Who Would Jesus Smack Down?

[groovedaddy]

Mark Driscoll’s sermons are mostly too racy to post on GodTube, the evangelical Christian “family friendly” video-posting Web site. With titles like “Biblical Oral Sex” and “Pleasuring Your Spouse,” his clips do not stand a chance against the site’s content filters. No matter: YouTube is where Driscoll, the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, would rather be. Unsuspecting sinners who type in popular keywords may suddenly find themselves face to face with a husky-voiced preacher in a black skateboarder’s jacket and skull T-shirt. An “Under 17 Requires Adult Permission” warning flashes before the video cuts to evening services at Mars Hill, where an anonymous audience member has just text-messaged a question to the screen onstage: “Pastor Mark, is masturbation a valid form of birth control?”

Driscoll doesn’t miss a beat: “I had one guy quote Ecclesiastes 9:10, which says, ‘Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.’ ” The audience bursts out laughing. Next Pastor Mark is warning them about lust and exalting the confines of marriage, one hand jammed in his jeans pocket while the other waves his Bible. Even the skeptical viewer must admit that whatever Driscoll’s opinion of certain recreational activities, he has the coolest style and foulest mouth of any preacher you’ve ever seen.

Mark Driscoll is American evangelicalism’s bête noire. In little more than a decade, his ministry has grown from a living-room Bible study to a megachurch that draws about 7,600 visitors to seven campuses around Seattle each Sunday, and his books, blogs and podcasts have made him one of the most admired — and reviled — figures among evangelicals nationwide. Conservatives call Driscoll “the cussing pastor” and wish that he’d trade in his fashionably distressed jeans and taste for indie rock for a suit and tie and placid choral arrangements. Liberals wince at his hellfire theology and insistence that women submit to their husbands. But what is new about Driscoll is that he has resurrected a particular strain of fire and brimstone, one that most Americans assume died out with the Puritans: Calvinism, a theology that makes Pat Robertson seem warm and fuzzy.

At a time when the once-vaunted unity of the religious right has eroded and the mainstream media is proclaiming an “evangelical crackup,” Driscoll represents a movement to revamp the style and substance of evangelicalism. With his taste for vintage baseball caps and omnipresence on Facebook and iTunes, Driscoll, who is 38, is on the cutting edge of American pop culture. Yet his message seems radically unfashionable, even un-American: you are not captain of your soul or master of your fate but a depraved worm whose hard work and good deeds will get you nowhere, because God marked you for heaven or condemned you to hell before the beginning of time. Yet a significant number of young people in Seattle — and nationwide — say this is exactly what they want to hear. Calvinism has somehow become cool, and just as startling, this generally bookish creed has fused with a macho ethos. At Mars Hill, members say their favorite movie isn’t “Amazing Grace” or “The Chronicles of Narnia” — it’s “Fight Club.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11punk-t.html?th&emc=th

[maxsolomon]

1. add to this the home of the Discovery Institute, and Seattle is a really wierd place

least churched large city in the nation. i think their ignorance due to lack of exposure has made seattleites more vulnerable to evangelical BS, especially adorned with tattoos & piercings.

"there's a mighty judgement coming, but i could be wrong" - l. cohen.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. With the watered down Calvinism of the prosperity gospel that's popular

today, people forget that it was the Calvinists that were responsible for the terrible Catholic/Protestant wars of the 17th century.

The Puritans who settled America were the losers of those wars.

[suston96]

3. Replying only to your thread title.....Who would Jesus smack down?

Hypocrites and money changers, and maybe a few more.

Who would Jesus raise up? Women and children and humanity itself.

It's all in the Gospels.

[cosmik debris]

4. Women and children

That phrase just reminded me of how long women have been treated as inferior and grouped with children.

oh well.

[suston96]

5. Inferior? Uh, ever hear the phrase: women and children into the lifeboats first?

In Jesus' day women WERE inferior. Many still are. In both instances, not by their choice.

[cosmik debris]

6. That's my point

For centuries women have been treated like property that needs to be taken care of.

They are seen as incapable of taking care of themselves.

And it is institutionalized in our language by the phrase "women and children first".

I think I will avoid that phrase in the future.

[suston96]

8. Avoid the phrase? Sure, as long as women and children get into the lifeboats first....nt

[Sanctified]

7. Well Mark mentioned that Jesus would put the smack down on Christian Stores.

I love Mark Driscoll the guy is great, read all his books and visited Mars Hill when I was in Seattle.