Yesterday a young man wrote to ask why I thought so many people are attracted to the preaching and teaching of Mark “Stop Looking At The Top of My Head” Driscoll.
Sorry. That was an obnoxious joke. A faux-hawk is certainly a legitimate hairstyle choice.
Anyway, I’ve several times been asked about Mr. Driscoll’s popularity, and so thought I’d take a moment to venture an opinion on it.
Mr. Driscoll, it seems to me, is
Okay, can we stop with the pointy-head jokes? This is serious business. Mark Driscoll is a very serious individual. Look here:
Does that look to you like a guy who shouldn’t be taken seriously? Of course it doesn’t.
Now then. Mark Driscoll is
Oh, c’mon! Stop it!
A great many of those attracted to Mr. Driscoll are young adults. This is because, generally speaking, young adults are in that harrowing phase of life wherein they’re discovering just how terribly complex real life can really be. Most young teens are filled with pure, black-and-white moral certitude; most young adults, however, freshly getting knocked about by the world beyond their homes, are unsettled by the encroaching conviction that things aren’t anywhere near as simple as they once believed them to be.
Where young adults have nothing but questions, Mark Driscoll has nothing but answers. He is
Okay, I’m just going to ignore that. But that’s the last one.
He is offering to the young adults in his audience a version of God and Christianity that many of them naturally find extremely compelling. And beyond that, Mr. Driscoll himself is
strong, commanding, powerful, unafraid. He is in control. And that can be very compelling to a young person, who is often finding so much inside and around them out of control. Well, they look to their Pastor Driscoll, and see
You know what? Fine. Fine! I’ll just stop talking now.
But before I just give up on this, I want to be clear. Mark Driscoll is a force to be reckoned with. You can joke around all you want, but at the end of the day, Mark Driscoll is
All right, that’s it. I give up.
Here is Mr. Driscoll himself to show you why he is most certainly not to be dismissed out of hand as a power-crazed, egomaniacal, anger-fueled, testosterone-addled showman preying on the insecurities of young people and daring, in his appalling arrogance, to imagine that he actually speaks for God.
Just out: UNFAIR: Why the “Christian” View of Gays Doesn’t Work (softcover edition; Kindle edition; NookBook edition). You’re invited to check out my Facebook page, and my group Unfundamentalist Christians, the motto of which is “Above all, love.”
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I used to be a teacher, and I have quite a few young FB friends who just quoted this guy today. Personally, I find him vile. However, I know these kids’ greatest pastime in hs was playing violent video games, and these young people’s senses are numb. Hopefully, this guy serves as a right of passage for the young people who follow him. When they are 30 or 40, maybe they can look back at their “Driscoll days” and laugh.
John, I think your idea about Mark Driscoll was right on. Young people are attracted to that kind of black and white “bold” (or is it just obstensibly arrogant) leadership.
It was really weird watch the “How dare you clip”. I mentally realized he was trying to defend women. I recognized in him the kind of heavy handed, top-down style of leadership I sat under for decades. Ironically these were some of the “godly” men who insisted on my purity and arranged my marriage to my ex husband.
His screaming triggered a very bad response in me because it reminded me of how my ex used to talk to me. And in the end, I wondered how many women got beaten or otherwise abused that day by husbands/boyfriends who were pissed at Mark, but blamed their women.
Should come with a disclaimer to not watch with coffee. Now I have to clean my screen! LOL! That is too funny.
PSYCHO!!!!!
Awwwww……look what you made me write.
She Won’t Let Me Wear The Pants Or Stick My Thingy In Her, And Other Pressing Problems Facing The Church Today.
http://www.johilder.com/?p=2470
Me Man. Bible and thingy make me master.
You rib woman. You make me sammich.
Too funny!
LOL!
Jo, you are my new girl crush.
I’m so posting this to my facebook!
OH!! Love it! Love it!!
awesome.
Thank you Roger.
sigh. Here’s my take on this fiasco. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithforward/2012/01/why-mark-driscoll-needs-an-elephant/
I found this blog post surprising for 2 reasons:
1. You forgot to mention the Sleestack hairdo (Land of the Lost), which IMO Mr. Driscoll’s most closely resembles.
2. Driscoll was actually speaking in SUPPORT of women?! (well, sort of; except that men are not allowed to touch our dirty bodies after Communion)
In support of women? If Driscoll spoke to my son or husband in that tone, I’d put him over my knee. I don’t want some misogynist bully claiming to speak for me. Does he think the man he alludes to in that video are getting away with the sly looks, the elbowing and the browbeating at home? Maybe his own wife puts up with it, but if she does, she is hardly representative of the rest of her gender. I am as not impressed by Mr. Driscolls verbal tirade as he probably wishes. I don’t feel *defended* as a woman by this – I feel embarrassed for him.
He’s got some serious, serious issues with women. He essentially explains how he told his wife that in order for him to be less stressed, he needed more sex. That it wasn’t up for discussion, she just needed to figure out how to make it happen.
He also told a woman to “shut up” who was getting to close to “teaching”. He made his wife feel horribly for cutting her hair after she had a baby, she was devastated by his reaction.
The fact that women defend him literally make me SICK to my stomach. I’m not even angry at him, really, he is mentally ill and needs a lot of help. But that reasonable, smart, educated women actually go to this church and buy into this bullshit – how they literally follow the mantra to “stop thinking so much – makes me realize how many women really do select to be helpless and miserable because frankly, it’s just easier.
They willingly give their own power to these men – to these kinds of churches – and it’s time to start talking about that. I’m not talking about women who’ve grown up in churches like these and are indoctrinated, I get that’s a long journey of awareness. I’m talking about super smart women who go to these places and choose to give their critical thinking away because living lives as second citizens means they don’t have to work as hard. I saw it at Mars Hill when I lived in Seattle, people who live there know exactly what I’m talking about.
I’m done giving these women a pass, these mothers, these wives, these single, smart, super-educated women who give their power and their lives away to people like this. I don’t feel sorry for you (anymore). You choose to go there, you actually put your *children* in line of sight with this dangerous theology and then they grow up and cause nightmares for everyone else. Someone has to stop the pattern and ladies, guess what – it’s you. It’s us.
(Not “you” as in *you*, Jo. I’m speaking to Mars Hill women who go to this church or churches like it.)
Totally got that. For a moment I thought I’d have to put you over my knee. Just kidding.
TRY IT SISTER.
DR, you’re right. It is mystifying why these woman give their power away and literally sacrifice their daughters to religious abusers. This might explain some of it.
In psychology, Stockholm Syndrome is an apparently paradoxical psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness.
(“Understanding Stockholm Syndrome”. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin)
Jo Hilder wrote; “If Driscoll spoke to my son or husband in that tone, I’d put him over my knee.”
Not to be kinky but historically speaking. Through the ages men who have publicly assumed the kind of caricature caveman masculinity that Driscoll is displaying in his chest-beating buffoonery are often caught paying to be spanked and dominated. Just sayin’ there is a pattern.
Indeed
So God’s going to strike some men dead right then and there in that service, huh? Wow.
Every freakn’ communion service I ever attended as a girl or young woman had the pastor threatening that God may kill us right there in the service if we took communion with unrepented sin. Terrified me as a girl. Now it pisses me off.
Whoa!!! Angry much? Dude might wanna check on that log stuck in his eye…
It seems to me that Mark D takes the passage about men loving their wives as Christ loves the church to mean; wives, love your husband as if he is Christ.
Peace, Sharon (on staff at a *different* church in Seattle.)
Bwahahah. “Love your husband as if he IS Christ.”
When did he stop beating his wife?
Did he stop beating her?
Exactly.
May somebody already said this, but are you sure that’s not Sam Kinison back from the dead?
Sam Kinison made me laugh so hard the tears would run down my face and my ribs were sore the next day.
You know he was a recovering ex-Pentecostal preacher?
Kinison played on his former role as a Bible-preaching evangelist, taking satirical and sacrilegious shots at the Bible, Christianity and famous Christian evangelist scandals of his day. Kinison’s daring comedy helped shoot him to stardom. On several videos of his stand-up routines, a shot of his personalized license plate reveals the words “EX REV”. (wiki)
His grave marker includes the unattributed quote, “In another time and place he would have been called prophet.” (Waymarking.com)
Although they share a similar volume level, Driscoll remains the caricature of the evangelists that Sam made fun of.
I loved Sam Kinison. I miss him enormously.
me too
Wow … first time I’ve seen the brute … can only think that he’s wrestling with some very angry demons (like Mark 1.28ff) – demons can speak of Jesus, but Jesus silences them because they’re unclean, and their voice is of no value to the kingdom of God. Those who sit under this kind of teaching are letting some ancient parent still beat the crap out of ‘em … there’s no healing in this message; no health, no hope! He’s a spiritual terrorist!
I don’t think his “very angry demons” are external entities. I think they’re his own dark side (sexual and otherwise) justified by Divine Right.
John, you are freaking hilarious!
For what it’s worth, here’s my take on all of this from a slightly more “pastoral” perspective. ; ) “Why Mark Driscoll Needs an Elephant” http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithforward/2012/01/why-mark-driscoll-needs-an-elephant/
Thanks Roger. That article had good insight. It was worth reading.
everyone following John’s blog post on Mark Driscoll should read the link below.
Aside from the sheer craziness of it all, I feel it demonstrates that Mars Hill should be considered a cult. The post has to do with how Mars Hill would discipline those who “stray” and how frikkin crazy they get when they lose control over a member of their church.
http://matthewpaulturner.net/jesus-needs-new-pr/mark-driscolls-gospel-shame-the-truth-about-discipline-excommunication-and-cult-like-control-at-mars-hill/
Thanks Mike for a great article.
It sounds to me like it won’t be too long before Driscoll decides to take the whole flock to heaven with some cyanide koolaid.
I hope not. Please God, no!
Most of these groups bump along for awhile until they get so crazy nearly everyone leaves. They leave a lot of broken people looking to rebuild their lives, but not so many dead bodies. They literally go out with a whimper not a bang.
He sounds like an angry chubby faced little boy. I have been shown videos of Mr Driscoll by friends trying to correct “sins” of my life. I am not a huge fan of him or his style. Screaming at people? I agree with what he’s saying but how dare he not show forgiveness and sympathy for those struggling to fight sins that already make them feel like less of a man. Shame on you Mark Driscoll for screaming at broken men. I believe some of the men he described need to be yelled at for what they do but not in his way. Shame on you, shame on you, fill out the damn cards so maybe we can help you little boys! (Insert Angry manboy growl)
He sounds like an angry chubby faced little boy.
He’s the fat kid who was at the bottom of the heap all through grade & high school getting crapped on who’s now in a position of Power over others HE can crap on. It’s Payback Time!
Mark Driscoll is considered this wonderful, amazing spiritual leader at the church I grew up in. ESPECIALLY by the people who I was in youth group with, who are now young adults, and I agree with the assessment that they like it because it gives them a black-and-white in a complex world.
It mirrors their own upbringing. I live in a “bubble” city, one where your more than likely to meet someone with your same political and moral beliefs (though that someone might be a Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon, since we have a lot of those here). Upper-middle class city, and most people can spew whatever conservative beliefs they want without too much resistance. My former church is very anti-college education, and is also anti-too much introspection, and so Driscoll’s words vindicate them that what they have always been taught to believe has always been true. No need to step outside of the bubble, or consider other points of view, or realize that the world is not black and white, but shades of every color.
I wonder as well if the people who favor Mark Driscoll aren’t their own kind of egotistical. I tend to notice that the people who believe themselves to be “servants of Christ” (see, they’re *more* than a Christian) and who wear their faith like a style tend to be ones who are confident that they are righteous. Oh, they’ll claim “we’re all sinners” but see, god has taken away ALL that sinfulness and now they’re Ultimate Christians, puffed up about their humbleness. And so Mark Driscoll’s words seem good to them because his words are always judging *other* people, never them. They don’t internalize the words as a criticism against themselves, his words are for the non-Christian or the weak Christian, or the bad Christian – the Christian that is never, ever them. So it makes them feel powerful by association – someone is giving them permission to be angry and judgmental toward others, and doing it under the name of Christ, so it’s a holy angry, a holy judgment, and that makes it all okay. And if you feel guilty by his words, or upset, or hurt, well that’s just holy conviction because if you *weren’t* the horrible sinner Driscoll says you are, you wouldn’t feel guilty. And they don’t feel guilty because they aren’t that sinner.
Not sure. I can believe it of the Christians I grew up with, consider they’re typically ones who have a slew of judgments for other people and an inability to listen to the ways they might be hurting others because they have the Truth. (And my former church really does capitalize “Truth” because “Truth” is the same as “God” to them. And according to them, they have the corner on both.)
What mystifies me is why so many people flock to “Ministers” like Driscoll. Speaking for myself, I am not a proponent of “substitution theology,” which is the favorite worldview of the Fundamentalists and which basically expects us to swallow the concept that a loving God creates men and women in His image, but from the moment of our birth we are under the curse of His furious anger because of a birth defect known as “original sin” and unless we turn to Jesus and follow various other dogmas, we will spend eternity in Hell after we die. So Jesus came to earth specifically to be brutally murdered to satisfy the blood lust of His supposedly loving Father. If you believe ANY of 1 Corinthians 13, this theology makes no sense, since 1 Cor 13 clearly states that love “keeps no record of wrongs,” yet supposedly, according to Revelation, we will all have to account for our sins come “Judgment Day.”
This is an irreconcilable contradiction. So at the risk of being accused of being a “pick-and-choose” Christian, I prefer to believe that God loves us all, no matter who we are and what we do. Paul wrote that “nothing can separate us from the love of God…” I leave it to others to draw their own conclusions.
I think most people love to have the world painted for them in crisp black and white, with no pesky grey patches, especially if the painting is by a highly charismatic crazy person (Heil Hitler.)
Spiritual Algebra is also appealing … it’s very assuring to know that, in lieu of thinking for one’s self, one only need follow the formula laid-out by Mr. Driscoll to get into heaven.
Nicely put.
I think the problem with this line of thinking gets a little attention in the blog John just wrote about murdering rapists going to heaven. Sure… as the murdering rapist, you feel great about the “God is just love” stuff. But what about the victim? the victim’s families? How do you feel about the “God forgives and loves the murdering rapist that killed your daughter” belief?
It gets complicated real quick and there are no easy answers that make everyone on all sides feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Reality can suck.
The book The Shack addresses this in an interesting way.
I never really knew who Driscoll was. I’ve seen his name in the news, but I kind of barely registered it as just another one of those crazy names in the news. This is why my first post on here bypassed him to talk about the adorable felt cartoon poop -because it is adorable.
I only watched part of the video. I don’t respond well to yelling. It sets off anxieties in me. Maybe it’s that people like that remind me of my older brother. I can’t say that I’m not kind of like that in one of my berzerker rages, but mine usually aren’t public/structured/directed at at a “flock”, and with me,and sooner or later during one of them, I’m likely to talk about the destruction of all human life. Then I turn everything inward, hate myself and have to be talked down before I hurt myself. Maybe Driscoll should talk to a doctor about bipolar disorder? One can take steps to cope with a wonky brain.
One thing I noticed in what I saw in the video was his emphasis on “joining the church.” (if I’m remembering the video correctly). I’ve encountered that before… people who think that “in order to be saved one must participate in the Body of Christ and the Body is the Church and/or our church.” Can someone explain that to me in a way that jives with the whole “everyone who comes I will never turn away” thing? Especially if you have one of those “once saved, always saved” theologies like the Southern Baptist congretation I was a part of used to have? I’m beginning to think that if I met up with some of those folks today (they were actually very nice people I was proud to call friends), that they might *suspect* the sincerity of the salvation they were once sure I had because I haven’t darkened a church door in years.
I was talking with an online friend the other day about an article I saw on the Huffington Post about a proposed “Atheist Church” for athiests who like rituals and meeting with others without the actual belief and I was all “I’m kind of like the opposite of that. I like the substance of faith W/O the meetup and the rituals!” I just find differeing human needs and likes interesting, I guess. (I rather liked the commentator to that I saw who said he “worships at the altar of St. Matress on Sunday mornings”).
I’d say my aversion to church is in part because it’s my dislike of dogma and politics, but a lot of it is my flat-out disability. I mentioned my mental issue. I’m extremely introverted and anxious whenever I have to deal with people, particularly any who lord “authority” over others. I get along fine online, but left to my own devices, I’m pretty much happily a hermit. Crowds, people… trigger my anxieties sometimes. I also have been undergoing some physical problems of late. I can understand why people who think “One MUST go to church” would condemn me, seeing as mental issues don’t get a lot of respect in our culture, but I have to wonder if people like that feel the same way about say, eldery people and war veterans and accident victims with injuries and mobility problems?
I kind of think I participate in “the Body” by coming to, well, here. Just because it’s all electronic and in text, does it matter? I like that this blog is a place of all-comers and delightful oddballs.
For those who think physical church is a “MUST” I have to wonder about the long church history that honored hermits – cloisters who prayed for the world and sought oneness with God *away* from the main “Body.” If we wind up going back to theocratic medieval society based around the Church, I’d like to be one of the hermits, please. I’m just too *weird* to be a part of the “normal.”
And too anxious to be yelled at by angry men who’s faces resemble cartoon poop.
“…but I have to wonder if people like that feel the same way about say, eldery people and war veterans and accident victims with injuries and mobility problems?”
Most mainline churches have home visitations for people who are no longer able to get to the physical building of the church–a pastor and or voluntary congregant come over, talk, pray with the member, maybe do communion. I’ve never actually participated in one of these but I know my church has them.
“I kind of think I participate in ‘the Body’ by coming to, well, here. Just because it’s all electronic and in text, does it matter? I like that this blog is a place of all-comers and delightful oddballs.”
I think you do too. I also think that you are a member of “the Body”, the Church Universal even when you do not have a specific church congregation that you are attending. I like to attend physical church because our church has some cool members and classes and I love singing in the choir. But not all church congregations are healthy (as many have attested on this blog) and some can definitely cause damage.
Shadsie, where you are, God is.
You know who else almost never sat in the pews? Jesus!
The Gospels show him everywhere else but church.
The closest he got was hanging around outside talking to the old men.
Jesus was no sheeple, and that’s one of the reasons why the priests hated him.
A church can be a wonderful place for people of like minds to gather,
but God lives in the human heart, not in a structure of walls and closed doors.
A lot of us autistic types have the same trouble about church. Add in AD(H)D which is pretty common overlap, and (especially social) anxiety which is pretty much universal overlap and yeah… MAJORLY hard to go to church.
I’m right with you there.
It is physically painful for me to sit through a boring or bad sermon.
When someone is using the Bible as a weapon, I have an an extremely hard time stifling my displeasure, almost to the point of Tourettes syndrome.
I don’t have social anxiety but I do have ADHD symptoms regarding impulsivity, where I will blurt out exactly what I think or feel at the time.
I love attending church where God’s/Jesus’ love is the message.
I wouldn’t last two minutes in a fundy church.
Thankfully, in my old church, they were actually accomodating to “those who couldn’t sit still.” Children brought Gameboys. I – though a teenager and supposed to be grown up enough to sit still – drew. On everything. If I didn’t have my sketchbook with me, I was doodling on the bulletins.
If I ever do go back to a church and they *don’t* let me draw dragons, lions and weird goatlike fantasy-creatures all over my church bulletin, that’s my cue to hit the door.
I doodle in my notebook all the time during the sermon – taking notes helps me to remember the message (I almost never refer back to my notes), and doodling when I’m not actually writing seems to help me carry on paying attention… Although, I just do the same little flower over and over again – I’m sure your doodles are MUCH more interesting!
I too have a disability that makes mobility difficult. Church is difficult. I cannot even get into most of the Sunday school rooms because there’s stairs everywhere.
I hear you about the acceptance thing in a lot of these churches. There’s definately a heirarchy and we, the disabled, are not accepted. The people with invisible disabilities are the best off. They can pretend to be healed. The people like me who can never appear “normal” suffer because we obviously have a faith issue or sin in our lives or God would have healed us. Still we are pitied and tolerated more then the last group. Those who are mentally or emotionally ill are the most looked down upon. They are judged, they have demons cast out of them and experience scorn, pity and church discipline every time they turn around.
If Jesus can get nauseas this must make him puke.
I shut it off. I have no patience with a shouting ego under the rooster crown of an older man trying to look like a teenager.
Remember: Damn you…Damn you all to hell…and I’m passing around the plate so be sure to spend your way to redemption *lmao*
sick to my stomach. couldn’t make it through the entire clip. probably because i’m no man.
Using the voice in that manner is absolutely unhealthy…on all accounts…for Mr. Driscolls vocal chords…
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