Thursday, May 3, 2007

My (Non)Favorite Preacher!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKHILew-laI

Let me clarify right off the---OK, I can't think of the right word, but let me clarify right away that I do not intend to demonize Mark Driscoll. It would be dishonest to say that this dude is a jerk freshly-dipped in hell fire, ready to gobble down your children. I've listened to one sermon by him, and appreciated it. So you have to understand that I have limited contact with his preaching, appreciate some of what he is doing, and bang my head against the keyboard at the rest. I mean, look at this quote

Mark Driscoll

“So the question is if you want to be innovative: How do you get young men? All this nonsense on how to grow the church. One issue: young men. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. They’re going to get married, make money, make babies, build companies, buy real estate. They’re going to make the culture of the future. If you get the young men you win the war, you get everything. You get the families, the women, the children, the money, the business,

you get everything. If you don’t get the young men you get nothing. You get nothing.”

So young women do not get married, make money, make babies, build companies, buy real estate, they don't make the culture of the future (despite making up 51% of the population) and if you get young women, you don't win the war, you don't get everything, you don't get the families, the women, the children, the money, the business, you don't get everything. If you don't get young women, you're not losing out too bad. If you don't get young women, it doesn't matter.

He seems to be stating, basically, that once you get young men, the women are dragged along inside. Good for macho Driscoll, 'cause that way, he doesn't have to worry about appealing to the "feminine" half of humanity (a very dirty word for Markie) because that would be really below him. In fact, to appeal to women, he would have to soften his theology, sing love songs to Jesus, and wear a pink suit, because according to Mark, that's what women want. In fact, the feminization of the church is a big concern for Mark, because you see, feminine equals silly, vapid, empty, directionless, soft, liberality.

See, what Mark and "God" know is that the church needs a big shot of masculinity, because masculinity equals strong, no-nonsense, pure, vision-oriented, conservative, intelligent churches. It doesn't matter to Mark that men historically have started the major cults, and have lead the church. The church is dominated by male leadership and male theology. So to take the mess that is our current American church and dump it into the laps of women/feminists is silly and immature.

Oh, and churches that don't target 22-25 year old men aren't innovative because the innovators aren't there? OK, that's sexist beyond belief. Because the huge implication is that women are not and cannot be innovators.

Lame, lame, lame.

And I leave you with this.

So the question is if you want to be innovative: How do you get Caucasians? All this nonsense on how to grow the church. One issue: whites. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. They’re going to get married, make money, make babies, build companies, buy real estate. They’re going to make the culture of the future. If you get the white people you win the war, you get everything. You get the families, the blacks, the children, the money, the business, you get everything. If you don’t get the Caucasians you get nothing. You get nothing.

Why is it OK to be sexist?

1 comment:

Dan said...

I watched that video before and found so many things disturbing. Really the question is this: "Why do we want young white men? MONEY!" Might as well say that. We want MONEY! Souls? Why bother with such trivial things. MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! I am so sick of this craze we have with how we plant churches and it all comes down to who has the MONEY in your target area?

God help us.