For those who read this blog post from July 15, 2014:
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/07/mark-driscolls-history-of-flip-flops-on.html
you may recall that that blog post discussed Mark Driscoll's flip-flops over the years regarding T. D. Jakes. Chris Rosebrough over at Fighting for the Faith has broached the subject of Driscoll on Jakes circa `07
http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2014/07/kobayashi-maru.html
Showing posts with label jakes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jakes. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Mark Driscoll's history of flip-flops on TD Jakes from 2007 to 2014--from word-faith heretic to on-our-team trinitarian to no mention of his name lately
http://pastormark.tv/2011/09/26/elephant-room-round-2
https://www.facebook.com/pastormark/posts/10150332832916912
http://pastormark.tv/2012/01/31/10-reflections-on-the-elephant-room
Pastor Mark Driscoll
Jan 31, 2012
1. I appreciate godly friends who don’t want to defeat me publicly but rather help me privately.
Two, I believed it was an important event and rather than talking about Christian leaders, the opportunity to talk with them is important as it models humble but forthright disagreement. In the acrimonious age of the Internet this kind of modeling is important. I know I too have been guilty of talking about people rather than to them, so I do not exclude myself from the need to learn and mature in this area.
...
Some years ago when I was leading our megachurch with no formal theological training and having never been a formal member of any church let alone a pastor in any church, I was in a scrum with the emergent church and was completely full of myself. Dr. Gerry Breshears, former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, put an arm around me, built a degree program for me, loved me, served me, and helped me grow theologically.
How specifically tailored to Mark Driscoll was that program that Breshears built for Mark Driscoll? Because there's no illusion by now that the signal event at Elephant Room 2 was Mark Driscoll shaking hands with T. D. Jakes as though he were a traditional Trinitarian, is there? There's also little doubt that Driscoll had made a point of saying that nobody should presume anything about Jakes until a person could get on a plane for Jesus.
Oh, but guess what? This is a dead link now.
http://pastormark.tv/2011/09/29/reflections-on-james-macdonald-td-jakes-and-the-trinity
Well, conveniently enough Wenatchee The Hatchet discussed Driscoll's discussion of some of this stuff at the time.
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2011/10/mark-driscoll-on-t-d-jakes-suspend.html
From PastorMarkTV
...Admittedly, sometimes when speaking, a teacher presents a belief in a way that is inaccurate and unclear. So called “discernment” bloggers who are usually not connected to any noteworthy or respected evangelical Christian theologians, schools, denominations, ministries, churches, or pastors make their living taking what people said wrongly, transcribing it, and then falsely—or at least wrongly—accusing them of heresy when it is untrue.
The ear is more forgiving than the eye, and when we say something wrong, people tend to give the benefit of the doubt. But, when what is said is then written down, there is far more scrutiny as a statement is parsed like a Bible verse, which is unfair. ...
In closing, I want to thank Pastor MacDonald for putting together what could be an amazingly insightful event around the Trinity and many other issues that the Church needs to consider. I thank God that I have an opportunity to be involved and ask some questions. I want to encourage folks to wait until the event before making any final judgments about anyone or anything. And, I want to encourage all the men who are signed up to show up. We worship a Jesus who died for what he believed. The least we can do in his name is get on a plane for what we believe.
And it looks like this video content of Driscoll ripping on The Shack from his 2007 sermon series has been taken down, too.
But there's this, for people who might want to see for themselves Mark Driscoll ripping on The Shack as though its primary goal was discussing the Trinity rather than abuse. As noted at Wenatchee The Hatchet earlier, if Driscoll had been assessing The Shack as a literary work rather than a catechism he could have pointed out some of the problems in how the doctrine of the Trinity was depicted without treating the book as though it was "about" the Trinity.
In fact all references to The Shack by William Young have been obliterated from even the downloadable transcript.
http://download.marshill.com/files/2008/03/30/20080330_summary_summary_en_transcript.pdf
http://marshill.com/media/doctrine/trinity-god-is/summary
For a sampling of how at least one member of The Gospel Coalition took all of Driscoll's statements and actions toward Jakes as a sign of a bad trend, here's something to read.
The second lesson Driscoll mentioned from his time at Elephant Room 2 is interesting.
http://pastormark.tv/2012/01/31/10-reflections-on-the-elephant-room
7. Winning people is better than winning arguments.
...
It appears that in January 2012 in an interview with Justin Brierley that Mark Driscoll was really living out by example the precept he was articulating in the wake of Elephant Room 2, at least as transcribed (it seems) over at cognitive discopants.
http://cognitivediscopants.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/driscoll-brierley-on-women-in-leadership/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvuiOvcrT1k
Then there's this little gem of weirdness.
http://pastormark.tv/2012/01/31/10-reflections-on-the-elephant-room
6. Fear of man is deadly.
And, after all, the Phillipians series has been pulled. It's as though after the public dog and pony show of Elephant Room 2 Driscoll and company would just as soon nobody remembered any of that happened.
http://sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/pubs/9781589839984_OA.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/pastormark/posts/10150332832916912
http://pastormark.tv/2012/01/31/10-reflections-on-the-elephant-room
Pastor Mark Driscoll
Jan 31, 2012
1. I appreciate godly friends who don’t want to defeat me publicly but rather help me privately.
Two, I believed it was an important event and rather than talking about Christian leaders, the opportunity to talk with them is important as it models humble but forthright disagreement. In the acrimonious age of the Internet this kind of modeling is important. I know I too have been guilty of talking about people rather than to them, so I do not exclude myself from the need to learn and mature in this area.
...
Some years ago when I was leading our megachurch with no formal theological training and having never been a formal member of any church let alone a pastor in any church, I was in a scrum with the emergent church and was completely full of myself. Dr. Gerry Breshears, former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, put an arm around me, built a degree program for me, loved me, served me, and helped me grow theologically.
How specifically tailored to Mark Driscoll was that program that Breshears built for Mark Driscoll? Because there's no illusion by now that the signal event at Elephant Room 2 was Mark Driscoll shaking hands with T. D. Jakes as though he were a traditional Trinitarian, is there? There's also little doubt that Driscoll had made a point of saying that nobody should presume anything about Jakes until a person could get on a plane for Jesus.
Oh, but guess what? This is a dead link now.
http://pastormark.tv/2011/09/29/reflections-on-james-macdonald-td-jakes-and-the-trinity
Well, conveniently enough Wenatchee The Hatchet discussed Driscoll's discussion of some of this stuff at the time.
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2011/10/mark-driscoll-on-t-d-jakes-suspend.html
From PastorMarkTV
...Admittedly, sometimes when speaking, a teacher presents a belief in a way that is inaccurate and unclear. So called “discernment” bloggers who are usually not connected to any noteworthy or respected evangelical Christian theologians, schools, denominations, ministries, churches, or pastors make their living taking what people said wrongly, transcribing it, and then falsely—or at least wrongly—accusing them of heresy when it is untrue.
The ear is more forgiving than the eye, and when we say something wrong, people tend to give the benefit of the doubt. But, when what is said is then written down, there is far more scrutiny as a statement is parsed like a Bible verse, which is unfair. ...
In closing, I want to thank Pastor MacDonald for putting together what could be an amazingly insightful event around the Trinity and many other issues that the Church needs to consider. I thank God that I have an opportunity to be involved and ask some questions. I want to encourage folks to wait until the event before making any final judgments about anyone or anything. And, I want to encourage all the men who are signed up to show up. We worship a Jesus who died for what he believed. The least we can do in his name is get on a plane for what we believe.
And it looks like this video content of Driscoll ripping on The Shack from his 2007 sermon series has been taken down, too.
But there's this, for people who might want to see for themselves Mark Driscoll ripping on The Shack as though its primary goal was discussing the Trinity rather than abuse. As noted at Wenatchee The Hatchet earlier, if Driscoll had been assessing The Shack as a literary work rather than a catechism he could have pointed out some of the problems in how the doctrine of the Trinity was depicted without treating the book as though it was "about" the Trinity.
In fact all references to The Shack by William Young have been obliterated from even the downloadable transcript.
http://download.marshill.com/files/2008/03/30/20080330_summary_summary_en_transcript.pdf
http://marshill.com/media/doctrine/trinity-god-is/summary
For a sampling of how at least one member of The Gospel Coalition took all of Driscoll's statements and actions toward Jakes as a sign of a bad trend, here's something to read.
The second lesson Driscoll mentioned from his time at Elephant Room 2 is interesting.
http://pastormark.tv/2012/01/31/10-reflections-on-the-elephant-room
2. I don’t want to just make a point—I want to make a difference by God’s grace.
At an event hosted by Perry Noble, Andy Stanley gave one of the most helpful and practical leadership talks I’ve ever heard. He said as a leader we have to decide if we mainly want to make a point or to make a difference.
If we want to make a point, we don’t need to pursue, know, or love someone. We can simply sit back, create a caricature of them, and shoot them. If we want to make a difference, we have to pursue them, get to know them, understand them, love them, and serve them.
Making a point is easy. Making a point will get you a rabid online fan base who love it when there’s someone else’s blood in the water. Making a difference is hard. Making a difference will get you attacked by a rabid online fan base who love it when your blood is in the water.
...7. Winning people is better than winning arguments.
...
It appears that in January 2012 in an interview with Justin Brierley that Mark Driscoll was really living out by example the precept he was articulating in the wake of Elephant Room 2, at least as transcribed (it seems) over at cognitive discopants.
http://cognitivediscopants.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/driscoll-brierley-on-women-in-leadership/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvuiOvcrT1k
Brierley: Well, men. I mean, men come in different shapes and sizes. I mean, yah, both really. Men who are very masculine, men who are, I guess, on a spectrum, more effeminate. But I couldn’t say that there’s been a sort of dearth of men in the church since she’s arrived. I mean, Mark, I don’t want to get into a sort of argument.
Driscoll: No, no, you don’t want to sit in my seat, I understand. So does your wife do counseling with men? Sexual counseling? Does she talk about masturbation, pornography, the stuff that I do?
Brierley: Well no, she doesn’t.
Driscoll: Well, who does talk to the men about those things, especially the young men?
Brierley: Well there are other people that she can pass them on to. We have male elders in our church who, you know, would be able to tackle those kinds of questions. I mean, but would you speak with those kinds of issues to a female in your church?
Driscoll: Uh no. If they’re a married couple we might meet with them as a couple. But if it’s a woman, we would have women leaders meet with them.
Brierley: Sure, well it’s the same scenario in our church really.
Driscoll: Well except for who’s in charge.
Ah, yes, that's making a difference rather than a point, isn't it? That's winning the person rather than the argument, right?Then there's this little gem of weirdness.
http://pastormark.tv/2012/01/31/10-reflections-on-the-elephant-room
6. Fear of man is deadly.
Proverbs 29:25 says that fear of man is a trap or a snare, depending upon your translation. Fear of man causes us to live for the approval of our tribe and to fear criticism or ostracism from our tribe. Fear of man is a form of idolatry—living to please someone other than Jesus Christ. One day I will die and give an account and it won't be to a mirror or a blogger.
We will all die and give an account, but it won’t be to a blogger or a mirror. Right now I’m working on my next book based on Ephesians, with the big idea of what it means to have our identity rooted “in Christ.” In God’s providence, this season of criticism has been met with a rich and rewarding extended time in God’s Word helping me to do what wise counsel and I believe is right in light of the gospel, regardless of the outcome. I’m more a prophet than a politician.
Now aside the fact that the link in the quoted content above is dead, the idea that somehow a "prophet" is in any way a contrast to a politician in any sense, whether in biblical literature or even from the standpoint of any judicial/advisory role in the context of the history of biblical literature or even old pagan literature, is completely impossible to sustain. If you want a fascinating and free monograph on Divination, Politics and Ancient Near Eastern Empires (HT biblioblogger Jim West) read on. Chapter 5's proposal that Ezekiel's oracle about Gog and Magog subversively redeploys the literary genre of embodied chaos defeated by Marduk to subversively recast Gog as Marduk defeated by YHWH is intriguing, as is the proposal that ancient Hebrew biblical prophecy includes a strikingly high proportion of criticism of kingship and people that is atypical of prophetic oracles and divinatory literature. If Mark Driscoll really wanted to lean hard on what makes biblical prophecy unique it would be to grant that harsh and even brutal intra-critical writings within the Judeo-Christian faith tradition are the rule rather than the exception and that the canonization process paradoxically made this tradition public and canonical rather than "private", which would all completely fly in the face of his first "lesson" from Elephant Room 2, wouldn't it?
To briefly deploy the kind of argumentation and rhetoric Driscoll might deploy for a statement like this if it had come from someone elsse, the only sorts of people who would set up a contrast been a prophet and a politician on the basis of biblical texts, history and associated archaeology would be a completely ignorant fool or someone who's willing to lie to you. You can't even begin to discuss the books of Isaiah or Jeremiah without discussing ancient near eastern military campaigns and politics. And since the Mars Hill taxonomy of prophets, priests and kings has practically referred to ideas and ideology about church governance it's not a huge surprise the link in which Driscoll opined he was "more prophet than a politician" isn't even up any more. The fact remains that it was ever up to begin with.
Now some of you readers may be wondering why Wenatchee The Hatchet mentioned the date 2007. That's a fair question. The answer is that back in that session that is probably only known because it was the one where Mark Driscoll said "there's a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus ... ."
That was just in the Q&A section of a nearly three-hour session. Wenatchee The Hatchet has been given the full audio and in addition to the semi-notorious quips about the Mars Hill bus and the woodchipper it turns out Driscoll mentioned none other than T. D. Jakes. If Chris Rosebrough had access to the audio of the Mars Hill bus quip he may likely have this little bit of Driscollian commentary on T. D. Jakes and word faith from the same session. If not, well, may he have it soon.
01:02:36
Driscoll addresses a question from Tim Smith in an invitation only session from October 1, 2007
on word-faith teachers.
Yeah, those flipping wingnuts, that are word-faith, those are the guys that are on TV. They say that we are essentially little gods and as God spoke reality into existence we, too, with the power of our words, can speak reality into existence. I, I actually pulled up a quote from a T. D. Jakes sermon (I'm putting clips together for Philippians just to, I figure, I might as well criticize everyone) but there's this quote from T. D. Jakes saying (misquoting Proverbs) that the power of life and death is in the tongue and that you can create life by your words. That's a, that's a, that's a false god is what I become. I become God and I can, see, you and I, we don't do, we don't create God's word and we don't invent God's word we simply echo God's word. That's what a good preacher does. He echoes God's word. He says what God says in scripture. And then those guys give themselves permission for creating extra-biblical revelation that's authoritative like scripture--God told me this, God told me that, I got this vision, I got this, you know? All of that is false prophet. It's all heretekos.
01:02:36
Driscoll addresses a question from Tim Smith in an invitation only session from October 1, 2007
on word-faith teachers.
Yeah, those flipping wingnuts, that are word-faith, those are the guys that are on TV. They say that we are essentially little gods and as God spoke reality into existence we, too, with the power of our words, can speak reality into existence. I, I actually pulled up a quote from a T. D. Jakes sermon (I'm putting clips together for Philippians just to, I figure, I might as well criticize everyone) but there's this quote from T. D. Jakes saying (misquoting Proverbs) that the power of life and death is in the tongue and that you can create life by your words. That's a, that's a, that's a false god is what I become. I become God and I can, see, you and I, we don't do, we don't create God's word and we don't invent God's word we simply echo God's word. That's what a good preacher does. He echoes God's word. He says what God says in scripture. And then those guys give themselves permission for creating extra-biblical revelation that's authoritative like scripture--God told me this, God told me that, I got this vision, I got this, you know? All of that is false prophet. It's all heretekos.
How and why all the content from the 2008 Spiritual Warfare series didn't somehow qualify as extra-biblical revelation is probably not something anyone connected to Mars Hill really wants to field right now seeing as they purged all that content in the last few months, but the main point of this blog post is to show that from 2007 through 2012 and beyond Mark Driscoll has flip-flopped on Jakes on a few things. Or maybe he hasn't, maybe he's always considered T. D. Jakes to be a word-faith heretic since 2007 and has never waivered in that but decided that Jakes was a Trinitarian rather than a modalist based on some questions asked at Elephant Room 2. One wonders where you could even find any of that audio or video content this days.
And, after all, the Phillipians series has been pulled. It's as though after the public dog and pony show of Elephant Room 2 Driscoll and company would just as soon nobody remembered any of that happened.
http://sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/pubs/9781589839984_OA.pdf
Monday, January 23, 2012
Is Elephant Room 2 a stunt waiting to happen? is this possibly a rhetorical question?
Driscoll said we should reserve final judgment until, well, until he gets to moderate some kind of discussion with Jakes about whether Jakes is still a modalist. Reserve final judgment? Well, if we want to play the pious game only God gets to decide that, right, so that's what would have been good to point out.
Now I'm going to admit to being cynical here. Driscoll is simply not the only person to have ever heard that "maybe" Jakes has a modalistic view of the Trinity. It's not as though the Christian Research Institute and other groups and researchers haven't discussed Jakes' background in Oneness Pentecostalism in the last, oh, twenty years. Of course if you spent your teens and earliest twenties connected to Pentecostalism like I did you might be more alert to this stuff than a jack Catholic would have been so it's understandable not everyone would remember this stuff even if they heard or read of it.
All the same, asking us by way of a website to withhold final judgment until Elephant Room 2 and that since Jesus died for us the least we could do is ... get on a plane? Heh heh heh why I don't disagree with that. That is, in fact, the least you could do because having your assistant book a flight so you can go somewhere isn't much, not in terms of mental effort. If Driscoll plans to eviscerate Jakes for modalism then I won't feel bad for Jakes but there have been earlier opportunities to do this. This does not have to be a theological boxing match on the order that Dead Men was supposed to be ten years ago. By the way, the guy who made the case for infant baptism didn't do a bad job. I'm not 100% committed to infant baptism nor am I against it. Compared to modalism it's a lower level issues, isn't it?
So if by Elephant Room 2 Mark decides to hammer Jakes one of two things will happen. Jakes gets shown up to be a modalist and Mark gets to be a theological superhero praised on the order of being some new Spurgeon or Athanasius (which might make him feel pretty good about playing an important role in global Christianity). Or if it turns out Jakes isn't all that modalist Mark gets to be there for the coming out party of Jakes' formal orthodoxy. It's a can't lose scenario.
Since Mars Hill's core appeal is ostensibly to young men and at a practical level to a lot of white young men should the fur fly and things get unfriendly Driscoll doesn't have a ton to lose, the predominantly white neo-Calvinists that are drawn to him anyway won't have to consider that there's more than just a theological dispute that may end up at the heart of an Elephant Room meeting of the minds. Even from the earliest days some family and I wondered if the "counterculture" Driscoll kept talking about was only really a counterculture if you considered middle-class American white suburban life to be the ideal counterculture to Seattle. I've never been sure that it really is, and I've never been sure that the so-called counterculture Driscoll has urged Christians to embrace is a counterculture at all. It could be an edgier version of underwriting the American dream.
Not that the American dream is necessarily always, only, and ever a terrible thing but it's not the only way to live. There's plenty to be said for financial and social stability. It's okay to enjoy reading books and loving to read books. But as Halden Doerge put it a few years ago, there can come a point where collecting books and reading thousands of them can constitute its own form of consumerism. Other bloggers more on top of things than I have remarked about how the internet has made a whole generation or two of us knowledge junkies.
If knowledge puffs up we are a generation primed to be puffed up faster than any generation that has existed before us in the course of human history.This has nothing to do with choosing to be uninformed or informed and everything to do with whether or not we are vigilent to cultivate even a modicum of humility. When we have the opportunity to consider the fact that of the writing of books there is no end and that knowledge always grows far beyond what we can grasp we can let that humble us and give us opportunities to be grateful to learn or we can consider ourselves more on top of things than the next person and live accordingly. Too many self-appointed discern-o-bloggers tend to land in this second category, as do a few too many preachers. When Paul resolved to know nothing except Christ and Him crucified we know that this did not mean he couldn't quote Greek poets or philosophers.
Something along the lines of what Paul was getting at is that we should be willing to associate with the lowly. There's the social, political, and ethnic implications of that. It may be that in your neighborhood or my neighborhood there's only so many lowly folks you may run into but some of the apostolic admonition is more basic than telling you to hang out with the down and out. We're admonished to be willing to hang with anyone and not just a pet group. It'd be fun to hang out with writers and artists and musicians and intellectuals and talk about policy and music and literature and all that, but if I hang out with electricians and their kids and play board games that's fun, too. The electrician with a wife and a few kids has a vast wealth of experience, wisdom, knowledge, and friendship I value as much (or more, really) than the relationship I might have with folks in a blogging circle. Both kinds of relationship are precious to me these days, all the more seeing as I'm about to end month 27 of a hunt for steady work.
To the extent that it is possible the pursuit of knowledge as a way to serve others is a wonderful thing. You generally will not fail to benefit from this quest yourself but if you can make yourself useful along the way it helps others. If you pursue knowledge to establish yourself and your reputation you might do that but a weakness that can come with that is that somewhere along the way you may reveal that you got into this venture for yourself. While it remains to be seen how things will go down in the Elephant Room 2 there's little of me that ultimately cares how it goes down. Megachurch pastors talking about how they do their business will "probably" not effect my life as much as whether Christians here in the Puget Sound area are willing to help me network job leads or get some new glasses.
That is to say that there are treasures stored up in heaven and there are victories that have a more temporal value. Jesus warned to not do your good works for the praise of men or you have received your reward. Because plenty of people have taken issue with Jakes' theology in the past a venue like the Elephant Room may present a monstrous temptation to people who go to it and people who pay money to watch a bunch of guys ramble about things that won't effect their own lives.
Does that mean theology doesn't matter? I'd be the last person to say that seeing as I have relatives who are Eastern Orthodox, at Mars Hill, are not attending church, or are Pentecostal while I myself am Presbyterian. There's pretty much no family event in my life, ever, where I'm not constantly considering what might be helpful or divisive in a family social event depending on what theology is or isn't brought up in casual conversation. I used to want to discuss and debate these things all the time. Obviously I still like to discuss and debate things a lot of the time.
I guess what I'm trying to articulate is that one of the things that I began to learn over ten years connected to Mars Hill is that there's a lot of stuff a person can be proud of being part of that turns out to be nothing more than the reinvention of the wheel. This often comes because an impressionable guy in his twenties doesn't realize, per Ecclesiastes, that most of it all has been said and done before. In the case of the core teachings of the Christian faith it has also been done better before, in most cases incomparably better. The most Driscoll will pull off is a Cliff Notes' version of Athanasius.
Best case scenario if Jakes is a modalist and needs to get thrashed it's been done before. About all that we get out of it amounts to a pay-per-view dog and pony show. A few rock star pastors get to feel good about having engaged with big issues that matter while not much changes in the trenches. The thing about people who think wars are won by the air war is they know jack about actual military history. Nobody has ever won a war through aerial bombardment. Boots have to touch the ground and it's the boots touching the ground that get things done. In fact if boots don't touch the ground one of the great axioms of 20th century conflict kicks in, "If it flies, it dies." Why do you think we've switched so steadily to drones ... or were some of you folks talking about "air war" paying attention?
Which, ironically enough, may still totally fit! The air war is increasingly being done by remote control, by gamer types whose abilities become relevant to a new approach to recon work. The knights of the air stuff won't go away completely but as air superiority technology has evolved in the last century (keep in mind that aerial combat is not even truly a century old yet, at least not until 2015) that the rules of engagement change even as the core tactics and concepts don't. We are potentially arriving at a more remote control air power. This not only true of the military that does actual fighting, it may also be true of evangelical/neo-Calvinist leadership. The air war may increasingly be done by way of the ecclesiological equivalent of pilots sending out drones through whom they wage their part of the air war.
An event like the Elephant Room 2 may just highlight this by anachronistically going back to the dueling pilots of a century ago. What people may not realize about those old fighters like the Red Baron is they knew their role was fairly insignificant. Want to know what the real point of the air war was? To control intelligence gathering operations and mapping procedures that guided the infantry and artillary movements in the ground war. If war is what is pursued when diplomacy by other means has failed the air war is what happens when propaganda and information gathering have not quite done the job and you need to compensate for a possibility that the other team has made more progress than you want them to.
By now I've probably stumbled upon my point by way of discovery, air wars do not win real wars and air wars in American Christendom are simply not the same as shared lives. If the Elephant Room is air war it is perhaps simply guys talking about how the air war should be conducted on the assumption that, why yes, strategic bombing does change the course of military campaigns. Except that it doesn't, not without things like army and navy folks going and getting things done. If Jakes is a modalist and Driscoll throws down will this impact how many church members Jakes has? No. If Jakes isn't a modalist and Driscoll says he's a brother in the Lord will this change anything? It will be business as usual. Of course either way it will work out fine for Mark. He's got nothing he can possibly lose. But whether or not this does anything meaningful to advance the kingdom of God is not exactly an issue. Ten years ago I would not have said anything this jaded but a lot can happen (or, perhaps as importantly, not happen) in ten years.
Now I'm going to admit to being cynical here. Driscoll is simply not the only person to have ever heard that "maybe" Jakes has a modalistic view of the Trinity. It's not as though the Christian Research Institute and other groups and researchers haven't discussed Jakes' background in Oneness Pentecostalism in the last, oh, twenty years. Of course if you spent your teens and earliest twenties connected to Pentecostalism like I did you might be more alert to this stuff than a jack Catholic would have been so it's understandable not everyone would remember this stuff even if they heard or read of it.
All the same, asking us by way of a website to withhold final judgment until Elephant Room 2 and that since Jesus died for us the least we could do is ... get on a plane? Heh heh heh why I don't disagree with that. That is, in fact, the least you could do because having your assistant book a flight so you can go somewhere isn't much, not in terms of mental effort. If Driscoll plans to eviscerate Jakes for modalism then I won't feel bad for Jakes but there have been earlier opportunities to do this. This does not have to be a theological boxing match on the order that Dead Men was supposed to be ten years ago. By the way, the guy who made the case for infant baptism didn't do a bad job. I'm not 100% committed to infant baptism nor am I against it. Compared to modalism it's a lower level issues, isn't it?
So if by Elephant Room 2 Mark decides to hammer Jakes one of two things will happen. Jakes gets shown up to be a modalist and Mark gets to be a theological superhero praised on the order of being some new Spurgeon or Athanasius (which might make him feel pretty good about playing an important role in global Christianity). Or if it turns out Jakes isn't all that modalist Mark gets to be there for the coming out party of Jakes' formal orthodoxy. It's a can't lose scenario.
Since Mars Hill's core appeal is ostensibly to young men and at a practical level to a lot of white young men should the fur fly and things get unfriendly Driscoll doesn't have a ton to lose, the predominantly white neo-Calvinists that are drawn to him anyway won't have to consider that there's more than just a theological dispute that may end up at the heart of an Elephant Room meeting of the minds. Even from the earliest days some family and I wondered if the "counterculture" Driscoll kept talking about was only really a counterculture if you considered middle-class American white suburban life to be the ideal counterculture to Seattle. I've never been sure that it really is, and I've never been sure that the so-called counterculture Driscoll has urged Christians to embrace is a counterculture at all. It could be an edgier version of underwriting the American dream.
Not that the American dream is necessarily always, only, and ever a terrible thing but it's not the only way to live. There's plenty to be said for financial and social stability. It's okay to enjoy reading books and loving to read books. But as Halden Doerge put it a few years ago, there can come a point where collecting books and reading thousands of them can constitute its own form of consumerism. Other bloggers more on top of things than I have remarked about how the internet has made a whole generation or two of us knowledge junkies.
If knowledge puffs up we are a generation primed to be puffed up faster than any generation that has existed before us in the course of human history.This has nothing to do with choosing to be uninformed or informed and everything to do with whether or not we are vigilent to cultivate even a modicum of humility. When we have the opportunity to consider the fact that of the writing of books there is no end and that knowledge always grows far beyond what we can grasp we can let that humble us and give us opportunities to be grateful to learn or we can consider ourselves more on top of things than the next person and live accordingly. Too many self-appointed discern-o-bloggers tend to land in this second category, as do a few too many preachers. When Paul resolved to know nothing except Christ and Him crucified we know that this did not mean he couldn't quote Greek poets or philosophers.
Something along the lines of what Paul was getting at is that we should be willing to associate with the lowly. There's the social, political, and ethnic implications of that. It may be that in your neighborhood or my neighborhood there's only so many lowly folks you may run into but some of the apostolic admonition is more basic than telling you to hang out with the down and out. We're admonished to be willing to hang with anyone and not just a pet group. It'd be fun to hang out with writers and artists and musicians and intellectuals and talk about policy and music and literature and all that, but if I hang out with electricians and their kids and play board games that's fun, too. The electrician with a wife and a few kids has a vast wealth of experience, wisdom, knowledge, and friendship I value as much (or more, really) than the relationship I might have with folks in a blogging circle. Both kinds of relationship are precious to me these days, all the more seeing as I'm about to end month 27 of a hunt for steady work.
To the extent that it is possible the pursuit of knowledge as a way to serve others is a wonderful thing. You generally will not fail to benefit from this quest yourself but if you can make yourself useful along the way it helps others. If you pursue knowledge to establish yourself and your reputation you might do that but a weakness that can come with that is that somewhere along the way you may reveal that you got into this venture for yourself. While it remains to be seen how things will go down in the Elephant Room 2 there's little of me that ultimately cares how it goes down. Megachurch pastors talking about how they do their business will "probably" not effect my life as much as whether Christians here in the Puget Sound area are willing to help me network job leads or get some new glasses.
That is to say that there are treasures stored up in heaven and there are victories that have a more temporal value. Jesus warned to not do your good works for the praise of men or you have received your reward. Because plenty of people have taken issue with Jakes' theology in the past a venue like the Elephant Room may present a monstrous temptation to people who go to it and people who pay money to watch a bunch of guys ramble about things that won't effect their own lives.
Does that mean theology doesn't matter? I'd be the last person to say that seeing as I have relatives who are Eastern Orthodox, at Mars Hill, are not attending church, or are Pentecostal while I myself am Presbyterian. There's pretty much no family event in my life, ever, where I'm not constantly considering what might be helpful or divisive in a family social event depending on what theology is or isn't brought up in casual conversation. I used to want to discuss and debate these things all the time. Obviously I still like to discuss and debate things a lot of the time.
I guess what I'm trying to articulate is that one of the things that I began to learn over ten years connected to Mars Hill is that there's a lot of stuff a person can be proud of being part of that turns out to be nothing more than the reinvention of the wheel. This often comes because an impressionable guy in his twenties doesn't realize, per Ecclesiastes, that most of it all has been said and done before. In the case of the core teachings of the Christian faith it has also been done better before, in most cases incomparably better. The most Driscoll will pull off is a Cliff Notes' version of Athanasius.
Best case scenario if Jakes is a modalist and needs to get thrashed it's been done before. About all that we get out of it amounts to a pay-per-view dog and pony show. A few rock star pastors get to feel good about having engaged with big issues that matter while not much changes in the trenches. The thing about people who think wars are won by the air war is they know jack about actual military history. Nobody has ever won a war through aerial bombardment. Boots have to touch the ground and it's the boots touching the ground that get things done. In fact if boots don't touch the ground one of the great axioms of 20th century conflict kicks in, "If it flies, it dies." Why do you think we've switched so steadily to drones ... or were some of you folks talking about "air war" paying attention?
Which, ironically enough, may still totally fit! The air war is increasingly being done by remote control, by gamer types whose abilities become relevant to a new approach to recon work. The knights of the air stuff won't go away completely but as air superiority technology has evolved in the last century (keep in mind that aerial combat is not even truly a century old yet, at least not until 2015) that the rules of engagement change even as the core tactics and concepts don't. We are potentially arriving at a more remote control air power. This not only true of the military that does actual fighting, it may also be true of evangelical/neo-Calvinist leadership. The air war may increasingly be done by way of the ecclesiological equivalent of pilots sending out drones through whom they wage their part of the air war.
An event like the Elephant Room 2 may just highlight this by anachronistically going back to the dueling pilots of a century ago. What people may not realize about those old fighters like the Red Baron is they knew their role was fairly insignificant. Want to know what the real point of the air war was? To control intelligence gathering operations and mapping procedures that guided the infantry and artillary movements in the ground war. If war is what is pursued when diplomacy by other means has failed the air war is what happens when propaganda and information gathering have not quite done the job and you need to compensate for a possibility that the other team has made more progress than you want them to.
By now I've probably stumbled upon my point by way of discovery, air wars do not win real wars and air wars in American Christendom are simply not the same as shared lives. If the Elephant Room is air war it is perhaps simply guys talking about how the air war should be conducted on the assumption that, why yes, strategic bombing does change the course of military campaigns. Except that it doesn't, not without things like army and navy folks going and getting things done. If Jakes is a modalist and Driscoll throws down will this impact how many church members Jakes has? No. If Jakes isn't a modalist and Driscoll says he's a brother in the Lord will this change anything? It will be business as usual. Of course either way it will work out fine for Mark. He's got nothing he can possibly lose. But whether or not this does anything meaningful to advance the kingdom of God is not exactly an issue. Ten years ago I would not have said anything this jaded but a lot can happen (or, perhaps as importantly, not happen) in ten years.
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Mark Driscoll on T. D. Jakes--suspend judgment until it's proven that Jakes wrote The Shack
http://pastormark.tv/2011/09/29/reflections-on-james-macdonald-td-jakes-and-the-trinity
http://jamesmacdonald.com/blog/?p=9055
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/thabitianyabwile/2011/10/01/collateral-damage-in-the-invitation-of-t-d-jakes-to-the-elephant-room/
From PastorMarkTV
...
Admittedly, sometimes when speaking, a teacher presents a belief in a way that is inaccurate and unclear. So called “discernment” bloggers who are usually not connected to any noteworthy or respected evangelical Christian theologians, schools, denominations, ministries, churches, or pastors make their living taking what people said wrongly, transcribing it, and then falsely—or at least wrongly—accusing them of heresy when it is untrue.
The ear is more forgiving than the eye, and when we say something wrong, people tend to give the benefit of the doubt. But, when what is said is then written down, there is far more scrutiny as a statement is parsed like a Bible verse, which is unfair. ...
In closing, I want to thank Pastor MacDonald for putting together what could be an amazingly insightful event around the Trinity and many other issues that the Church needs to consider. I thank God that I have an opportunity to be involved and ask some questions. I want to encourage folks to wait until the event before making any final judgments about anyone or anything. And, I want to encourage all the men who are signed up to show up. We worship a Jesus who died for what he believed. The least we can do in his name is get on a plane for what we believe.
Okay ... so Driscoll is encouraging everyone to wait until there's a meeting of the minds before making any final judgments about anyone or anything. I'm glad to know Driscoll is encouraging people to suspend final judgments about the doctrinal purity and character of a man like Jakes who has been preaching for decades, just like Driscoll himself refrained from making final judgments about William Young and Young's novel The Shack back in 2008. Driscoll totally waited to actually go talk to the best-selling author about what his actual views on the Trinity are before going off in public denouncing Young as a heretic.
Oh ... wait a minute ...
http://marshill.com/media/doctrine/trinity-god-is/the-shack
Maybe Mark Driscoll didn't avoid making a rush to a final judgment about anyone and anything in the case of William Young and The Shack. So when Driscoll says we should wait with Jakes, and that we should not assume the worst about mere words like "manifestations" in a doctrinal statement maybe he just means "Do as I say, not as I did." There needs to be time for the megachurch pastors Driscoll, MacDonald and Jakes to meet and discuss this stuff. We should give folks the benefit of a doubt because Jakes hangs out with James MacDonald sometimes, I guess, and we are supposed to be doing what Driscoll says we should do and not follow his example. Driscoll seems tentative only because Jakes sometimes associates with MacDonald and MacDonald's cool so a good ol' boy network among megachurch pastors has to count for something, doesn't it? After publicly using Joel Osteen as an example of an unhealthy prosperity theology (Driscoll denunciations can be so stern he can make people sound like heretics even when he agrees they're fellow believers 02-05-2013) and implying that Ed Young Jr's sex sermons were creepy and overselling sex (and obviously not as good as Driscoll's own quarter year Peasant Princess) .... maybe Driscoll just feels he needs to cut a megachurch pastor some slack now? I don't know.
But here is something I am relatively confident about--William Young is, let us remember, a novelist and not a pastor. He is not regarded by anyone as a pastor, or a theologian, or a spiritual authority on jack squat. Let me reframe this a bit for further clarity, William Young self-published his one novel with a few other guys' help (who he's been suing, apparently) and it's a novel. It's a made-up story that does not present itself as a sermon, as a catechism, as a creed, as a confessional statement, or anything other than a tale about a person. Young never seems to have been out to create the next Nicene Creed or the next Heidelberg catechism or some Westminster Confession. It's just a novel, and it is to date, apparently the only novel he has published. There may not even be a second one, folks.
T. D. Jakes, by contrast, is a megachurch pastor who has been in ministry for decades, and Driscoll believes Jakes deserves the most leniency we can muster. Innocent until Driscoll thinks Jakes is guilty even though Driscoll seems to have not really bothered to investigate things much. Okay, that Senator Grassley probe from 2007 didn't come up with anything untoward. Untoward was what got Jakes' son Jermaine in legal trouble but that's a different kind of untoward behavior and that's not T. D.'s fault except in the neo-Calvinist realm of headship where "headship means that as the father, even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility." Driscoll at least used to put it that way.
But something seems backwards here. Wouldn't the person to be uncompromising and confrontational with is an actual pastor who preaches at a megachurch with 30,000 members; who's been in ministry for decadess; who has met with presidents of the United States; and has published numerous books? Wouldn't the person to take the wait-and-see approach have been the one-hit wonder novelist no one had heard of before, who has no theological training, apparently isn't even attending a church, and hasn't even had any other work published?
I'm not talking about the actual contents of either Jakes' writing or Young's writing here (I don't care for either, for what little that's worth). I'm talking about a sense of proportion and scale. Complaining about Young's novel and not addressing whether or not Jakes' doctrine is problematic is like some parent who thinks that rock and roll is a corrupting influence on his kids because of "Henry VIII" by Herman's Hermits. So he forbids his kids to listen to that degenerate song. He then turns around and says to his kids that he's gotta take the devil music to the church parking lot bonfire. He'll be back in maybe twenty minutes. One of the kids pipes up that a friend has lent him a country album. Well, country music is all right, thinks the father. So he gives them permission to listen to that innocuous-looking album by Ween called 12 Golden Country Greats. They can listen to that. What could possibly go wrong?
Off the father goes to dispose of that Herman's Hermits album. His kids listen to Ween.
http://jamesmacdonald.com/blog/?p=9055
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/thabitianyabwile/2011/10/01/collateral-damage-in-the-invitation-of-t-d-jakes-to-the-elephant-room/
From PastorMarkTV
...
Admittedly, sometimes when speaking, a teacher presents a belief in a way that is inaccurate and unclear. So called “discernment” bloggers who are usually not connected to any noteworthy or respected evangelical Christian theologians, schools, denominations, ministries, churches, or pastors make their living taking what people said wrongly, transcribing it, and then falsely—or at least wrongly—accusing them of heresy when it is untrue.
The ear is more forgiving than the eye, and when we say something wrong, people tend to give the benefit of the doubt. But, when what is said is then written down, there is far more scrutiny as a statement is parsed like a Bible verse, which is unfair. ...
In closing, I want to thank Pastor MacDonald for putting together what could be an amazingly insightful event around the Trinity and many other issues that the Church needs to consider. I thank God that I have an opportunity to be involved and ask some questions. I want to encourage folks to wait until the event before making any final judgments about anyone or anything. And, I want to encourage all the men who are signed up to show up. We worship a Jesus who died for what he believed. The least we can do in his name is get on a plane for what we believe.
Okay ... so Driscoll is encouraging everyone to wait until there's a meeting of the minds before making any final judgments about anyone or anything. I'm glad to know Driscoll is encouraging people to suspend final judgments about the doctrinal purity and character of a man like Jakes who has been preaching for decades, just like Driscoll himself refrained from making final judgments about William Young and Young's novel The Shack back in 2008. Driscoll totally waited to actually go talk to the best-selling author about what his actual views on the Trinity are before going off in public denouncing Young as a heretic.
Oh ... wait a minute ...
http://marshill.com/media/doctrine/trinity-god-is/the-shack
Maybe Mark Driscoll didn't avoid making a rush to a final judgment about anyone and anything in the case of William Young and The Shack. So when Driscoll says we should wait with Jakes, and that we should not assume the worst about mere words like "manifestations" in a doctrinal statement maybe he just means "Do as I say, not as I did." There needs to be time for the megachurch pastors Driscoll, MacDonald and Jakes to meet and discuss this stuff. We should give folks the benefit of a doubt because Jakes hangs out with James MacDonald sometimes, I guess, and we are supposed to be doing what Driscoll says we should do and not follow his example. Driscoll seems tentative only because Jakes sometimes associates with MacDonald and MacDonald's cool so a good ol' boy network among megachurch pastors has to count for something, doesn't it? After publicly using Joel Osteen as an example of an unhealthy prosperity theology (Driscoll denunciations can be so stern he can make people sound like heretics even when he agrees they're fellow believers 02-05-2013) and implying that Ed Young Jr's sex sermons were creepy and overselling sex (and obviously not as good as Driscoll's own quarter year Peasant Princess) .... maybe Driscoll just feels he needs to cut a megachurch pastor some slack now? I don't know.
But here is something I am relatively confident about--William Young is, let us remember, a novelist and not a pastor. He is not regarded by anyone as a pastor, or a theologian, or a spiritual authority on jack squat. Let me reframe this a bit for further clarity, William Young self-published his one novel with a few other guys' help (who he's been suing, apparently) and it's a novel. It's a made-up story that does not present itself as a sermon, as a catechism, as a creed, as a confessional statement, or anything other than a tale about a person. Young never seems to have been out to create the next Nicene Creed or the next Heidelberg catechism or some Westminster Confession. It's just a novel, and it is to date, apparently the only novel he has published. There may not even be a second one, folks.
T. D. Jakes, by contrast, is a megachurch pastor who has been in ministry for decades, and Driscoll believes Jakes deserves the most leniency we can muster. Innocent until Driscoll thinks Jakes is guilty even though Driscoll seems to have not really bothered to investigate things much. Okay, that Senator Grassley probe from 2007 didn't come up with anything untoward. Untoward was what got Jakes' son Jermaine in legal trouble but that's a different kind of untoward behavior and that's not T. D.'s fault except in the neo-Calvinist realm of headship where "headship means that as the father, even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility." Driscoll at least used to put it that way.
But something seems backwards here. Wouldn't the person to be uncompromising and confrontational with is an actual pastor who preaches at a megachurch with 30,000 members; who's been in ministry for decadess; who has met with presidents of the United States; and has published numerous books? Wouldn't the person to take the wait-and-see approach have been the one-hit wonder novelist no one had heard of before, who has no theological training, apparently isn't even attending a church, and hasn't even had any other work published?
I'm not talking about the actual contents of either Jakes' writing or Young's writing here (I don't care for either, for what little that's worth). I'm talking about a sense of proportion and scale. Complaining about Young's novel and not addressing whether or not Jakes' doctrine is problematic is like some parent who thinks that rock and roll is a corrupting influence on his kids because of "Henry VIII" by Herman's Hermits. So he forbids his kids to listen to that degenerate song. He then turns around and says to his kids that he's gotta take the devil music to the church parking lot bonfire. He'll be back in maybe twenty minutes. One of the kids pipes up that a friend has lent him a country album. Well, country music is all right, thinks the father. So he gives them permission to listen to that innocuous-looking album by Ween called 12 Golden Country Greats. They can listen to that. What could possibly go wrong?
Off the father goes to dispose of that Herman's Hermits album. His kids listen to Ween.
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