Driscoll is Selling Sex Again

 yay. he's at it again. whoop, whoop.

(Huge eyerolling emoji here)

Here's a link to the story about it: Mark Driscoll Says He Wants to 'Heat Up Your Marriage"

One of the things that really helped Driscoll build his kingdom on sand in Seattle was his Peasant Princess series back in the day.

Discovering his warped and perverted view of the Songs is what put him on my radar in 2009. And not in a good way.

His series definitely put him on the map and made him a lot of money. Just like Hugh Hefner made a lot money off of Sex.

The fact the Driscoll exists is sad. What is worse is all the people who can't see through what he's doing and who support him.

People would be much better off supporting legitimate ministries that actually help people like Sheila Gregoire's Bare Marriage blog and podcast.

Edited to add The Wartburg Watch's post that includes info on Driscoll wanting to make money off sex again:

"... While Mark Driscoll Remembers that Sex Sells"

What Is a Girl Worth?

In our culture, very little.

But there is hope for change.

Here is a link to a book review at The Wartburg Watch by Ryan Ashton concern the book by this name by Rachel Denhollander:

What is a Girl Worth?

This is a question that deserves a much better answer than it has.

Grudem a Heretic?

Hey, I'm not the one who asked first.

This was in 'Christianity Today' for Pete's sake.

Complementarianism and the Trinity: Is Wayne Grudem a Dangerous Heretic?

They even add the word 'Dangerous' which I didn't include in my title.

Am I smiling over here?
You bet I am.
I am sick to death of entitled, little men in their holier-than-thou towers using God and the Bible as bashing tools to amass power and authority unto themselves.
It is long past time that they be called out by bigger and more far-reaching publications.

Thanks to The Wartburg Watch for the heads up on this article.

Driscoll and Deception

Or should I say, 'Driscoll and Spin'? Or perhaps 'Driscoll and Delusion'? Any number of titles would work. And I could replace the word 'Driscoll' with 'Mars Hill'. It's all the same. Long and short, the Spinmeisters are at it again as displayed by the findings and screen shots of Wenatchee the Hatchet (WTH).

When WTH sent me an email with the link to these new and very incrimination findings, I emailed him back.
I'd like to share with you some of what I wrote.

I've known something wasn't right with the man for some time. 
Early on I found precious few people who agreed with me and 
felt utterly compelled to sound the alarm.

Now I've met you, TWW, and see the work of Throckmorton. I see 
that I'm not only not alone, there are more informed and more 
qualified people to speak on this.

I'm almost feeling sorry for Driscoll now. I'm sorry that he 
got away with so much for so long and now it's all falling 
down around him. He appears to have developed no quality tools 
to deal with this collapse in any reasonable way. It's just 
more of the same schtick. But this time nearly everyone is 
seeing right through the deception.

I'm saying all of this to let you know, I so appreciate you 
speaking out reasonably, informatively, and objectively. You 
have been a rock when I've thrown up my hands in a tizzy 
wondering what the heck is wrong with everybody, being 
schmoozed so easily by this guy.

I'm going link this because it is just 
another amazing example of the character flaws in Driscoll. 
These flaws should have disqualified him years ago. Yes, I 
blame Driscoll. I also blame Grace a little bit. She should 
not have just rolled over and let him do these things. But 
mostly I blame the church for have ZERO levels of discernment. 
We are to be a shrewd as serpents and harmless as doves. Not 
stupid and enabling as sheep who have had frontal lobotomies.

Now, to the link of incriminating evidence that proves, once again, that Driscoll should have never been allowed to pastor a church:

Driscoll LIES about who was doing the premarital counseling in the early years of Mars Hill.

Honestly, I'm really starting to feel sorry for him. This doesn't mean I give him a pass or think he shouldn't be called into account for everyone he has hurt. But gosh darn it. After a while, watching someone make so many bad decisions, it just becomes painful to watch and I'm about ready to look away now.

Mrs. Mark Driscoll, the Voiceless

Great topic suggestion by my friend Charis/Gem.

She points out a paragraph in the Mark Driscoll's apology letter to his church concerning Grace.
And this paragraph, third from the bottom, is very concerning.

Here it is: "To be clear, these are decisions I have come to with our Senior Pastor Jesus Christ. I believe this is what He is asking of me, and so I want to obey Him. The first person I discussed this with was our first, and still best, church member, Grace. Her loving agreement and wise counsel only confirmed this wonderful opportunity to reset some aspects of our life. I want to publicly thank her, as it was 26 years ago this week that we had our first date. She is the greatest friend and biggest blessing in my life after Jesus. When we recently discussed this plan to reset our life together, late at night on the couch, she started crying tears of joy. She did not know how to make our life more sustainable, and did not want to discourage me, but had been praying that God would reveal to me a way to reset our life. Her prayer was answered, and for that we are both relieved at what a sustainable, joyful, and fruitful future could be. As an anniversary present, I want to give her more of her best friend."

The most concerning sentences are bolded.

As Charis states in a comment at TWW:
"I’m distressed by Grace’s powerlessness and lack of a voice in their relationship. She dare not tell him plainly that it is not working for her lest she “discourage” him. NO ONE corrects MD!!! NO ONE!!!"

Mark Driscoll's doctrine and Bully personality is bad.

It is bad for Grace. She is a voiceless appendage to the great and powerful mark driscoll.

It is bad for his church. Look at all the cleaning up and defending they have to do for him all the time.

It is bad for women everywhere. Now lusty Driscoll fanboys all want little voiceless Graces of their own and are mad at any and all women who will not kowtow and become nothing so these boymen can think more highly of themselves than they ought to.

It is bad for the church. It makes us all look bad when Mark Driscoll is held up as relevant and a true representation of the way church ought to be.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Driscoll let it slip. He has given us a glimpse of just how under his thumb Grace really is.

Don't Throw Rocks? Really?

The master Rock thrower, Mark Driscoll, is pleading with people to not throw rocks at him.

Really?

You know, Driscoll. If you don't want people throwing rocks at you, you should have never started throwing rocks in the first place.
You don't have the right to throw rocks, throw elders and church members under the bus with no compassion, and then when you are caught, think that you should get some sort of special consideration that you never gave any of your victims.

Zach Hoag, who wrote the blog post that I linked above, asked people to chime in on Driscoll's plea.
Since doing so required that I make an account with disqus, I chose rather to deal with this topic here.
Zach said: "But I resonate with commenters who would rather see Mark repentant and reformed (no, not that kind of Reformed) than see him disappear. "

Mara talking here again:
Well, I'll have to be honest. Sure, if Driscoll could repent to the level that he needs to, that would be great. But I don't see this happening.

I may be in sin for feeling this way. But from all the damage I've seen, I think the best thing is for him to disappear and become an average joe Christian somewhere and to stop troubling the body of Christ with his harmful doctrine and wrong view of women.

It's comments like this from TWW that make me feel this way:
"Mark’s book did cause harm to the woman who read it first, she spoke to me about it and then I looked at it with her, I was able to share some scripture with her and our whole group got into the action of comforting her. But the real problem is the attitude and teachings that are coming out of this movement. Women are having their spirits broken with the doctrine of Driscoll, I am so angry about that. His book really seems to perpetuate a stereotypes, and further it is irresponsible for someone not trained to put himself out there as an expert in some sort of counseling when his advice or counsel continues to victimize those already wounded. Shame on him. And all those people who support this kind of tripe. This man could not counsel anyone out of a paper bag, period. He has no desire to understand the abused and suffering women in this country, and I sincerely hope and pray he continues to implode."

The comment is found here: rebeccalynn's comment

The thing is, even if Driscoll sincerely repented this would not mean that he would suddenly begin to understand what he's done to the voiceless victims still attending his church and bleeding behind his bus. His entire outlook concerning women and marriage is warped. He is not qualified to teach and minister to women. AT ALL. Nor is he qualified to teach husbands on how to treat their wives. Repenting from his national sins concerning plagiarism, buying NYT best-selling author status with church money, etc... Repenting from these sins, even deep sincere repentance, will not heal his sinful attitude toward women.  He needs to step down and be mentored by someone who does understand and care for the abused and suffering women in his church and in our world.

(sorry for the weird white background. sometimes blogger freaks out on me.)

Driscoll Needs to Step Down

Comp and not-Comp women agree.

First the Comp one:
The Line at the Mars Hill Communion Table

Then the not-Comp one:
Mark Driscoll and His Mars Hill "Advisory" Board: Time to step down

Also, don't neglect looking at Wenatchee The Hatchet's blog. He has the most thorough, objective, info on Mars Hill that is humanly possible. His is the place to go for those who want to know more.

John Piper Connected to BJU

The Crazy making behavior of John Piper has concerned me for some time. I often wondered what was driving his war on the feminine in public worship. Now I know. He is connected to Bob Jones University. Even though he considers Bob Jones to be the "crazy uncle" (Dr. Camille Lewis's words) he's still connected and deeply influenced. And as yesterday's post points out, the influence on BJU goes back to the Deep South slavery, patriarchy, and misogyny.

Here is Camille's comment over at TWW:

Piper linked to BJU

The plot thickens.

Gem from a Year and a Half Ago

Dr. Camille Lewis is making a splash over at TWW. Her guest post lays out the long history of abuse present at Bob Jones University.

While looking over some things written on her blog, I came across this gem on the rape culture and evangelicalism. I wanted to share it with people who might have missed it.

"It's not me, it's her isn't it?"

She touches on Jared Wilson, Doug Wilson, John Piper, Mark Driscoll, to name a few.

Divine Right of Kings in English Translations.

And I'm not just talking about the Kings of old. I'm also talking about the destructive force trying to make men into the prophets, priests, and kings of their homes over their lowly subjected wives.

Here is an excellent comment from Arce at TWW concerning study of the Greek NT and comparing it to the English translations that we have today. He claims that a "great deal of what we have in the English NT that is the result of the terrible patriarchy and divine right influences on the KJV translators that carries over into almost all English translations today."

Here is a link to his comment:
Arce speaks on English translations

And here is his comment in full that I don't want people to miss. It is in response to someone who is just sure the Bible give him the divine right to be the boss over his subjected wife.

And again: The English translation of the Ephesians passages has added words not there in the Greek, selectively. In particular, the word translated “submit” (not exactly the best translation of the Greek word, as it means something different in our culture) and the word “love” both get inserted in places where they do not appear in the Greek, selectively. Both words should appear in application to the husband or wife if we are inserting, b/c of parallelism. OR neither word should appear.

The verse that precedes about all submitting to all is the key. And then the submission of a wife is qualified — to her own husband, not to all the other men in the church.

And Gene, I have a Ph.D., a J.D., and a 800 plus volume of theological books, with multiple commentaries of each of the NT books and most of the OT books, in my home. I have been an evangelical Christian for more than 55 years, and a Baptist for most of those. As a teenager, I attended the adult bible studies my church held on week nights at least two months a year. I have taught adult classes in church, have served on the diaconate in several churches, and as chairman of major committees such as personnel and finance.

In addition, I chaired an extensive study of ALL of the verses that anyone raised as potentially relevant to the role of women in the church, including all of those verses that relate to the marital relathionship. We explored all of the verses in Hebrew or Greek as appropriate, in context, and reviewed the work of various Hebrew and Greek scholars.

And I can tell you that, there is a great deal of what we have in the English NT that is the result of the terrible patriarchy and divine right influences on the KJV translators that carries over into almost all English translations today. It relates to all of the issues around the words “head”, “submit”, etc. And you can choose to disagree with me if you wish. But the teaching of comp and the teaching of patriarchy in the church is not supported by the Greek NT, and it is contributing to the shrinking of the church as women, who have kept the faith alive in many places, are leaving the organized church that teaches what becomes the excuse for abuse and denying the equality of all before God.

Why the Need for a Boss?

On the heels of my "Who's the Boss?" post, TWW has a post concerning this question.
Comps are quite convinced that mutual submission is either wrong or impossible or rebellion or something. I seem to remember that there is a post on the the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood site entitled, "The Myth of Mutual Submission". Yep. they are pretty much against.

Wade Burleson did a guest post on TWW last night that addresses the thought of Mutual Submission in Marriage. It is not nearly as 'Mythical' as CBMW would like you to believe.

Here is a link to that post:

Complementarianism verses Mutual Submission in Marriage.

Who's the Boss?

This question is very important to a lot of people.

Someone has to be in charge. If someone is not in charge, chaos will ensue, or so goes the thinking.

And, in case anyone hasn't noticed, if someone has to be in charge, there is a large number of men who will do whatever they can to make sure that it isn't some woman bossing them around.

Here is a quote from John Piper:
" And so I distinguish between personal, direct exercises of authority that involve manhood and womanhood because it's personal.  She's right there.  She's woman on man, and and I'm being directly pressed on by this woman in an authoritative way.  Should she be doing that; should I be experiencing that, and my answer is no.  I think that's contrary to the way God made us…"


Source for this excerpt is from TWW's TCC's 2014 Women's National Women's Conference.

Note that Piper says, "should I be experiencing (a woman's authority), and my answer is no. I think that is contrary to the way God made us..."

Piper wants to make sure that he never has to experience a woman's authority and he calls on his opinion that God agrees with him. He feels that God thinks Piper should not have to experience a woman's authority.

Piper and the other men who dread the authority of women go to great lengths to make sure they never have to experience this horrible thing. But someone has to be in charge... So they go to great lengths to make sure that they, the men, get to be that One In Charge.

Here is Shirley's second installment of her Desiring to be God series:

Desiring to be God-Part 2
(check out Part 1 if you haven't yet)

and here is a blog post examining the error made concerning Genesis 3:16:
Genesis 3:16 is not a mandate for husbands...it is a warning for wives...

So, who's the boss?

If you are a Christian, then it should be Jesus, not some mortal man somewhere that fears women.

Edited to add this blog post from a friend who gets comments from time to time from people obsessed with who the boss is and how much they want men to be the boss over women.
Submission, Obedience, and Authority
(Oh, how people obsess over this. It's unhealthy for the spirit life.)

And from another friend:
Was Sarah Bessey Right? (which goes into Denny Burk's Desire to be god over his wife, not in those words.)

There seems to be a pattern going on here.

Another Attack on Womanhood...

Are you listening Ryan over at Wartburg Watch (see previous post).

This is actually an old one. But I'm bringing it to the forefront and reposting it so that Ryan can see that Womanhood is being attacked by the leaders of the Evangelical movement.

Tim Challies is a respected leader among his subgroup of Evangelicals. And apparently he has seen something that he doesn't like. And in order to fight it, he has polarized it into gender forms, making the masculine good, strong, and right and what he doesn't like as effeminate (weak and accepting of wrong).

His polarizing and defining, making masculine good and feminine evil is another example of the war on womanhood being carried out everyday by those who are defending manhood from perceived attackers.

Still, I don't see a war on Manhood in any of this. But I do see a lot of men claiming that there is a war on it. These men get on the offensive and start attacking whoever they think they should blame, namely the feminine (again, like Adam blaming Eve) when really, it is a manufactured and propaganda propelled war.

Here is the old post reprinted out, complete with links to Challies and places that refute what he's saying. I originally wrote this post back in the days before I understood how to work the blogger linky thingy. Back then I just cut and pasted the links 'as is' into the post.

(Note: I was a bit upset back in the day I wrote this. I'm still not happy with Challies and his conclusions, but I'm not nearly as angry today as I was then. But I'm not ashamed of my back then anger. There is a reason to be angry with this war that men have declared against the feminine. It is wrong.)

*****

Soft Effeminate Christianity. ROTFL!

I read this and all I could do was laugh.

The famous Tim Challies, who has caused a stir in the blog world by declaring that women cannot even read scripture out loud in the public assembly has decided to quote Horatius Bonar. In fact, he entitled and entire post "Soft, Effeminate Christianity" in order to quote Bonar. He says this about Bonar's quote that he reprints.

Tim Challies: "Bonar is warning against a kind of soft and, in his word, effeminate Christianity, that may come about when Christians are too afraid to fight for what is right and to protest against what is wrong."

http://www.challies.com/quotes/soft-effeminate-christianity

Why am I laughing at this?

Because of his hypocrisy and blatant hatred of the feminine. These pushers of gender roles force women down into a soft, submissive, subservient role THEN show hatred for such things in the church.

Well, let me tell you Tim Challies, who wants to turn women into little helpless lambs. Let me tell you this. You and your cohorts' relentless pursuit to dis-empower and bring into bondage, women, half or over half of the body of Christ... This pursuit is blowing up in you face.

More and more women are done with all the rules men keep making up for them.

I'll give you a few examples:

http://www.emergingmummy.com/2011/12/in-which-i-am-done-fighting-for-seat-at.html

http://rachelheldevans.com/daughters-will-prophesy

http://www.elizabethesther.com/2011/12/i-will-prophesy.html

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2011/11/04/tim-challies-deleting-both-scripture-and-hurting-people-a-request-from-sgm-refuge/

http://bwebaptistwomenforequality.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/industry-standards/

These are mother grizzlies and lionesses who are not afraid to fight for what is right and to protest against what is wrong. And your stance on women reading scripture in the public assembly and your support of C.J Mahaney are both dead wrong. These women are not afraid to declare it. They are very feminine. But they are strong and powerful, able to preach and teach men of their wrong. And yes, they are able to prophesy in the name of Jesus. No amount of Scripture twisting by you and others is able to take away from them the promise of Almighty God.

The real problem in all of this is your refusal to hear about the wrong that you commit against all of your sisters and many of your brothers.

John MacArthur's Unfriendly Fire

Yup, it's a firestorm. Yup, it's getting pretty ugly.

Nope, I don't want to get too involved except to say a thing or two and leave a couple links.

First off, those who have been with me, like, forever, know that back in the day when Driscoll was ranting and raving and raping The Song of Songs mostly unchallenged, I appreciated MacArthur's voice in the wilderness, calling Driscoll on his misused and abuse of Scripture.

I still appreciate what he has done.

But now, John MacArthur is ranting and raving and shooting off his mouth and pen with his book and conference called Strange Fire attacking Charismatics.

And apparently Driscoll crashed MacArthur's party.

My biggest impulse is to back up and let the elephants trample each other while I figure out how to serve God to the best of my ability in my small corner of the world far and away from these mad men. And I think that is just what I'll do.

But first I'll link a few things here of those taking on MacArthur's unchristian, unfriendly fire.

Wenatchee the Hatchet has a lot to say about some of this stuff (this is just a link to his blog, not any one post because he has several today).

Wade Burleson does a wonderful job addressing this in his usual level headed manner.

And Wartburg Watch, as always, will keep us updated.

So, for those of you who care to pursue this, I've linked these to get you started.

Oh that God would deliver us from the curse of celebrity pastors.

(Edited November 22, 2013 to add a link from WTH concerning the Open Letter to Mark Driscoll I mentioned in the comments below.)

SGM Update

I haven't got time to follow closely.

But I appreciate those who are.

Here is a link to the latest on SGM posted on TWW:

Boz Tchividjian and Janet Mefferd Take on T4G and TGC

And here is some good analysis from Hannah

Together for Mahaney

Response to Josh Harris...

From a former SGM member who can see through the spin.

Evie, who comments over at The Wartburg Watch gave an eloquent and knowlegable response to Josh (I Kissed Dating Goodbye) Harris.

Evie's Response

Thanks Evie for putting it out there.

Driscoll is a Nag

And he spends far too much time nagging women about nagging.
He needs to back off and remove the plank from his own eye. Then he might actually be able to see how to help couples with their marriages rather than beat women over the head with the Bible and falsely call it teaching.

Mark Driscoll is a Nagging Clanging Cymbal

Of course, Driscoll isn't the only nag. He's just one of the loudest and most obnoxious. The Church is full of men, preachers and laity, who think that it's their business to nag the life out of women in the Name of Jesus because, in their minds, that's what the gospel is all about. It all about controlling and shaming women.

The Calvinist Deceptive Take Over of a Church.

Interesting discussion of Calvinism continuing on The Wartburg Watch.

Commenter Anon 1 has posted references to something called "Quiet Revolution" which is, well, interesting.

Anon 1 on "Quiet Revolution"


Very Interesting

Argo on Neo Calvinism

As I mentioned to Argo, full understanding of Neo Calvinism still defies me though I understand it better this year than last year. But while commenting on The Wartburg Watch,  I asked Argo to please "nutshell" for me the root cause of abuses in the Neo Calvinist movement which Argo has done.

In order to keep track of his comment I'm going to both link and cut and paste it here.

Mara,
Well, in a word: sure. The whole of Calvinisms despotism can be boiled down to this fact: every core assumption is designed to separate man (men and women) from himself. You are either ruled by your “sinful nature” or you are ruled by the inexorable “irresistible grace” of God. Holding all of this together is the false understanding of God’s sovereignty. Meaning God ultimately controls ALL things, which makes Him the functional author of all the good and evil you do. Which is certainly a tacit admission that God causes evil; but worse than that, and more to the actual truth of the matter, is that this leads the faith inevitably to a place of moral relativism. For two reasons. One: if God controls all things then even things that are ostensibly “evil” are God’s will. Two: if man is indeed wholly depraved, utterly wicked apart from God, then man’s morality ends with his PERSON. And this is important. IF the whole of man is evil then his “sin” is his very existence. Not only does this assumption lead to abuse for obvious reasons, but it equates fully man’s morality the same “perfection” as God’s. You end up with a disturbing gnostic dualism of sorts. God is ALL good, man is ALL evil leaves no arbiter between the two. There is no objective morality that IS the pure and perfect standard. In short, God’s good and man’s evil become mirror images of each other. This is hard to understand I know, but if we understand that man’s person (the human) is fundamentally GOOD, then the dualism is IN MAN (his sinful choices juxtaposed with his righteous human worth, as Paul states in Romans) and the perfect standard of morality is God. Now, they will say they believe this, but they do not. Calvinism’s false doctrine will never suffer the idea that there is ANY good or worth in man. And this is precisely why they cannot truly love, and why the doctrine is inherently abusive.

The authoritative source on this is the Bible, of course. But dump the reformed premises. Focus on how what you are reading actually correlates with REALITY. Focus on how Jesus interacted with “sinners”. What do you think His assumptions were regarding the fundamental worth of humans? And pray for wisdom. God will give you truth.

Direct Link to Argo's comment

All my visitors are free to make comments here, agreeing or disagreeing.
I just count Argo's comment as another step on this strange road of understanding New Calvinism.

Thanks Argo