Finally, I would remind them to base their contextualisation on Paul’s biblical model:

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

(1 Corinthians 9:19-23, TNIV)