Publishing, Mark Driscoll & Evangelical Responses

I've been following this loosely for a while. The story broke on World Magazine (a surprising source), and since then everyone has been weighing in. Instead of writing my own response (something I don't have the energy to do), I figured I'd find varying ideas and responses. So, enjoy if you can.

Tony Jones:

Bestseller lists are important, even today. I once had a book contract that had a $10,000 incentive if my book made the NY Times or Publsihers Weekly list. (It didn’t.) Those lists are meant to gauge how many real, individual readers are buying books. Now comes word that Mark Driscoll and his church hired a firm that used a thousand different credit cards and thousands of individual names — the names were supplied by the church — to drive Driscoll’s marriage book onto the bestseller lists. As a reward, the firm was paid $210,000 by Mars Hill Church:

The comments are worth reading. Rachel Held Evans and Tony engage with various complaints and criticisms. Very interesting, though if you like Mark, you may cringe several times.

World Magazine:

Seattle’s Mars Hill Church paid a California-based marketing company at least $210,000 in 2011 and 2012 to ensure that Real Marriage, a book written by Mark Driscoll, the church’s founding pastor, and his wife Grace, made the New York Times best-seller list. According to a document obtained by WORLD, ResultSource Inc. (RSI) contracted with Mars Hill “to conduct a bestseller campaign for your book, Real Marriage on the week of January 2, 2012. The bestseller campaign is intended to place Real Marriage on The New York Times bestseller list for the Advice How-To list.” The marketing company also promised to help place Real Marriage on the Wall Street Journal Business, USA Today Money, BN.com (Barnes & Noble), and Amazon.com best-seller lists. Mat Miller of ResultSource and John Sutton Turner of Mars Hill signed the letter of agreement, dated Oct. 13, 2011. Turner was then and remains today the church’s executive pastor and an executive elder.

Matthew Paul Turner:

Driscoll isn’t the only pastor to do this. For years, the rumors surrounding pastors buying their bestseller placement have gone around the Christian publishing world. The confidentiality agreements that happen around this practice are pretty insane. Most pastors don’t want to discuss. The way I heard about RSI was through a friend. He said to me, “So, Matthew, you wanna know how Pastor ****** got on the NYT best-sellers list?” “Sure,” I said. “He knows a guy in California who makes it happen. He just pays him a couple hundred grand and he gets you on the list.” “Does this man have name or a website?” “I don’t know. He wouldn’t give me any names. But said he’d hook me up if I was interested.” Well, a couple weeks ago, an anonymous source sent me the following, a generic contract that authors and pastors sign with RSI. I will maybe add some more responses as they appear. As of now, I'm not surprised by Mars Hill, and I'm not particularly bothered. As my friend (and best man) David mused, "corporations be corporations."

--Nick

Mark Driscoll, Pacifism & The Cross of Christ

I have a new policy. I used to write a response post to any post that offended/challenged me, and I would write it immediately. Instead, I am now trying a new tactic. I won't be writing and releasing posts daily that respond to instant current events. mostly because I want a cooler head to prevail. Its an attempt to avoid adding gasoline to an outraged internet firestorm.

So when well-known pastor Mark Driscoll decided to make pacifists angry enough to fight, I figured this was too interesting to ignore. I am not up to date on pacifist exegesis, and the strongest example I can cite that I've fully read is Richard Hay's "The Moral Vision of the New Testament." I found it compelling enough to recommend here, even if I'm still working through my thoughts on the entire topic of non-violence. So I'm a pretty big stranger to this discussion.

Below are several collected comments, written by various New Testament scholars. I will cite Richard Hays at the end to sum up. Pacifism shouldn't be assumed as my outright position. I'm merely collecting data on a debate (within evangelicalism) that I find fascinating and worthy of serious consideration, even though the framing text for Driscoll about Jesus is to be found in the book of Revelation. Personally, the Sermon on the Mount makes it somewhat difficult to see how Jesus restricts the Torah in regards to retaliation (Matthew 5).

But anyway. Each comment should be read by the links below, including Driscoll's:

Mark Driscoll:

One of the defining attributes of God’s coming kingdom is shalom—perfect peace untainted by sin, violence, or bloodshed of any sort. Such a kingdom is only possible if an all-powerful, benevolent Authority vanquishes his enemies. In other words, the Prince of Peace is not a pacifist.

God is the author of life and sovereign over death.

Those who want to portray Jesus as a pansy or a pacifist are prone to be very selective in the parts of the Bible they quote. But the God of the bloody Old Testament is Jesus Christ. When he became a man, he walked the earth as a working-class carpenter. The European, long-haired, dress-wearing, hippie Jesus is a bad myth from a bad artist who mistook Jesus for a community college humanities professor. But if we want to learn all about Jesus we have to read all that the Bible says about him. Here’s how Jesus will appear one day:

"Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, “Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.” So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped.
Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over the fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.” So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia" (Rev. 14:14–20).

Today is a season of patience as Jesus Christ waits for people to come to repentance. Jesus is not a pansy or a pacifist; he’s patient. He has a long wick, but the anger of his wrath is burning.

Once the wick is burned up, he is saddling up on a white horse and coming to slaughter his enemies and usher in his kingdom. Blood will flow.

Then there will be peace forever as the Prince of Peace takes his rightful throne. Some of those whose blood will flow as high as the bit in a horse’s mouth for 184 miles will be those who did not repent of their sin but did wrongly teach that Jesus was a pacifist.

Jesus is no one to mess with. 

Scot McKnight ("The King Jesus Gospel" and "Jesus Creed"):

Driscoll has a flat Bible. What is in the OT is the same as the NT is the same as Jesus is the same as Paul is the same as Revelation. It’s a Bible that he believes in a text of propositions, not a Bible with a Story, and because there’s no flow to his reading of the Bible he can choose which texts best fit his moods. So he omits important elements:

1. Why not discuss Matt 5:38-42? [See my new commentary on The Sermon on the Mount.]
2. Why not discuss the “passive” Jesus in the crucifixion scenes?
3. Why not discuss 1 Peter 2 which evokes the image of Jesus as suffering as a model for others absorbing suffering?
4. Why not examine the blood of Revelation and see whose blood it is … it is Christ’s?
5. Why not learn the stories of martyrs who conquered by suffering?
6. Why not look to Dietrich Bonhoeffer — talk about manly faith?

In other words, Driscoll needs a Story and christocentrism shaped by cruciformity to read the Bible well.

Shock talk theology demeans the gospel.

Preston Sprinkle ("Fight: A Christian Case for Non-Violence" and "Erasing Hell"):

I actually really like Mark Driscoll. He’s a former ball player, and so am I. He loves red meat, craft beer, and has no time for diaper wearing pansies behind the pulpit. Mark is a manly man, and since I was recently labeled a “manly pacifist,” I think we have a lot in common. Mark says it like it is. So do I. So let me say it like it is: Mark’s assumption that pacifists are pansies is historically naïve, theologically horrendous, and shows that Mark’s been more influenced by the worldview of those who put Jesus on the cross rather than the One who hung on it. Everything Mark says about violence is eerily close to what Rome said about it 2,000 years ago. Contrary to Rome, Jesus taught that suffering leads to glory, cross-shaped weakness radiates divine power, and loving your enemies showcases the character of the Father (Matthew 5:44-48).

Mark’s selection of passages that talk about violence has been violently ripped from the cruciform flow of the New Testament itself.

Gregory A. Boyd ("Myth of a Christian Nation"):

While the OT allowed for, and even required, retaliation, Jesus commands us to instead love and pray for our enemies. (In Luke 6 he adds “and do good to those who hate you” [vs 27]). Rather than to ever respond to violence with violence, we’re to instead love like the sun shines and like the rain falls – namely, indiscriminately. Whether the person is a friend or life-threatening enemy, we’re to love and bless them. And Jesus makes our willingness to love like this a precondition for being considered a child of our Father in heaven – “that you may be.”  By the standards of Jesus’ teaching, therefore, anyone who obeyed the OT laws requiring violence could not be considered a child of the Father in heaven.

It’s also important we notice that Jesus never qualifies who the “enemies” we’re to love are (nor does Paul in Rom 12:14-21). Indeed, his instruction to love indiscriminately rules out any possible qualifications. What makes Jesus’ teachings even more radical is that any talk about “enemies” to a Jewish audience in first century Palestine would immediate call to mind the Romans – the one’s who unjustly oppressed, abused, and often randomly killed the Jewish people. Jesus’ command to love enemies and to never respond violently to them thus includes the very worst kind of enemies we can imagine: the kind that threaten us, our country, and/or our loved ones. It includes the kind of enemies people naturally feel most “justified” killing, if they need to, in order to protect themselves. But these are precisely the kinds of enemies we’re to always love and never retaliate against.

As radical as this teaching might sound to us, however, I don’t believe it should surprise us that we’re commanded to love this way. For God loved us to the point of death when we “were yet enemies,” (Rom 5:10), and we are commanded to “imitate God” by living in this same kind of love, “just as Christ loved us and gave his life for us” (Eph. 5:1-2).

To sum it all up, in this passage Jesus is doing nothing less than telling us that our willingness to set aside a violent OT law in order to obey his new command to love and refrain from violence toward even the worst kind of life-threatening enemies is a precondition for being considered a child of God. And this, folks, is why I don’t believe Driscoll’s argument about the sixth commandment allowing for some forms of killing is relevant to followers of Jesus.

I am a bit puzzled as to why Driscoll didn’t address any of this material in his attempt to refute the idea that “God is a pacifist.” One might have thought it would be relevant since Driscoll is, after all, a Christian pastor, and he’s addressing a Christian audience.  Instead, to prove that “Jesus is not a pansy or a pacifist” (one wonders if the two are not synonymous for Driscoll), he cites one passage from the book of Revelation (14:14-20). To address this, I will offer some reflections on the nature of this book in my next post, and I’ll then conclude my response in a third post by addressing the specific passage Driscoll cites.

While the OT allowed for, and even required, retaliation, Jesus commands us to instead love and pray for our enemies. (In Luke 6 he adds “and do good to those who hate you” [vs 27]). Rather than to ever respond to violence with violence, we’re to instead love like the sun shines and like the rain falls – namely, indiscriminately. Whether the person is a friend or life-threatening enemy, we’re to love and bless them. And Jesus makes our willingness to love like this a precondition for being considered a child of our Father in heaven – “that you may be.”  By the standards of Jesus’ teaching, therefore, anyone who obeyed the OT laws requiring violence could not be considered a child of the Father in heaven.
It’s also important we notice that Jesus never qualifies who the “enemies” we’re to love are (nor does Paul in Rom 12:14-21). Indeed, his instruction to love indiscriminately rules out any possible qualifications. What makes Jesus’ teachings even more radical is that any talk about “enemies” to a Jewish audience in first century Palestine would immediate call to mind the Romans – the one’s who unjustly oppressed, abused, and often randomly killed the Jewish people. Jesus’ command to love enemies and to never respond violently to them thus includes the very worst kind of enemies we can imagine: the kind that threaten us, our country, and/or our loved ones. It includes the kind of enemies people naturally feel most “justified” killing, if they need to, in order to protect themselves. But these are precisely the kinds of enemies we’re to always love and never retaliate against.
As radical as this teaching might sound to us, however, I don’t believe it should surprise us that we’re commanded to love this way. For God loved us to the point of death when we “were yet enemies,” (Rom 5:10), and we are commanded to “imitate God” by living in this same kind of love, “just as Christ loved us and gave his life for us” (Eph. 5:1-2).
To sum it all up, in this passage Jesus is doing nothing less than telling us that our willingness to set aside a violent OT law in order to obey his new command to love and refrain from violence toward even the worst kind of life-threatening enemies is a precondition for being considered a child of God. And this, folks, is why I don’t believe Driscoll’s argument about the sixth commandment allowing for some forms of killing is relevant to followers of Jesus.

I am a bit puzzled as to why Driscoll didn’t address any of this material in his attempt to refute the idea that “God is a pacifist.” One might have thought it would be relevant since Driscoll is, after all, a Christian pastor, and he’s addressing a Christian audience.  Instead, to prove that “Jesus is not a pansy or a pacifist” (one wonders if the two are not synonymous for Driscoll), he cites one passage from the book of Revelation (14:14-20). To address this, I will offer some reflections on the nature of this book in my next post, and I’ll then conclude my response in a third post by addressing the specific passage Driscoll cites.

- See more at: http://reknew.org/2013/10/responding-to-driscolls-is-god-a-pacifist-part-i/?utm_content=buffer06a2d&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer#sthash.0viZbXkh.dpuf

Richard B. Hays ("The Moral Vision of the New Testament" p317-346, 344):

If we live in obedience to Jesus' command to renounce violence, the church will become where the sphere of the future of God's righteousness intersects -- and challenges -- the present tense of human existence. The meaning of the New Testament's teaching on violence will become evident only in communities of Jesus' followers who embody the costly way of peace.

While the OT allowed for, and even required, retaliation, Jesus commands us to instead love and pray for our enemies. (In Luke 6 he adds “and do good to those who hate you” [vs 27]). Rather than to ever respond to violence with violence, we’re to instead love like the sun shines and like the rain falls – namely, indiscriminately. Whether the person is a friend or life-threatening enemy, we’re to love and bless them. And Jesus makes our willingness to love like this a precondition for being considered a child of our Father in heaven – “that you may be.”  By the standards of Jesus’ teaching, therefore, anyone who obeyed the OT laws requiring violence could not be considered a child of the Father in heaven.
It’s also important we notice that Jesus never qualifies who the “enemies” we’re to love are (nor does Paul in Rom 12:14-21). Indeed, his instruction to love indiscriminately rules out any possible qualifications. What makes Jesus’ teachings even more radical is that any talk about “enemies” to a Jewish audience in first century Palestine would immediate call to mind the Romans – the one’s who unjustly oppressed, abused, and often randomly killed the Jewish people. Jesus’ command to love enemies and to never respond violently to them thus includes the very worst kind of enemies we can imagine: the kind that threaten us, our country, and/or our loved ones. It includes the kind of enemies people naturally feel most “justified” killing, if they need to, in order to protect themselves. But these are precisely the kinds of enemies we’re to always love and never retaliate against.
As radical as this teaching might sound to us, however, I don’t believe it should surprise us that we’re commanded to love this way. For God loved us to the point of death when we “were yet enemies,” (Rom 5:10), and we are commanded to “imitate God” by living in this same kind of love, “just as Christ loved us and gave his life for us” (Eph. 5:1-2).
To sum it all up, in this passage Jesus is doing nothing less than telling us that our willingness to set aside a violent OT law in order to obey his new command to love and refrain from violence toward even the worst kind of life-threatening enemies is a precondition for being considered a child of God. And this, folks, is why I don’t believe Driscoll’s argument about the sixth commandment allowing for some forms of killing is relevant to followers of Jesus.

I am a bit puzzled as to why Driscoll didn’t address any of this material in his attempt to refute the idea that “God is a pacifist.” One might have thought it would be relevant since Driscoll is, after all, a Christian pastor, and he’s addressing a Christian audience.  Instead, to prove that “Jesus is not a pansy or a pacifist” (one wonders if the two are not synonymous for Driscoll), he cites one passage from the book of Revelation (14:14-20). To address this, I will offer some reflections on the nature of this book in my next post, and I’ll then conclude my response in a third post by addressing the specific passage Driscoll cites.

- See more at: http://reknew.org/2013/10/responding-to-driscolls-is-god-a-pacifist-part-i/?utm_content=buffer06a2d&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer#sthash.0viZb

McKnight. Sprinkle. Boyd.

--Nick

Mark Driscoll, Twitter and the Inauguration of President Obama

 I'll confess, I'm not certain about how I feel right now. I think this issue is not only sensitive but is quite primed to explode. Driscoll and the President both provoke fairly intense feelings on all sides so this controversy is by and large fueled by passion. Which is by no means a bad thing.

I will lay out a few points and attempt to explain what I believe is going on.

1. Mark Driscoll shouldn't have posted the tweet. Period. For a few reasons. One, it is far too hasty and two, the opening clause about "praying" may be well-intentioned, but what follows seems to contradict it.

2. As with the nature of controversy, it is fanned and flamed because people, simply, lose their minds over it. This is, for many, a special day. The inauguration of the President of the United States creates passion and optimism for the future, particularly on MLK day. Detractors of Mark need to realize this and tone things down. Calling him an asshole doesn't do much besides piss off everyone else.

3. Despite Mark's comment about the President not "knowing" God, the President claims to be a Christian. According to the President,

I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life. But most importantly, I believe in the example that Jesus set by feeding the hungry and healing the sick and always prioritizing the least of these over the powerful. I didn't 'fall out in church' as they say, but there was a very strong awakening in me of the importance of these issues in my life. I didn't want to walk alone on this journey. Accepting Jesus Christ in my life has been a powerful guide for my conduct and my values and my ideals.

There is one thing that I want to mention that I think is important. Part of what we've been seeing during the course of this campaign is some scurrilous e-mails that have been sent out, denying my faith, talking about me being a Muslim, suggesting that I got sworn in at the U.S. Senate with a Quran in my hand or that I don't pledge allegiance to the flag. I think it's really important for your readers to know that I have been a member of the same church for almost 20 years, and I have never practiced Islam. I am respectful of the religion, but it's not my own. One of the things that's very important in this day and age is that we don't use religion as a political tool and certainly that we don't lie about religion as a way to score political points. I just thought it was important to get that in there to dispel rumors that have been over the Internet. We've done so repeatedly, but obviously it's a political tactic of somebody to try to provide this misinformation.

You can read the entire interview here.

I think we should take the President at his word that he is a Christian. I do not agree with his stance on taxes nor do I approve of his handling of the abortion issue. However, the attempts he has shown to live out in regards to helping the poor and providing healthcare are firmly with the Gospel. If one must criticize him, do so by saying he is "inconsistent," not "unChristian."

Still thinking this through.


--Nick

"Christian Leaders and Their Cartoon Counterparts"

I was checking my email updates, and Sojourners just nailed this. I couldn't stop laughing. Quite good. Enjoy.

Sojo:

To see Joel Osteen, Brian McLaren and others, click HERE.

--Nick

Austin Fischer, "The New Calvinism and Preaching"

Austin Fischer:

My Conversion…to Calvinism

I was converted to Calvinism because of the preaching of John Piper. I was in high school and somebody gave me a book he had written. I read it, understood some of it, and then began listening to his sermons and through the process of listening to sermon after sermon, eventually discovered I was a Calvinist.

My story isn’t unique. Indeed, I think most people’s conversion to Calvinism goes something along the lines of, “Well I started listening to Piper/Chandler/Driscoll/Chan’s preaching and woke up one day a Calvinist.” There’s no mystery here: it’s a rare occurrence when one consistently sits under someone’s preaching and doesn’t pick up on his/her theological presuppositions. The mystery is why so many people are currently listening to Neo-Calvinist preaching. And by this I mean, what are the causes for the proliferation of prominent Calvinist preachers with so much influence and appeal, especially among younger generations?

Better Preaching Material?

C. Michael Patton recently examined this issue on his blog and his hypothesis is that in the current cultural climate, Calvinism just preaches better (than its alternatives, Arminianism in particular). By this he means that in a world of ambiguity, skepticism, and uncertainty, Calvinism’s emphasis on the absolute sovereignty of God is better preaching material than any sort of free will theism. As Patton says, “Evangelicals love to hear about the sovereignty of God, the glory of God in suffering, the security of God’s grace, the providence of God over missions, and yes, even the utter depravity of man. This stuff preaches. This stuff sells tickets.”[1]

In the opening chapter of Against Calvinism, Roger Olson makes a similar connection by suggesting that Calvinism’s emphasis on certainty and sovereignty has been an anchor for those seeking refuge from the difficulties of finding faith in a postmodern context.[2]

I think Patton and Olson are clearly on to something. Although I’m no specialist on the matter, it’s always seemed to me that Calvinism is far more at home in modernity than postmodernity. 

Calvinism, once accepted, provides an inner logic with virtually no loose ends that offers its adherents a strong sense of certainty. Calvinists believe God is in absolute control, that no event happens unless God ordains it, and so in any and all circumstances they can be absolutely certain that God’s exact plan is unfolding. So for those going through certainty withdrawals, Calvinistic preaching can be a welcome remedy, especially when it is articulated with the passion of people like Piper and Driscoll. In other words, they are preaching that we can have certainty and they are preaching it with certainty. And this stuff does indeed sell!

As such, I think the current appeal of Calvinist preaching has less to do with passion and more to do with certainty. Thus, I would contend that it is not so much that Calvinism preaches better as it is that certainty preaches better. It always has and always will, but it is especially appealing in a postmodern context (or post-postmodern, or whatever we are in now), which seems inundated with ambiguity. I might go even further and argue that at the heart of most passionate movements, you will find a message of certainty preached with certainty.

Of course the larger issue is whether or not certainty, while obviously desirable, is responsible. This is a nuanced and contentious issue, but one I think needs some serious attention. I have argued elsewhere that certainty in our beliefs about God is not merely bad manners but bad theology.[3] In other words, of course preaching certainty with certainty is going to sell and create a movement. But does it create good disciples?

For the rest, click HERE.

--Nick

Christian Piatt, "'Angry Queers,' Mark Driscoll & Mars Hill"

Unless it wasn't obvious, I'm not a fan of Mark Driscoll. That said, I do not find this conduct to be helpful in any way. Its unbecoming of rational people. I find myself largely agreeing with Piatt on this one, save for nuances that can be explained if asked.

Christian Piatt:

I had a stew of emotions when I read about an activist group in Portland calling itself the “Angry Queers” vandalizing a satellite church of Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill network. Neighbors in the area reported seeing a handful of young people in black masks smashing stained glass windows and damaging other property on the church campus early Tuesday morning.  A group called the “Angry Queers” sent a letter to a local news affiliate taking responsibility for the damage.

I get the anger. I feel that anger when I read things that pastors like Mark Driscoll say about the LGBT community. It’s wrong and it should be confronted publicly.

But please, for the love of God and one another, not like this.

Local pastor Chuck Currie, known for his vocal criticism of Mars Hill’s theology and portrayal of women and the LGBT community, is right in calling for this to be treated as a hate crime.

“If Mars Hills Church represents the worst of Christianity,” said Curry in a recent Huffington Post article, “and I believe it sadly does, those response for this attack represent the worst of Portland.”

He’s right.

There is such a thing as righteous anger, and we all should call one another to account when we treat individuals or groups as “less than.” But such

Mars Hill Pastor Mark Driscoll

a response actually serves an opposite purpose from what I believe was intended. By noting that the vandalism changes nothing about the church’s mission, Mars Hill ends up being the more tolerant party in this case. Granted, they’ve stopped short thus far of publicly forgiving the vandals, but they’re not returning the violence with an equal dose of anger.

It also compromises the entire face of the pro-LGBT movement. It serves to reinforce the stereotype some have of LGBT people as somehow beyond the bounds of “typical” Americans. From my perspective as a straight male of some privilege, I can’t, for the life of me, see how anything about this stunt helps further the cause of the Gay/Lesbian community or to call Mars Hill to account for their intolerant rhetoric.

I tend to believe that violent responses to injustice point to a lack of imagination. It suggests that the angry party can’t see any way out of their situation other than with aggression or violence. But in my experience, it’s the creative, nonviolent responses that truly end up making a more lasting impression on the public. Author and theologian Walter Wink has influenced my thinking about this more than anyone.

Wink says, as I’ve talked about in previous articles, that we often look at injustice and assume we have two options: do nothing or respond in kind. But by acting like that which we consider wrong, we become more like it. Think of Luke Skywalker inStar Wars, who cuts off Darth Vader’s hand, only to find that his own hand has become the very one he struck on his enemy. Wink also proposes that, in doing nothing, we tacitly condone the wrong that we would otherwise call to account.

Fortunately, Wink finds a third way in the life and teaching of Jesus. I’ll not hash out his entire proposal here; for a more thorough discussion of Wink’s third way, click the link to the earlier article above. But I do want to share a story that, though I’ve told it before, is worth sharing again.

I am part of a denomination called the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Yes, the parentheses are actually part of the name. Every two years we have a gathering called the General Assembly, where all Disciples are invited to come together to worship, learn and share stories and a meal. It’s pretty cool to have thousands of Disciples and squashed into one city at the same time. But at times, it also draws some negative attention.

Protesters from Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church

Several years back, when we were meeting in Kansas City, Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist folks showed up to protest our denomination because some of our congregations ordain LGBT clergy. The Westboro folks are notorious by now for picketing military funerals and grabbing attention in some of the most unlikely – and generally unpleasant – contexts. They also tend to verbally antagonize folks with the hope (yes, really) that someone will assault one of their members. They, in turn, sue the assailant, which in turn funds their strange little church.

This is a perfect example of the negative consequences of a lack of creative imagination when it comes to responding to injustice. The Westboro folks have actually figured out how to exploit that deficit of creativity for personal gain. It’s abhorrent, but we do always have a choice.

When they showed up to our Assembly in Kansas City, I got a little taste of their strategy first hand. As I waited to cross the street, one of the protesters started calling me names and getting up in my face, though very careful not to actually touch me. Wary of my short fuse, Amy quickly grabbed my arm and took me in a different direction. But I could see the immediate appeal of laying one of them out on their ass.

But leave it to our younger folks to show us all a “third way.” they gathered a couple dozen youth across the street from the hollering picketers and began to sing to them. They didn’t make fun of them, or call them any names. They didn’t even address them directly. They just sang some of their camp songs and then left.

Their response inspired me, as evidenced by the fact that I’m telling the story some ten years later. It was a small, simple gesture at the time, but it’s funny how simple, Christlike responses can have unexpected, amazing and lasting effects.

Don’t believe me? Go back and read the stories about this guy named Jesus and his handful of followers who wandered around by foot, helping people, telling stories and living out this strangely unnatural “third way.”

Fast forward two thousand years, and I’d say that relatively simple ministry made a difference. And per Jesus’ explicit instruction, not a stone was cast in the process.

It is possible; we just have to have the willingness and capacity to imagine it.

Piatt/Mars Hill

--Nick

C. Michael Patton, "Why Arminianism Doesn't Sell"

I thought this was quite interesting. 

I made an observation recently that may be completely off base, or it may just betray the reality of the tight Evangelical circles in which I travel most of the time. Either way, here it is:

Calvinists have a corner on theologically-themed conferences. Arminians have apologetically-themed conferences. Leadership conferences don’t do theology.

Is this true? It seems true from my standpoint. Think about the major conferences out therethat are theological in nature: Desiring God, Together for the Gospel, The Gospel Coalition, and Ligonier Ministries. All of them fill churches and arenas with thousands of people. Passion fills the air as speakers talk about theological issues in the church. John Piper, Don Carson, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Albert Mohler, Tim Keller, and the like are invited to speak. Diversity runs deep in these theology conferences. Dispensationalist and Covenant Theologians, paedobaptists and credo baptists, charismatics and non-charismatics, and premillenialists and amillenialists are all represented. However, it is hard to find an Arminian invited to (much less putting together) such engagements. Why? I don’t know, but I suspect that it is because Arminianism, as a theological distinctive, just does not preach. Don’t get me wrong. I did not say that Arminians can’t preach. They most certainly can. And I did not say that Arminianism is not true (This is not the question on the table). It is simply that the distinctives of Arminianism do not sell in such settings. Evangelicals love to hear about the sovereignty of God, the glory of God in suffering, the security of God’s grace, the providence of God over missions, and yes, even the utter depravity of man. This stuff preaches. This stuff sells tickets.

For the Arminian to put together a distinctive conference, things would be a bit less provocative. Things like “The Responsibility of Man in Suffering,” “Man’s Role in Salvation,” or “The Insecurity of Salvation” won’t preach too well. Think about how hard it is for a Calvinist to try to plug in a token Arminian at a general theology conference. On what subject do you let them speak? “Roger Olson, I would like you to come to our conference and speak on . . . (papers ruffling) . . . ummm . . . (papers ruffling more) . . . Do you do anything in apologetics (except suffering)?”

Of course, there was the John 3:16 conference, which was Arminian. But that was not a general theology conference. It was a specific conference which amounted to a polemic against Calvinism. During the conference, the speakers simply countered all five points of Calvinism. This is symptomatic of so much of the Arminian distinctives with regard to their message. Much of the time Arminianism is simply seen as “Against Calvinism,” whereas Calvinism is more affirmatively focused on the sovereignty of God. Even the latest books published on the subject betray such a reality: For Calvinism by Michael Horton and Against Calvinism by Roger Olson. I think one can find this same general approach in the theological blogosphere. Calvinists have something they are for, while Arminians are always on the defensive, fighting what they are against. Finally, as far as I know, the John 3:16 conference only happened once (in 2008). That it, or anything like it, has not been renewed or rebooted may serve to prove my observation.

Now, apologetics seems to be a different story. Not only to do you have Arminians filling the pulpit when it comes to defending the faith, they seem to dominate. William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, Paul Copan, Norman Geisler, and Gary Habermas are all on the roster. It is “Team Biola.” This is not to say that Calvinists don’t do apologetics. However, they normally do so in a less “evidentialist” style that just won’t teach. Have you ever tried to teach people to defend the faith using presuppositional and transcendental arguments? Enough said. The simple observation I am making is that apologetics is heavily dominated by Arminians today. However, I don’t think there is anything distinctive about Arminianism which would make them more equipped to hold apologetics conferences. Perhaps, the focus on the free will of man makes the whole apologetics enterprise more necessary and effective in Arminianism. Theoretically, Calvinists, because of their compatibleness (holding the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man in tension), could teach evidentiary apologetics just as truly as an Arminian. ”Did Christ Rise from the Grave?”, “Who is Jesus?”, “Is God a Moral Monster?”, or “Responding to the New Atheists” are all topics on which Calvinists and Arminians could teach together without sacrificing their theological integrity. There may be some distinction with a topic such as “If God is Real, Why is There Evil?” But that is the only apologetic issue which I think could be an exception in this group of topics.

Leadership conferences, on the other hand, are normally very diverse. Why? In all probability, they are not very theological in nature. Stirring passion about finishing strong, leading by serving, and preparing a sermon does not require any theological commitment one way or another. However, if the leadership conference turns on men’s issues or women’s issues, the complementarian/egalitarian elephant enters the room. And, generally speaking, most complementarians are Calvinist and most egalitarians are Arminian.

That said, these observations are not timeless. They are what I see today. I think they represent the chicken or the egg question (I don’t know which comes first) to the resurgence of Calvinism in the pews today. My hypothesis is that Calvinism preaches better than Arminianism. In a confused world of suffering and pain, we want to know that God has it under control, not man. Calvinism instigates more of a dramatic change in theology than does Arminianism. We are more naturally inclined toward the Arminian idea of free will and God’s sovereignty. People normally don’t “become” Arminians. But nearly all Calvinists can tell of a passionate “conversion” experience as to how Calvinism dramatically changed their way of thinking about God. This creates incredible passion. Therefore, we invite Calvinists only to these theology conferences (even when the organization, itself, claims to be more broadly Evangelical). And people leave with a full heart. On the other hand, when we want to fight against the New Atheists, we do not need to discriminate against the finer points of theology too much. Therefore, we invite either Arminian or Calvinist apologists.

C. Michael Patton

--Nick

Peter Rollins, "The Violence of Christianity"

Its not what you think. Its actually quite powerful. Its roughly 6 and a half minutes. Worth your time.

Peter Rollins/Violence

--Nick

John Stackhouse on Mark Driscoll

A very interesting point by John.

"We are thus told, by Mrs. Driscoll as well as then by her husband, that a man who does not provide for his wife and children is flatly disobeying God. If she is out working and he isn’t–save only in extreme cases of injury, sickness, or other physical debility (unemployment is not mentioned as an excuse)–he is “worse than an unbeliever.” 

That last phrase comes from the text–the one and only text–adduced by the Driscolls on behalf of their forbiddance of men staying home and women working: I Timothy 5:8. And now a cascade of basic exegetical, theological, and homiletical problems begins:"

For more, John Stackhouse on Mark Driscoll

--Nick