Bill Kinnon has said several times that Driscoll seems to be a man who was never adequately discipled early in his Christian life, a flaw that plays itself out in myriad ways from the pulpit. Driscoll has pleaded guilty as charged as of a year or two before Kinnon made the observation.
But the sticky wicket here is that not everyone who pleads guilty is really remorseful about how things went. As with a certain other fornicating guy engaged to a pastor's daughter it could be asserted that "mere confession" is not repentance. Driscoll may have conceded that he wasn't really discipled early on; he can say that if he could go back and do things again he would do things differently; but this simply does not constitute demonstrable proof that he's improved in his weak spots.
Accordingly, I don't think Kinnon's observations are ultimately unfair.
Some people, however, felt differently. Scott M., for instance.
http://kinnon.tv/2012/01/the-interview-was-it-of-the-undisciplined-or-undiscipled.html#comment-5800
Scott M.
Wow. What a very arrogant thing to say. Like SilverStar, I also think that you’re attacking Driscoll in a very unfair manner and in an obviously biased manner. I listened to the interview as well and people like you and the interviewier are trying to attribute more negitivity and hostility to Driscoll than what’s really there. And you call yourself a Christian? Attacking a fellow brother in Christ in this manner? And why am I not surprised all the people here agreeing with you who have no idea what mission God has called Driscoll to preach in. I don’t go to Mars Hill Church but I do live in Seattle and all I have to say is if Driscoll used the “limp-wristed flower holding” language all of you people seem to be used to hearing the gospel of Christ preached Mars Hills would have folded up shop years ago.
All you people live in your perfect suburban bubbles and no nothing of reaching out to people who want nothing to do with you or the gospel of Christ.
You have zero right and absolutely no authority to come against a pastor like this and the fact that you think you do goes to show how full of yourselves you really are. You can tell a lot about a pastor by the fruit that he bears and the company he keeps. And last I checked 12,000 people and pastors like Matt Chandler, Tim Keller, DA Carson, Francis Chan, John Piper, etc looks like Kingdom winning fruit and fantastic company.
I always find the people who are the most critical the most jealous and envious.
Shame on all of you.
Scott doesn't seem to have noticed Driscoll pulling out of the Gospel Coalition since the whole affair of shaking hands with T. D. Jakes or in the wake of Don Carson pointing out that Driscoll's observations to Brierley suggest that Driscoll is a bit of an ignorant troll on British evangelicalism or that sheer numbers do not indicate fidelity to the Gospel.
One of the problems with this sort of Driscoll defender is they are too lazy and ignorant to even keep up with recent events. It makes their defense of Driscoll, too often predicated on lazy research and a big dollop of both the sunk cost fallacy and the halo effect, a bit embarrassing. To be sure, however, I've seen that problem at work in a lot of Driscoll critics, too. There are plenty of people who want to cling to the idea that Driscoll said Ted Haggard's wife let herself go. He never said that and what he said is actually crazier and more terrible if you read it in 2006 and can now consider it in light of the confessions of Real Marriage in 2012. But that's just my take on it.
As a former member of Mars Hill I can say that Nick Bulbeck's initial observation is more than right. Scott doesn't know or care that the "perfect little suburban bubble" is where the Driscoll family lives. A pastor who can mention from the pulpit that he's got three Tivos and two home theaters is just possibly not living in the hood if you know what I mean. If word that the Driscolls nest in Haller Lake is still accurate Haller Lake is not exactly the ghetto. Church plants in Orange County aren't exactly staying outside the perfect suburban bubble, either. Mars Hill Ranier Valley? Okay, I'll grant that's more downscale a neighborhood but I'm pretty sure Scott knows jack about even that.
Nick Bulbeck, he who described Driscoll memorably as a man who can transform the Bible into a sock puppet that always agrees with him, responded. It's a response worth considering.
http://kinnon.tv/2012/01/the-interview-was-it-of-the-undisciplined-or-undiscipled.html#comment-5841
Scott – I am an occasional visitor to this blog, which I came across while researching Mark Driscoll for reasons I’ll come to in just a moment. You may have a point; and incidentally, Bill, if I may humbly say so, your apology might have been better if addressed to SilverStar directly (though I concede that his/her addressing you as “Kinnon” was not exactly courteous). But I stray. Scott, your response to Bill contains several broad and generalised accusations for which I doubt very much you have evidence. If your correcting of “all the people agreeing with [Bill]” is coming from a position of greater love and Christian maturity, then you haven’t shown it here.
Anyway: my interest in Mark Driscoll. It began with a friend who was then a new Christian, who was frustrated by the lack of teaching in his local congregation, had come across Driscoll and was very strongly influenced by him. This friend asked us to join him and his wife in listening through to a series of Driscoll podcasts (on 1 Corinthians and spiritual gifts, in fact) and get together to compare notes. At the time, I was more than glad to do this because I’d heard nothing but good about Mr. Driscoll. But as I listened over several weeks, I went from being nonplussed, to surprised, to disappointed, to exasperated by what I heard. Namely, teaching that was riddled with errors, verses quoted incompletely or out of context, texts forced into highly questionable interpretations, and even (in once case) an extraordinary crass mis-quotation of a verse that would otherwise have undermined Driscoll’s teaching.
It’s unimportant that I don’t agree with all of Driscoll’s theology; I don’t disagree with all of it either. I have stated in this very blog that his rejection of “gentle Jesus: geek, and child” is something that we in the UK should pay earnest attention to. And anyway, who appointed me as Pope? I don’t own the Bible. My concern is that Driscoll acts and speaks as though, in his opinion, he does. And that is an attitude, and character, that I do not want to see reproduced in my brothers in Christ close to me.
In saying this, I am not “coming against a pastor”. What Driscoll gets up to within Mars Hill is a matter for himself, the other elders and (ultimately) the assembly of believers there. But he actively occupies a much higher and more prominent platform than that; he writes books and preaches sermons that dictate doctrine to the wider church both collectively and, as seen in That Interview, to individuals with whom he has no relationship and over whom he has never been appointed as an elder. His attempt to judge Brierley’s theology and even the way he expressed it (what does “you sound like a coward” mean?) was clearly an attempt to take authority; but he will not submit to it himself. Rather, he dismisses those who call him to account using ad hominem arguments, ridicule or accusation.
So no, I’m not coming against a pastor, but against the immaturity of a believer attempting to call the shots where he is not in leadership, and to make authoritative pronouncements for which he has no right and zero authority.
I have my doubts Scott M will care much about Bulbeck's points. If Driscoll stuck to his own steadily expanding empire and didn't remark on other pastors or constantly expand his network to include the likes of T. D Jakes, Steven Furtick and others then Driscoll could do his preaching via video and be a slightly more conservative Baptist streak of people preaching via TV screens we have for decades in the form of Paul Crouch or Pat Robertson.
But Driscoll seems to believe his own hype and his hype is that what he's doing is different and "real" and that this entitles him to sound off on things that he is increasingly showing he has lacked the study, learning and patience for. Don Carson's gentle rebuke toward Driscoll's public demonstration if ignorant trolling was, if I may be so bold, a bit too gentle. Driscoll's confession that Grace became his "functional pastor" makes Driscoll's treatment of Brierley more rather than less insipid, hypocritical, and self-serving. At least Brierley's man enough to admit his wife is his pastor, eh? Driscoll's problem may be spun as thinking the problem isn't that Brierley's wife is a functional pastor to Justin Brierley but that she's actually taken seriously as having a pastoral role for other men, too.
Driscoll's complaints about Brierley seem too much like the pot calling the kettle black. Maybe the pot thinks of itself as tupperware or something.
But Bulbeck has another point that won't be easily spotted, which he expanded on at From Bitter Waters to Sweet, the sobering thing about watching a guy like Driscoll buy into his own hype is that it's no less easy for any of us to fall into the same kind of trap. As an ex-Martian I can say I know what he means and not merely from some abstracted or hypothetical things.
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