As mentioned in my 2/24/24 post, I was triggered by a friend who put a Mark Driscoll quote up on her Facebook. I knew that she did it not have a clue about Driscoll being an over-the-top abusive grifter. If she knew this, she would have never put up the quote. Because we are co-workers and interact at work, I let her know that when we had time, I would explain why Driscoll is not a good person. Since work has been insanely busy lately, I felt like I should create a streamlined and abbreviated timeline for her and I wrote it down so I wouldn't ramble, get sidetracked on the many, many stupid tangents that make up Driscoll's reprehensible history.
As I revisited my history with both The Song of Solomon and Driscoll's rape of the book, I realized two things. One thing was this: It was therapeutic for me to give this testimony out loud and in person to an understanding sister in Christ who then promptly deleted her Driscoll quote. When she looked at it again, she saw that a cousin of hers had commented under the quote saying that she would never follow this guy (Driscoll).
The second was a reminder to me that, while I still meditate semi-consistently on The Songs due to their healing properties, I haven't really dived in and immersed myself in the book for a long time. Deep and immersive meditation in The Songs, besides being healing, also brings me closer to the heart and nature of God, something I've been a bit distant from. So now, I'm spending more quality time with the book along with my regular (or irregular) scripture reading and am better for it.
And then, over the weekend, something else happened. I saw a tweet from someone.
And this made a whole lot of sense. They (Christian Leaders) made a podcast about it. But now they are done. They did their due diligence. What more do we want from them?
Well, I guess it was the grass roots movement that brought him down. So, I suppose it will take grassroots resistance to keep reminding people why Driscoll has disqualified himself as a pastor or any kind of church leader both in the past and in this present.
I did my grassroots job with my friend and so did my friend's cousin.
Where the hell are the supposed Christian leaders crying out against Driscoll. I guess they are too busy protecting their own kingdoms to give a flying flip about the Kingdom of God.
By the time the CT podcast came along I think it became clear (to me if not others) that media platforms tend to only displace spokespeople when necessary. Not long after Driscoll's Nixon moment in 2014 there was some press buzz about the late Rachel Held Evans. In other words, the industry is focused more on selecting/anointing the next celebrity than looking all that closely at whether they should have chosen/anointed the previous one. In the case of both Driscoll and the late Rachel Held Evans the celebrity was neither earned nor worth it. I can think of a variety of women who have written on biblical texts who have actual scholarly competency such as Amanda Witmer, Susan R Garrett, Carol Newsom, Esther Hamori, Esther Acolatse and others that don't instantly spring to mind (there was a fascinating scholarly piece in Prophets Male and Female on how patristic era elders assessed the Montanist controversy.
ReplyDeleteThe CT podcast featuring people praising the late RHE seemed emblematic of the dynamic of find a new star rather than reconsider the nature of the star-making apparatus.
Your input here is valued as always.
ReplyDeleteIt is naïve to think that Driscoll can't fenagle his way back into mainstream. He's a master at so many kinds of manipulation.
But gosh darn it. It just got too close to home when my co-worker quoted him on Facebook. I couldn't take it lying down.
Driscoll did manage to slip sideways. He claimed the TULIP was garbage but then, in Pray Like Jesus, claimed he is Reformed. For people who aren't familiar with the breadth of Reformed thought this is not contradictory or even paradoxical. He just rejected the TULIP and threw shade at Calvin but he still can cite Carson or even MacArthur if he liked and in Pray Like Jesus even references Arthur Pink, who is as super-Calvinist as they come.
ReplyDeleteBut he's talked well of Joel Osteen and T D Jakes so it may be more accurate to say he has some Reformed influences but also reflects more non-Reformed thought since he gained buddies in the Charisma House orbit.
He seems to have gotten an impression that some people claim he's taught witchcraft of some kind. I'd stand by my concern that his teaching on forgiveness and bitterness and its relationship to what he regards as the anointing does not seem to reflect a Christian interest in relational restoration and reconciliation as much as a kind of apotropaic magic that lets him keep his anointing so that he forgives people he believes sinned against him so he can keep being anointed in his self-perception.