News Mars Hill Protest: It’s Off
posted by December 2 at 15:08 PM
onTomorrow’s protest at Mars Hill has been cancelled—and so has MH Pastor Mark “My Fat Wife Made Me Do It!” Driscoll’s column in The Seattle Times. Now you’re going to have to go to Driscoll’s church to enjoy his sexist ramblings.
Driscoll has, he claims, repented of his sexist ways. After instructing his flock that women are supposed to shut up, have kids, and keep their husband’s balls drained, Jesus spoke to Mark through a woman. And not any woman, but Ted Haggard’s niece. From Driscoll’s blog:
I was contacted by Carolyn Haggard, the neice of Ted Haggard. She said that she had been tracking some of the furor in bloggerdom. She wanted to let me know that her family was praying for me, they appreciated the first blog that caused some people to be upset, and they did not interpret it as personally directed at anyone. At the church Ted Haggard pastored, Carolyn oversees, of all things, media relations. As we have exchanged some emails, God used her as both an encouragement and an instructor…. Through her, God convicted me that I need to hire someone to do what she does. Most helpful would be someone who could keep up with the blogging and media worlds and let me know what is going on so that my critics can be my coaches and help me do a better job of serving Jesus and people.
Wow! God spoke to Driscoll through a woman! How will God speak to Driscoll next? Perhaps through a fluffy bunny?
As Slog tipper Phil M. points out, Driscoll’s apology isn’t really much an apology at all.
…on the surface it might sound like an apology, but it’s really more of a, “I’m sorry that people feel this way, and I’ll word things differently in the future,” sort of statement.
Or hire someone to help me word things differently…
Comments
God has an email address?
"God convicted me"?
And lets not forget he also said his, " theological convictions, even the most controversial ones, are as unwavering as ever." So that's quite a lesson learned.
It seems to me that the original binary between agape and eros itself disguises the degree to which erotic and empathic love are not really separable, and that the word "charity" carries that obfuscating distinction further still, allowing us to forget, however momentarily, how much is founded on our empathic connection to other people: I know what it is to love and be loved fully within a heterosexual relationship, and knowing just how great that is, how could I deny it to someone who has happened to find it with another woman? That kind of empathic thinking is fundamental to my own political values, as it is, I think, to most other people who reject bigotries.
In his treatment of charity, Driscoll presses even further into obfuscation than the word itself already does: rather than simply saying he needs to feel more charity for others, or even more directly, that he needs to love others more, he ties himself into a rhetorical knot: now that he's a public figure, he needs "to speak about [his] convictions in a way that invites other people to experience charity from" him. Perhaps I'm courting the obvious, here, but if he genuinely feels charity, I think he will speak with it and others will experience it from him. What keeps him from just saying that he needs to love others more is that he is simultaneously trying to be faithful to his "convictions." I can see that in the contorted structure of his sentence: he's saying, "I need to show others charity without compromising my convictions, because compromising my convictions would be wrong."
This conflict between conviction and charity is an essential difference between the left and right on social issues in the U.S. today. For social lefties, charity holds sway, whereas for social conservatives, convictions hold sway. It's not black and white; everyone occasionally goes with their convictions over their charity, or vice versa. But as a general rule, I think it's true. Social lefties allow their love for others to form their convictions, while Driscoll's love for others, or at least the way he allows himself to express it, is shaped by his convictions. As someone to the far left of the spectrum on social issues, such questions are very simple for me -- if some conviction I hold comes into conflict with my ability to feel charity for others, I come to the conclusion that my conviction is wrong. But for a conservative like Driscoll, the conviction will never be wrong; when conviction comes into conflict with charity, the best he'll be able to do is let sinners know he loves them, but not their sin.
I wish people on the left of the political spectrum here could recapture the degree to which charity -- love -- generates their beliefs. Democrats don't need to talk about God more. They need to talk about charity, and the way conservatives back-seat that essential value in favor of the convictions they embrace as individuals or within small communities.
Ok, I just read every nauseating word of Driscoll’s non-apology. Gawd, what an asshole.
“I learned that my theological convictions, even the most controversial ones, are as unwavering as ever. But I also learned that as my platform has grown, so has my responsibility to speak about my convictions in a way that invites other people to experience charity from me…”
In other words, he needs better marketing. I guess he thinks that everyone is as gullible as the people who attend his church.
I was looking forward to the protest and calling Driscoll out as the sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot that he is, but after reading the comments on his blog, it’s obvious a protest would just confirm his delusions of persecution.
It’s painfully obvious that we’re dealing with someone who has a severe and probably untreatable case of narcissistic personality disorder. Note that Driscoll meets ALL 8 DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA:
1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by other special people
4. requires excessive admiration
5. strong sense of entitlement
6. takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy
8. is often envious or believes others are envious of him or her
9. arrogant affect.
Can you imagine learning life lessons from a man like that? The big story here is that his followers seem to be more ignorant of his “theological convictions” than those of us who would protest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
Some people are starting to take seriously the long-standing rumor that Mark Driscoll is a homosexual a la Haggard - apparently it was common knowledge during his college days. I'm not sure why someone directly connected hasn't come forth yet.
It's likely that most successful people have narcissistic personality disorder.
Here is the problem. His followers are going to now believe in this man even more because of this. So now instead of raising awareness of who this man really is, he is now giong to come across more convincing with his oppressive, homophobic, masonganistic beliefs. Fuck. This church needs a community protest that is not so easily diverted.
The planned protest had three stated goals (I'm not involved; just quoting from the press release):
It's ridiculous to ask someone to apologize for his beliefs, and I think Mark Driscoll really believes what he preaches. His apology for the wording he used when repeatedly denouncing feminism only serves to muddle the effects of achieving goal #1 (bringing attention to the sexist nature of his preaching). Now that he has "apologized" for stirring up all this controversy, he's going to hire a publicist and find a less offensive way to say the same demeaning things he has said all along.
Here's the gist of his statement (not a direct quote):
Steph @ 6,
That would fit the pattern with narcissistic personality disorder. They believe, often subconsciously, that they have a terrible flaw that they cannot face, and then they totally over-compensate and go into a tailspin of denial and repression.
I've never seen anyone so arrogant with less reason. The only thing he seems to be good at is separating fools from their money.
Steph @ 6,
That would fit the pattern with narcissistic personality disorder. They believe, often subconsciously, that they have a terrible flaw that they cannot face, and then they totally over-compensate and go into a tailspin of denial and repression.
I've never seen anyone so arrogant with less reason. The only thing he seems to be good at is separating fools from their money.
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