I bet you didn't know that Song of Solomon Addressed Misogyny. Actually, it really only gives a picture of it as anger of brothers against a sister, the Beloved, and the Chorus's and/or Lovers drawing her away from it to a safe place.
First, the verses where the Beloved admits the anger of her brothers and their ganging up on her and oppressing her, making her their servant rather than their sibling or equal.
Songs 1:5 “I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, Like the tents of Kedar, Like the curtains of Solomon. 6 “Do not stare at me because I am swarthy, For the sun has burned me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; They made me caretaker of the vineyards, But I have not taken care of my own vineyard."
Her brothers are not treating this nobleman's daughter (SOS 7:1) as a fellow heir but as something less than themselves, a servant or slave, someone for them to lord over. Though she had her own inheritance, her own vineyard, she's not allowed take care of it. She is persuaded or coerced or forced, by her brothers, to take care of their vineyard, their vision, their calling. Her brothers do not allow her to own her own vision/vineyard. She's not allowed to develop her own talents or take care of her own business. And she's been burned by their harsh treatment.
What follows in chapter one, is the healing and protecting powers of the king working toward the beloved because those who should have been looking out for her well being were too busy taking advantage of her and stealing from her.
Her brothers are referred as her mother's sons. They can be symbolic of anyone who is abusive towards us within or without the church.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Poetry Threads.
[Edited to remove very long link. It was shutting down the blog.]
This very long link leads to a google image of a braid.
I picked this particular image due to the colors of the individual strands or threads.
One problem with the way modern, western civilization read the Bible is that they look upon it as an owner's manual or instruction manual. You can see this in their application of Ephesians 5 toward marriage and you can see it in Driscoll's application of the Song of Solomon.
I've got news for people. Poetry is so far removed from instruction manual material it is laughable. When the Bible was written, no one ever heard of an owner's or instruction manual. They didn't think in those terms. We think in those terms because we live in an age of technology and having to know how things work in order to get by.
But even in our modern age, do we feel the need to look at modern poetry as instructions for life? Why this compulsion to make Biblical poetry into such a thing.
What is poetry? It is many things, some of which are hard to pin down. One reason for this is that poetry can have many threads making up the whole. And the threads are woven together. Modern writers do this in both fiction and poetry. Why is it so difficult for some blockheads to see this?
WTH: "I have been convinced for years that Driscoll has the world's biggest tin ear for poetry. He doesn't think in poetic terms but in terms of propositional statements and formal arguments. This isn't just manifest in his approach to Song of Songs, it's also revealed perhaps even more tellingly in the fact that in fifteen years he's never done any substantial preaching from the Psalms. He did some okay work in the 2004 Advent series going through the songs in Luke but that was obviously more than half a decade ago." From a comment under his part 4b post.
I've complained in the past that the Songs have been mishandled by perverted men. I appreciate further understanding that another mishandling is by men who have no grasp or understanding where poetry is concerned. Men who try to shove poetry into an instruction manual mode have no business handling the poetry at all. They destroy and crush rather than teach and open understanding.
Song of Solomon is not a single thread of erotic and explicit, sexual instruction. Making it into it does violence to the text.
Rather it is a many layered poem with many threads, probably more than three, woven through out.
One of those threads is sexual.
Another of those threads is allegorical or typological.
Another thread is on healing.
Another thread is raising up of the downtrodden
Another thread is empowering the feminine against the anger of misogyny among men (supposed brothers).
There is much woven into this poem. It can be many things to many people. It can meet a point of need within a person's life. It can help with marriage. It can help with our relationship with the Almighty.
Smacking it down into one-size-fits-all is thievery and a great injustice. Glimpses of eternity can be found in it. Forcing it into a finite box is done by fools who rush in where angels fear to tread.
This very long link leads to a google image of a braid.
I picked this particular image due to the colors of the individual strands or threads.
One problem with the way modern, western civilization read the Bible is that they look upon it as an owner's manual or instruction manual. You can see this in their application of Ephesians 5 toward marriage and you can see it in Driscoll's application of the Song of Solomon.
I've got news for people. Poetry is so far removed from instruction manual material it is laughable. When the Bible was written, no one ever heard of an owner's or instruction manual. They didn't think in those terms. We think in those terms because we live in an age of technology and having to know how things work in order to get by.
But even in our modern age, do we feel the need to look at modern poetry as instructions for life? Why this compulsion to make Biblical poetry into such a thing.
What is poetry? It is many things, some of which are hard to pin down. One reason for this is that poetry can have many threads making up the whole. And the threads are woven together. Modern writers do this in both fiction and poetry. Why is it so difficult for some blockheads to see this?
WTH: "I have been convinced for years that Driscoll has the world's biggest tin ear for poetry. He doesn't think in poetic terms but in terms of propositional statements and formal arguments. This isn't just manifest in his approach to Song of Songs, it's also revealed perhaps even more tellingly in the fact that in fifteen years he's never done any substantial preaching from the Psalms. He did some okay work in the 2004 Advent series going through the songs in Luke but that was obviously more than half a decade ago." From a comment under his part 4b post.
I've complained in the past that the Songs have been mishandled by perverted men. I appreciate further understanding that another mishandling is by men who have no grasp or understanding where poetry is concerned. Men who try to shove poetry into an instruction manual mode have no business handling the poetry at all. They destroy and crush rather than teach and open understanding.
Song of Solomon is not a single thread of erotic and explicit, sexual instruction. Making it into it does violence to the text.
Rather it is a many layered poem with many threads, probably more than three, woven through out.
One of those threads is sexual.
Another of those threads is allegorical or typological.
Another thread is on healing.
Another thread is raising up of the downtrodden
Another thread is empowering the feminine against the anger of misogyny among men (supposed brothers).
There is much woven into this poem. It can be many things to many people. It can meet a point of need within a person's life. It can help with marriage. It can help with our relationship with the Almighty.
Smacking it down into one-size-fits-all is thievery and a great injustice. Glimpses of eternity can be found in it. Forcing it into a finite box is done by fools who rush in where angels fear to tread.
Monday, October 24, 2011
First and Last Overview of Song of Solomon
[This is a repost from 2009 for those who joined us after that time]
One of the reasons I see healing in Song of Solomon is through reading about the Beloved in the first and last chapters.
In chapter one it says:
Song of Songs 1:5 I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, Like the tents of Kedar, Like the curtains of Solomon.
Vs 6 Do not stare at me because I am swarthy (dark), For the sun had burned me. My mother's sons were angry with me; They made me caretaker of the vineyard, But I have not taken care of my own vineyard.
Above she confesses that she has been pushed into the position of a common laborer by her brothers who were angry with her. She worked for them because they made her do it. And they oppressed her to the point that she neglected her own property, her own vineyard.Elsewhere in SOS, the Beloved is referred to as a nobleman's daughter, so it is curious that she was forced to work as a servant by her brothers in the first chapter.
Now let's look at a couple of verses in the last chapter of SOS.
Song of Songs 8:11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he entrusted the vineyard to caretakers; Each one was to bring a thousand shekels of silver for its fruit.
Vs 12 My very own vineyard is at my disposal; The thousand shekels are for you, Solomon, And two hundred are for those who take care of its fruit.
I read a commentary somewhere that said that the Beloved's vineyard was her face/appearance.
That she couldn't take care of her looks and became sunburned. I disagree with this since the last chapter also mentions her vineyard and the money she has made from it. So unless they had super models back then, thinking of the vineyard as being her face and her making money off of it... This might imply she was a prostitute, which we know is not true. So she must have really had a vineyard, like the Proverbs woman did.
But the difference in chapter eight is that she no longer talks about the oppression of her brothers or her sunburn. The Lover (whom she is married to at this point) has his vineyard but
does not require the Beloved to work in it. He has hired men for that.
The Beloved is now in charge of her own vineyard rather than being forced to neglect it. In fact, she doesn't work in her own vineyard but also has hired men that she pays to work in it just like her Beloved, Solomon. No longer oppressed, she is in the position to be generous with her Lover. And out of gratitude or love she willingly hands over money made off her vineyard to him.
Quite a change from chapter one to chapter eight. The Beloved has been raised from an oppressed servant to manager of her own affairs. From my reading, the progression from
chapter one through chapter eight, is a progression of healing and being raised
up from a lowly place to an exalted place by the love, care, and generosity of
the Lover.
And this, my friends, is why I hold that Song of Solomon is not just about... uhm... sex. It is about healing and is an allegory or picture of God's love, care, and generosity toward the church and
individuals in the church, working to raise them from the muck and mire of
worldly darkness and into His marvelous light.
This also goes directly against the assertion by Mark Driscoll that the Song of Solomon is not a progression and not in chronological order, an assertion that he makes as though it were fact though he gives no support whatsoever. And there are reasons that he makes this assertion. Because if Song of Solomon were a progression, then his teaching would have the Lover and Beloved engaging in fornication, sex outside marriage.
But enough on that. The point of this post was a first and last overview, where the Beloved started and where she ended up after just eight chapters of being showered with unbridled love and affection from the Lover of her soul.
One of the reasons I see healing in Song of Solomon is through reading about the Beloved in the first and last chapters.
In chapter one it says:
Song of Songs 1:5 I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, Like the tents of Kedar, Like the curtains of Solomon.
Vs 6 Do not stare at me because I am swarthy (dark), For the sun had burned me. My mother's sons were angry with me; They made me caretaker of the vineyard, But I have not taken care of my own vineyard.
Above she confesses that she has been pushed into the position of a common laborer by her brothers who were angry with her. She worked for them because they made her do it. And they oppressed her to the point that she neglected her own property, her own vineyard.Elsewhere in SOS, the Beloved is referred to as a nobleman's daughter, so it is curious that she was forced to work as a servant by her brothers in the first chapter.
Now let's look at a couple of verses in the last chapter of SOS.
Song of Songs 8:11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he entrusted the vineyard to caretakers; Each one was to bring a thousand shekels of silver for its fruit.
Vs 12 My very own vineyard is at my disposal; The thousand shekels are for you, Solomon, And two hundred are for those who take care of its fruit.
I read a commentary somewhere that said that the Beloved's vineyard was her face/appearance.
That she couldn't take care of her looks and became sunburned. I disagree with this since the last chapter also mentions her vineyard and the money she has made from it. So unless they had super models back then, thinking of the vineyard as being her face and her making money off of it... This might imply she was a prostitute, which we know is not true. So she must have really had a vineyard, like the Proverbs woman did.
But the difference in chapter eight is that she no longer talks about the oppression of her brothers or her sunburn. The Lover (whom she is married to at this point) has his vineyard but
does not require the Beloved to work in it. He has hired men for that.
The Beloved is now in charge of her own vineyard rather than being forced to neglect it. In fact, she doesn't work in her own vineyard but also has hired men that she pays to work in it just like her Beloved, Solomon. No longer oppressed, she is in the position to be generous with her Lover. And out of gratitude or love she willingly hands over money made off her vineyard to him.
Quite a change from chapter one to chapter eight. The Beloved has been raised from an oppressed servant to manager of her own affairs. From my reading, the progression from
chapter one through chapter eight, is a progression of healing and being raised
up from a lowly place to an exalted place by the love, care, and generosity of
the Lover.
And this, my friends, is why I hold that Song of Solomon is not just about... uhm... sex. It is about healing and is an allegory or picture of God's love, care, and generosity toward the church and
individuals in the church, working to raise them from the muck and mire of
worldly darkness and into His marvelous light.
This also goes directly against the assertion by Mark Driscoll that the Song of Solomon is not a progression and not in chronological order, an assertion that he makes as though it were fact though he gives no support whatsoever. And there are reasons that he makes this assertion. Because if Song of Solomon were a progression, then his teaching would have the Lover and Beloved engaging in fornication, sex outside marriage.
But enough on that. The point of this post was a first and last overview, where the Beloved started and where she ended up after just eight chapters of being showered with unbridled love and affection from the Lover of her soul.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Driscoll's Error Is a Thief
The Bible says that the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.
It also says that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers.
Part of me wants to accuse Driscoll of being a thief for stealing away the spiritually healing and empowering qualities of Song of Solomon.
But after reading WTH's assessment of Driscoll and seeing how important the marriage healing side of Song of Songs is to him, I have to back off and refrain from calling Driscoll, himself, a thief.
But his Peasant Princess series on the Song of Solomon and the error contained in it, this error is most certainly a thief.
There is healing and refreshing for the soul and spirit of the downtrodden in the Songs. There is also tenderness and a way of closeness to God, unparalleled anywhere else in the Bible. There is also the lifting up of the feminine from a low place from the muck and mire of this fallen world up to a high place of strength, maturity, and authority. I know it's there. I found it. It is a strong thread completely overlooked by Driscoll who is too busy looking for erotic, explicit sex under every rock and tree so his libido can be ever serviced.
The beauty and depth in Song of Solomon and the opening up of understanding of the Infinite is not something that should be brushed away lightly. Driscoll does the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, a great disservice when he mishandles the Songs as he does.
The healing, lifting up, and empowering of the Beloved by the Lover is a strong theme that shouldn't be sacrificed on the altar of Aphrodite and Eros. But I digress.
By now, any readers here will understand my concern over the thievery of Driscoll's doctrine. But with all my talk about him and the Songs, some of you may be wonder what sort of healing, empowering, and drawing near to God I'm thinking of. So I feel it would be good to repost some of my earlier writings on the Songs so that you may begin to see why the thievery and armed robbery of Driscoll's error bothers me so much.
It also says that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers.
Part of me wants to accuse Driscoll of being a thief for stealing away the spiritually healing and empowering qualities of Song of Solomon.
But after reading WTH's assessment of Driscoll and seeing how important the marriage healing side of Song of Songs is to him, I have to back off and refrain from calling Driscoll, himself, a thief.
But his Peasant Princess series on the Song of Solomon and the error contained in it, this error is most certainly a thief.
There is healing and refreshing for the soul and spirit of the downtrodden in the Songs. There is also tenderness and a way of closeness to God, unparalleled anywhere else in the Bible. There is also the lifting up of the feminine from a low place from the muck and mire of this fallen world up to a high place of strength, maturity, and authority. I know it's there. I found it. It is a strong thread completely overlooked by Driscoll who is too busy looking for erotic, explicit sex under every rock and tree so his libido can be ever serviced.
The beauty and depth in Song of Solomon and the opening up of understanding of the Infinite is not something that should be brushed away lightly. Driscoll does the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, a great disservice when he mishandles the Songs as he does.
The healing, lifting up, and empowering of the Beloved by the Lover is a strong theme that shouldn't be sacrificed on the altar of Aphrodite and Eros. But I digress.
By now, any readers here will understand my concern over the thievery of Driscoll's doctrine. But with all my talk about him and the Songs, some of you may be wonder what sort of healing, empowering, and drawing near to God I'm thinking of. So I feel it would be good to repost some of my earlier writings on the Songs so that you may begin to see why the thievery and armed robbery of Driscoll's error bothers me so much.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Love Without Restraint
By now the massive audio library of sermons at Mars Hill church demonstrates that Driscoll has absolutely not problem at all invoking the biblical metaphor of husband and wife when it deals with the ancient near-Eastern AUTHORITY STRUCTURE within marriage. He can accept the part where the Groom dies for the Bride. He can accept the part, certainly, where the Bride must submit to the Groom, not least in his various teachings of male headship and the authority of church leaders. He's got problems if that conjugal metaphor ever breaks the bonds of propriety, service, and obligation to take on an element of ecstatic, self-forgetting admiration for the other. Driscoll may think he's secured himself from imagining a Jesus who wants to sexually penetrate him, but he may have done so at the expense of allowing the canonical compreshensivesness of the conjugal metaphor to have it's spirit-inspired way. Christ choosing to die for the Bride on the Cross expresses a love that has no sense of discretion or restraint. The love of Christ for the Church was so strong He embraced the Cross, scorning its shame, and He conquered death by death because of His love for us.
In Song of Songs we are told that love is as strong as death. We know what love that is most obviously and immediately talking about, even if we subscribe to an allegorical second meaning. We can see cases where an old spouse dies and the widow or widower dies within a year of the death. We all get that love is as strong as death in that way! But Christ's love is stronger than death.
By rejecting a typological approach as even possible in Song of Songs what we may be seeing is that Driscoll has granted the high flown poetic hyperbole as being legitimate for erotica love but shudders as the thought that a comparably powerful, or even more powerful love animated Christ to go to the Cross for us.
WTH first three paragraphs from WTH on Driscoll's part 4b
http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2011/10/wth-on-driscolls-sos-part-4b.html
The problem with much teaching on marriage and gender is the hyper-focus on structure and roles. All problems can be solved by men and women playing their parts perfectly, Men leading as they are supposed to (even though the Bible never instructs them to do so) and Women submitting as defined by the teachers who over-focus on such structure.
As a pastor's wife counseling married couples, I kept running into, "Well if she would just submit to me likes she's supposed to then everything would be fine," and less often "Well, if he would just love me like he's supposed to all would be well" (and her definition of love rarely reflected what the Bible said.)
With all the obsession with what the other was doing and supposed to be doing and the obsession I saw among teachers to teach the roles according to Paul, I saw that the most important element was being left out. The bedrock of the Words of Jesus Christ.
I began to wonder if we needed to focus on what Jesus said about authority and love rather than what Paul said. And I began to wonder if we were over emphasising Paul's words in Ephesians 5 at the expense of Paul's definition of love in I Corinthians 13 and at the expense of pretty much everything John said in his epistles.
The structure of the relationships, the roles, the positions have taken up more importance than what Jesus came to do. And the power of the Love of Jesus has been lost in a limited and deeply impared understanding of the function of that Love.
Driscoll is all about authority and submission in marriage and in our relationship with Jesus. He's also all about wild-and-crazy, inhibitions-thrown-off sex in the bedroom. But he cannot grasp the even more powerful, limitless love of Jesus. A love more powerful than death and that is even able to conquer death. It's not about structure, authority, or roles. It is about Jesus throwing off all restraint, stepping down from His position (or role, if you will) to give all. On the Cross Jesus demonstrates for us this love without restraint, that love that is more powerful than death. It is a love that is not structured or limited to a role. It is infinitely beyond that. It is hard to grasp. And it will never be understood when the starting and ending points are shoved down into a box, the man-made structures, imposed upon it by Driscoll and others like him.
Song of Solomon, when seen as a type of the love of God for us, opens limits and displays infinity to the finite in ways that flawed and limiting human structures cannot touch.
In Song of Songs we are told that love is as strong as death. We know what love that is most obviously and immediately talking about, even if we subscribe to an allegorical second meaning. We can see cases where an old spouse dies and the widow or widower dies within a year of the death. We all get that love is as strong as death in that way! But Christ's love is stronger than death.
By rejecting a typological approach as even possible in Song of Songs what we may be seeing is that Driscoll has granted the high flown poetic hyperbole as being legitimate for erotica love but shudders as the thought that a comparably powerful, or even more powerful love animated Christ to go to the Cross for us.
WTH first three paragraphs from WTH on Driscoll's part 4b
http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2011/10/wth-on-driscolls-sos-part-4b.html
The problem with much teaching on marriage and gender is the hyper-focus on structure and roles. All problems can be solved by men and women playing their parts perfectly, Men leading as they are supposed to (even though the Bible never instructs them to do so) and Women submitting as defined by the teachers who over-focus on such structure.
As a pastor's wife counseling married couples, I kept running into, "Well if she would just submit to me likes she's supposed to then everything would be fine," and less often "Well, if he would just love me like he's supposed to all would be well" (and her definition of love rarely reflected what the Bible said.)
With all the obsession with what the other was doing and supposed to be doing and the obsession I saw among teachers to teach the roles according to Paul, I saw that the most important element was being left out. The bedrock of the Words of Jesus Christ.
I began to wonder if we needed to focus on what Jesus said about authority and love rather than what Paul said. And I began to wonder if we were over emphasising Paul's words in Ephesians 5 at the expense of Paul's definition of love in I Corinthians 13 and at the expense of pretty much everything John said in his epistles.
The structure of the relationships, the roles, the positions have taken up more importance than what Jesus came to do. And the power of the Love of Jesus has been lost in a limited and deeply impared understanding of the function of that Love.
Driscoll is all about authority and submission in marriage and in our relationship with Jesus. He's also all about wild-and-crazy, inhibitions-thrown-off sex in the bedroom. But he cannot grasp the even more powerful, limitless love of Jesus. A love more powerful than death and that is even able to conquer death. It's not about structure, authority, or roles. It is about Jesus throwing off all restraint, stepping down from His position (or role, if you will) to give all. On the Cross Jesus demonstrates for us this love without restraint, that love that is more powerful than death. It is a love that is not structured or limited to a role. It is infinitely beyond that. It is hard to grasp. And it will never be understood when the starting and ending points are shoved down into a box, the man-made structures, imposed upon it by Driscoll and others like him.
Song of Solomon, when seen as a type of the love of God for us, opens limits and displays infinity to the finite in ways that flawed and limiting human structures cannot touch.
Monday, October 17, 2011
God Speaking Tenderly?
There is no present-tense expression in any age of the Church this side of Christ's Second Coming in which unreserved adoration and praise for God's people is given. Jesus is the Groom who rebukes and cajoles His bride for Her continual failures and worldliness thus it is unsurprising that a man like Driscoll, in rejecting Song of Songs, can never ultimately have a vision of Christ's people that can exult in Her. It is only in Song of Songs where a husband and wife are shown speaking to each other with unbridled affection. It is only in Song of Songs where there is any "now" to the beauty of a marriage filled with mutual affection and by extension the marital metaphor for God and His people that Driscoll feels compelled to reject.
Thus a pastor like Driscoll only knows how to speak to the betrothed Bride as someone who isn't worthy of the Groom. She'd better clean up, get her act together and stop being so bad because her sins are bad enough that Jesus had to die for them... but it's not quite clear that Driscoll knows how to articulate the depth of the Bridegroom's love for the waiting Bride. Driscoll could preach for years on Hosea and mention the promise God makes to speak tenderly and winsomely to the wayward Bride. But where could we turn in the scriptures to see HOW God might speak in such a winsome and tender way to such a Bride.
Well, obviously NOT in Song of Songs as Driscoll expounds it because in it he sees only wifely stripteases and holy blowjobs. Driscoll's understanding of how a pastor should speak to the Bride is as a Hosea or an Elijah telling Israel she's a whore or an apostle telling the Corinthians they should be ashamed of themselves. In other words, at the risk of stretching the metaphors a bit, Driscoll is fine with the Hosea who says God "will" speak tenderly to His people but can't accept that Song of Songs could be where God DOES speak tenderly to the Bride of His people.
--WTH last three paragraphs from WTH on Driscoll's SOS part 4a
http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2011/10/wth-on-driscolls-sos-part-4a.html
I hear a lot of reasons why people are falling away from the church. The Wartburg Watch has a post on why young people are turning away. Certain sectors of Christianity are worried about men not going to church and are blaming women and the feminization of Church and society.
But I have noted that many women are falling away because God has been presented in a, never-satisfied, hard-hearted, male-favoring light. God has been presented as a grumpy patriarch with no tenderness and little to no concern over the things that might concern women. God has been presented as one who is only concerned about women preforming their role of wife and mother and not even wanting to speak to women except through their husbands, fathers, and in some cases, even their sons.
I know women who are falling away from the church because of this presentation of God. Preachers and patriarchs in these circles are far more concerned with keeping control over their women and making sure their women are meeting the human standards that are set up than with the need of the woman for tenderness.
I know for myself, learning of this tenderness of God that exists but not mentioned much has greatly enhanced my relationship with God and has healed the hurt places. I had found it other place in the Bible.
Zephaniah 3:17“The LORD your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.
Luke 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!
Matthew11:28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.
They are like hidden treasures where God expresses joy over us, or desire to gather us to Him or refers to Himself as gentle and humble. But even in these places, they are short at best, and as in the Luke 13 passage, it is mixed with sorrow over their sin.
But in Song of Solomon, it is concentrated, mutual adoration, a place where tenderness abounds.
It's not, "I love you, but you fall short, are sinful, etc." It is just, "I love you, no buts!"
No buts, no shaming, no pointing to flaws.
Actually, a couple of places in the Songs the bride points to her own flaws but the Bridegroom is right there to build her up and hold her close.
Thus a pastor like Driscoll only knows how to speak to the betrothed Bride as someone who isn't worthy of the Groom. She'd better clean up, get her act together and stop being so bad because her sins are bad enough that Jesus had to die for them... but it's not quite clear that Driscoll knows how to articulate the depth of the Bridegroom's love for the waiting Bride. Driscoll could preach for years on Hosea and mention the promise God makes to speak tenderly and winsomely to the wayward Bride. But where could we turn in the scriptures to see HOW God might speak in such a winsome and tender way to such a Bride.
Well, obviously NOT in Song of Songs as Driscoll expounds it because in it he sees only wifely stripteases and holy blowjobs. Driscoll's understanding of how a pastor should speak to the Bride is as a Hosea or an Elijah telling Israel she's a whore or an apostle telling the Corinthians they should be ashamed of themselves. In other words, at the risk of stretching the metaphors a bit, Driscoll is fine with the Hosea who says God "will" speak tenderly to His people but can't accept that Song of Songs could be where God DOES speak tenderly to the Bride of His people.
--WTH last three paragraphs from WTH on Driscoll's SOS part 4a
http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2011/10/wth-on-driscolls-sos-part-4a.html
I hear a lot of reasons why people are falling away from the church. The Wartburg Watch has a post on why young people are turning away. Certain sectors of Christianity are worried about men not going to church and are blaming women and the feminization of Church and society.
But I have noted that many women are falling away because God has been presented in a, never-satisfied, hard-hearted, male-favoring light. God has been presented as a grumpy patriarch with no tenderness and little to no concern over the things that might concern women. God has been presented as one who is only concerned about women preforming their role of wife and mother and not even wanting to speak to women except through their husbands, fathers, and in some cases, even their sons.
I know women who are falling away from the church because of this presentation of God. Preachers and patriarchs in these circles are far more concerned with keeping control over their women and making sure their women are meeting the human standards that are set up than with the need of the woman for tenderness.
I know for myself, learning of this tenderness of God that exists but not mentioned much has greatly enhanced my relationship with God and has healed the hurt places. I had found it other place in the Bible.
Zephaniah 3:17“The LORD your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.
Luke 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!
Matthew11:28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.
They are like hidden treasures where God expresses joy over us, or desire to gather us to Him or refers to Himself as gentle and humble. But even in these places, they are short at best, and as in the Luke 13 passage, it is mixed with sorrow over their sin.
But in Song of Solomon, it is concentrated, mutual adoration, a place where tenderness abounds.
It's not, "I love you, but you fall short, are sinful, etc." It is just, "I love you, no buts!"
No buts, no shaming, no pointing to flaws.
Actually, a couple of places in the Songs the bride points to her own flaws but the Bridegroom is right there to build her up and hold her close.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Off Topic, Viking Break
I still have a few comments on Wenatchee's guest post on Driscoll.
But going into the weekend, I thought I'd share a clip on Vikings.
I think it is up on Bing for two reasons.
The movie "Avengers" has Thor in it who was a Viking deity.
And apparently, because of the movie, some people are dressing up as Vikings for Halloween.
Those who have been with me know that my heritage is Danish and I like a few of the things that have been passed down to me. A few other things, not so much.
But one thing I'm proud of is number seven on their count down of things you didn't know about Vikings which is...
#7 Viking women were the most respected of their time. They could even pick and divorce their own husbands.
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-vikings/ufa4m63e?q=diagonal+video&rel=msn&from=en-us_msnhp&form=MSNRLL
So, anyway, going into the weekend, I thought I'd share something a little off-topic
But going into the weekend, I thought I'd share a clip on Vikings.
I think it is up on Bing for two reasons.
The movie "Avengers" has Thor in it who was a Viking deity.
And apparently, because of the movie, some people are dressing up as Vikings for Halloween.
Those who have been with me know that my heritage is Danish and I like a few of the things that have been passed down to me. A few other things, not so much.
But one thing I'm proud of is number seven on their count down of things you didn't know about Vikings which is...
#7 Viking women were the most respected of their time. They could even pick and divorce their own husbands.
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-vikings/ufa4m63e?q=diagonal+video&rel=msn&from=en-us_msnhp&form=MSNRLL
So, anyway, going into the weekend, I thought I'd share something a little off-topic
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Love Affair With Doctrine
As he put it in his book Confessions of a Reformission Rev, Driscoll was very unhappy with his marriage and particularly the state of his sex life at that point in his life. He thought he'd go through Song of Songs and see if it could improve his marriage. He went into the book with an agenda that colored his approach. Now, it seems, Driscoll can't disengage from his love affair with Song of Songs as the canonized sex manual that fixed what he wasn't happy with in his marriage. Driscoll's hermeneutic of erotica toward Song on songs is such a treasure to him he can't see that what is has done to his view of a biblical book is transform that book's message within the canon. Instead of "It's all about Jesus!" it must now be "It CAN'T BE about Jesus."
--WTH, from the last paragraph in his guest post here, on Monday 10/10/11
http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2011/10/wth-on-driscolls-sos-part-4b.html
As Christians, we put our trust in a lot of things besides Jesus.
I'm guilty just like everyone else. WTH's observation on Driscoll here can actually be seen all over. We are a fallen people in need of saving. Our marriages need saved, our relationships, certain aspects of our culture, etc.
But the problem is, if something works for you, or helps you, you can raise that solution above where it belongs.
I can see this concern that WTH has toward Driscoll and apply it to myself.
Song of Songs has been such a tremendous blessing to me, spiritually and in my perception of the Love of God for me, that I could fall into the trap of elevating my take on the Songs above everything else even to the point of asserting that my take is the only take on the Songs. And anyone else who disagrees with me is wrong or even evil.
I try not to do this.
In my dealings with my disgust over Mark Driscoll's position, I've still tried to continue to make room for other positions. If counselors have had success using the Songs in marriage counselling, then far be it for me to pronounce judgement on them for not looking at the Songs as I do.
Also, I can now see why it is so important for Driscoll to teach the Songs the way he does. He feels it saved or enhanced his marriage and he wants others to benefit from it. I cannot fault the man for feeling this way.
But at the same time, I am very glad that my husband doesn't have the 'revelation' of the Songs that Driscoll has. Whereas Driscoll intent may have been noble, he has trampled over boundaries of decency in his zeal. He has rushed into the book, looking for and finding erotic sex under every rock and tree and pretty much every verse of the book, including those that have nothing to do with sex. Thus, he has turned the entire book into erotica leaving no room for anyone who may have benefited from a more allegorical or typological reading of the Songs. People like me.
So, whereas I don't want to rob those who have benefited from the marriage counseling use of the Songs, Mark Driscoll tries to declare my take on it as a lie and steals away from the church whatever benefit that my take has to offer.
God forgive him, he knows not what he does.
--WTH, from the last paragraph in his guest post here, on Monday 10/10/11
http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2011/10/wth-on-driscolls-sos-part-4b.html
As Christians, we put our trust in a lot of things besides Jesus.
I'm guilty just like everyone else. WTH's observation on Driscoll here can actually be seen all over. We are a fallen people in need of saving. Our marriages need saved, our relationships, certain aspects of our culture, etc.
But the problem is, if something works for you, or helps you, you can raise that solution above where it belongs.
I can see this concern that WTH has toward Driscoll and apply it to myself.
Song of Songs has been such a tremendous blessing to me, spiritually and in my perception of the Love of God for me, that I could fall into the trap of elevating my take on the Songs above everything else even to the point of asserting that my take is the only take on the Songs. And anyone else who disagrees with me is wrong or even evil.
I try not to do this.
In my dealings with my disgust over Mark Driscoll's position, I've still tried to continue to make room for other positions. If counselors have had success using the Songs in marriage counselling, then far be it for me to pronounce judgement on them for not looking at the Songs as I do.
Also, I can now see why it is so important for Driscoll to teach the Songs the way he does. He feels it saved or enhanced his marriage and he wants others to benefit from it. I cannot fault the man for feeling this way.
But at the same time, I am very glad that my husband doesn't have the 'revelation' of the Songs that Driscoll has. Whereas Driscoll intent may have been noble, he has trampled over boundaries of decency in his zeal. He has rushed into the book, looking for and finding erotic sex under every rock and tree and pretty much every verse of the book, including those that have nothing to do with sex. Thus, he has turned the entire book into erotica leaving no room for anyone who may have benefited from a more allegorical or typological reading of the Songs. People like me.
So, whereas I don't want to rob those who have benefited from the marriage counseling use of the Songs, Mark Driscoll tries to declare my take on it as a lie and steals away from the church whatever benefit that my take has to offer.
God forgive him, he knows not what he does.
Monday, October 10, 2011
WTH on Driscoll's SOS, Intro & pt 1
[Guest post by Wenatchee The Hatchet concerning Mark Driscoll's Song of Songs series, Intro & Part One]
Mark Driscoll has been a polarizing figure for years and if the sound bites associated with him any given year are any indication he plans to be a lightning rod in American Christianity for as long as he can. Though there are number of topics about which he has chosen to say controversial things that he says are simply statements in the Bible, he has become most famous for his remarks on sex and gender.
I intend to summarize a few observations about what Driscoll has said about Song of Songs. Though Driscoll presents himself as just preaching what is in the Bible Christians have questioned the viability and propriety of Driscoll's handling of Song of Songs. In the last few years there have been two objections. The first is that Driscoll's approach to Song of Songs is so explicit as to turn Song of Songs into a kind of Christian porn. The most famous exponent of this first objection is John MacArthur who, in "The Rape of Solomon's Song" accuses Driscoll of transforming a biblical text into Christian pornography. The second objection is that by being deliberately cavalier about allegorical typological interpretations of Song of Songs Driscoll is choosing to ignore a venerable interpretive tradition within the Christian faith.
Here I intend to demonstrate that while both objections have their merits there is a third objection to make to Driscoll's handling of Song of Songs. The problem in Driscoll's handling of Song of Songs does not reside in his emphasis on marital love; it also does not reside, strictly speaking, in his refusal to concede a metaphor in Song of Songs for God loving His people. The problem resides in Driscoll's hermeneutic of erotic at the expense of both the perspicuity of scripture and of Jesus' own words about His fulfillment of Scripture. This can be broken down into four issues:
1. Driscoll's rejection of Christ typology in Song of Songs forces him to reject the words of Christ about scripture regarding Himself.
2. This rejection also compels him to reject the Bridegroom/Bride metaphor only for Song of Songs while affirming it in every other genre.
3. This rejection of Christ typology in Song of Songs transforms the book into a type of Christian porn that has no teaching value for the unmarried, for the widow, or for a child. In Driscoll's hands Song of Songs is no longer a gift given by the Holy Spirit for the building up of the whole church and instead becomes a sex manual of special value to the married.
4. This rejection of Christ typology in Song of Songs of necessity rejects the one place in the Scripture besides the eschatological Wedding Feast of the Lamb in which the marriage between God and His people could be presented in a positive light.
ISSUE ONE: MARK DRISCOLL VS THE WORDS OF CHRIST ABOUT SCRIPTURE
The first and most difficult issue is that if the Song of Songs cannot in any way refer to Christ then Driscoll must account for Jesus' words in John 5:39-47. Jesus declared that the scriptures pointed to Him. In Luke 24:25-27 Jesus is described as explaining the things concerning Himself in Moses and all the prophets and in all the Scriptures. Now if Luke and John testify that Christ said the Scriptures pointed to Him before His death and explained to disciples after resurrection how the Scriptures pointed to Him, then the only way Song of Songs could be omitted from these two statements by Christ about Himself and the Scriptures is if Song of Songs ISN'T SCRIPTURE.
Driscoll can't resort to such a claim because he affirms Song of Songs is canonical. After all, he wouldn't preach the book if it weren't in the Bible. He even mentions in his preaching about the book that Song of Songs has been read at Passover so one could make the case that the association of Song of Songs with Passover even predates Christ Himself. Driscoll, generally, has been eager to say that all Scripture properly understood points to Jesus. As Driscoll is so fond of saying, "It's all about Jesus!"
Except for Song of Songs, which has to be about wifely stripteases and holy blowjobs and date nights. In fact Driscoll has joked that if the Groom in Song of Songs is actually Jesus then Jesus is doing things to him (Driscoll) that make him feel uncomfortable. Driscoll has so sexualized the content of Song of Songs in his personal handling of the text he actually CAN'T let himself see the book as a testament to Christ. If this is so then Driscoll testifies against himself about whether or not he believes all Scripture is ultimately all about Jesus.
Mark Driscoll has been a polarizing figure for years and if the sound bites associated with him any given year are any indication he plans to be a lightning rod in American Christianity for as long as he can. Though there are number of topics about which he has chosen to say controversial things that he says are simply statements in the Bible, he has become most famous for his remarks on sex and gender.
I intend to summarize a few observations about what Driscoll has said about Song of Songs. Though Driscoll presents himself as just preaching what is in the Bible Christians have questioned the viability and propriety of Driscoll's handling of Song of Songs. In the last few years there have been two objections. The first is that Driscoll's approach to Song of Songs is so explicit as to turn Song of Songs into a kind of Christian porn. The most famous exponent of this first objection is John MacArthur who, in "The Rape of Solomon's Song" accuses Driscoll of transforming a biblical text into Christian pornography. The second objection is that by being deliberately cavalier about allegorical typological interpretations of Song of Songs Driscoll is choosing to ignore a venerable interpretive tradition within the Christian faith.
Here I intend to demonstrate that while both objections have their merits there is a third objection to make to Driscoll's handling of Song of Songs. The problem in Driscoll's handling of Song of Songs does not reside in his emphasis on marital love; it also does not reside, strictly speaking, in his refusal to concede a metaphor in Song of Songs for God loving His people. The problem resides in Driscoll's hermeneutic of erotic at the expense of both the perspicuity of scripture and of Jesus' own words about His fulfillment of Scripture. This can be broken down into four issues:
1. Driscoll's rejection of Christ typology in Song of Songs forces him to reject the words of Christ about scripture regarding Himself.
2. This rejection also compels him to reject the Bridegroom/Bride metaphor only for Song of Songs while affirming it in every other genre.
3. This rejection of Christ typology in Song of Songs transforms the book into a type of Christian porn that has no teaching value for the unmarried, for the widow, or for a child. In Driscoll's hands Song of Songs is no longer a gift given by the Holy Spirit for the building up of the whole church and instead becomes a sex manual of special value to the married.
4. This rejection of Christ typology in Song of Songs of necessity rejects the one place in the Scripture besides the eschatological Wedding Feast of the Lamb in which the marriage between God and His people could be presented in a positive light.
ISSUE ONE: MARK DRISCOLL VS THE WORDS OF CHRIST ABOUT SCRIPTURE
The first and most difficult issue is that if the Song of Songs cannot in any way refer to Christ then Driscoll must account for Jesus' words in John 5:39-47. Jesus declared that the scriptures pointed to Him. In Luke 24:25-27 Jesus is described as explaining the things concerning Himself in Moses and all the prophets and in all the Scriptures. Now if Luke and John testify that Christ said the Scriptures pointed to Him before His death and explained to disciples after resurrection how the Scriptures pointed to Him, then the only way Song of Songs could be omitted from these two statements by Christ about Himself and the Scriptures is if Song of Songs ISN'T SCRIPTURE.
Driscoll can't resort to such a claim because he affirms Song of Songs is canonical. After all, he wouldn't preach the book if it weren't in the Bible. He even mentions in his preaching about the book that Song of Songs has been read at Passover so one could make the case that the association of Song of Songs with Passover even predates Christ Himself. Driscoll, generally, has been eager to say that all Scripture properly understood points to Jesus. As Driscoll is so fond of saying, "It's all about Jesus!"
Except for Song of Songs, which has to be about wifely stripteases and holy blowjobs and date nights. In fact Driscoll has joked that if the Groom in Song of Songs is actually Jesus then Jesus is doing things to him (Driscoll) that make him feel uncomfortable. Driscoll has so sexualized the content of Song of Songs in his personal handling of the text he actually CAN'T let himself see the book as a testament to Christ. If this is so then Driscoll testifies against himself about whether or not he believes all Scripture is ultimately all about Jesus.
WTH on Driscoll's SOS, parts 2 & 3
(Guest post by Wenatchee The Hatchet concerning Mark Driscoll's series on Song of Songs, Parts Two and Three]
ISSUE TWO: DRISCOLL VS THE PERSPECUITY OF SCRIPTURE AND CANONICAL METAPHOR
Driscoll notes in his first sermon in the Peasant Princess series that Song of Songs is traditionally read during Passover, and that excerpts of the Song of Songs are sung in public settings. This, he would have us believe, shows that Jews are not as squeamish about sex as many Christians historically have been. Driscoll grants that there are some spots where there can kinda sorta be some typological things about Jesus and the Church in Song of Songs but that this is not primarily what the text is about.
But if the Song of Songs isn't about God's love for His people why on earth has it been read as part of Passover celebration? The whole point of Passover is to celebrate and remember how Yahweh delivered Israel out of bondage in Egypt through His servant Moses, and the Passover is the highest feast day in the Mosaic covenantal community. Does Driscoll just expect all Christians everywhere to NEVER connect the dots here? Throughout the prophetic literature Israel is described as a bride who has become wayward. Driscoll can accept that metaphor because it's in the Bible. If the Bible says God views Himself as a husband and His people as His wife that's in the Bible. We better stick with it.
All right then, when, exactly, did this courtship and betrothal of Yahweh to Israel happen? The whole of the Prophets and the Wisdom literature (i.e. Psalms, Job, Proverb, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs) seem to suggest that the beginning of God's relationship to the nation of Israel had to begin with the Exodus and the time in the wilderness. In other words, the exodus and the encounter with Yahweh through which the covenant was given constitute the beginning of the marriage. If Song of Songs were merely a celebration of married life it would have no plausible role in the corporate worship of Israel, still less as part of its most sacred celebration. It makes far more sense to understand Song of Songs as a poetic reflection not merely on a generic marriage or a specific human marriage but also as a reflection on the marriage of Yahweh and Israel as His people. If that's NOT why it is integrated into Passover than Driscoll has to assure us that all the rabbis and all the people who observed Passover even before the coming of Christ were just horndogs who took time off from revering Yahweh to consider wifely stripteases.
Curiously (or not!) the Puritans had no problem affirming the allegorical element of Song of Songs. They had no trouble at all affirming the book as describing the love of God for His people. Jonathan Edwards, Richard Sibbes, William Gurnall and other Puritans (whom Driscoll claims to admire) happily affirmed the value of Song of Songs as a meditation on God's love for His people. Now, to be sure, there are allegorical interpretations of Song of Songs that have peculiarities. To suggest that the woman's breasts represent Moses and Aaron is stretching things quite a bit. But if allegorical interpretations err in transforming the breasts of the woman into Moses and Aaron, Driscoll errs in his resolve to insist that Song of Songs 2:3 has to refer to oral sex.
ISSUE THREE: DRISCOLL VS A SCRIPTURE WHICH IS TRULY GIVEN TO ALL BELIEVERS
Driscoll has happily justified teaching on Song of Songs by citing 2 Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is God-breathed and suitable for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, and for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be fit, equipped for every good work." On this rationale Driscoll spent 11 weeks discussing Song of Songs and the nature of marriage, with a few occasional remarks about how singles should be sexually pure in their singleness.
Yet how does Driscoll's interpretive gloss on Song of Songs 2:3 constitute the use of Scripture to equip all the saints so as to be fit for every good work? Is this the interpretation of Song of Songs 2:3 that Driscoll will present to his daughter Ashley? If all Scripture is divinely inspired and given to us as a gift through the Holy Spirit then the Scriptures are a gift that should be of benefit to every believer in some way. I don't see how Mark Driscoll's daughter Ashley is likely to benefit from knowing that some day, if she gets married, she can give her husband oral sex because "Papa Daddy" says that Song of Songs 2:3 says she can totally go for that. I don't precisely see how Driscoll's son "Buddy Zach" has any reason to study Song of Songs now if Song of Songs 7:2 can only be interpreted as the husband admiring his wife's genitals. Prepubescent children have no need to have the Song of Songs mentioned to them if in Driscoll's hermeneutic the only role book has is as sanctified erotica.
Christians have affirmed for millennia that the Scriptures are a gift given to all the saints to tell us about Christ and that all the scriptures, properly understood, can be read in this way. Yet Driscoll's interpretive approach toward Song of Songs not only makes it a problematic book to discuss with children, it also transforms the book into a rhapsodic account of sexual techniques and positions that not all Christians participate in even within marriage, and which, expounded at any length, present unmarried Christians with a host of potentially new temptations.
When a person explicitly rejects an allegorical reading of Song of Songs in favor of techniques and positions this can be construed as a hermeneutic of erotica or pornography. Driscoll used to advise that a Polaroid of the wife as a Bible bookmark was a great idea so long as nobody else read that Bible. Driscoll’s handling of Song of Songs reveals a peculiar contradiction between his formally stated view that all scriptures points to Christ while denying allegorical or typological elements pointing to Christ in Song of Songs because of his commitment to a strict hermeneutic of erotica toward the book. The case that Driscoll has pornified Song of Songs derives from Driscoll’s own contradictory hermeneutic toward Song of Songs in contrast to other biblical texts and not from any simplistic accusation that Driscoll encourages people to go expose themselves to porn.
ISSUE TWO: DRISCOLL VS THE PERSPECUITY OF SCRIPTURE AND CANONICAL METAPHOR
Driscoll notes in his first sermon in the Peasant Princess series that Song of Songs is traditionally read during Passover, and that excerpts of the Song of Songs are sung in public settings. This, he would have us believe, shows that Jews are not as squeamish about sex as many Christians historically have been. Driscoll grants that there are some spots where there can kinda sorta be some typological things about Jesus and the Church in Song of Songs but that this is not primarily what the text is about.
But if the Song of Songs isn't about God's love for His people why on earth has it been read as part of Passover celebration? The whole point of Passover is to celebrate and remember how Yahweh delivered Israel out of bondage in Egypt through His servant Moses, and the Passover is the highest feast day in the Mosaic covenantal community. Does Driscoll just expect all Christians everywhere to NEVER connect the dots here? Throughout the prophetic literature Israel is described as a bride who has become wayward. Driscoll can accept that metaphor because it's in the Bible. If the Bible says God views Himself as a husband and His people as His wife that's in the Bible. We better stick with it.
All right then, when, exactly, did this courtship and betrothal of Yahweh to Israel happen? The whole of the Prophets and the Wisdom literature (i.e. Psalms, Job, Proverb, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs) seem to suggest that the beginning of God's relationship to the nation of Israel had to begin with the Exodus and the time in the wilderness. In other words, the exodus and the encounter with Yahweh through which the covenant was given constitute the beginning of the marriage. If Song of Songs were merely a celebration of married life it would have no plausible role in the corporate worship of Israel, still less as part of its most sacred celebration. It makes far more sense to understand Song of Songs as a poetic reflection not merely on a generic marriage or a specific human marriage but also as a reflection on the marriage of Yahweh and Israel as His people. If that's NOT why it is integrated into Passover than Driscoll has to assure us that all the rabbis and all the people who observed Passover even before the coming of Christ were just horndogs who took time off from revering Yahweh to consider wifely stripteases.
Curiously (or not!) the Puritans had no problem affirming the allegorical element of Song of Songs. They had no trouble at all affirming the book as describing the love of God for His people. Jonathan Edwards, Richard Sibbes, William Gurnall and other Puritans (whom Driscoll claims to admire) happily affirmed the value of Song of Songs as a meditation on God's love for His people. Now, to be sure, there are allegorical interpretations of Song of Songs that have peculiarities. To suggest that the woman's breasts represent Moses and Aaron is stretching things quite a bit. But if allegorical interpretations err in transforming the breasts of the woman into Moses and Aaron, Driscoll errs in his resolve to insist that Song of Songs 2:3 has to refer to oral sex.
ISSUE THREE: DRISCOLL VS A SCRIPTURE WHICH IS TRULY GIVEN TO ALL BELIEVERS
Driscoll has happily justified teaching on Song of Songs by citing 2 Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is God-breathed and suitable for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, and for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be fit, equipped for every good work." On this rationale Driscoll spent 11 weeks discussing Song of Songs and the nature of marriage, with a few occasional remarks about how singles should be sexually pure in their singleness.
Yet how does Driscoll's interpretive gloss on Song of Songs 2:3 constitute the use of Scripture to equip all the saints so as to be fit for every good work? Is this the interpretation of Song of Songs 2:3 that Driscoll will present to his daughter Ashley? If all Scripture is divinely inspired and given to us as a gift through the Holy Spirit then the Scriptures are a gift that should be of benefit to every believer in some way. I don't see how Mark Driscoll's daughter Ashley is likely to benefit from knowing that some day, if she gets married, she can give her husband oral sex because "Papa Daddy" says that Song of Songs 2:3 says she can totally go for that. I don't precisely see how Driscoll's son "Buddy Zach" has any reason to study Song of Songs now if Song of Songs 7:2 can only be interpreted as the husband admiring his wife's genitals. Prepubescent children have no need to have the Song of Songs mentioned to them if in Driscoll's hermeneutic the only role book has is as sanctified erotica.
Christians have affirmed for millennia that the Scriptures are a gift given to all the saints to tell us about Christ and that all the scriptures, properly understood, can be read in this way. Yet Driscoll's interpretive approach toward Song of Songs not only makes it a problematic book to discuss with children, it also transforms the book into a rhapsodic account of sexual techniques and positions that not all Christians participate in even within marriage, and which, expounded at any length, present unmarried Christians with a host of potentially new temptations.
When a person explicitly rejects an allegorical reading of Song of Songs in favor of techniques and positions this can be construed as a hermeneutic of erotica or pornography. Driscoll used to advise that a Polaroid of the wife as a Bible bookmark was a great idea so long as nobody else read that Bible. Driscoll’s handling of Song of Songs reveals a peculiar contradiction between his formally stated view that all scriptures points to Christ while denying allegorical or typological elements pointing to Christ in Song of Songs because of his commitment to a strict hermeneutic of erotica toward the book. The case that Driscoll has pornified Song of Songs derives from Driscoll’s own contradictory hermeneutic toward Song of Songs in contrast to other biblical texts and not from any simplistic accusation that Driscoll encourages people to go expose themselves to porn.
WTH on Driscoll's SOS part 4a
[Guest post by Wenatchee The Hatchet concerning Mark Driscoll's series on Song of Solomon, Part Four A]
ISSUE FOUR: DRISCOLL'S SELECTIVE APPLICATION OF THE BRIDE METAPHOR AND PASTORAL CONSEQUENCE
Driscoll readily grants the husband/wife metaphor everywhere ELSE in Scripture. He preached from Ephesians and Revelation and readily identified the husband/wife metaphor there. Yet Driscoll rejects the Groom/Bride metaphor in Song of Songs for the simple reason that if he accepts an allegorical or typological elements then he suspects Song of Songs promotes a weirdly homoerotic relationship between himself and Jesus. But Driscoll must surely know that Jesus Himself said that in the age to come no one will be given in marriage. Driscoll's jokes that Jesus might be having gay sex with him in Heaven if Song of Songs is an allegory about God's love for His people is simply a specious case of wanting to have things both ways. He literalizes a metaphor for the sake of illustrating why he rejects the metaphor. He never adequately addresses what the canon-wide basis for the metaphorical understanding would be. In fact, he affirms the metaphor in all other biblical literature, which makes his refusal to accept its application in the Wisdom literature even stranger. Where Puritans like Jonathan Edwards or Richard Sibbes or William Gurnall comfortably went Driscoll dare not go, apparently.
The metaphor of husband and wife in the Scriptures consistently reveals the marriage to be in a continual state of crisis. No sooner has Yahweh betrothed Himself to Israel in the wilderness than they create a golden calf. God appoints judges who turn Israel to idolatry. God grants a king and kings turn Israel away and become pioneers in idolatry. God sends prophets and the prophets are not heeded. Hosea and the other prophets take up the husband/bride metaphor to exclaim that Israel is a whoring wayward wife. Driscoll will never reject this metaphor.
Anyone who has ever attended a Mars Hill Church Good Friday service will see that the dominant theme is to reflect upon how our sins put Jesus on the Cross. Christ gave Himself up to death for the sake of His Bride, the Church. Mars Hill has emphasized this and it is part of the story. Yet it is not the whole story. That the Bride has been a wayward, sinful whore whose sin is so great it required Christ’s death is just half of Jesus’ heart toward His Bride. Driscoll's pastoral and poetic imagination falters at the point where hymnody often begins.
What wondrous love is this, o my soul, o my soul?
What wondrous love is this, o my soul?
What wondrous love is this, that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul ...
Driscoll’s been unable to consistently articulate that Christ, in love, chose to bear the Cross for us and share death with us to reconcile us to Him. He has, however, been adept at going on at some length about the dreadful curse.
It is unsurprising that Driscoll confessed in early 2008 that he had been told by C. J. Mahaney and John Piper that he has failed to articulate the love of God for His people. This is not surprising. Let is consider the nature of the husband/bride metaphor in all of Scripture if it must be excised from the Song of Songs. Throughout the Law and the Prophets the husband/bride metaphor is used is in a setting where God’s people have to be rebuked for being disobedient to God in some way. In the Torah Israel is going to face the reality of apostasy and exile. She is already unfaithful and will remain unfaithful until disaster, rejection, and exile. In the prophets Israel is told she is a wayward, whoring wife. In the wisdom literature we get shown that if we do the right things we’ll avoid the wayward women.
In the New Testament Christ dies for the Church but the apostles, after going through what may be dubbed the honeymoon of Acts, pass through that honeymoon into the exasperating world of having to write epistles to real churches with real sins. A new Exodus has led to a new age of wandering through the wilderness of Sin until the Land of Promise is reached. Only now we do not go rushing to meet the Promise, the Promise will come to us. Yet even though in the book of Revelation we are told of the promised Wedding Feast of the Lamb, when the Church will be the spotless Bride of Christ, this is not who we are. Revelation opens with seven letters of reproof to the churches in Asia given to John the Revelator by Christ.
There is no present-tense expression in any age of the Church this side of Christ's Second Coming in which unreserved adoration and praise for God's people is given. Jesus is the Groom who rebukes and cajoles His bride for Her continual failures and worldliness and thus it is unsurprising that a man like Driscoll, in rejecting Song of Songs, can never ultimately have a vision of Christ's people that can exult in Her. It is only in Song of Songs where a husband and wife are shown speaking to each other with unbridled affection. It is only in Song of Songs where there is any "now" to the beauty of a marriage filled with mutual affection and by extension the marital metaphor for God and His people that Driscoll feels compelled to reject.
Thus a pastor like Driscoll only knows how to speak to the betrothed Bride as someone who isn’t worthy of the Groom. She’d better clean up, get her act together, and stop being so bad because her sins are bad enough that Jesus had to die for them … but it’s not quite clear Driscoll knows how to articulate the depth of the Bridegroom's love for the waiting Bride. Driscoll could preach for years on Hosea and mention the promise God makes to speak tenderly and winsomely to the wayward Bride. But where could we turn in the scriptures to see HOW God might speak in such a winsome and tender way to such a Bride?
Well, obviously NOT in Song of Songs as Driscoll expounds it because in it he sees only wifely stripteases and holy blowjobs. Driscoll’s understanding of how a pastor should speak to the Bride is as a Hosea or an Elijah telling Israel she’s a whore. Or an apostle telling the Corinthians they should be ashamed of themselves. In other words, at the risk of stretching the metaphors a bit, Driscoll is fine with the Hosea who says God “will” speak tenderly to His people but can’t accept that Song of Songs could be where God DOES speak tenderly to the Bride of His people.
ISSUE FOUR: DRISCOLL'S SELECTIVE APPLICATION OF THE BRIDE METAPHOR AND PASTORAL CONSEQUENCE
Driscoll readily grants the husband/wife metaphor everywhere ELSE in Scripture. He preached from Ephesians and Revelation and readily identified the husband/wife metaphor there. Yet Driscoll rejects the Groom/Bride metaphor in Song of Songs for the simple reason that if he accepts an allegorical or typological elements then he suspects Song of Songs promotes a weirdly homoerotic relationship between himself and Jesus. But Driscoll must surely know that Jesus Himself said that in the age to come no one will be given in marriage. Driscoll's jokes that Jesus might be having gay sex with him in Heaven if Song of Songs is an allegory about God's love for His people is simply a specious case of wanting to have things both ways. He literalizes a metaphor for the sake of illustrating why he rejects the metaphor. He never adequately addresses what the canon-wide basis for the metaphorical understanding would be. In fact, he affirms the metaphor in all other biblical literature, which makes his refusal to accept its application in the Wisdom literature even stranger. Where Puritans like Jonathan Edwards or Richard Sibbes or William Gurnall comfortably went Driscoll dare not go, apparently.
The metaphor of husband and wife in the Scriptures consistently reveals the marriage to be in a continual state of crisis. No sooner has Yahweh betrothed Himself to Israel in the wilderness than they create a golden calf. God appoints judges who turn Israel to idolatry. God grants a king and kings turn Israel away and become pioneers in idolatry. God sends prophets and the prophets are not heeded. Hosea and the other prophets take up the husband/bride metaphor to exclaim that Israel is a whoring wayward wife. Driscoll will never reject this metaphor.
Anyone who has ever attended a Mars Hill Church Good Friday service will see that the dominant theme is to reflect upon how our sins put Jesus on the Cross. Christ gave Himself up to death for the sake of His Bride, the Church. Mars Hill has emphasized this and it is part of the story. Yet it is not the whole story. That the Bride has been a wayward, sinful whore whose sin is so great it required Christ’s death is just half of Jesus’ heart toward His Bride. Driscoll's pastoral and poetic imagination falters at the point where hymnody often begins.
What wondrous love is this, o my soul, o my soul?
What wondrous love is this, o my soul?
What wondrous love is this, that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul ...
Driscoll’s been unable to consistently articulate that Christ, in love, chose to bear the Cross for us and share death with us to reconcile us to Him. He has, however, been adept at going on at some length about the dreadful curse.
It is unsurprising that Driscoll confessed in early 2008 that he had been told by C. J. Mahaney and John Piper that he has failed to articulate the love of God for His people. This is not surprising. Let is consider the nature of the husband/bride metaphor in all of Scripture if it must be excised from the Song of Songs. Throughout the Law and the Prophets the husband/bride metaphor is used is in a setting where God’s people have to be rebuked for being disobedient to God in some way. In the Torah Israel is going to face the reality of apostasy and exile. She is already unfaithful and will remain unfaithful until disaster, rejection, and exile. In the prophets Israel is told she is a wayward, whoring wife. In the wisdom literature we get shown that if we do the right things we’ll avoid the wayward women.
In the New Testament Christ dies for the Church but the apostles, after going through what may be dubbed the honeymoon of Acts, pass through that honeymoon into the exasperating world of having to write epistles to real churches with real sins. A new Exodus has led to a new age of wandering through the wilderness of Sin until the Land of Promise is reached. Only now we do not go rushing to meet the Promise, the Promise will come to us. Yet even though in the book of Revelation we are told of the promised Wedding Feast of the Lamb, when the Church will be the spotless Bride of Christ, this is not who we are. Revelation opens with seven letters of reproof to the churches in Asia given to John the Revelator by Christ.
There is no present-tense expression in any age of the Church this side of Christ's Second Coming in which unreserved adoration and praise for God's people is given. Jesus is the Groom who rebukes and cajoles His bride for Her continual failures and worldliness and thus it is unsurprising that a man like Driscoll, in rejecting Song of Songs, can never ultimately have a vision of Christ's people that can exult in Her. It is only in Song of Songs where a husband and wife are shown speaking to each other with unbridled affection. It is only in Song of Songs where there is any "now" to the beauty of a marriage filled with mutual affection and by extension the marital metaphor for God and His people that Driscoll feels compelled to reject.
Thus a pastor like Driscoll only knows how to speak to the betrothed Bride as someone who isn’t worthy of the Groom. She’d better clean up, get her act together, and stop being so bad because her sins are bad enough that Jesus had to die for them … but it’s not quite clear Driscoll knows how to articulate the depth of the Bridegroom's love for the waiting Bride. Driscoll could preach for years on Hosea and mention the promise God makes to speak tenderly and winsomely to the wayward Bride. But where could we turn in the scriptures to see HOW God might speak in such a winsome and tender way to such a Bride?
Well, obviously NOT in Song of Songs as Driscoll expounds it because in it he sees only wifely stripteases and holy blowjobs. Driscoll’s understanding of how a pastor should speak to the Bride is as a Hosea or an Elijah telling Israel she’s a whore. Or an apostle telling the Corinthians they should be ashamed of themselves. In other words, at the risk of stretching the metaphors a bit, Driscoll is fine with the Hosea who says God “will” speak tenderly to His people but can’t accept that Song of Songs could be where God DOES speak tenderly to the Bride of His people.
WTH on Driscoll's SOS part 4b
[Guest post by Wenatchee The Hatchet concerning Mark Driscoll's series on Song of Songs, Part Four B]
By now the massive audio library of sermons at Mars Hill Church demonstrates that Driscoll has absolutely no problem at all invoking the biblical metaphor of husband and wife when it deals with the ancient near-Eastern AUTHORITY STRUCTURE within marriage. He can accept the part where the Groom dies for the Bride. He can accept the part, certainly, where the Bride must submit to the Groom, not least in his various teachings on male headship and the authority of church leaders. He’s got problems if that conjugal metaphor ever breaks the bonds of propriety, service, and obligation to take on an element of ecstatic, self-forgetting admiration for the other. Driscoll may think he's secured himself from imagining a Jesus who wants to sexually penetrate him, but he may have done so at the expense of allowing the canonical comprehensiveness of the conjugal metaphor to have it's Spirit-inspired way. Christ choosing to die for the Bride on the Cross expresses a love that has no sense of discretion or restraint. The love of Christ for the Church was so strong he embraced the Cross, scorning its shame, and He conquered death by death because of His love for us.
In Song of Songs we are told that love is as strong as death. We know what love that is most obviously and immediately talking about, even if we subscribe to an allegorical second meaning. We can see cases where an old spouse dies and the widow or widower dies within a year of that death. We all get that love is as strong as death in that way! But Christ’s love is stronger than death.
By rejecting a typological approach as even possible in Song of Songs what we may be seeing is that Driscoll has granted the high flown poetic hyperbole as being legitimate for erotic love but shudders at the thought that a comparably powerful, or even more powerful love animated Christ to go to the Cross for us. After all, Song of Songs CAN’T be pointing us to Jesus now that Driscoll has established it’s about techniques and positions. It CAN'T be about Christ's love for the Church because Driscoll interprets that as Jesus preparing to have homosexual intercourse with him.
For a man who has said "It's all about Jesus" he sure seems to have managed to transform his teaching about Song of Songs into a kind of "It's all about Driscoll" hermeneutic. As I said at the beginning, Driscoll must know Jesus said there would be no marriage in Heaven. Why would Driscoll even think a joke of this sort would even make sense? Those who interpret Song of Songs typologically aren't imagining genital penetration are they?
Well, to the degree that anyone can begin to guess at an explanation, let me refer to Driscoll's 1999 sermons on Song of Songs. Driscoll has been steadfast in revisiting this material. Driscoll's persistent introduction to Song of Songs includes his speculative fantasy that Solomon and Abishag were sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g. This is fanciful nonsense. Solomon’s first wife mentioned in scripture was an Egyptian and that was, as scholars such as Iain Provan pointed out, a foreboding of how bad things would go in Solomon’s reign where faithfulness to the Lord was concerned.
Iain Provan and V. Phillips Long, both of whom contributed work to the study notes in the ESV translation, have addressed Solomon's accession in ways that show the Abishag fantasy to be particularly silly. Provan, in his commentary on 1 & 2 Kings, notes that Abishag was chosen to assist David because he had trouble keeping warm at night. Abishag’s presence in the court highlights what ends up being a story, at every level, of royal impotence (of every kind) in David’s final years. The narrative thread from “could not keep warm” to “did not know her sexually” to Adonijah deciding he had a shot at the throne is strongly implied in the narrative.
Provan and Long have both broached what Driscoll avoids--rumors of David's sexual impotence were taken as a sign of administrative impotence and failing health. At this Adonijah, like his brother Absalom, sees in his father's weakness a shot at the throne. Nathan and Bathsheba get wind of this and trick David into formally appointing Solomon as his successor both to save Solomon's life and to perform an end-run around Adonijah.
The idea that Solomon killed Adonijah because he was in love with Abishag himself is pure fantasy. Absalom (under Ahithophel's counsel) took some of David’s concubines and had sex with them in public both to shame his father and show that he was made of kingly stuff at the crudest level. By this time in Israel there was a precedent that if you took any woman who belonged to the king you were making yourself known as a claimant to the throne. Solomon didn’t have his brother killed because he and his father’s servant girl were carving their names in some nearby tree. It was a bluntly political gesture. Solomon knew his brothers had habits of forming insurrections to get power or were rapists. If he didn’t put his foot down in the sternest and most irreversible way possible he’d lose the kingdom and it would divide.
But in Driscoll’s make-believe Song of Songs Abishag is the peasant princess who won the heart of the king. Why? It's a fantasy he seems to have come up with back in 1999 when he first started reading, studying, and teaching Song of Songs. As he put it in his book Confessions of a Reformission Rev, Driscoll was very unhappy with his marriage and particularly the state of his sex life at that point in his life. He thought he'd go through Song of Songs and see if it could improve his marriage. He went into the book with an agenda that colored his approach. Now, it seems, Driscoll can't disengage from his love affair with Song of Songs as the canonized sex manual that fixed what he wasn't happy with in his marriage. Driscoll's hermeneutic of erotica toward Song of Songs is such a treasure to him he can't see that what it has done to his view of a biblical book is transform that book's message within the canon. Instead of "It's all about Jesus!" it must now be "It CAN'T BE about Jesus!" Yet the Lord’s words in Luke 24:25-27 and in John 5:39-47 aren’t going anywhere and must be accounted for, even when we’re discussing Song of Songs. I propose, in Driscollian parlance, that this is the Big E on the eye chart that has been missed for a decade not only by Driscoll's critics and fans but by Driscoll himself.
By now the massive audio library of sermons at Mars Hill Church demonstrates that Driscoll has absolutely no problem at all invoking the biblical metaphor of husband and wife when it deals with the ancient near-Eastern AUTHORITY STRUCTURE within marriage. He can accept the part where the Groom dies for the Bride. He can accept the part, certainly, where the Bride must submit to the Groom, not least in his various teachings on male headship and the authority of church leaders. He’s got problems if that conjugal metaphor ever breaks the bonds of propriety, service, and obligation to take on an element of ecstatic, self-forgetting admiration for the other. Driscoll may think he's secured himself from imagining a Jesus who wants to sexually penetrate him, but he may have done so at the expense of allowing the canonical comprehensiveness of the conjugal metaphor to have it's Spirit-inspired way. Christ choosing to die for the Bride on the Cross expresses a love that has no sense of discretion or restraint. The love of Christ for the Church was so strong he embraced the Cross, scorning its shame, and He conquered death by death because of His love for us.
In Song of Songs we are told that love is as strong as death. We know what love that is most obviously and immediately talking about, even if we subscribe to an allegorical second meaning. We can see cases where an old spouse dies and the widow or widower dies within a year of that death. We all get that love is as strong as death in that way! But Christ’s love is stronger than death.
By rejecting a typological approach as even possible in Song of Songs what we may be seeing is that Driscoll has granted the high flown poetic hyperbole as being legitimate for erotic love but shudders at the thought that a comparably powerful, or even more powerful love animated Christ to go to the Cross for us. After all, Song of Songs CAN’T be pointing us to Jesus now that Driscoll has established it’s about techniques and positions. It CAN'T be about Christ's love for the Church because Driscoll interprets that as Jesus preparing to have homosexual intercourse with him.
For a man who has said "It's all about Jesus" he sure seems to have managed to transform his teaching about Song of Songs into a kind of "It's all about Driscoll" hermeneutic. As I said at the beginning, Driscoll must know Jesus said there would be no marriage in Heaven. Why would Driscoll even think a joke of this sort would even make sense? Those who interpret Song of Songs typologically aren't imagining genital penetration are they?
Well, to the degree that anyone can begin to guess at an explanation, let me refer to Driscoll's 1999 sermons on Song of Songs. Driscoll has been steadfast in revisiting this material. Driscoll's persistent introduction to Song of Songs includes his speculative fantasy that Solomon and Abishag were sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g. This is fanciful nonsense. Solomon’s first wife mentioned in scripture was an Egyptian and that was, as scholars such as Iain Provan pointed out, a foreboding of how bad things would go in Solomon’s reign where faithfulness to the Lord was concerned.
Iain Provan and V. Phillips Long, both of whom contributed work to the study notes in the ESV translation, have addressed Solomon's accession in ways that show the Abishag fantasy to be particularly silly. Provan, in his commentary on 1 & 2 Kings, notes that Abishag was chosen to assist David because he had trouble keeping warm at night. Abishag’s presence in the court highlights what ends up being a story, at every level, of royal impotence (of every kind) in David’s final years. The narrative thread from “could not keep warm” to “did not know her sexually” to Adonijah deciding he had a shot at the throne is strongly implied in the narrative.
Provan and Long have both broached what Driscoll avoids--rumors of David's sexual impotence were taken as a sign of administrative impotence and failing health. At this Adonijah, like his brother Absalom, sees in his father's weakness a shot at the throne. Nathan and Bathsheba get wind of this and trick David into formally appointing Solomon as his successor both to save Solomon's life and to perform an end-run around Adonijah.
The idea that Solomon killed Adonijah because he was in love with Abishag himself is pure fantasy. Absalom (under Ahithophel's counsel) took some of David’s concubines and had sex with them in public both to shame his father and show that he was made of kingly stuff at the crudest level. By this time in Israel there was a precedent that if you took any woman who belonged to the king you were making yourself known as a claimant to the throne. Solomon didn’t have his brother killed because he and his father’s servant girl were carving their names in some nearby tree. It was a bluntly political gesture. Solomon knew his brothers had habits of forming insurrections to get power or were rapists. If he didn’t put his foot down in the sternest and most irreversible way possible he’d lose the kingdom and it would divide.
But in Driscoll’s make-believe Song of Songs Abishag is the peasant princess who won the heart of the king. Why? It's a fantasy he seems to have come up with back in 1999 when he first started reading, studying, and teaching Song of Songs. As he put it in his book Confessions of a Reformission Rev, Driscoll was very unhappy with his marriage and particularly the state of his sex life at that point in his life. He thought he'd go through Song of Songs and see if it could improve his marriage. He went into the book with an agenda that colored his approach. Now, it seems, Driscoll can't disengage from his love affair with Song of Songs as the canonized sex manual that fixed what he wasn't happy with in his marriage. Driscoll's hermeneutic of erotica toward Song of Songs is such a treasure to him he can't see that what it has done to his view of a biblical book is transform that book's message within the canon. Instead of "It's all about Jesus!" it must now be "It CAN'T BE about Jesus!" Yet the Lord’s words in Luke 24:25-27 and in John 5:39-47 aren’t going anywhere and must be accounted for, even when we’re discussing Song of Songs. I propose, in Driscollian parlance, that this is the Big E on the eye chart that has been missed for a decade not only by Driscoll's critics and fans but by Driscoll himself.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Introducing Wenatchee The Hatchet
My new Internet and blogging friend goes by Wenatchee The Hatchet, WTH.
I met WTH on the Wartburg Watch where he made some intriguing and thoughtful comments on Mark Driscoll's mishandling of the Song of Solomon, SOS. I asked for further clarification of some of the things he said, and I began to understand that he had a grasp on the situation that went beyond anything that I had encountered before and beyond my own understanding.
Because SOS is near and dear to my heart as a place for the wounded soul to go find healing, I feel the need to counter act Mark Driscoll's high jacking of SOS and turning it solely into a sort of Christian Kama Sutra, or sex manual, for married couples.
WTH's ability to get to the root and heart of the matter with clarity and limited bias made me realize that I wanted his thoughts preserved on this blog for others who care about the issue and for myself and others to refer to when dealing with the mishandling of SOS.
WTH is uniquely qualified to write about this for several reasons.
For one thing, he attended Mars Hill, Driscoll's church, for nine years (1999-2008). And during his time there he served in four different ministries, the longest being with the Theological Response Team, where he handled questions. He got the position with the response team because he was known there as a well-studied Christian.
During his time with the response team he noted that the questions changed over the years and so did the handling of the questions. One of the changes in questions concerned the misuse of scripture. At the same time he began to have some reservations about the way Mark Driscoll handled certain scriptures.
His present attitude towards Mars Hill can be summed in this quote, "I have friends and some family at Mars Hill who I love a great deal and there are things I find admirable at Mars Hill but at length I came to disagree with them on more points than I agreed and had to find a new church home."
And concerning the debate over that which is Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll, he has this to say:
"I have found over the years that both the defenders and detractors of Mars Hill generally and Mark Driscoll in particular have too often lacked a true scholarly approach. Generally people come to the subject of Mars Hill and Driscoll with their minds made up in ways that prevent them from examining his teaching in a substantive way. Nowhere has this been more apparent to me than in how Driscoll has handled Song of Songs and how his self-appointed blogging allies and adversaries have discussed it. At my own blog, Wenatchee The Hatchet, I have attempted to include observations and criticisms of Driscoll that are predicated neither on unquestioning loyalty nor a reflexive dislike but on, when possible, a serious examination of the actual content and application of what Driscoll says and does."
For those that haven't noticed yet, WTH's blog has been added to my roll, the third male to have ever receive this honor.
Also, a confession. I have a "reflexive dislike" of Driscoll. I cannot help it. Not with what he has done to SOS. However, I know the best arguments are the ones based on serious examination like the one WTH has sent me. It is thorough and well-thought out and most needed in this debate.
I will be posting it in four posts:
I WTH's Intro and Part One
II WTH's Parts Two and Three.
III WTH's Part Four A
IV WTH's Part Four B
I'm doing it this way so that I can keep the entire content together yet in digestible sections that are easily referred back to.
I met WTH on the Wartburg Watch where he made some intriguing and thoughtful comments on Mark Driscoll's mishandling of the Song of Solomon, SOS. I asked for further clarification of some of the things he said, and I began to understand that he had a grasp on the situation that went beyond anything that I had encountered before and beyond my own understanding.
Because SOS is near and dear to my heart as a place for the wounded soul to go find healing, I feel the need to counter act Mark Driscoll's high jacking of SOS and turning it solely into a sort of Christian Kama Sutra, or sex manual, for married couples.
WTH's ability to get to the root and heart of the matter with clarity and limited bias made me realize that I wanted his thoughts preserved on this blog for others who care about the issue and for myself and others to refer to when dealing with the mishandling of SOS.
WTH is uniquely qualified to write about this for several reasons.
For one thing, he attended Mars Hill, Driscoll's church, for nine years (1999-2008). And during his time there he served in four different ministries, the longest being with the Theological Response Team, where he handled questions. He got the position with the response team because he was known there as a well-studied Christian.
During his time with the response team he noted that the questions changed over the years and so did the handling of the questions. One of the changes in questions concerned the misuse of scripture. At the same time he began to have some reservations about the way Mark Driscoll handled certain scriptures.
His present attitude towards Mars Hill can be summed in this quote, "I have friends and some family at Mars Hill who I love a great deal and there are things I find admirable at Mars Hill but at length I came to disagree with them on more points than I agreed and had to find a new church home."
And concerning the debate over that which is Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll, he has this to say:
"I have found over the years that both the defenders and detractors of Mars Hill generally and Mark Driscoll in particular have too often lacked a true scholarly approach. Generally people come to the subject of Mars Hill and Driscoll with their minds made up in ways that prevent them from examining his teaching in a substantive way. Nowhere has this been more apparent to me than in how Driscoll has handled Song of Songs and how his self-appointed blogging allies and adversaries have discussed it. At my own blog, Wenatchee The Hatchet, I have attempted to include observations and criticisms of Driscoll that are predicated neither on unquestioning loyalty nor a reflexive dislike but on, when possible, a serious examination of the actual content and application of what Driscoll says and does."
For those that haven't noticed yet, WTH's blog has been added to my roll, the third male to have ever receive this honor.
Also, a confession. I have a "reflexive dislike" of Driscoll. I cannot help it. Not with what he has done to SOS. However, I know the best arguments are the ones based on serious examination like the one WTH has sent me. It is thorough and well-thought out and most needed in this debate.
I will be posting it in four posts:
I WTH's Intro and Part One
II WTH's Parts Two and Three.
III WTH's Part Four A
IV WTH's Part Four B
I'm doing it this way so that I can keep the entire content together yet in digestible sections that are easily referred back to.
Friday, October 7, 2011
On Coming Posts
I started this blog sometime ago and named it, "From Bitter Waters to Sweet" for a reason. Okay, the initial reason was because it was an assignment for a class. But as I tried to come up with a topic or theme, I kept coming up dry so I had to think, "What really lights my fire?"
Well, one of the things that lights it is the combination of my love for God and the Scriptures and my repulsion, disgust, and sometimes shock at how people mess with God's word to make it into something else. How they form the scripture after their own hearts rather than allowing the scripture to get a hold of their hearts and change them.
This blog also has become a way for me to express my journey from bitter waters to sweet. I write in hopes to continue the journey and to share with others some of the things that I have learned along the way.
This journey has taken me to some very unexpected places in the Bible. One of those places is the book, "The Song of Solomon" affectionately referred to as SOS.
Those of my readers who have been with me a long time have seen my angry and very sharp reaction to some faulty teachings on SOS. I actually had a pretty violent reaction that I leave up for the sake of posterity. My anger had been softened over time even though the teachings still disgust me. The reason they disgust me is because they steal away the healing properties of SOS for the wounded and bitter soul and turn SOS into the Christian husband's manual for turning his Christian wife into his own private porn star so he doesn't have to deal with his porn issues and poor attitude towards sex and twisted view of what women are for.
Okay, I admit it. I still have some serious attitude. But I'm happy to say that I've come in contact with someone who is able to cut through the garbage of the pornification of SOS to the root of the problem. He deals with the issue deeply and thoroughly and in a manner that kicks the legs out from under this popular teaching that is perverting the hearts of many people.
Next post, I'll introduce you to my new friend and tell you a little bit about him and how and why he qualifies to take on this serious topic far better than me.
Well, one of the things that lights it is the combination of my love for God and the Scriptures and my repulsion, disgust, and sometimes shock at how people mess with God's word to make it into something else. How they form the scripture after their own hearts rather than allowing the scripture to get a hold of their hearts and change them.
This blog also has become a way for me to express my journey from bitter waters to sweet. I write in hopes to continue the journey and to share with others some of the things that I have learned along the way.
This journey has taken me to some very unexpected places in the Bible. One of those places is the book, "The Song of Solomon" affectionately referred to as SOS.
Those of my readers who have been with me a long time have seen my angry and very sharp reaction to some faulty teachings on SOS. I actually had a pretty violent reaction that I leave up for the sake of posterity. My anger had been softened over time even though the teachings still disgust me. The reason they disgust me is because they steal away the healing properties of SOS for the wounded and bitter soul and turn SOS into the Christian husband's manual for turning his Christian wife into his own private porn star so he doesn't have to deal with his porn issues and poor attitude towards sex and twisted view of what women are for.
Okay, I admit it. I still have some serious attitude. But I'm happy to say that I've come in contact with someone who is able to cut through the garbage of the pornification of SOS to the root of the problem. He deals with the issue deeply and thoroughly and in a manner that kicks the legs out from under this popular teaching that is perverting the hearts of many people.
Next post, I'll introduce you to my new friend and tell you a little bit about him and how and why he qualifies to take on this serious topic far better than me.
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