May 28, 2009
Driscollian Drollery and the Déjà-vu of a Reforming Fundamentalist
A number of younger friends (and some men from my church) went to the Gospel Coalition and wrote or talked to me about how much they enjoyed it. But many of them had concerns about Mark Driscoll and asked me to listen to his message and comment on it to them. Since our friend Chris Anderson has practically taken the words out of my mouth in his excellent assessment of the Driscoll phenomenon, I thought I would piggyback off of that and share the open letter I’ve written to my Gospel-loving, soon-to-be-preachers friends.
Dear Timothys-in-Ministry:
Men, one of the hardest challenges in life and ministry is to think critically for the sake of making your self a better servant of God and a sharper thinker without succumbing to the corrosive attitude of cynicism or arrogance. I know that you have a great respect for D.A. Carson, Tim Keller, and John Piper and since it appears that they uncritically elevate Mark Driscoll up for your admiration, it might be a bit confusing if I suggest that not only was his message problematic, but it reminded me of a genre of messages that I have tried to put behind me. Worse, I experienced déjà vu all over again (!), thinking that if I closed my eyes I could have been at a Fundamentalist conference (minus his cracks on Baptists and KJV-only people, of course).
Well, I listened to Mark Driscoll’s message from the Gospel Coalition this past weekend and it reminded me of the kind of weak preaching I left behind me when I repudiated certain circles of fundamentalists. Besides the fact that it was laced with all kinds of reminders of how big-time he is (like how many of us really technorati ourselves to see what people are saying about us?), it was mostly story and joke time and an exposition that left me wondering how he missed the point.
Criticizing Mark Driscoll really takes guts. I get feedback from Acts 29 guys that rivals any of the inflamed rhetoric of the Bob Jones lemmings of twenty years back whenever their guru institution was criticized. Mark Driscoll is to many like Bob Jones was to many: to not love him with gaga devotion is to be a enemy of the cross of Jesus Christ. He’s one of those polarizing characters that makes his friends and his enemies agree on only one thing: ambivalence about him is intolerable.
Well, I’m basically ambivalent. And I’d encourage you to be the same.
Mark is the victim of his own philosophy. Unless he deepens; he’s a flash in the pan. He’s contextualized so effectively that he’s become like American culture. Pop. Bang. Splash. Fizzle. Gone. I’m fascinated by Church History and I have found it interesting that several history professors have predicted the same thing about Driscoll’s long term effect unless he changes things.
Personally, I have told a number of people that I admire Mark Driscoll for a number of things, and I am quite happy with his success. He clearly is better at a lot of things than I am and I am truly happy he has been entrusted with so much more than I have. But just because I think he’s better than I doesn’t mean that I think I can’t critique. It is our duty to be grateful and thoughtful.
We haven’t drunk the kool-aid.
Now I am not a part of the Gospel Guild known nationally as the Gospel Coalition. Apparently, you have to be invited to be “in,” but I am quite happy with their effort. As you know, I was very disappointed I could not join you at the conference. But the Gospel Guild has gilded a man and ministry that needs to be more sharply criticized by them then they seem to be willing to do.
As D.A. Carson said in Exegetical Fallacies on this very exercise, “Sustained negativism is highly calorific nourishment for pride.” But it should be done, he argued, for the good of us all, and I do this with the full recognition and appreciation that God is indeed using Mark Driscoll. I echo all of the kind things that Chris Anderson said about him in his post and, as you know, I have been real slow to get myself all worked up about Mark’s excesses. He’s a Gospel preacher after all. And, frankly, his preaching far outshines some of the preaching I heard growing up in fundamentalism.
But I can’t help but wonder what the author of Exegetical Fallacies thought about Mark Driscoll’s message at the Gospel Coalition because if he thought it was a technically good message, I have problems.
I’ll say more about why I think Mark’s message was not really a good exposition later, but I think it’s necessary to insist on the point that Driscoll is fair game for thoughtful critique because of the very fact that he is being used as bait by many evangelical leaders to draw a crowd to their conferences. That’s fine, I guess, but once they start giving a star a pass for bad language or bad preaching they are not very much better than a group of fundamentalists that I left a long time ago.
Let’s not be cynical, but let’s be real. Mark Driscoll is bait. Young guys are pursuing him in droves and the Gospel Coalition conference attendance was certainly padded by the groupies that follow their rock star. Some of you guys remarked to me that it was interesting to see a group of fawning young men surrounding Driscoll who was undeniably out of his league in that roster of preachers while in the same room at the same time a tiny cluster of men, mostly older, were talking to D.A. Carson. Driscoll’s got star power. Mark likes it, I think, and therefore dresses accordingly. More on that later (because even here he reminds me of fundamentalism).
Mark’s preaching was not expositional.
You do not exposit a text when you atomize it and make a point out of every single particle. If the goal of preaching is to explain the text, this does the exact opposite because it fragments the text into so many parts that the hearer loses the forest for the trees and walks away knowing what Driscoll wanted us to hear, but not real sure if it is what God wanted us to hear from the text.
Twenty years ago when my part of the Body of Christ (Greenvillian Fundamentalism) started to become conscious of the concept of expository preaching an interesting phenomenon developed. Suddenly everybody wanted to claim that they were expository preachers and they actually made some effort to do it. Topical preaching was discarded almost to a fault and what resulted was the kind of preaching you heard from Mark Driscoll at the conference. Granted, it is a great deal better than topical rants that characterized so much preaching in fundamentalist circles previously, but it is a preaching that leaves people hungry after they have heard the message because they still haven’t heard the Word.
Mark’s message was not stellar. It really was not all that good. One thing for sure, it falls short of being a good exposition. Our attorney friend was more on the mark when he put on his Facebook account that if you like a combination of a psychologist, a comedian, and a fundamentalist preacher you’d like what you heard that night. I suppose I would have laughed more if I had been in the room with a whole bunch of pastors who are notoriously like boys going to camp every time they gather for a conference, but I really didn’t think it was sidesplitting hilarious. But that’s beside the point. Without going into an in depth analysis of each of his points, here is a broad critique of Mark’s message and Gospel Coalition for promoting him followed by a few remarks about Mark’s clothes.
1. Mark’s message was an atomistic interpretation and exposition of his assigned text. Some people think that expositional preaching is to draw every point from a word or phrase in the text before them. This is not necessarily expositional preaching. The goal of expositional preaching is to make every point expose the intention of the text.
Mark’s message had 20 points (not to mention the 20 previous points of introduction that took over a half hour to describe the types of people that he encountered in ministry). By the time Mark had worked his way through those twenty points, I had to re-read the passage to remind myself what the actual intention of the text was! Sometimes his points sprang off one word in the text and developing a whole line of thought that wasn’t remotely linked to the text (though it could be imagined as linked to the word or phrase he was commenting on.)
This may seem petty, of course, but remember that he is being touted as a great leader/preacher by the Gospel Guild. It behooves us to think for ourselves on these things.
2. Mark’s message failed to be Gospel-centered at a conference for the Gospel Coalition. Mark had one of the best opportunities of all the men to nail down the two core themes of salvation that are uniquely and expressly articulated in his assigned text, and he missed it. “But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are his,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity’” (2 Timothy 2:19). Could there have been a better place to proclaim the dual Gospel lodestones that draw the most debate and discussion than at a conference dedicated to the Gospel?
Without opening your Greek New Testaments just think for two seconds on that verse and those two weighty concepts:
a. The Lord knows those who are his. This is God’s sovereignty.
b. Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. This is sanctification.
Sovereignty and sanctification! Can you think of any other two concepts that are more misunderstood in the doctrine of salvation than these? Wow! What an opportunity to show that God’s firm foundation bears that seal! Instead, we got a dose of Mark’s philosophy of ministry in a series of disconnected sound bytes.
3. The Gospel Coalition disappoints me, men, when they promote this kind of preaching. I thought I could have shut my eyes and imagined myself in an old fundamentalist meeting where a personality cult has built up around a person who dishes out what he calls expositional preaching. Too much of this kind of thing and the happy Gospel Guild will become a powerless fellowship. Personality cultism killed huge segments of Fundamentalism, and the Gospel Guild, being human, is not above the same pitfall.
Finally, let me make just a few remarks about Mark’s clothes. Ironically, he reminds me of some parts of the bad fundamentalism that I was exposed to in that he is obsessed with externals. He wants us to notice so, again, it’s fair game for me to comment. After all, the very first words he said when he got on stage at the Gospel Coalition were about his clothes.
Guys, Mark has put himself out front as the guru of contextualization, but the man could not even contextualize enough to adapt to the culture where he was speaking for the week. I was a missionary and I consider myself fairly well-read on the matters of contextualization and so forth, so let me give you a very practical rule of thumb: when you’re self-conscious about what you are wearing, you’ve failed to contextualize.
Mark’s first statement when he got up there was a remark about his dress as it contrasted to whoever it was he mentioned. I muttered to myself, “Well, then, Mr. Contextualization, why don’t you dress in such a way that it’s unremarkable.” The goal of contextualization in Gospel ministry is to remove obstacles of communication, not draw attention to it. Ironically, Mark is using contextualization to draw attention to him.
He made the remark that “some people repeat Jr. High for forty years” and I thought, “You should know.” The jeans-chains are hip-hop bling-bling. Now, call me a legalist, but any thoughtful person who has ever lived in the place we call “world” knows that you convey a message with your clothes. And most thoughtful people don’t equate bling-bling to anything, well, thoughtful. The first thing a serious person sees when they see Mark Driscoll is the hip-hop bling-bling and it’s probably because Driscoll said, “Did you notice?” Do you want a hip-hop bling-bling gospel?
Now, I’m going to really get the Acts 29 friends upset (and btw, Acts 29 is not in the Bible!): I’m going to go so far as to say that the bling-bling Mark loves is a great demonstration of how a man, a preacher, can disobey a command that was specifically given to women. The Apostle said, “[Women] should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness – with good works” (1 Timothy 2:9-11 ESV).
“Respectable” or “modest”: because the goal of Christians getting together is not to remark about clothes. I think it is proper to understand this admonishment as directly relevant to corporate worship. Mark is famously complementarian, but would he really go so far as to say that this applies only to women and not to men? My understanding of the “likewise” in verse 9 suggests that the spirit of the command that is given to men ought also to apply to women and vice versa.
Let me tell you guys how you know if you are really contextualizing: you have achieved contextualization when no one notices what you’re wearing, or at the very least it is not an attention getter. Furthermore, the goal of the preacher of the gospel is to not be an attention-getter with his clothes. If women were forbidden to do it in the congregational setting, certainly this applies to men.
Now, with that in mind, we might ought to consider if wearing suits is distractive. Perhaps street clothes are best. I’m not against that! When we are persuaded that our clothes are distractive, we’ll change them. Right now I think we’re on the mark to dress with muted professionalism. It is not like that in every area; Seattle for example.
Driscoll’s fans will say that this proves I am ignorant because everybody in Seattle dresses the way Mark does. Fine. But even Time magazine talks about how Mark dresses. He’s pushing the envelope and even Time notices. There are gazillion preachers that preach in street clothes every Sunday. That is not news. What is remarkable is that Mark loves hip-hop bling-bling and seems to want to be a fashion trendsetter.
What happens when Mars Hill suddenly grows up? Will they look like the silly sixty-five year old bikers on their Harleys? Completely out of touch with the reality of today?
Brothers, be men. Don’t get all in an unnecessary tizzy about Mark, either for or against. Be grateful for him as I am, but look rather to men who look, act, and talk grown-up. I should hope that if you go to a conference like the one you just attended that you would have the discernment to know who the real culture-changers are. Men like D.A. Carson will have the lasting effect that a Driscoll will never have.
Driscoll is so relevant to this flash-bang culture that he is ultimately not going to be as relevant as he could be in the long-term. He is the picture of what social critics refer to as arrested development and decried so eloquently by Diana West in her book, “The Death of the Grown-up: How America’s Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization.” His relevance is killing his relevance. It’s the proverbial snake eating its own tail. Or, put another way, his immediate relevance is undercutting his long-term relevance. You get the picture.
As usual, our friend Chris Anderson says things so much better than I. Read him. He’s on the mark.
Sincerely,
Your brother and pastor.
Posted by Bob Bixby at May 28, 2009 06:48 PM | eMail this entry! | 2716 WordsThis entry was posted in the following categories: People and Places
I was at the Gospel Coalition Conference and I saw it for myself. Driscoll has true “star power.” He always had multiple folks around him. I walked by the front during a break and there about 25-30 guys clamoring around Driscoll to hang on to every word. RIGHT NEXT to the concentric circles around Driscoll was Don Carson standing alone (I shortly observed someone walk up and talk to Don). I could not believe my eyes.
Driscoll preached on Tuesday evening. He was not crass in his message. He was pretty funny, actually. If I was a complete stranger to the event, I would have assumed that the other speakers were the workers and Driscoll was the entertainment. And I do not think that is being harsh. Driscoll acted like an after dinner speaker. I was disappointed that Driscoll did not use the platform to silence critics by delivering a high quality exegeted message from 2 Timothy. It was his chance to shine before conservative evangelicalism. He blew it.
That’s my two cents from the cheap seats.
Chuck
Posted by: Chuck Hervas at May 28, 2009 05:16 PMHi Bob,
In general, I think your critiques is correct. However, on this statement:
God is indeed using Mark Driscoll.
How do you know that?
As for how people dress in Seattle, only a certain segment is as informal and hip as Driscoll. Business dress is the same all across the continent, although perhaps somewhat less formal in the Northwest. The serious people still will suits and ties in most business situations.
One might question whether church is one of those situations, but to suggest that Seattle is all grunge is really not true.
Marantha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
Bob,
I mostly agree — especially with your hesitancy “to get all worked up” about Driscoll’s ticks.
I also think what you and Anderson have hit on re too much self awareness is probably accurate. However, I must admit that if I had the degree of fame and pressure that Driscoll has — especially at the age and with the experience he got it — I’m not sure that I could avoid that snare either. It is hard to lead, and make all the mistakes of early leadership, without getting some wounds and some praise — and those naturally push one toward a self focus.
Sadly, (and maybe surprisingly to you) I also had some thoughts like yours about the similarities of Driscoll’s message to some old school fundie preaching. Recently, some of Bryan Chapell’s writing has shown me the importance of the skillful use of illustrations in preaching. However, a message with more than one or two illustrations where the preacher himself is the hero still cranks my skepticism knob up to eleven.
Remember, Driscoll is not yet one of the big dogs in the Gospel Coalition. And, my guess is that if he doesn’t stay on message — the centrality of the gospel in everything (justification and sanctification) — the big dogs won’t promote him.
Is it possible that more people are swarming around Driscoll than Carson because they feel like they can actually talk to Driscoll on something approaching equal footing, whereas Carson seems too far out of their league? Is it possible that Driscoll is a better conversationalist than Carson — even though Carson is obviously the more brilliant and scholarly? I once stood alone with John MacArthur by his car in the parking lot of Grace Community for several minutes — I couldn’t think of one meaningful thing to say and he didn’t help! For all Mac’s acheivements, I just didn’t have any point of personal connection. We’re just very different kinds of guys. So, I said something stupid like, “Good message” and then we both stood and looked at our feet. Ha (how’s that for a personal illustration!)
As to Driscoll’s clothes themselves, I can’t see the problem at all — if he could get over focusing on them. You’ve got to wear something, and there are quite a few people who dress like him with no thought of making a point. They would have to be self conciously making an effort to wear khakis and a polo shirt or a suit.
And, Don, as far as suits being the attire of “serious” people. I think I know what you mean, and I don’t entirely disagree with your underlying point. But, I can’t give the business class a pass as easily as you seem to. I mean, there are serious problems in the “hip hop bling” culture — maybe nothing but problems — but the business culture has its problems too. Greed, envy, pride, vanity, etc. are every bit as problematic as lust, violence, and profanity. Maybe ministers ought to wear clerical gowns to preach — and I’m not trying to be sarcastic.
Just some thoughts.
Keith
Posted by: Keith at May 28, 2009 09:37 PM
Hi Keith,
Well, I am not giving the business community a pass. I worked many years in real estate to support our ministry. There were a few flakes who dressed way down, but they didn’t usually last. But yes, the suits and ties didn’t preclude a lot of wickedness. I have seen it up close.
My point isn’t that the clothes make a man, but they do speak about the significance of what you are doing. If you think everything is a joke, you will probably dress that way.
And… not to shock anyone, but on our Wed PM service, I don’t wear a suit and tie. I hope you won’t revoke my fundie creds for it.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
I agree with all you’ve said, Bob. Much of Driscoll’s doctrine appears to be quite orthodox, but his character is a concern. And a distraction. I can’t read a man’s heart, but the signs on the outside seem to suggest that the inside may contain a struggle with pride. Because he appears to relish his ability to shock and go out of his way to use “colorful” terms that are intentionally “edgy”, it seems that he wants to draw attention to himself. Why? Because he seems to enjoy his image as one who is unafraid to be in your face, painfully candid, uncensored in opinion, and deliberately unconventional. He likes us to notice. And the root of that may be quite conventional and common in the end — it may just be pride. I’m still hopeful, but for now I still find him to be a disappointment.
Posted by: Tom at May 29, 2009 12:01 AMI must confess I really have trouble making a personal judgment on him. I think he is a GREAT topical preacher. He would make an excellent campus for christ/youthgroup speaker. However what he is doing on stage with Carson, Keller and Piper is just mind blowing. I don’t wanna sound like a snob but I think this is why seminary education (and yes I know he did recently receive a MA in exegetical theology but by that time his habbits were formed and all it did I think was puff him up a bit more in his head knowledge) is important and why the MDiv is the must for pastors. On the other hand I have been blessed my some of Mark’s messages but they are simply not the quality of most other big name pastors. I honestly think the swearing thing earlier on his his career is the only reason why he became big among evangelical-reformed folk. I think Mahaney and Piper still support him because he is strong on continualist theology (stronger emphesis that Piper, Carson and Mahaney). But at the same time I can go on another 12 lines about the good he has done. I honestly think Carson, Piper, ect… made a sincere and honest mistake and they should not invite him back next year. I will still be a member of the gospel coallition however I think it’s clear that their ideas its just to broad to work. T4G is much better I think. The emphesis is on the local church not silly networking gimmics. I enjoyd the messages but I think it’s just too diverse to have any everlasting fruit. And after seeing those comments about how poor Dr. Carson was all alone I must confess that almost made me cry! But I live in Québec so I have a soft spot for those anglophones who have survived here :)
2. Mark’s message failed to be Gospel-centered at a conference for the Gospel Coalition. Mark had one of the best opportunities of all the men to nail down the two core themes of salvation that are uniquely and expressly articulated in his assigned text, and he missed it…‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity’” (2 Timothy 2:19).
I wonder if he deliberately missed it [or skipped over it] because he knows that it contradicts his lifestyle. I haven’t heard much of him, but the more and more I hear of him, the less and less I believe that he matches up with the qualifications of I Timothy 3.
The other day I questioned his salvation [at SharperIron] on the basis of the evidence that MacArthur laid out in the series “The Rape of Solomon’s Song”, including blasphemy and a fascination with filthy and lewd speech. I got a little flak from some of the people who read that post, but it didn’t change my mind in the least, and this post doesn’t dissuade me from saying so either. It seems like Driscoll acts the way he does because he wants to be the center of attention - a concept that SHOULD be contradictory to true Servants of Christ. Does anyone else see any of this? Or am I just getting way ahead of myself?
Mark Driscoll may be the worst thing that’s ever happened to Evangelicalism. Mark my words.
Posted by: Jay C. at May 29, 2009 10:29 AMThanks for a very insightful analysis!
Posted by: David Pitman at May 29, 2009 11:29 AMI very seldom join in on blog comments, but as I’ve observed Driscoll over the past year, I cannot help but think of Gene Scott. I followed the arch of the Gene Scott phenomenon, from rising star in the Assemblies of God to television wild man, replete with show horses and paid female models.
There was a time when Gene was well-respected and a favorite conference speaker; traveling, writing, and gaining notoriety. Then he started peppering his language with colorful words, leading to outright cursing (or cussing). No one stopped him. His fame grew. He added wild clothes. More fame. He added personal interpretations of key texts to defend his behavior. His congregation became his audience. He became a cult figure. Robin Williams did impressions of him on Saturday Night Live. The fame grew. More money, more houses, more planes, more women, more horses … more notoriety. It was a cycle that fed on itself. And the text of the Bible became secondary to the figure.
That’s my concern with Driscoll. Unless his actions are appropriately governed and he learns to exercise proper discernment, his fame will become the justification for his excesses. And people who approach him biblically ignorant will assume that his personal interpretations are the correct ones … especially if those interpretations allow for ever-expanding personal expression and self-aggrandizement. People love it when the Bible is about THEM.
And the gospel suffers.
I’m amazed that the parallel between Gene Scott and Mark Driscoll has not been examined more closely. Mark’s on the same path. Every generation has its religious heroes and eccentrics. Christianity is not meant to be a platform for fame. When people do become “famous” Christians, they are at the greatest risk of damaging those who idolize them.
But, as per usual, the only thing we seem to learn from history is that we’ve learned nothing from history.
Grace and peace, brethren.
Posted by: Jim Mc. at May 29, 2009 11:53 AMKeith: “Maybe ministers ought to wear clerical gowns to preach — and I’m not trying to be sarcastic.”
They do in my church (PCA). I have to say, I really appreciate it. When the teaching elder has his robe on, it means he is acting as an ordained teaching elder, and it is the office and role we regard (rather than the personality—as this discussion illustrates). It’s funny how the pendulum swings back and forth on that. I can wrap my mind around why clerical robes were discarded, but I think the reasons they were may not be a problem so much in our circles any more—or at least not a problem we associate with robes any more.
Posted by: Becca at May 29, 2009 03:14 PMThis post and Chris Anderson’s are well-written.
I have benefited much from Driscoll’s sermons, but there are some things about him that you and Chris have mentioned that cause me concern.
One of my concerns that neither of you have mentioned (although Chris alluded to it in his point “Driscoll is becoming a franchise”) is his recent announcement of Mars Hill’s plan to grow from their current 10,000 worshipers at 7 campuses to 50,000 worshipers at 100 campuses.
I just can’t see this as the biblical model of church planting—100,000 people watching Mark preach on the big screen. And besides, what if (God forbid) he kicks the bucket? Or falls into sin? What happens to all those campuses then?
Posted by: Greg Long at May 29, 2009 03:44 PMI just can’t see this as the biblical model of church planting—100,000 people watching Mark preach on the big screen. And besides, what if (God forbid) he kicks the bucket? Or falls into sin? What happens to all those campuses then?
That’s easy, Greg…the house built on sand crumples and falls to the earth, and great is its’ fall.
Just a quick note - I attended the smaller Pastor-Theologian conference with John Piper and D.A. Carson the night the Gospel Coalition meeting ended. Even here, Carson took a back seat to the throngs flocking to Piper (who seemed honestly shocked and amazed at the attention). You almost felt sorry for Carson.
Another observation, I think Bob has proven himself to be a man of principle as opposed to a kool-aide drinker by warning of the dangers of leader worship in any camp, be it evangelical or fundamental. It is so sad to see many “reforming fundamentalists” to leave the almost cult-like devotion to fundamental greats only to replace it with the same cult-like devotion to evangelical greats.
Posted by: Kevin Thompson at May 30, 2009 08:37 AMRE: D.A. Carson and lack of fawning.
In some ways I wonder if this is not how it should be. I am tremendously grateful that God has blessed the church of His Son with D.A. Carson and scholars like him. In fact, I am listening to his 2 series on Hebrews’ use of the Old Testament as I exercise. The church of Christ benefits greatly from Carson and men like him who are able to defend and teach the Scripture in a scholarly manner.
That being said, it is the church that Christ purchased and established by His death and resurrection; not the seminary. It is the elder who labors in the word who is worthy of double honor; not the seminary professor.
While we certainly should make a “hero” of no man, we are just as certainly told to give honor to whom it is due. I think it is fair to say, that in eternity, on the whole, pastors will be honored more than seminary profs. This is not meant to devalue the role of the seminary professor, but to exalt the role of the pastor.
brad
Posted by: brad at May 30, 2009 10:57 AMGreg Long: “One of my concerns that neither of you have mentioned…is his recent announcement of Mars Hill’s plan to grow from their current 10,000 worshipers.”
Someone once said that if you repeat something enough times, people will believe it to be true. Dan Gilgoff covers the evangelical movement for U.S. News & World Report told WORLD Magazine that in his experience, megachurch pastors “notoriously inflate membership” numbers. The reasons? “Media attention, political influence, and money.”
http://www.worldmag.com/articles/13552
Posted by: R. Kelley at July 14, 2009 07:07 AMBob, I have to say I agree with some of your observations concerning fads, and popularity. There is something to say about a Christian culture that jumps from one form of hero worship to another. I also know as a fact Mark has more weaknesses than you can even list as I’m sure we all do. Here is what I would like to comment on in your post and hope my comments get through the filter.
1) You went off on Mark’s “expositional” sermon skills. I’m not sure your angle, but I don’t understand your beef. Are you saying you have pretty much pinned down his preaching style from a pastor’s conference? Mark overall is more affective to both a Christian and Non-Christian audience than almost any other preacher today in my opinion which is why he is so popular and so often emulated. He is the anti-Joel Osteen, anti-seeker sensitive, anti-Christianize, and also anti-shallow. That is a difference between the Fundamentalists roots you speak of. Those guys were popular for how they preached in isolation from culture. Mark is popular for how he preaches in a way that makes the listeners what to be missionaries to their culture. He does that affectively. I think it is hard to argue otherwise. You may not like how he says things, but you can’t argue his effectiveness to his audience.
2) The moment you mentioned Mark’s clothing as some type of exegesis of who Mark is you greatly defused the credibility of anything you said before. I could agree to disagree up to that point then it got silly. It revealed to me why you don’t get the popularity and effectiveness of Mark because clothing would ever be at the forefront of your mind in analyzing him in the first place. Mark doesn’t try to be a Seattlite he is a third generation Seattlite. He can dress however he wants without the need to be approved by Bible belt Christians.
Posted by: Brent Rood at September 1, 2009 02:04 PM
