Recanting…

Don’t recant, this is what it’s about. You took the risk, step, answered the question and this is what doers and shakers do, they cause others to wonder, think, respond. You did good. Take nothing back.

this is a great discussion and it’s reaching a lot of different people. it’s an important discussion to have (with gentleness and kindness in humility with love) for the future of the church. i really appreciate this post responding to the discussion. i don’t know that you need to recant though. maybe your feelings were strong, but that honesty and critical (coupled with loving) look at the emerging church/movement thing is also what we need. i posted a thought i had christmas eve over at my blog that is relevant to the discussion concerning falling in love with the church… it’s called [grid blog :: christmas] union pt.2

Did you need to “recant”? I don’t think so. The questions you raised are very important.

I love Mark Driscoll’s sermons. He’s super intelligent, has a fabulous and seamless delivery, and is sometimes hilarious. He is, in all senses of the word, a phenomenon, and so is his church.

That said, I am deeply troubled by his position of excluding women from the pastorship at Mars Hill for a couple of reasons.

First, if the Holy Spirit alone can judge and decide what gifts we must utilize to the glory of God, then how can mere mortals exclude half the human population from a gift (ministry) that the Holy Spirit alone should bestow and guide? Let the Holy Spirit decide who should preach, not a group of all-male elders who arrogantly attempt to usurp the power of the Holy Spirit.

Second, to exclude half the human population from a privilege you enjoy and actually respect, no matter how responsibly you treat your privilege, is in direct contradiction to Jesus’ greatest commandment: to love one another as ourselves.

That is the grand, great, NEW commandment. It is called “Golden” for a reason: it is important to love one another because this alone is how we become most truly a reflection of God and best express God’s grace.

When we exclude a class of people deemed inferior for a position we enjoy and perhaps exploit merely because they are born with a certain attribute (in this case, gender), we are sinning directly against Jesus.

The sad, dark fact is this: Mark Driscoll and all the other male pastors at Mars Hill will not receive the fruit of Jesus’ kingdom because they are breaking Jesus’ (NOT Paul’s!) greatest commandment.

I can certainly appreciate excluding people from the ministry on the basis of BEHAVIOR. Suppose, for example, a raging drunk wants to preach. Of course we wouldn’t allow it. Suppose a confirmed pedophile wants to preach: we wouldn’t allow it. Suppose a man who was sexually licentious, who exploited women and lied to them, wanted to preach: we would certain demand that he step down once we discovered his sins.

But to exclude half the human race because of an accident of birth alone! This is a gross violation of human charity and kindness, and it reeks of ignorance and a inverted brand of “moral” righteousness.

My God! Even in 1750, in his sermon “A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers,” Puritan-steeped preacher Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766) could grasp the subtleties within scriptural commandments contained in Eph. 5:22-24. So he writes:

“In all these cases, submission is required in terms (at least) as absolute and universal, as are ever used with respect to rulers and subjects. But who supposes that the apostle ever intended to teach that children, servants and wives should, in all cases whatever, obey their parents, masters and husbands respectively, never making any opposition to their will, even although they should require them to break the commandments of God, or should causelesly make an attempt upon their lives? No one puts such a sense upon these expressions, however absolute and unlimited.”

Mayhew asserts that in 1750 NO ONE “puts such a sense upon these [scriptural] expressions.”

If Mayhew can discern this in 1750 in relation to Eph. 5:22-24, why in the world cannot Driscoll discern this, 250 years later, in relation to Tim. 2:12?

Perhaps it is due to the fact that Driscoll was raised a Roman Catholic, a tradition in which women are relegated to the sidelines and expected only to bear children uncomplainingly forever, never questioning the peculiar sexual dogmas of her male priests. I know this culture, as I was raised a Catholic and was exposed firsthand to its utterly shabby treatment of women and children. And I daresay Mr. Driscoll is quite comfortable with that Catholic tradition of explicit male tyranny, even if he may formally deny any current affiliation with the Roman Catholic faith.

Again, I want to stress that I believe Mr. Driscoll to be a man of good intentions. He has simpy gone wildly astray in this particular matter, this matter that grieves so many and causes such feelings of deep division and pain in his own church and wider community.

I pray that Mark Driscoll will come to appreciate the full meaning of Jesus’ greatest commandment, to truly walk Jesus’ talk, and that he will stop behaving as a Christian hypocrite and bigoted fool.

I shall close this with Mayhew again, who so eloquently writes in 1750:

“Tyranny brings ignorance and brutality along with it. It degrades men from their just rank, into the class of brutes. It damps their spirits. It suppressees arts. It extinguishes every spark of noble ardor and generosity in the breasts of those who are enslaved by it. It makes naturally-strong and great minds, feeble and little; and triumphs over the ruins of virtue and humanity. This is true of tyranny in every shape. There can be nothing great and good, where its influence reaches. For which reason it becomes every friend to truth and human kind; every lover of God and the Christian religion, to bear a part in opposing this hateful monster.”

I should like to publicly apologize for earlier characterizing Mark Driscoll as a hypocrite and “bigoted fool.” He is a great preacher and theologian, and even though I disagree with his position on women in ministry, it was wrong to declare him a fool when he clearly is brilliant.

I still listen to Driscoll and admire and deeply appreciate the man’s heart. He has taught me much. I am also convinced he is sincere in his position on women as elders. I humbly apologize for my foolish, ignorant words.

Do you remember when America’s black preachers spearheaded the movement to make segregation illegal in America? Someday I hope brothers and sisters of Christ will gather together as those black preachers did, work together, and spark a soul movement to plead the case that we are all equal in the sight of God. The outcome of this conviction would find practical application in which gifted women might teach and preach the word of God within the full scope of Reformed ministries.

I pray that someday all theologians and preachers will accept that Paul’s words ought not to be elevated above Jesus’ grandest teaching: that we love each other as ourselves.