This past Sunday, the New York Times Magazine ran an article by Molly Worthen about pastor Mark Driscoll and his Mars Hill church out in Seattle entitled “Who Would Jesus Smack Down?”. It’s a long feature, and raises a lot of interesting points, focusing mainly on the resurgence of Calvinism in America and the reaction to the so-called “feminization” of Christianity. I have to admit, I find the whole thing to be a pretty mixed bag. I’ve included some brief thoughts at the bottom of the post. See for yourself (my apologies for the super-lengthy post):
Mark Driscoll is American evangelicalism’s bête noire. In little more than a decade, his ministry has grown from a living-room Bible study to a megachurch that draws about 7,600 visitors to seven campuses around Seattle each Sunday, and his books, blogs and podcasts have made him one of the most admired — and reviled — figures among evangelicals nationwide. Conservatives call Driscoll “the cussing pastor” and wish that he’d trade in his fashionably distressed jeans and taste for indie rock for a suit and tie and placid choral arrangements. Liberals wince at his hellfire theology and insistence that women submit to their husbands. But what is new about Driscoll is that he has resurrected a particular strain of fire and brimstone, one that most Americans assume died out with the Puritans: Calvinism, a theology that makes Pat Robertson seem warm and fuzzy.
God called Driscoll to preach to men — particularly young men — to save them from an American Protestantism that has emasculated Christ and driven men from church pews with praise music that sounds more like boy-band ballads crooned to Jesus than “Onward Christian Soldiers.” What bothers Driscoll — and the growing number of evangelical pastors who agree with him — is not the trope of Jesus-as-lover. After all, St. Paul tells us that the Church is the bride of Christ. What really grates is the portrayal of Jesus as a wimp, or worse. Paintings depict a gentle man embracing children and cuddling lambs. Hymns celebrate his patience and tenderness…
Mars Hill has not entirely dispensed with megachurch marketing tactics. Its success in one of the most liberal and least-churched cities in America depends on being sensitive to the body-pierced and latte-drinking seekers of Seattle. Ultimately, however, Driscoll’s theology means that his congregants’ salvation is not in his hands. It’s not in their own hands, either — this is the heart of Calvinism…
New converts stay in touch via blogs and Facebook groups with names like “John Calvin Is My Homeboy” and “Calvinism: The Group That Chooses You.”
Calvinism is a theology predicated on paradox: God has predestined every human being’s actions, yet we are still to blame for our sins; we are totally depraved, yet held to the impossible standard of divine law. These teachings do not jibe with Enlightenment ideas about human capacity, yet they have appealed to a wide range of modern intellectuals, especially those who stressed the dangers of human hubris in the wake of World War I.
Driscoll disdains the prohibitions of traditional evangelical Christianity. Taboos on alcohol, smoking, swearing and violent movies have done much to shape American Protestant culture — a culture that he has called the domain of “chicks and some chickified dudes with limp wrists.” Moreover, the Bible tells him that to seek salvation by self-righteous clean living is to behave like a Pharisee. Unlike fundamentalists who isolate themselves, creating “a separate culture where you live in a Christian cul-de-sac,” as one spiky-haired member named Andrew Pack puts it, Mars Hillians pride themselves on friendships with non-Christians.
Nowhere is the connection between Driscoll’s hypermasculinity and his Calvinist theology clearer than in his refusal to tolerate opposition at Mars Hill. The Reformed tradition’s resistance to compromise and emphasis on the purity of the worshipping community has always contained the seeds of authoritarianism: John Calvin had heretics burned at the stake and made a man who casually criticized him at a dinner party march through the streets of Geneva, kneeling at every intersection to beg forgiveness. Mars Hill is not 16th-century Geneva, but Driscoll has little patience for dissent.
In 2007, two elders protested a plan to reorganize the church that, according to critics, consolidated power in the hands of Driscoll and his closest aides. Driscoll told the congregation that he asked advice on how to handle stubborn subordinates from a “mixed martial artist and Ultimate Fighter, good guy” who attends Mars Hill. “His answer was brilliant,” Driscoll reported. “He said, ‘I break their nose.’ ” When one of the renegade elders refused to repent, the church leadership ordered members to shun him. One member complained on an online message board and instantly found his membership privileges suspended. “They are sinning through questioning,” Driscoll preached.
Driscoll’s New Calvinism underscores a curious fact: the doctrine of total human depravity has always had a funny way of emboldening, rather than humbling, its adherents.
Okay… I found myself nodding my head – and even getting excited – about some of the doctrinal emphases outlined above (original sin, the fullness of God’s saving grace, the passivity of the believer, etc). I also sympathize with some of the criticisms of American Evangelicalism (the rampant Pharisaism, the inflated anthropology, etc). It sounds like Driscoll is a dynamic preacher (an hour and ten minutes?!…), who has reached a LOT of people with the Gospel.
At the same time I find the unapologetic machismo and general in-your-face mentality offensive and rather adolescent. It sounds like this guy enjoys and even relishes conflict – Ugh. Driscoll may not be crazy to have misgivings about the “feminization” of the church – if you think he’s making it up 100%, you haven’t spent any time in a mainline body recently – but I wonder if there is something genuinely misogynistic at work, too. I have long suspected that this form of hardline Calvinism appeals to men on that level, at least subconsciously.
Hypermasculinity is not the answer. You end up alienating and marginalizing women and, more often than not, being mean to everyone else in the process, esp your fellow believers and those in leadership. Not to mention flaunting the exact same gender categories that you took issue with in the first place (categories which I’m convinced the Gospel dismantles, in an ultimate if not penultimate sense). The result, in my experience, is a culture of emotional suppression and violence where life becomes an enormous struggle. And who wants that?!
Perhaps I’m overstating things. Lord knows I’m not looking for an argument – especially with these guys! — so I’ll leave it to someone else to frame these objections in more theological language. In the meantime, I’ll be rewatching Seasons 2 and 3 of Buffy while bracing myself for the final episodes of Battlestar. T-minus 3 days and counting…
COMMENTS
18 responses to “Who Would Jesus Smack Down?”
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Dave, I read this article yesterday and I agree with you on all counts. The uber masculinity was disconcerting. It reminded me of Rod Rosenbladt’s comment when he did his seminar at the Advent on fathers and sons. He said, “Masculinity is not 12 gauge, it’s 410.” In other words, true masculinity is not Ultimate Fighting, it’s Aikido. Subtle.
He also talked about how boys have to manufacture their own masculinity when there is no one there to bless the boy. Often, Rod says, it comes out like Al Pacino’s Heat with a lot of AK-47s and whatnot. I wonder if this form of Calvinistic machismo is the Christian subculture’s version of absent (either physically or emotionally) father syndrome. Just a thought.
Great post!
David Zahl’s comment is riveting, and powerful; and also just.
It’s not only the machismo, but the general not-nice-ness of many of these Calvinist men, which muddies their witness.
From that particular syndrome habe ich schon lange geleidet.
Mockingbird’s take on this material is unique, and for my money, inspired.
A big turn-off for me is Driscoll’s apparent appetite for any type of conflict. He comes off as an adolescent rebel without a cause, only he found the Gospel and has channelled his aggressive contrarianism into his ministry.
Take note of this quote:
“He came to admire Martin Luther, the vulgar, beer-swilling theological rebel who sparked the Reformation. ‘I found him to be something of a mentor,” Driscoll says. “I didn’t have all the baggage he did. But you can see him with a quill in one hand and a drink in the other. He married a brewer and renegade nun. His story is kind of indie rock.’” Uh, yeah, but what about his incredible theological insights? Once Luther gained all those adherents and the Lutheran church became the state church is several European countries, how “indie rock” was he then?
I guess what I am trying to say is that the courage to go against the mainstream (whatever one perceives to be the “mainstream” in his experience) can be a good thing, but it can be damaging when not guided by spiritual discernment. Like any other part of us, it can be ( and will be) hijacked by sin and used to do a great deal of damage. Driscoll seems to flaunt his anti-establishment message and image– he seems to revel in the drinking, cussing, and violence that his Christian freedom allows. Grow up, dude! Read some more of Paul’s epistles and try not to alienate 80% of the people out there with your “manly”, abrasive style.
One other quote:
“Some are skeptical of a church so bent on staying perpetually “hip”: members have only recently begun to marry and have children, but surely those children will grow up, grow too cool for their cool church and rebel. Others say that Driscoll’s ego and taste for controversy will be Mars Hill’s Achilles’ heel.” I happen to think that his church’s downfall will be when he dies in an incredible drunken motorcycle accident while attempting to jump across a river full of rabid alligators while doing a backflip through a fiery hoop and drinking a Rock Star energy drink.
Seriously though, I love his passion and am sympathetic to much of his Reformed theology, but his church is tied to culture of the age just like the seeker-sensitive mega-churches he despises. The only difference is that he is appealing to a rebellious subculture instead of the broader pop culture. But we all know that the former tends to slowly morph into the latter.
Stick to the Gospel, dude, and stop worrying about trying to stay cool.
I enjoy Driscoll’s sermons – their length is nice on a car trip – but I tend to agree with machismo. Recovering masculinity has a place, and I even allow for something of a swagger in his approach.
I believe he carries it too far – his words bring to mind the “men” in a Taco Bell commercial or an Abercrombie ad. But he does one thing well. He speaks frankly to young men about our responsibilities. His series on Ruth was a strong example wherein he used the example of Boaz (a single guy) to remind young men to stop wasting time and money, but instead take up responsibility. He wasn’t preaching law, per se, and it was a good point to be made. Having said that, if you are not a DUDE in that sense that he protrays, then it’s hard to appreciate his work in the long term. And while I realize personality comes into play here, he accidentally turns off a great deal of people.
Hey PZ… what does it mean when you say “From that particular syndrome habe ich schon lange geleidet”?
I tried using a number of online German-English translators and they all turned up something like:
“I geleidet for a long time.” (Yahoo Babelfish)
John
I respond the same way lots of you do: both good and bad. I identify and want to disassociate myself from the material at the same time.
For me, I think the thing to remember is that it is possible to believe in the bound will and total depravity, (while not being at all Arminian) and still not be a Calvinist, all the while being an evangelical. The article by implication tends to box people into three options: Reformed, Arminian (i.e., lame evangelical, and probably legalistic), and Liberal. I personally am none of the three, though, if there is no fourth category (or fifth or sixth), I come out looking Reformed (in my diagnosis of the human condition), but also a bit liberal probably, and not Arminian at all. Do you see my point?
To elaborate a bit, it is the Calvinist picture of Church life and the purpose of church that I don’t agree with. The primacy of the law’s third use in the life of the believer has to inform everything you do in church if you buy into Calvinism, and I don’t. A huge amount of a church’s self-understanding hinges upon that single issue. To go a step further, I always find the Reformed picture of “church” to stand in tension with love. I view their idea of church as being totally consumed with doctrine at the expense of certain important aspects of ministry. I much prefer a Lutheran picture of church, where church is more of a hospital and less of a class room. I digress.
Main point: People need to know that there are alternatives (both Lutheran and Anglican) to Arminianism and Legalism that are not Calvinist but are conservative and evangelical. Enter, for example, dad’s book “Grace in Practice” for an alternative picture. I think of this blog as being a place where an alternative voice is given a hearing. I think of it as an oasis in that regard.
Absolutely “Oasis”.
Be here now.
Great discussion!
I see one of Marc Driscoll’s most positive contributions to American Christianity (and Global Christianity perhaps) as his passion for teaching what the Bible says about sex. His ‘ferocity’ is really good when it comes to talking about touchy subjects because he doesn’t pull any punches. The men of my generation (I’m 24) need someone to be bold and reframe ‘Godly sex.’ His ebook “Porn Again Christian” is the best resource I have read for teaching men about sex (including me!). The book is here: http://relit.org/porn_again_christian/.
John Z, I hold a similar view of church as you: that it should function as a hospital rather than a classroom. But, a good hospital is incomplete without a rehabilitation center. I am not a member of his church, so the ‘rehab’ I get from him is on my iPod, but I do see his teaching and instruction as beneficial to the renewing of my mind.
Jeez, I wonder what kind of “indie rock” dude listens to. At least he said of Martin Luther, “His story is kind of indie rock,” leaving room for us to interpret what “kind” of indie rock that may be. It would have been one thing if he’d said, “Martin Luther is rock’n’roll,” because Martin Luther IS rock’n’roll in any traditional understanding of the cultural dynamic of rock’n’roll as it exists (only) in a hypocritical, authoritarian society.
I think “indie rock” is way too vague, and has too many whiny/limp-wristed participants for Driscoll’s taste. So if anyone actually knows what the music at his church sounds like, or what he listens to on his iPod, that would be very interesting considering he comes across (in this article/post) like just another cultural sycophant throwing around buzz words. If you want Jesus to be “indie rock” then he’s bound to be a “hippie” and a “queer”, too, at least somewhere in some subgenre.
This article clearly is an open invitation to self-righteous abhorance of Driscoll and “Calvinism” in general, and it seems that many have RSVPed in the affirmative. I do not know a thing about the guy, other than what I have read here, so I will pass on the temptation to call him what he probably is. In any event, I would only beg that those more reflective types represented here would actually READ a little Calvin before they unsheath their “grace” swords on some imagined Grendelesque fiction dubbed “Calvinism.” (sorry, I have been reading Seamus Heaney’s great Beowulf translation) As a little start, I would quote Calvin’s Institues, Book Four, Chapter XII, paragraph 11, titled “Against willful excess in demanding church discipline.”
“This is also a prime requisite for the moderation of discipline, as Augustine argues against the Donatist: that individual laymen, if they see vices not diligently enough corrected by the council of elders, should not therefore at once depart from the church; and that the pastors themselves, if they cannot cleanse all that needs correction according to their hearts’ desire, should not for that reason resign their ministry or disturb the entire church with unaccustomed rigor… [Calvin goes on to quote with approval Augustine] “In another passage he gives the reason: ‘All pious method and measure of ecclesiastical discipline ought ever to look to ‘the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ which the apostle orders us to keep by ‘forbearing one another’ and when it is not kept, the medicine of punishment begins to be not only superfluous but also harmful, and so cease to be medicine.” Calvin goes on to advocate further for Augustine’s moderation: “Augustine would have that prudence used which the Lord also requires ‘lest then the tares are being uprooted, the rain be harmed’ From this point he concludes with Cyprian: ‘Let a man mercifully correct what he can; let him patiently bear what he cannot correct, and groan and sorrow over it with love.” Sorry for the lenghy quote, but with all the Calvin bashing, I thought it only cricket to give the man himself a word or two. Calvin certainly failed many times to live up to his understanding of grace, but in that regard he is not to be distinguished from Luther, and certainly not from yours truly.
Great post…I saw a youtube vid of Driscoll a couple months ago where he was calling Jesus a ‘cage fighter with tattoos’…um, really?
This is simply the latest example in a long line of ‘Muscular Christianity’ where the emphasis is ostensibly put on Christ, but ends up sounding as if it is pre-filtered through one’s gonads (sorry ladies).
The problem is the same with Driscoll as it is with the Sophia movement (especially the referring to God as ‘she’ parts)…the Faith is not about overidentification with one’s gender, it is primarily about identification with Jesus Christ as our only righteousness. (It is not I that live, but Christ)
This is not to say that Driscoll is all bad, but to touch on PZ’s comment, I would also be curious to know if the men in the congregation have noticed a chip developing on their shoulders once they enter their homes after the service.
Doesn’t identification with Jesus Christ as our only righteousness encompass God as She or It or whatever word you want to use to label the source of Life and Light from which Jesus was sent?
Great comment by DPotter!
My humble extension to it is that it is not just a filtering through one’s gonads that leads to a distorted Jesus, but a filtering through any idolatrous prism of the self.
Here’s a relevant quote from Luke Timothy Johnson in his critique of the third wave of historical Jesus scholarship (which in turn ends with a fabulous quote from T.W. Manson:
==================
This brings us to the question why so many scholars using the same methodology on the same materials have ended with such wildly divergent portraits of Jesus. To list only a few that have emerged: Jesus as romantic visionary (Renan), as eschatological prophet (Schweitzer, Wright), as wicked priest from Qumran (Thiering), as husband of Mary Magdalen (Spong), as revolutionary zealot (S.F.G. Brandon), as agrarian reformer (Yoder), as revitalization movement founder and charismatic (Borg), as gay magician (Smith), as cynic sage (Downing), as peasant thaumaturge (Crossan), as peasant poet (Bailey), and as guru of oceanic bliss (Mitchell). The common element seems still to be the ideal self-image of the researcher. It is this tendency that led T.W. Manson to note sardonically, ‘By their lives of Jesus ye shall know them.’ “
I actually find Driscoll very amusing. His critique on the book “The Shack” is really funny and good and when he does preach grace it is awsome. To blast him because he says things in such a polemical and aggressive way I don’t think is fair. Most of us have been accused of that and it is one of the reasons Mockingbird is even around.
What is telling about this article, and indeed all of the most recent articles in the NYT on Young Evangelicals (whether they be monastic/catholics, liberal/tony campolites, or Driscoll/Calvainists) is that they are all screaming for Father figures and for someone to tell them what to do and how to behave.
Further proving how foriegn the Gospel actually is to us, and that even as Christians we still crave and hunger for Law, and to be yoked to that old master.
Sorry, that’s “L”, of course, not “P” for Limited Atonement. Let that be a reminder to me not to post late at night…
Cliff. . . if there is anyone who embodies the “gracefulness” of Calvin’s position, its you–so of course you are spared the “Grace Sword”—this time:)
the trouble I have with the uber masculinity of Driscoll’s message (Jesus as a cage-fighter!) is that in attempting to speak of a biblical masculinity, Driscoll is reflecting the current cultural ideals of manhood.
He has replaced the so-called feminine Jesus with a Rambo/John Wayne/Jimmie Johnson Jesus. Given comments about his appreciation of the indie-rock Martin Luther, it seems Driscoll has made God in his own image!
All this for me shows me that masculinity is a wax nose and a projection of our insecurities.
@John Stamper-Loved the Manson quote, specifically “The common element seems still to be the ideal self-image of the researcher.”
It struck me that this is so because consciously or not, we all want to believe that Jesus is our example, which we can succeed by following. Thence comes the need to make Him good at what we wish to be (and perhaps feel we aren’t?). As I mature (by which I mean become more aware of how far afield of what I wish to be I am) I’m more and more grateful for all the ways Jesus isn’t anything like me or what I want to be…rather than Jesus being an impossible standard of perfection to emulate, He becomes finished perfection to rest in. It is both less comfortable and more life giving to see Jesus this way. Blessings, all.