Follow up on Mark Driscoll and Rob Bell - the picture becomes clearer, perhaps Mark needs to learn a little graceful restraint?

Yesterday I published the story about Mark Driscoll referring to Rob Bell as a contemporary heretic...

A reader of the blog commented on that post with two very helpful comments (thanks Ted, I have not republished your comment on the front page since I haven't been able to reach you to ask if that's OK), but if anyone would like to read Ted's comment please click on the link above.

In essence Ted's comment pointed out two things:

1. Who the heck is Phil Driscoll (I had mistakenly called Mark Driscoll Phil - thanks for pointing that out)?

2. He encouraged me to check up on Mark Driscoll, who himself seems to be a remarkable individual who is seeking to bring the Gospel of Christ to a new generation in a novel and powerful way.

I looked up a few things on Mark Driscoll. On the whole I am impressed with what I found. However, I did also find that Mark Driscoll seems to have a capacity for overstating opinions - it is not necessarily that what he says is entirely wrong, it certainly is not entirely untrue, however, it is overstated and often insensitive (I shall include an example below).

So, my beef is not with a powerful young preacher who is clearly doing incredible work - rather it is to encourage persons with the influence that he has to make clear and critical comment, yet to do so with restraint and love. It would seem to me that there is a fine line that one can cross in being critical of another without recognizing something in them that is positive, a gift from God, and even a creation in the image of God.

How do I know this? Well, as you will see from MANY posts on this blog I am guilty of doing the same myself.

Like many young men I hold to my convictions with passion, yet sometimes that passion lacks grace...

Here's my comment to Ted (if you get a chance please follow the links and do a bit of reading yourself. I don't want to press people to agree with me, and where I am wrong please set me straight!):

Hi Ted,

Thanks for the correction! Where the heck did I get Phil from? I've fixed it up.

I have had a look at their website (for anyone else who would like to check it out, it is well worth the effort - here is the link)

A brief view of his wikipedia entry shows that he is certainly unique. Although it would seem that this is not the first time that he has caused sensation with a comment?

It would certainly seem to me that he needs to cultivate some restraint and care in his caricatures of persons or groups that differ from his perspective... I quote "article on The Emergent Church, Mark Driscoll was quoted as saying, "There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. Some emergent types [want] to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a pride fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity." [the emphasis is mine]

This guy sounds like a fairly typical patriarchal, testosterone driven, stereotypical "America is King and we'll fight for that right" kind of guy...

I could be very wrong, so please set me straight if I am. However, he does seem a little brash and unrestrained in his criticism of others...

I recognise this in him, because I am often the same.

Ted, thanks for the comment, and also for helping me to find out a bit more about this incident and Mark Driscoll.

Regards from a COLD (summer?) in South Africa.

What do others think? As I considered this to and fro I thought to myself "how does a Mark Driscoll's personal opinion get such coverage?" When, however, I look at the Mars Hill website it strikes me that they must have a fairly formidable press team (or at least access to the Christian press), so someone must have pushed the story out there.

Perhaps it may have been better for this prominent person to contact his equally prominent and Christian brother and first discuss things before entering into the fray?

I don't know what the answer is, but I do hope that this does not damage either of these Christian people or their effective and necessary ministries to bring the Gospel of Christ to bear on a 'fast changing and broken' world...

Technorati tags: Mars Hill, Rob Bell, Nooma, heresy, Mark Driscoll