Mars Hill Shoreline and Pastor Tim Beltz

Mars Hill Shoreline and Pastor Tim Beltz

http://marshill.com/2010/10/07/when-mars-hill-became-multi-campus-church-2006-present

by Pastor AJ Hamilton

In early 2006, Mars Hill first became a multi-site church when we launched the Shoreline campus with live-streaming over the Web. This meant that at times, the sermon would look like a badly dubbed Samurai movie or Pastor Mark's image would explode into a messy digital kaleidoscope of color. We also increased the number of elders from 15 to 24, adding Pastors James Noriega and Bill Clem from Doxa (a former A29 church plant that is now our West Seattle campus). Campus planting took off for a season and Bellevue, Downtown, Olympia and Federal Way launched and continue to grow, relaunch into new facilities and plan for further expansion through new works. 

As important as the acquisition of West Seattle was for Mars Hill’s path to multisite the first step was what is now Mars Hill Shoreline.  The first reference I could find (and there may be earlier ones) to what has become Mars Hill Shoreline shows up here. This is the same sermon in which Driscoll mentioned the acquisition of what is now Mars Hill West Seattle and, with it, the pastoral leadership of Pastor Bill Clem and now former pastor James Noriega.

http://marshill.com/media/1st-corinthians/spiritual-gifts-part-ii#transcript

Part 26: One Body, Many parts

1 Corinthians 12:12-26

Pastor Mark Driscoll

July 30, 2006

There is the building a block away. We purchased it a year ago. It was heading into foreclosure. We purchased it for under market value. It has increased in value since that time, and this is just some interior and exterior shots of the space, and our plan was to turn that into a large room to see maybe 800 to 1,000 people. And so, what we have instead decided to do, first, we’re going to keep that building – and it’s been great – ‘cause according to King 5 television, they had a report that said that 98105, which is this zip code, is one of the five fastest, increasing valued zip codes in the State of Washington. Since we bought that building, as it was going to foreclosure, we already have gained a million dollars in equity in that building. We have no intention of getting rid of it, but here’s what we do want to do with it. We want to knock half the building down and just turn it into parking to increase our parking capacity. Secondly, the other half of the building – we don’t feel that we have to use right now because of some other things that have come available that we’re gonna tell you about – but we’re gonna keep it. We’ll rent it out with the hopes that a tenant will pay most of our mortgage. We can keep it then, and then if we ever do wanna build on it, we can develop it and do whatever we want with it but we feel it’s important right now to watch and see what happens with this neighborhood, particularly what happens to parking, and then make a determination down the road as to best use.

And the reason that we don’t need to develop it as we had thought is because of some other things have come available. Among those is Shoreline and these are some shots from the Shoreline campus and where we are meeting at Christa Ministries, at Shermer Auditorium. Four hundred seats, plus a full daycare. It’s amazing kid space. Huge gym for the kids to run around in. Lots of parking. They’re letting us use that on Sunday and now this fall for beginning, for midweek programming for nothing. It’s free. We don’t even pay for janitorial, we don’t even pay for utilities. It is a savings of over $100,000.00 a year. We can be there for two more years. It’s a savings of 200 plus thousand dollars. We love Christa. We’re very, very grateful for their kindness to us. Eventually, we will need to purchase a permanent site for our Shoreline. We’ll need to get them a permanent purchase campus, ‘cause we can only be there for two years. I mean, wouldn’t it be great if somebody let you have the house for two years for free? I mean that’s a very kind gift, so we are actively looking for another place to buy.

I must note at the outset that this sermon transcript has several easily verifiable misspellings.  Even when you use primary sources you need to be careful.  What in the transcript is spelled “Christa” is really CRISTA.  What is spelled “Shermer” in the transcript is really Schirmer Auditorium.  These are not small details in terms of actual names, though it’d be easy for a casual reader who is unfamiliar with the Puget Sound area to overlook these points.

Yet despite spelling mistakes, the basic claim that CRISTA ministries gave Mars Hill a rent free opportunity to use Schirmer Auditorium seems to be correct.  CRISTA is a ministry and a ministry like CRISTA giving Mars Hill a couple of years of rent free access to Schirmer Auditorium is, as Driscoll put it in this sermon, a remarkable deal.  How and why did a ministry like CRISTA give Mars Hill years of rent-free access to Schirmer Auditorium? I don’t mean the “it’s all about Jesus” reason, I mean "who was actually in a position to broker the arrangement personally or had the connections to set up the rent-free arrangement?”

Well, what about Tim Beltz?

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2006/06/19/daily16.html

Puget Sound Business Journal

Tuesday June 20, 2006

"The larger adoption agencies may be the only organizations able to survive in this arena. Time will tell," said Tim Beltz, executive vice president of Crista Ministries, in a statement.

Tim Beltz was quoted in the Puget Sound Business Journal article regarding the closing of New Hope Adoption agency. Beltz, as you can see, was referred to as executive vice president of Crista Ministries in June 20, 2006.

This link is a profile from xpastor.org that is obvious out of date but it is also informative. Beltz was not just executive vice president of Crista Ministries, according to this biography.

http://www.xpastor.org/bio/beltz_tim.html

Prior to joining the staff in 2007, he served as the Chief Operating Officer of CRISTA Ministries, and Executive Director of the Millionaire Club Charity serving homeless men and women.

Another link attesting to Beltz’ role as Chief Operating Officer of CRISTA Ministries is here:

http://www.convergentgroup.net/about.html

Prior to that, he served as the COO of CRISTA Ministries, a large faith-based and multi-faceted organization in Shoreline, Washington, where he oversaw the operations of 10 ministries and Human Resources.

So if Tim Beltz were executive vice president in 2006 and also served as Chief Operating Officer of CRISTA he would seem to have been in a good position to set up the rent-free access to Schirmer Auditorium at the CRISTA facilities, wouldn’t he? The question at hand is did Tim Beltz set up the rent-free arrangement in which Mars Hill got to use Schirmer Auditorium at no charge? 

According to the old VoxPop Network listings about leadership Tim Beltz had been attending Mars Hill for four years.  The earliest screen capture The WayBack Machine was able to pull is here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080507010855/http://voxpopnetwork.com/vision/about/

So if this is accurate it indicates that in May 07, 2008 Tim Beltz was mentioned as having attended Mars Hill for four years.  He would have started attending sometime in 2004 then.

So if Driscoll established in his July 30, 2006 sermon that CRISTA Ministries was letting Mars Hill use the Schirmer Auditorium free of charge for a couple of years and Tim Beltz was mentioned as having attended Mars Hill for four years in 2008 then this means Tim Beltz was attending Mars Hill for a few years while also Chief Operations Officer and executive vice president of CRISTA Ministries, wouldn’t it?

Now on November 4, 2007 Mark Driscoll preached the sermon “The Rebel’s Guide to Joy in Humility”. In this sermon he referred to a couple of men who became pastors. One of them was James Noriega who had recently been promoted to the Board of Directors and placed in charge of alcohol and recovery group ministries.  James Noriega and Bill Clem played important roles in getting the property that is now Mars Hill West Seattle to Mars Hill in 2006.

In the sermon excerpt below Driscoll describes Tim and the Tim in question

http://marshill.com/media/rebels-guide-to-joy/the-rebels-guide-to-joy-in-humility#transcript

Another man we appointed to that board is a man names Tim. I’ll tell you his story. He has an MBA in not-for-profit management. He has 20 or 30 years, I can’t remember, of not-for-profit manage experience. He’s run some very large, very significant ministries. He’s consulted for very large, very significant ministries. He nominated himself for eldership. Was a faithful member of this church. And he said, “You know, I think I can help. I think my management background will help organize Mars Hill.” We said, “Okay, well what’s your proposal?” He said, “I’ll work 50 hours a week for six months free of charge. I’ll quit my well paying job. I’ll shut down most of my consulting business. I’ll reduce my expenses, live off of my savings. I’ll nominate myself for eldership. I will work for free for six months, and I’ll come under Pastor Jamie, who’s young enough to be my son, and has none of the experience or education that I do so that I can humbly serve him so that Mars Hill can become a better church.”

God opposes the proud. Gives grace to the humble. The elders vote and say, “He should be an Executive Elder and on the Board of Directors.”

So the elders voted this Tim to be an Executive Elder and on the Board of Directors?  Which elders voted that way?  There’s no room for doubt at this point that the “Tim” Driscoll has been referring to was Tim Beltz.

http://marshill.com/2008/04/30/architecting-the-church-in-practice

... Not all of these men are paid staff. Executive Elders – A sub-team of the Board of Directors who serve as the leadership team of Mars Hill. The Executive Elders are responsible for the day-to-day leadership, management, and oversight of Mars Hill. At present, the Executive Elders are: Jamie Munson, Mark Driscoll, Scott Thomas, Bubba Jennings, and Tim Beltz (read more about them here).

http://marshill.com/media/generous/generous-part-2b#transcript

December 21, 2008

Part 4: Generous (Part 2B)

Pastor Driscoll: Along that line, what I wanted to do is bring out Pastor Jamie Munson (your lead pastor), Pastor Tim Beltz (your executive pastor), and I wanted them to describe to you kind of where we’re at, where we’re going, what we’re doing. A little bit of business, and then we’ll sing some Christmas songs.

Hey guys, you want to take it, buddy? Maybe introduce Tim. You guys all know who Jamie is, right? Lead pastor – was up last week? Yes? No? You guys know Jamie? Cool.

[Applause]

I don’t oversee the money. You don’t want me counting stuff, that’s for sure. I’m not a systems, policies, and procedures guy. These men have great skills, gifts, and abilities. And they run the administrative and stewardship load of Mars Hill. And so, rather than me making mistakes, I thought it’d just be best for them to let you know what’s going on.

Pastor Munson: Appreciate you guys making the hike in the snow. So, this is Pastor Tim Beltz. He’s the executive pastor of Mars Hill, a dear friend. He runs all of the operation side of what we do as a church. So, we’re a church, we’re about ministry, but we have to have budgets, we have to have buildings, we have to have staff, we have to have policies, procedures. Tim oversees all of that.

He has a lot of experience in nonprofit management. He was the chief operating officer at Crista Ministries, and the interim CEO up there for a number of years. He has an MBA. He’s overseen a $200 million budget in the nonprofit world. Lots of experience.

And so we brought him in about a year-and-a-half ago, to come on and oversee this area for us. He does a great job. I love working with him. A good man. So, I’m gonna turn it over to him to give you guys an inside look at some of the not-so-sexy part of Mars Hill, but the important part.

He keeps us out of jail. He does the good work, the hard work, to make sure we’re above reproach in a lot of those systems. So, I’ll let you kind of give us an overview of what does some of the financial accountability look like at Mars Hill?

Pastor Beltz: That’s a tough act to follow. Thank you. Just a couple of real quick points. We take this really seriously, the financial controls of the church. Our generosity as a – I’m a members of Mars Hill Church, obviously, and so it’s our generosity that really gives us an opportunity to be great stewards here at Mars Hill Church.

And so, just walking through this, the financial controls piece, it’s as simple as the two people that count the money and then deposit it. We have a chain of custody for that money, to make sure that there’s no opportunity for making errors or mistakes or having any problems.

It’s as complicated as having budget and expense reports that are reviewed at multiple levels of management. It’s also a system where Pastor Mark and Pastor Jamie, they don’t sign any checks. Their names aren’t on any of the accounts so that we can keep them above reproach, and that we can allow those who really enjoy doing those kind of things, and who are good at it, that we can.

…

Pastor Munson [from the same transcript]:

In addition, we’re gonna give $500,000.00 to our Shoreline campus, to help them find a permanent home. We launched that campus in January 2006, so this will be it’s third year. It really paved the way for the multisite movement of Mars Hill and allowed us to add other campuses. They were the guinea pigs in a lot of ways.

 We’re gonna give them half-a-million dollars and then raise some more money to then be able to go find a permanent home for them. They’re meeting right now on the campus of Crista Ministries, King Schools, up in the North End. We’d like to get them a permanent home.

 So, we wanted to bless them, get that fund started by giving them a half million.

This would fit with what Driscoll mentioned in the July 30, 2006 sermon about “two more years”. Everything seems to fit nicely post July 30, 2006, though it remains unanswered who brokered the Schirmer Auditorium rent free arrangement for Mars Hill and how.  It would seem like the most plausible candidate for that arrangement would have been Tim Beltz since he was Chief Operations Officer.

Tim Beltz now has a consulting firm which includes a biography. He mentions being ordained at Mars Hill Church in Seattle in October 2007. In fact I downloaded this document today and what do we find?

http://timbeltz.com/About_Us.html

In October 2007, Tim was ordained at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA and served as the executive pastor until November 2010 when he became pastor of operations. As executive pastor, his responsibilities included overseeing the financial, HR, legal, technology and capital programs for the church. He transitioned off staff July 2011 and now serves as an unpaid elder at MHC West Seattle and as a member of the MHC Board of Elders.

Did you see what I saw?  Mars Hill West Seattle.  This was true right up through February 27, 2012 when I blogged about the disappearance of James Noriega from the elder listings at Mars Hill.  Readers may recall that I quoted from Tim Beltz’ West Seattle pastor profile in which he mentioned that he’d been influenced and challenged by James Noriega’s biblical counseling materials. About a week after I blogged about Noriega’s disappearance campus blog links went dead, campus sites defaulted to calendars, and most peculiar of all, Tim Beltz was no longer listed at Mars Hill West Seattle but at Mars Hill Downtown. 

But in case anyone doubted the reliability of what I found in February 2012 Tim Beltz’ own biography at his consulting firm indicates (for now) that he’d been at Mars Hill West Seattle.  I don’t doubt that eventually Beltz will update his biography for his consulting firm to indicate that he’s currently at the Mars Hill Downtown campus.

So, that’s what I have been able to find about the development of the Shoreline campus at Mars Hill.  

Mars Hill, the West Seattle campus and a pastor with felonies?

The title may seem shocking and if it is shocking you I find the subject shocking myself. I was shocked to learn this year that a man who up until late last year had been employed by Mars Hill had a history of felonies.  I was more shocked to learn that this information has just been sitting around on record in a city newspaper for anyone to look up, which led to the troublesome question of how this man got vetted as an elder candidate to begin with.

I am referring to now former pastor James Noriega of Acts 29 Network church plant Doxa that went on to become Mars Hill West Seattle.  Let me state up front I don't consider it trouble that Noriega had a bad past prior to becoming a Christian.  I respect that he's a changed man.  The shock for me was that it seems both Acts 29 and Mars Hill successively backed his elder candidacy and ordination even though there seemed to be compelling reasons to either not consider him for pastoral work at all or at the very least not yet.

In order to even broach the subject of how James Noriega came to be a pastor at Mars Hill it is necessary to discuss straightaway the period in which Mars Hill acquired the property that is now Mars Hill West Seattle. The acquisition of Mars Hill West Seattle was one of the important steps toward the church becoming multisite back in 2006.  The importance and significance of the acquisition of Mars Hill West Seattle is important enough to warrant more than one examination of its history.  So we return to some extensive quotes from sermons Mark Driscoll preached in the year and a half or so after Doxa merged with Mars Hill.

http://marshill.com/media/1st-corinthians/spiritual-gifts-part-ii#transcript

Part 26: One Body, Many parts

1 Corinthians 12:12-26

Pastor Mark Driscoll

July 30, 2006

… In the meantime, we also picked up another miracle. This is West Seattle. This is on 35th at the top of the hill in West Seattle as you head toward White Center. I grew up in this neighborhood. This is a church building that is an absolute miracle. I’ll tell you the story on this space. I tried to launch Mars Hill Church in that building ten years ago, and we were rejected, and I’ve always wanted to be in there since. And what happened was, is we were growing. I went to Pastor Bill Clem, who was leading that congregation. He planted it for Acts 29 Church Planning Network [emphasis added], him and James Noriega, who is the other elder there and I said, “We’re maxed out. You got a fat building, 50,000 square feet, 1,000 seats.:” It’s a bigger building and the one you’re sitting in right now. I said, “Is there any way we to use it?” They said, “Well, we wanna reach as many people in West Seattle as possible. How about if we give it to you and work together?” we prayed about it for a second and said, “Yes.”

That is a $5 million gift. That is a $5 million gift, right? And I don’t know if you’ve been tracking the real estate market, people aren’t giving away a lotta real estate right now in Seattle and so we have – we’ve taken Pastor James and Pastor Bill on staff at Mars Hill. We have taken their members through the Gospel Class and they’re now members of Mars Hill. [emphasis added] They’ve been meeting as a core group over there. As we speak, there is $1.5 million of construction going on at the West Seattle campus, with the intention of opening in October in time for our ten year anniversary, and we want to expand over to West Seattle as well. We were thinking, “Well, we can borrow $8 million from the bank. We can spend $3 million and for $11 million, we can open up a 40,000 square foot location.” Well, we can now open more square feet for $1.5 million. So obviously, you take that opportunity.

The two cool aspects of this particular campus is one, is already zoned as a church, so we don’t need to fight use permits. We don’t have to bring it up to code. We can just walk in and use it immediately and it saves us, literally, a few years of permitting. Secondly, the lot that it is on is only zoned for 15,000 square feet of building and it already has 50,000 square feet, and because as grandfathered in, we could use it all. We could never build this building today as it exists.  And the cool thing with this building, a very Godly church that loved the Bible – started this church, built it, their denomination went liberal, dropped the doctrine of the inerrancy or perfection of Scripture and this building went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and was the test case for who owns the church building, the congregation or the denomination. The congregation lost and these people actually bought their own building back, because they refused to drop the authority of Scripture as their value. [emphasis added] And so, there were some Godly older saints who paid for this building twice. It then went into decline but there is still a core of these people, like in their 70s and 80s, that are now members of Mars Hill. Grandmas tithing, waiting for us all to show up and fill that thing up again, and they’re praying us in. It’s a really cool God story and what God has done is pretty amazing.

Here we see that Driscoll had wanted the property for ten years.  He had been rejected from planting Mars Hill at that property in 1996.  He obviously never forgot it and never stopped wanting that property for Mars Hill.  Now Driscoll is not at all clear about when, how and why Bill Clem was sent to plant Doxa as an Acts 29 Network church plant in the above sermon.  It probably doesn't necessarily matter for today's discussion.  Driscoll's also not clear, either, that Noriega was not even ordained in 2002 when Clem first planted Doxa in the 2006 sermon. Driscoll is, however, indisputably clear in saying he wanted that property for a decade.

Conspicuous by their absence in the above sermon were any references to Noriega having been divorced and remarried; having been a former meth user; and having a history of felonies.  What's most remarkable about all these points is that they all got discussed in the following articles published by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2004.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Mission-s-free-legal-clinic-grows-helping-1146192.php

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Path-through-despair-and-redemption-led-to-1160587.php

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Path-through-despair-and-redemption-led-to-1160587.php#page-2

None of those points got mentioned by Driscoll either in the 2006 sermon or the 2007 sermon where Driscoll once again referred to James Noriega and his role in the acquisition of Doxa for Mars Hill.

http://marshill.com/media/rebels-guide-to-joy/the-rebels-guide-to-joy-in-humility

Mark Driscoll on November 4, 2007

... The last one is James. He was running a drug and alcohol treatment center, I think for the Union Gospel Mission. He was an elder at Doxa Church in West Seattle. He and Pastor Bill were there and I approached them and said, “I think we should partner together,” and turned that building into Mars Hill West Seattle. I don’t know what the building’s worth – $4 million, whatever.  He said, “Well what’s the deal?” I said, “Give us the building, resign as elders, work through the membership process, work through the eldership process. I guarantee you nothing – no power, no job, no eldership. If you meet the qualifications and the men vote you in, we’ll make you an elder, but I guarantee you no job. Nothing. If you believe it’s right for Jesus, give us the building, resign, give up all power of authority, give up your position. Walk away from it all for the cause of Jesus.”

He said, “Okay, I think it’s best for Jesus.” He resigned, voted to hand us the building and the people. Humbly went through the eldership process. After he finished the membership process, oversees our drug and alcohol addiction recovery. We just voted him onto the Board of Directors. Why? Because God opposes the proud and he gives grace to the humble. 

So in the second account Driscoll describes himself as approaching Clem and Noriega about partnering together. As I have already recounted the various elements of the acquisition as a benefit to Bill Clem I don't need to recite all of those.  It will suffice to summarize things with Clem as follows--Driscoll approached Clem about making use of the Doxa facilities at the same time that he approached Clem with condolences about the news that Clem's wife was diagnosed with cancer.  Precisely why Driscoll decided to broach topics at the same time is not answerable on the point of taste or tact but is explicable in light of Driscoll's own words about his having wanted the property that is now Mars Hill West Seattle for a decade.

But conspicuously absent is any discussion of James Noriega since late 2011.  No mention of Noriega's criminal past in either the 2006 or 2007 sermons.  When I attended I never heard anything about the felonies.  I'll be honest, if I had heard about the felonies and the second marriage I would have been very reluctant to accept Noriega as a pastor.  Church member?  Absolutely fine with that and would have been fine with that.  Yes, Jesus forgives and lives are changed but Noriega remarried at the end of 2003.  By that point he hadn't been married nearly long enough to have demonstrably shown he could manage the new household well.  A man whose wife left him before he was a Christian, I can understand that not necessarily being a count against him in a post-conversion Christian life.  The trouble is that all of the points about Noriega's background, taken cumulatively, suggested to me (if no one else) that this was a guy who was promoted into ministry in an Acts 29 and Mars Hill setting way too soon.

There are reports floating on the internet that Noriega got fired in late 2011.  Mars Hill indicated in the follow up to the Andrew case making headlines that they had released staff for displaying a pattern of overstepping spiritual authority months before any bloggers or journalists knew anything.  Noriega, by my observation, had stopped being a pastor in any observable or publicly documentable way some time in late 2011.  If Mars Hill stepped in and fired Noriega they may see that as proof of their faithfulness but I would say this is proof of precisely the opposite.  Noriega had been a pastor at Mars Hill since 2006 and had been a pastor since November 2004 in Acts 29 settings.

If Acts 29/Mars Hill only got around to releasing Noriega from employment maybe seven years after initial ordination that's a lot of years in which to, as a certain MH PR statement put it, to display a pattern of overstepping spiritual authority.  Let's keep in mind that as founder and visionary of both Mars Hill Church and Acts 29 Network Driscoll sure looks conspicuously at the top of both organizations. If this is the same Mark Driscoll who has said "I see things"; the same who has talked about his degree in speech communications and his work as a professional journalist, then did Driscoll at any point look up the Seattle P-I articles from 2004 that discussed Noriega's background? Driscoll gets enough of the basics right that if he didn't know about the felonies it would seem like a feat of selective memory. It would seem that it's best to not lay hands too quickly on anyone lest you may participate in their sin but if someone sinned and got fired there's no sign that Mars Hill has accepted any potential for culpability.  If Mars Hill released staff months ago for overstepping spiritual authority doesn't that seem to concede the point that abuses in church discipline and counseling actually were happening?  So it would seem.

However, I would suggest that "if" Noriega were fired that is not even the relevant question for anyone who knows a modicum of history about the church and about the 2004 articles in the Seattle P-I..  Rather, the real question that never seems to have came up was how and why Noriega was ordained to begin with when documentation of his divorce and remarriage, felonies, and recent baptism (relative to 2006) was publicly documented.  On the one hand Driscoll said that he approached Clem and Noriega about partnering. On the other hand the elder candidates generally nominated themselves. Driscoll indicated that he made no promises to Clem or Noriega.  If they passed muster then they'd get jobs but there was no promise.  Both of them got jobs within Mars Hill.

Driscoll has publicly said he'd wanted the property that is now Mars Hill West Seattle for ten years (since 1996 to the year Mars Hill got Doxa in 2006 with its people, property and other resources). In the 2007 sermon Driscoll says he approached Clem and Noriega to partner together.  By Clem's account Driscoll approached him after Clem's wife Jeannie was diagnosed with cancer.  Clem's qualifications for pastor do not seem, to me, to be in doubt.  In Noriega's case, however, it's a huge mystery why either Acts 29 or Mars Hill vetted his candidacy.  Since Mark Driscoll is the founder and visionary for both organizations Mark Driscoll would probably be in the best position to appreciate why both organizations he's founder and visionary for greenlit a divorced and remarried man with felonies into pastoral work.  Bill Clem could probably field some questions about Noriega's ordination within a Doxa setting.  Scott Thomas had a major role in Acts 29, at least until Paul Petry's website Joyful Exiles went up and Thomas felt released from leading Acts 29 and handed the reins over to Chandler.

During 2006 Driscoll was the legal president of the organization, by his account:


http://www.theresurgence.com/mark_driscoll_2008-02-27_video_tnc_qa
2.28.2008
Driscoll was asked how you lead staff who are friends. He answered that this wasn't possible.
At 38:51 Driscoll said that in a recent reorg he resigned from being lead pastor, from being head of the elder board, and from being the senior employee of the church. Does that mean he was all these things in 2006 when James Noriega's candidacy for eldership was received?  Elders historically nominate themselves.  Driscoll has accounted in two different places Noriega was added to the team.

Driscoll's account in February 2008 of the advantage of giving legal control to Jamie Munson was as follows:


"Jamie Munson is head of the elder board. Jamie Munson is executive pastor. He is legal president of the organization. And for me, to be honest, it was the most freeing, liberating thing I could have dreamed of because now I don't have all that conflict of interest. I can be friends with someone but I don't have to fire them, do their performance review, and decide how much they get paid. It's just too conflicting for me." 


You know what's scary about that quote?  That Driscoll speaks as though conflict of interest was such a constant part of his weekly working life he had to give those parts of the job to Jamie Munson.  Does Driscoll actually undestand the implications of saying "now I don't have all that conflict of interest"? Does Mark Driscoll even understand what "conflict of interest" means?

Driscoll's idea of a conflict of interest is having to fire your friend in ministry because he's not pulling his weight.  Well, if I understand conflict of interest correctly firing someone who can't do the job wouldn't be a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest would be vetting the candidacy of someone who is obviously not qualified for the job because you have a personal interest in something the candidate can help you obtain.

Driscoll can clarify all these issues any time now.  If he didn't and doesn't grasp what a conflict of interest is then he may want to get on that point because if he was regularly in situations where he had conflicts of interest that's a problem.  Mark Driscoll, as the legal president, senior employee, and head of the elder board circa 2006 had a lot to gain from getting Doxa is beyond question.  The realization of a decade long dream is not a small thing.  Clem got a full salary and months off at a stretch to care for his dying wife and was eventually put in charge of Mars Hill Ballard.  Noriega got added to the elder team. He moved from there to running alcohol and recovery programs and was promoted to the Board of Directors.  He also eventually gained co-leadership of the Redemption Groups.

Who decided that Noriega was qualified to be a pastor?  Bill Clem probably did.  He'd planted Doxa in partnership with Mars Hill and Acts 29 in 2002.  By 2003 Scott Thomas was involved in Acts 29 which means that by 2004 Scott Thomas would have been in a position to have at least heard about Noriega's ordination.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080625035550/http://voxpopnetwork.com/vision/about/

However Scott Thomas is no longer employed by either Mars Hill Church or the Acts 29 Network since this website went up:

http://joyfulexiles.com/

http://www.acts29network.org/acts-29-blog/a-letter-from-scott-thomas/

So of the people in Mars Hill and Acts 29 who could field the question of James Noriega's ordination in the wake of his divorce and remarriage and history of felonies Scott Thomas is no longer employed by either MH or A29.  MH and A29 have been studiously silent on anything published at Joyful Exiles regarding the 2007 firings of Bent Meyer and Paul Petry. Scott Thomas may not feel like fielding questions about how and why Acts 29 Network considered James Noriega qualified for ministry, either.

So Bill Clem is lead pastor at Mars Hill Ballard these days.  And Mark Driscoll still has a role on the Acts 29 Network board, right?  Maybe Clem and Driscoll can field the question about how and why Noriega was seen as fit to be a pastor both in the Acts 29 Network setting and the Mars Hill setting.  After all, by Driscoll's account he approached Clem and Noriega about Doxa partnering with Mars Hill.  Clem explained that Doxa was a church plant in partnership with Mars Hill and Acts 29.  These two men still have their jobs.

Is Bill Clem still Northwest Regional Leader?

http://www.acts29network.org/about/leadership/

He could probably look up records about Noriega's ordination in Doxa and Mars Hill even though he arguably could recall a lot just off the top of his head.

Look, folks, there's no way to skate around the reality that James Noriega is now obviously an ex-employee of Mars Hill.  There's also no way to skate around the reality that in ordaining Noriega into an Acts 29 church plant and later into Mars Hill that men were installing a man as pastor who was on his second marriage and a history of felonies. Both the beginning as well as the end of Noriega's involvement in pastoral work within Acts 29 and Mars Hill settings invites public scrutiny. Noriega, for his part, has never seemed to back down from being up front and as plainspoken as possible.  He may no longer be employed by Mars Hill but Noriega has this going for him, he showed in 2004 he was willing to be up front about his history and since then Mars Hill leaders seem to be avoiding even the mention of Noriega's name.  

The trouble with that stance is that there's too much that's a matter of public record for Mars Hill and Acts 29 leaders to not eventually face the question of how they reasoned Noriega was fit to be a pastor when his felonies and remarriage were publicly reported.  Pleading ignorance is no excuse.  After all, Driscoll has said "I see things" and has touted his background in speech communications and his work as a professional journalist.  Driscoll's touting of his credentials and reference to the occasional supernatural endowment to perceive others' sin means he can't possibly make a plausible appeal that he didn't know about Noriega's felonies and second marriage in considering Noriega's candidacy for eldership at Mars Hill. By Driscoll's account in his November 4, 2007 sermon he was the one who approached Clem and Noriega about partnership. 

Did the Mars Hill elders as a whole know that in voting for Noriega they were voting for a man with felonies?  Did they know they were voting for a divorced and remarried man whose new household was just a couple of years old? Were Noriega and Clem presented to the church as elder candidates to give members and pastors time to investigate the character and credibility of their candidacy?  I admit I don't remember whether this happened even though I was actually attending at the time. It's not the sort of thing that would necessarily make it into sermon transcripts, of course.  

Cards on the table--I was a Mars Hill member in 2005 and 2006. I would have been alarmed to find out these things about Noriega during my membership.  Individually they can be accounted for.  Noriega's first wife left him when he wasn't a believer.  I get that's how things go sometimes.  Noriega's felonies were when he wasn't a Christian yet (not counting the arrest for something the day he was baptized).  Well ... Paul was arguably a felon and he wrote much of the New Testament.  Noriega had a history of drug use that led to a life of crime.  Well, he converted.  

I was inclined to give the benefit of the doubt and trust that the elders as a whole wouldn't install men as pastors if they weren't 100% above board.  Years later I have slowly stumbled upon more information I simply didn't have at the time that has forced me to drastically reassess my impression.  The halo effect can hit everybody and I now believe I assumed the best in a case where I did not have the opportunity to think things through.  I am suggesting that this may have also been true for not only other Mars Hill members but even pastors who may have voted Noriega into pastoral office in Acts 29 or Mars Hill settings who didn't know everything about Noriega they should have known.

The case for a man being in pastoral office is not merely atomistic, it is also cumulative. The cumulative case for Noriega's candidacy as a pastor in Acts 29 and Mars Hill does not look good to me when I look at what was on record and in public for anyone to consult.  It makes it difficult for me to understand how and why he was fast-tracked in both A29 and MH settings.  

If Noriega had conspicuous red flags about his candidacy that were published in the Seattle P-I in 2004 and Driscoll approached Clem and Noriega about partnering with Mars Hill why did Noriega's candidacy go through?  Driscoll said he promised them nothing but Driscoll went on to explain the benefits Clem gained from eldership within Mars Hill, which were considerable. He also went on to explain Noriega's meteoric rise within leadership due to his seeking humility.  "Seeking humility", in Driscoll's presentation, seems to look remarkably like agreeing to gift Mark Driscoll (who, let's recall was senior employee, lead pastor, head of the elder board and apparently legal president of Mars Hill circa 2006) a piece of property he had, by his own sermon of July 30, 2006, been wanting for Mars Hill for ten years.  Could that be considered a potential conflict of interest?  .

Meanwhile, Driscoll, Clem and other Mars Hill pastors can field the subject of how James Noriega's divorce, remarriage and history of felonies ultimately didn't prove to obstacles to his ordination in A29 or MH any time now. 

Fighting for the Faith changes its tune about Mark Driscoll

http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2012/05/pastor-driscoll-do-you-not-preach-to-yourself.html

No longer Frankie Goes to the Hollywood bellowing within a narrow melodic range about two tribes going to war.  Now we get the incontestably cooler and better rock song "Cult of Personality" by Living Color.

So the tune associated with Driscoll discussions is new.

The new song is a more apt thematic association and the song just rocks harder (which is both to say that it rocks more than Frankie Goes to Hollywood by orders of magnitude and to say, perhaps a bit more modestly, that it actually rocks at all (which Frankie Goes to Hollywood does not)).  Good choice. :)

I admit the title was a gotcha to see how lazy you are, dear reader.  You didn't really think Chris was going to say Driscoll's all above board on all doctrinal points, did you?

City of God: Sausage returns

http://www.cityofgodblog.com/2012/05/sausage-80/

Kinnon TV: Nick Bulbeck responds to Scott M.

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. 

WSJ: "Locks are on doors only to keep honest people honest.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304840904577422090013997320.html


Not too long ago, one of my students, named Peter, told me a story that captures rather nicely our society's misguided efforts to deal with dishonesty. One day, Peter locked himself out of his house. After a spell, the locksmith pulled up in his truck and picked the lock in about a minute.


"I was amazed at how quickly and easily this guy was able to open the door," Peter said. The locksmith told him that locks are on doors only to keep honest people honest. One percent of people will always be honest and never steal. Another 1% will always be dishonest and always try to pick your lock and steal your television; locks won't do much to protect you from the hardened thieves, who can get into your house if they really want to. The purpose of locks, the locksmith said, is to protect you from the 98% of mostly honest people who might be tempted to try your door if it had no lock.

That's a fantastic lead for this article and warrants its own post.  :)

A hardened thief will find a way to steal whatever he or she wants.  The lock keeps the honest people honest.  That seems counterintuitive, doesn't it?  How many preachers and politicians have said that there was a time when people didn't lock their doors?  Well, let's rephrase this observation, how many of those doors back then tended to still be closed?  

Big lies or little lies, which are more dangerous? Which are more common?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304840904577422090013997320.html
...


All of this means that, although it is obviously important to pay attention to flagrant misbehaviors, it is probably even more important to discourage the small and more ubiquitous forms of dishonesty—the misbehavior that affects all of us, as both perpetrators and victims. This is especially true given what we know about the contagious nature of cheating and the way that small transgressions can grease the psychological skids to larger ones.


We want to install locks to stop the next Bernie Madoff, the next Enron, the next steroid-enhanced all-star, the next serial plagiarist, the next self-dealing political miscreant. But locking our doors against the dishonest monsters will not keep them out; they will always cheat their way in. It is the woman down the hallway—the sweet one who could not even carry away your flat-screen TV if she wanted to—who needs to be reminded constantly that, even if the door is open, she cannot just walk in and "borrow" a cup of sugar without asking.

A culture of deception that traffics in little lies and misrepresentations can become the garden in which the  big liars have room to spin their yarns. Some people have told me I'm honest to a fault and I don't know if I should believe them.  I worry that if I delude myself about something how could I possibly avoid misrepresenting reality to others?  What some people may consider a lack of confidence I would consider a desire to be honest.

At You Are Not So Smart there's a recent podcast that discusses the "illusion of knowledge".  This is an illusion that builds up from a plethora of impressive-sounding but ultimately meaningless or obfuscating details that are delivered in a confident way.  If someone declares something confidently enough you trust the person is telling the truth even if they're lying.  They may be lying about just a few small details but those lies will be enough to convince you they actually know what they're talking about.

The big lie about something that's false is often not where the most deadly and pervasive deception is. The  big lie is a lifestyle of tiny self-justifying lies.  The curious thing about both the serpent and a Berean is that we could say they both have the question, "Did God really say ... ?"

Tim Challies apologizes for something

http://www.challies.com/articles/in-which-i-ask-ann-voskamps-forgiveness

I did poorly here and I can see that I need to grow in my ability to critique the ideas in a book even while being kind and loving to its author. There was reason for the shame I felt when I saw that name in my inbox. I had put effort into reading the book and understanding and critiquing it, but no real effort into showing love and respect for the author. I had assumed poor motives and in arrogance and thoughtlessness had squelched useful discussion of the book’s strengths and weaknesses.

I probably didn't even need to tell you what for if you're reading Christian blogs regularly, did I? I found out courtesy of Phoenix Preacher and decided to quote from this little segment. Assuming poor motives and, in arrogance and thoughtlessness, posting something ... that happens.  It's been a problem I've often had over the years and I dare suggest it's a spiritual discipline to assume the best about even people you sincerely believe are a bit off.

There's probably no shortage of neo-Reformed types who want any element of the actually erotic removed from spiritual experience even as so many of the most prominent sorts insist that marriage somehow "mirrors" the Trinity.  Yet the sexual bond, which would arguably the single most unique element of "oneness" somehow can never be invoked as an analogy for a sense of communion with God. The wedding supper of the Lamb can't progress to the honeymoon in the five star hotel room or anything. Metaphors are limited, as metaphors always will be, but a sheepishness amongst the blogging or preaching neo-Reformed sheep and shepherds about this point suggests that they're loathe to go along with stuff the actual Puritans (as opposed to, it seems, some "neo-Puritans") were okay with.

I'm not saying Challies couldn't have any points but one of his worries about the fusion of erotic imagery and spirituality highlights something about some of the newer Calvinist types that seems odd.  Maybe they don't really want to invoke or evoke the husband and wife metaphor nearly as much as they think they want to?

Challies' entry is worth noting briefly because new Calvinist or Reformed bloggers are not really famous for apologies of any sort.  We're a lot better at issuing retractions that aren't really retractions and clarifications that explain why we haven't changed our minds or said anything much amiss.

Reminds me of a church I used to go to ... but as Conan O'Brien put it, of course, I'm speaking generally. ;-)

new look

not that this isn't obvious already but I decided to go for black text on white background for higher contrast and, I hope, easier reading.  That means a few color choices from earlier posts might have to get some editing ... later.

Matthew Paul Turner: iHate: Why are we so mean online?

http://matthewpaulturner.net/jesus-needs-new-pr/ihate-why-are-we-so-mean-online/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MatthewPaulTurner+%28MATTHEW+PAUL+TURNER+%E2%9C%AA%29

Some people are mean online because of anonymity and because they don't use their real names.  This is a popular explanation for why people say terrible things and make terrible claims on the internet but even when we account for internet trolls and anonymity the vitriol of an internet troll and the anger of someone who joins a lynch mob may not be that different in terms of sociological or emotional dynamics.  If you combine the anonymity of the internet with a diffusion of responsibility and a setting in which people don't conduct themselves as they would if they knew people what you see on the internet is probably not that different from herd behavior in other settings.

So, yes, we're all capable of being that mean but many of us get embarrassed being that mean in more direct and personal relationships.

Some have camped on the observation that we're meaner in anonymous and on-line settings than in real life.  Well, maybe, but some people are pretty much the same in an on-line or public persona as they are in face-to-face contact.

In ancient Roman society there was the spectacle of gladitorial combat for amusement.  Now the gladitorial combat may not involve bloodletting but things like MMA and online battles may play the same sort of role.  Some people get a visceral thrill watching people physically fight, others get that visceral thrill in more abstract gladitorial combat.

Matthew Yglesias: There is no Tech Industry

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/05/31/it_s_official_there_s_no_such_thing_as_a_tech_company.html

The way Amazon works is that users visit their website, select stuff to buy, and then Amazon delivers it to your house. Papa John's website also does this.

Facebook runs a website that people read, and then it sells ads to firms looking to market products to Facebook's audience. The New York Times also has this business model.

So what's tech got to do with it?

Anyone who worked for even a few months at Amazon will know that the tech has never been the real defining mission or business model of the company. I, uh, know someone who worked there for a few short months about fourteen years ago.  Supervisors there would say the real deal was not the selection on-line that they had, it was that the ordering process was secure and that the ordered products would ship out as fast as possible.  In the early internet days what Amazon.com provided was not the best selection but the most secure on-line ordering and the fastest and most reliable delivery possible.  That was enough to persuade me that these people in this dot com had an actual business model and an actual plan when I heard about that.  It has not surprised me that amazon.com has stuck around when many other online retailers and start ups have long since foundered in the subsequent decade and a half.

In other words Amazon.com has just been either a variant of a brick and mortar bookstore or, as Yglesias makes the comparison, a kind of on-line Target.  I would suggest the book selections at Amazon.com are substantially better and more varied than those at Target, though. 

Practical Theology for Women: Post Mother's Day Reflections on Imperfect Affirmations

http://www.theologyforwomen.org/2012/05/post-mothers-day-reflections-on.html

As usual Wendy writes so eloquently for herself I have nothing I can think to add beyond merely linking to her work.

Well, okay, maybe I might add a point or two, though not about Wendy's observations of her own life.  In the last month or so I came across the podcast of sermons from a pastor I used to know twenty years ago. He was preaching a sermon in which he discussed, as an aside, labels that are given to us or that we take up for ourselves. He has come to observe over the last twenty years that one of his struggles is that he can often be discontent.  If you got a B why didn't you get an A? If you got an A why did you get an A minus instead of a regular A? If you got an A you could have gotten an A+.  And so on.

It may be hard to overstate the significance of the apostolic advice that godliness with contentment is great gain.  I admit that I don't feel like a bastion of godliness or contentment much of the time. There are people I have known who I would say are godly but they are discontent and this discontentment may ultimately prove the great fountain of fractures in their godliness.  Giving thanks to God in everything sure doesn't feel like something worth doing if there are so many things you don't have that you wish you had. Some people find it tough to be thankful to God because they don't have a spouse.  In an economy and time such as this I actually do thank God I don't have a wife or children. It's not that I wouldn't ever want to be married one day ... I think ... maybe ... it's that at this stage in my life being discontent about being unmarried is something that would have to be cultivated.  There's a difference between wishing you had something and being upset that you don't have it.  In the last few years I have not been nearly as unhappy that I haven't had a girlfriend as that I haven't had a steady job.  I assure you one of these has been substantially more important to me than the other!  But things change.  Too bad they often seem to change for the worse.

And at the same time contentment isn't something cultivated in ideal circumstances, is it?  It can be but the reality is that a person can be discontent in even the most perfect of circumstances.  A person may be discontent because everything is too perfect and there are no more challenges, it seems, to be provided by life.  Some people are genuinely only happy if they are fighting or struggling with or against something.  Others are discontent because until they get the thing they want they are unhappy.  Then they get what they want and it turns out to not satisfy them.  Go back and read a few interviews with John Lennon.  He got what he wanted early in life (he didn't live that long before he got killed, let's remember) and that dream come true turned out to not be what it was cracked up to be.

See, I managed to write a bit but it was not to add things to Wendy's own thoughts. :-)  Go read them for yourself. These are just my own thoughts by way of a rambling introduction to her thoughts.

Batman: The Agony of Loss and the Madness of Desire Part 5a has gone up on Mockingbird

http://www.mbird.com/2012/05/batman-the-agony-of-loss-and-the-madness-of-desire-part-5a/

For those following this lengthy series the first part has just gone up this morning.  More parts to follow, though given the mercurial publishing schedule the series has had (which I'm certain is more due to the writer than publisher) we might see a gap between Part 5b and subsequent parts of Part 5. :-)

Ridley Scott, Prometheus, and horror

So Ridley Scott has returned to the sci-fi and horror genre that made him famous in the late 1970s fiilm Alien.  This should at least be interesting. The original film, as anyone who has seen it will have probably observed, played a lot with the subtext of rape and bodily invasion. The alien could be scary because the nature and shape of the alien continually shifted and changed throughout the original film.  By James Cameron's sequel the monsters were scary in numbers and in terms of sheer size. If Scott's film could be considered high gothic in execution, if not in concept, then Cameron's film was low gothic where we were shown more and more monsters until we got to the queen herself.

Prometheus does not look like it's going to go in that direction.  Scott has indicated the original alien no longer has the power to scare people because after thirty years it is just too well known.  Instead the teasers and trailers make much of how the search for our beginnings could be our end.  The questions of who we are and where we have come from will get asked, if not answered in any ultimately significant way.  The specifics of the answer within that narrative universe may not matter so much as a general observation about horror as a genre.

Steven Grant has made two observations that seem salient at this point. The definition of tragedy, he wrote, was not that evil triumphs over good but that a tragic hero chooses a lesser good over a greater good in a battle of competing legitimate goods.  Grant, if memory serves, is an atheist or agnostic but a Christian cannot afford to be too dismissive of this observation about tragedy. It is the Christian understanding, in essence, of the human condition and our place in it within the cosmos.  The world did not stop being full of the glory, grandeur and love of God after the Fall since life and beauty do exist ... but the world and the humans within it are broken. This is a tragedy but not a horror.

Steven Grant's observation about horror was, if memory serves, that the evil and misery in the cosmos that we observe, the evil and misery we observe in humans or in ourselves, that is inherent to its nature.  To put it in theological terms horror is the running with the most literal embodiment of the idea that we, as humans, reflect the divine image and to consider that if we are but dim reflections or copies of the divine image how awful and malignant must that divine being or beings actually be?

This is, unsurprisingly, why many Christians would not like horror, will not like horror, or may choose to deliberately interpret horror in ways that fit traditional Christian ethical ideas.  And it's not difficult to do that if you observe that Jason Voorhees (sic) kills fornicators, by and large.  But in the first movie Jason's mother (not Jason) killed pretty indiscriminately.

A Christian who avoids the realization that this world full of death, murder and misery is permitted to exist by a god we recognize as loving, powerful, knowledgeable and good is avoiding something that is unavoidable.  The book of Job addresses this misery head on and concedes there is no direct answer. The answers to the nature and source of human cruelty are not as mysterious as we might like to think they are.  Psychologist Roy Baumeister went so far as to propose that the temptations and incentives to cruelty are all too easily understood and that the question we must ask about what theologians have called moral evil is not why there is so much of it in the human condition but why there isn't more of it. His answer was that the pre-emptive power of guilt to restrain us and the empathy that lets us imagine how others may be feeling are big reasons more evil is not committed.

Well, in a horror story it's not uncommon for empathy to be seen as a weakness by the monster or the cruel.  In many cases the monster, the shape, the thing, or the killer has no motive.  This plays into the myth of pure evil and while some people think evil is more scary if it has no motive this is not really the case.  Evil has a motive because actions are never unmotivated.  We know in the final analysis that what is senseless to us, even horrifying, is neither unmotivated nor inexplicable.  As the Joker tells Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, nobody gets too upset if things go according to plan even if the plan is horrifying.  If soldiers die nobody [except the relatives and lovers and friends] gets upset because it's all part of the plan. Soldiers know the risks they take.

And that is where horror makes its bed in our hearts about plans, that the horror is that if there is a plan it is a plan that has no regard for our dignity, our lives, our loves, our talents, our hopes, our dreams, or ourselves.  Job's comforters could be said, to borrow a few lines from Heath Ledger's Joker, to have told Job that everything was all part of the plan and they had figured out what that plan was.  Horror proposes that, as I think Baudelaire is said to have put it, that if there is a god he is the devil. Once one knows this general theme in horror many plot points for movies stop being mysterious even before the movies are released.  Don't take that as a sign that I'm not going to watch the film.  I'm curious enough to see it.  A cast that includes Fassbender and Theron that is directed by Ridley Scott should at least be watchable, I hope.

The Wartburg Watch is coming back online

It's not a speedy process but there's actually stuff there again since the weekend.

Phoenix Preacher: Glut

http://phoenixpreacher.net/?p=12449

Michael writes about a glut of sports news and coverage. I admit that with eyes like mine sports never interested me at all.  For me the magical stuff was music.  The older I get the more I find myself frustrated or bored by the oceans of music around me in any given setting.  I could hang out with my brother or other relatives in a mall or a restaurant and that background music that others ignore or find soothing I find slightly or highly annoying.  Or I tune it out.  I wouldn't have guessed that over the course of twenty years I would feel more and more like measuring out music with an eyedropper rather than a bucket.

Triablogue's Steve Hays notes the irony of R. C. Sproul Jr. blogging about the evils of bloggers

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/05/blogging-about-evils-of-blogging-about.html
Steve Hays writes on the following article published by R. C. Sproul Jr.

http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/someone-is-wrong-on-the-internet/

Hays opens with, "I’m afraid this is one of those pious-sounding bromides that doesn’t make much sense."


He could have left things at that but this is Steve Hays, so he has more to say.  As a Steve Hays post goes, however, this one is uncharacteristically short.  


"Blogging about the evils of blogging about the evils of ..." is one of the best titles for a post Steve has come up with.  I've always been bad at coming up with titles so I can admire a fine title for something when I see it. 

Matthew Paul Turner is not authorized to see Pastor Mark's Twitter

http://matthewpaulturner.net/jesus-needs-new-pr/i-am-not-authorized-to-see-pastormarks-twitter/

Matthew Paul Turner is now blocked from Driscoll's twitter feed.  Matthew Paul Turner was the blogger who broke Andrew's story of church discipline to the internet.

This doesn't change the fact that some of the biggest clues to the identities of people involved in Andrew's case aren't still sitting in plain sight in Driscoll sermons.  The biggest clues are in Andrew's story but the next biggest clues are in Driscoll sermons and sources independent of Mars Hill.

Mark Driscoll needs to consider the possibility that God providentially got the escalation letter into the hands of Andrew and that though Turner is a blogger he just delivers the mail.  Didn't Mark Driscoll make a point of saying, that, "I just deliver the mail"?

Still, even though it may be a pointless rearguard action by now it makes a kind of emotional sense. Even Turner gets it.

Sutton Turner explains why people shouldn't show partiality against the rich and quotes James

http://theresurgence.com/2012/05/24/the-sin-of-partiality

Sutton Turner is an executive pastor at Mars Hill. Partiality against rich and poor is bad but it's apparent which kind of partiality James was explicitly writing against ,partiality toward the rich.  Turner has to subject the text and its broader context to a few contortions to get to the point of saying that Christians shouldn't be mistrustful toward the rich.  It's not that a case couldn't be made to not be skeptical about the rich.

Our prejudices against the rich ultimately amount to poverty theology, as though our righteousness depends on Jesus plus how little is in our bank account.

Turner seems determined to point out that a lot of Christians are inclined to use James' epistle as a polemic against the wealthy.  I wonder why that might be?


James 1: 9-11
The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business.

James 2:1-12
My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism.  Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in.  If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,”  have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?  But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?  Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.  But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.  For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.  For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,”[b] also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom,  because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!

James 5:1-6
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you.  Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes.  Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.  Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.  You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.

Maybe Turner just forgot that the reason people tend to read the epistle of James as levelling trenchant criticisms on favoritism toward the wealthy and about the conduct of the wealthy because that's the plainest reading of the text.

Then again, the executive elder who had the kingly role before Sutton Turner doesn't have a whole lot of sermons you can download.  The role doesn't really require a man with any demonstrable skill or history in exegesis or hermeneutics.

Resurgence Evolution Article, Place Your Ad Here

http://theresurgence.com/2012/05/17/should-christians-believe-in-evolution

The article itself is neither here nor there for me.  Will Little has written a piece that may already interest you or not.  But over at Phoenix Preacher this got a link and someone pointed out something over there in the comments that caught my eye.

Check out the upper right quadrant there. 

"Advertise here"

Advertise with who?

http://beaconads.com/buy/detail/139228/zone/1274213?utm_source=site_139228_zone_1274213&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=adhere

Top Square - Every Page 260 x 260 Top Right
260,000 Est.Impressions
3 of 3 Available
$1,295 per 30 days


Mid Banner A - Every Page 200 x 125 Middle Right
260,000 Est.Impressions
2 of 3 Available
$995 per 30 days

Both are limited time introductory rates.


Beacon Ads LLC has a copyright listing 2007 -2012
Powered by BuySellAds

Beacon Ads has the most skeletal and uninformative "About/Overview" section I've ever seen for a website.  You can't find any information on who owns the firm, who the team is or much beyond this:
"Powered by BuySellAds"

http://512pixels.net/bsa-fusion-beacon/

http://blog.buysellads.com/2011/11/bsa-acquires-fusion-ads-beacon-ads/