if you have read my blog for any length of time you will know that i have the utmost loathing for mark driscoll and all he stands for. that he made the nyt gives me shivers, but the article nails the ugliness that calvinism brings to the body of christ. if you are involved in the emergent discussion i recommend reading:
who would jesus smack down?
6 comments:
I skimmed it because I couldn't make myself read all of that; makes my nerve-endings ache. To quote Groucho Marx:
"I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."
Okay, maybe not quite that but I have a really hard time with such blatant coolness and trendiness, that's for sure.
Mich
Driscoll doesn't represent Calvinists, especially in his attitude toward women.
Rob the Presbyterian of UnSpace.
hey rob - i'm glad it's working for you, it just left me cold as ice.
it only works when life works - when horrible stuff happens god has to be a bastard, and i just couldn't worship that kind of god any more.
it's amazing how different my faith is when i got free of that.
i don't think he speaks for all of calvinism, but he is what is giving it new life and legs - and it makes me sick and sad.
as a hopefully non-hard-ass calvinist, i'm disappointed that driscoll has left a bad taste in people's mouths. i'm just back from india again and am beginning to catch up with life, so the nyt article about him is totally new to me. maybe you can send me the site?
believe it or not, i did hear him, reluctantly at first, at a conference he was part of, in november. he swaggered, puts forth some kind of attitude, but some of what he said i found ok.
he's still not my cup of tea...
judi
oh duh...you had the site right under your comment...
am on my way out, so i briefly looked at it and cringed... when i heard him, he was a bit blunt but he was not crude. think he knew he was under scrutiny.
whatever is the attraction...?
He is the consumate ass. Really has a beef with gays, sissies, weaklings, softies, feminists (I don't think he uses the word fag). That machismo is not a necessary component of Calvinism, it's just very macho, hip-crude (I guess? except it's so lame and bizarre).
I have always thought Calvinism rather despisable: especially double predestination for its absurd ramifications for evangelism, the use of human categories to constrain an infinite God, the necessarily somber ethos it inspires if one is taking the wrath of the chess-playing Father seriously, the God of propositions and texts rather than of spirit and mystery, etc. A bizarre turn in European history.
I do know some Calvinists who are quite progressive, even very progressive, and this always amazes me (though these are old school Calvinists, and not really Evangelical). Perhaps the revival of Calvinism in people Piper is what I am most referring to (and of course he's rather fond of second class women as well (though no swearing or masturbation jokes at all)).
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