Why Mark Driscoll Needs an Elephant

January 27, 2012 By Roger Wolsey 42 Comments

So there’s this fundamentalist, ultra-Calvinist , hyper-macho leader of a mega-church in Seattle named Mark Driscoll. He’s known for reaching out to young males by appealing to their latent misygony and homophobia; i.e.,

to build them up by putting others down.

Disturbing as that is, that’s not why I’m writing today.

I write because I care about Mark, the members of his Church – and us. You see, he’s so in control that he’s out of control. He and his ministry are heading toward a train-wreck. And if all we do is point fingers and say “Look at that!”; or merely drive by, slowly rubber-necking as if it were a freak-show on the side of the road; or somehow assume that “someone else will get involved,” we’re no better than the priestly leaders Jesus told about who walked past the beaten up man on the side of the road to Jericho.

It’s been apparent to many of us in the wider Christian community that Mr. Driscoll is likely dealing with some serious demons and that he’s repressing his shadow side to the point that he’s acting-out more and more. There is evidence that he may be self-sabotaging himself and his ministry. I fear that some of us may have a selfish delight in watching his ministry gradually implode and are on pins and needles waiting for the final card to be pulled so we can watch his entire house of cards come tumbling down.

To the extent that any of that is going on within us, let’s name it, admit it, engage in a small amount of it, and let God’s grace help us release it as we move forward. That’s the best way to deal with shadows. Sure, it’s a little embarrassing for me to admit to this, but, there’s no judgmental shame or guilt-trip here (those are counter-productive. hint, hint). I’ve had some of that going on within me. I’d admit to being slightly jealous of Mark’s fame and success. I admit to wondering what it’d be like to speak to so many people on such a regular basis. I admit to being envious of him having a young man in his ministry whose youtube clip went viral.

To remind us, in the past year Mark has mocked “effeminate-looking male pastors” and denied women’s role in church leadership. The 2nd of those could be a valid stance for a Church to take. A couple of weeks ago, Mark’s thoughts about women in leadership were made known. Quite a few Christian denominations and ministries choose to employ archaic, patriarchy as their norm. Whatever. There are plenty of churches that do affirm and celebrate women in leadership. The critique there is in Mark’s language that implies that women “can’t be protective.” I dare him to get between a mother bear or deer, or even my son’s mother, and their offspring. He’d also do well to become more familiar with that Bible that he thumps as there are several passages where God is described as a protective mother bear or eagle.

The first of those two instances of his acting-out is completely out of line. For someone to go out of their way to mock men who he deems as looking “effeminate” suggests someone with issues. Serious issues. It was a female Church leader, Rachel Held Evans, who called him out on that — proving that women can indeed be protective.

I wouldn’t feel inspired to get involved with all of this if it weren’t for the most recent mirror being held up for Mark’s Church to gaze upon. In the past three days a series of blogs have been written by Mattthew Paul Turner where he recounts the horrific story of “Andrew” – a young member of Mark’s Mars Hill ministry. Andrew approached Pastor Mark for some help regarding his sex life and… instead of responding pastorally

— for instance: thanking him for feeling safe enough to meet with him, deeply listening to the young man, extending Christ’s unconditional love, normalizing his experience, sharing about Church teachings on those matters and why they might be helpful for him to embrace, and then reminding him of God’s forgiveness and grace, praying with him, and offering to be there for him as he continues on his journey –

…Mark (and/or other church leaders) threw the book at the poor chap, read him the riot act, and demanded that he sign a “legally binding contract” to

repent — or be ex-communicated!*

That description about what unfolded understates what happened and how. The blogger provides all of the emails between the young man and his church.

Here’s Parts II “’Gospel Shame’: The Truth About Discipline, Excommunication, and Cult-like Control at Mars Hill” and III  “Spiritual abuse must stop.”

Matthew’s blogs tell Andrew’s story well and his intention (I think) is to wake up the Church to help prevent these sorts of things that happened to Andrew to happen in other churches in the world.

My intention is to try to inspire those who are in connection, or who could be in connection, with Mr. Driscoll to find some inner courage and to help him get the help he needs. I’m urging such people to do an intervention.

You see, I have some skin in this game. I’m a Christian pastor who works with young adults in campus ministry. Increasingly, young people are falling away from Christianity – and in no small part because of the kinds of rhetoric and behavior exhibited by Mr. Driscoll. Simply put,

Mark is making it harder for me to do my work as a pastor.

One of the beauties of being a part of a Christian denomination is that there are generally established mechanisms to help rein in pastors who go off the deep-end. The United Methodist Church which I belong to, seeks to allow pastors freedom of the pulpit, but there are structures in place to help rein in a pastor who goes off the deep-end. Each Conference of the Church has a cabinet comprised of a bishop and district superintendents, there are resources for spiritual direction and psychological counseling, and there’s a Board of Ordained Ministry that ultimately can place a pastor on probation or even revoke their credentials.

Mark’s Church, while having a board of elders, is an independent ministry, and it’s one where the buck stops with him. Mark’s ministry reaches thousands of people and with such success comes responsibility and danger.

I’m not calling for Mars Hill to adopt an episcopal form of polity, I’m not calling them to adopt more of the “religion” that they seem to loathe, but I have a hunch about what might work.

Mark appreciates strong males. He respects them.

As I understand it, in India where rural people live and work with elephants, they’ve come to learn things about elephant behavior. Like humans, elephant calves stay close to their mothers side longer than most other animals. When young male elephants are finally sent forth on their own, they sometimes form wild gangs that terrorize villagers with their rampages.

The villagers have learned that introducing a fully grown bull elephant into the gang of hoodlums mellows them out almost instantly. They thrive when there’s a large male around who they all know could kick their butts (that’s the paradigm that Mark operates out of). It’s not really about the potential to kick-ass. It’s that they respect a fully grown mature male and know that they can learn much about how to socialize from being around him. They learn patience, self-control, and they blossom into maturity.

I would submit that

we need to introduce the Christian equivalent of some bull elephants into Mark’s village where he is on a rampage.

I’m willing to be part of such a team.. though I’m fully aware that I’m still maturing myself.  Aside from being in ministry for 17 years and have served a wide range of churches. While not particularly big in stature, I’m disproportionately strong for my size and age. I’m currently a fit 43 and weigh in at 155 lbs and can bench press 230lbs (if you give me a couple of months to work back up to it — I’ve been doing a lot of yoga recently). I realize that I may not be big enough or bull enough … and he’d likely dismiss me out of hand because I’m a progressive Christian who embraces Arminianism instead of Calvinism. And, he probably doesn’t care for my style of masculinity.

Rev. Jim Wallis however, may be the sort of guy we have in mind. Jim has been a major leader of the liberal wing of Christian evangelicalism. He’s been significant player in Church leadership, has been on the evening news a lot, has spoken before thousands of people on countless occasions, and he helped negotiate a truce between the Bloods and the Crips. Moreover, the guy has been lifting weights for most of his adult life and could bench-press Mark several times. Jim’s burly.

Blogger, Jonathan Martin might also be one to consider, or perhaps Stanley Hauerwas (“a pacifist who you want on your side in a bar-fight”), Tex Sample (a blue collar theologian and preacher) or Vincent Harding (veteran activist of the Civil Rights movement – who may be the most non-anxious presence on the planet)– we need to utilize them while we still can!

But let’s not get too literal here. What Mark needs is for some seasoned, mature brothers (and sisters) in the faith who have “done their work,” who have integrated their shadows, who are used to the pressures of the public eye, and who have practiced being a non-anxious, pastoral presence.

Based upon the amount of time and energy that Mark devotes to sex, sexuality, and gender issues, my personal hunch is that Mark may have issues with his sexuality. Given the pastoral adage

“that which we criticize most in others is that which we struggle with most ourselves,”

the logical tool of Occam’s Razor would suggest that this simplest cause is what’s likely going on here.

It’s an example of someone repressing their shadow. Shadows don’t like being repressed and they tend to explode like volcanoes if not dealt with, owned, and integrated into our lives. An obvious example of this is what happened to Ted Haggard former head of the New Life mega-church and former leader of the National Evangelical Association.

Jesus told a story about someone helping a man who’d been beaten-up and left for dead by highwaymen by the side of the road. Though a stranger, a good Samaritan proved himself to that man’s neighbor by getting involved and taking care of the man and restoring him to health. Church, we’ve just heard about Andrew who was “beaten up by the side of the road” (a victim of clergy abuse). Left unchecked, Mark may well do the same thing to other people in his ministry. That simply will not do.

What do we propose to do about it?

In the scriptures, Jesus came across a man whose town felt he was out of control. When he arrived, they’d chained him to a pillar outside of the community. Jesus unbound the troubled man and freed him from his demons.

That is our prayer for Mark. Mark has great talent and potential to be a wonderful pastor of God’s grace and love. He has much of what it takes to be a great Christian leader.

But, he needs help.

And liberating this troubled man is more likely to happen if we don’t walk-by, or rubber-neck, or gawk, or encourage him to self-destruct. He needs some elephants who

… feel safe enough to meet with him, deeply listen to him, extend Christ’s unconditional love, normalize his experience, share about Church teachings on those matters and why they might be helpful for him to embrace, remind him of God’s forgiveness and grace, and pray with him and offer to be there for him as he continues on his journey..,

Mark and Andrew need healing hugs and that can only happen if we get involved.

May God’s amazing, transforming, comforting, strengthening, and healing Grace, Peace, and Love be with Mark, Andrew, and the Mars Hill Church during this difficult time. Amen.

 

Rev. Roger Wolsey

* we don’t know for certain to what extent Mark himself was involved in the incident with Andrew, but we can be certain that Mark is a proponent of this form of “discipline,” and, likely was an actor in Andrew’s experience.
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Wolsey is an ordained United Methodist pastor. He is the author of Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity. He blogs for Patheos, Huffington Post, and Elephant Journal.

 

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When Rockstars Deny the Foundation of Religion

September 5, 2010 By George Elerick 3 Comments

I lift my eyes up to the mountains, where does my help come from?* – King David, King of Israel

“Ancient Egyptians viewed their pharaohs as living gods they were the personification of AMUN-RA the king of gods and when they died they became true gods. Therefore these pharaohs weren’t only regarded as the kings of Egypt but as divinity.”

The king in the ancient world was the person you went to with all of your problems, the king had all the answers. In fact, on some ancient BC archaeological scrolls, something simlar to these words were found “The king is the representative of the Gods who has come down to show us how to be.” The king was God in effect. The king was a direct representative of the ontological spirit that culture looked to. People would worship the king. They would give their lives to the king. The king was the rockstar who had all the fame. The king was the one in power.

They had all the answers.

So, what happens when the king defers to someone/something else? They not only deny their power, they deny their ontological influence. They divorce themselves from being the one who has all the answers. For all intense purposes, they stop being who others think them to be. David denies his status and defers it elsewhere. This is a very self-deprecating move for a king, this is a sort of castration.

David chooses castration rather than power.

He chooses a state of non-status rather than those things that might seem to give him importance in the sight of others. What are we choosing that gives us status? Are we at least deferring them? For David, God is the ontological end. God is the true King. The ultimate monarchy doesn’t lie in what we see, but it suspends itself in the unseen. For David, it is in the unseen or in the uknown where true (post-colonial**) power resides.

We tend to look to things in our history as a church for influence on what we should do and where we should go, we tend to look to what we know rather than what we don’t? Why, because we have believed the perverse lie that somehow knowledge equals power. To David, there is power in the uknowning.

In the unraveling.
In the dismantling journey towards unbelief.
Where unbelief is true belief.

David takes it too far. By focusing outside the temple and outside of the mountain, the very foundation of the temple, David is basically condemning these things as useless.

Much like Jesus did when he spoke to the institutional representatives and told them they were dead inside. David is challenging us to see that the foundation of the institutions are the issue.

For some, I get this might be a bit outside of where you might be, and don’t want to minimize the struggle of attempting to fully divorce ourselves from the noise of structuralism into the quiet of post-structuralism. It isn’t an easy journey, I realize that, but it is one we can take together and to come to realize that the God we seek doesn’t just simply lie outside of the institution, but also resides outside of the foundations of our institution.

When David utters the words up above and looks toward the mountains, it isn’t just a declaration of nature or the natural order of things, the temple is what sat on that mountain. Centered in the ancient Eastern Levant religions was the belief that you could meet with the Divine in tents (Genesis 18), trees, and mountains to name a few spaces. They wanted to define their experience of meeting with God, so they created an institution, they created a structure.

We as people, tend to want to define or give some sort of structure to our experience, so we try to explain in it words, in language, which is itself – a structure. We have also been fed the lie that we need to instiutionalize everything that has value. David, a king, the ultimate expression of institutionalization denies the need for institution. In fact, he looks beyond it.

He looks outside of it.

He looks to what isn’t and can’t be institutionalized to express what is beyond words. David doesn’t just challenge the temple that would have been on this mountain, he challenges the mountain itself. The very foundation of the institution. David essentially says that everything of value doesn’t lie in our history, or what is laid-down before us, but is outside of what has been laid for us. It doesn’t cheapen what has been, it does encourage us to come together and dream outside of the contingencies we’ve been led to believe should be ours. The Church is in an interesting place, because for years, it has been set on a mountain, on a foundation of historical colonialism. In fact, the English language has been part of this structured ‘advance of the Kingdom’.

Structures have been the problem.

Now, we are beginning to ask important questions about the future of the de-institutionalized body of believers and what our future home will look like.

Which I think is a great question!!

I think for me, it won’t include walls, but where the walls used to be, there will be people. Where injustice used to be present in the name of God, now there will be love and renewal. Where liturgies, worship songs, and bibles used to be there will be people who are now the liturgy, the worship song and the bible. The Church has a lot of room to grow when we realize that the Church wasn’t meant for us.

* Psalm 121 is by far my favorite Psalm.

** David more like would have thought of power in a colonial sense, so I wanted to share that I am thinking of power in terms of the post-sovereign, post-colonial sense.

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Ungrounding Ourselves into the Christ-Ethic

August 29, 2010 By George Elerick 2 Comments

olas peligrosas - dangerous waves

For Lacan, public law such as “No Photos” or “Do not go on the grass” implicitly attracts the subject of that law to commit the very thing it prohibits (exactly in the way that if we tell the child not to eat the freshly baked cakes, we are simultaneously pointing out the method with which the child can ignore our demands). The point at which the attempts of prohibition by public law fail, like here, is precisely where superego emerges. And for Lacan, as it is for Žižek, the superego is not the moral conscience (as it would be for Freud) but rather the stigmatisation of our ethical betrayal, or in other words the invitation to transgress the law whether we like it or not, what is known as the superego injunction to enjoy! This adds something rather provocative to the pushing of boundaries.

Galatians 3:28: There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. – Paul of Tarsus

We tend to think ideas or truths are born out of tradition or something that has been established. In the narrratives where boats are involved in the New Testament, it does seem the idea that is being perpetuated is one where truths organically arrive out of what is ungrounded. Or said another way, out of the absurd comes the matieralistic. We use terminology like ‘we’ve been doing this for centuries’ or ‘we do this because others have done this’, and although they sound very poetic, these phrases induce a ritualistically bound coma where we live as zombies on the outside and ideologically are dying on the inside. Out of the darkness comes light. We must enter the darkness to experience the light. There is a 2nd century Rabbinic view that darkness is a good thing. That when God created the heavens and the earth and formed light, that the light isn’t what brought distinction, but it was the darkness that gives the light its purpose.

We must enter the darkness to experience the light.

The boat is an ungrounded object. The waves beneath it are not concrete, far from it. Peter was invited to step out of a boat, in that moment he walked out of something that itself was ungrounded into something itself that is inherently ungrounded (the waves). He found that he was able to believe in the midst of his ungrounding. He had to move away from the very thing he was sure of to find that Christ was present in the middle of his ungrounding. It when we move away from the solid things we have traditionally either been taught to or come to believe that we find that we truly have faith in ourselves and in the Christ ethic. It is in the pushing away of those things do we truly find ourselves.

I think Paul, the early church author, asks us to do the same in terms of understanding and relating to each other. That we can enter into a perpetual ungroundedness. Paul begins this ungroundedness in discussion of something that we tend to as westerners assume is the object of our groundedness. Paul refers to it as the Law.

In the verse above, Paul speaks of equality as if it supercedes the Law. We come to a place where we realize within the Law that the Apostle Paul speaks of is a perversion of transgression. That in the law there is an inherent expectation of breaking it. A good example is when we are casually walking across a patch of green grass and notice the sign that prohibits us from being present in the area. The ‘do not walk on the grass’ is a perversion in that it expects us to follow it yet realizing that the opposite itself is also true. That we might not follow it. It prohibits desire and defines desire as something to be transgressed. This is what I think was going in in the theology of St. Augustine who is repeatedly pointed to as the main ideological influencer of ‘Original Sin’; the idea that all of humanity is born with a permanent scar. St. Augustine seemed to call this permanent scar desire in era where the politicized Church got to define what was desirable and what wasn’t.

The Law represents that thing that is outside of us, for all-intense purposes it is the Objective. Paul redefines the Jewish law and opens it up to include the Greeks, the (majority) population of the known world. Paul introduces the idea of plurality and universalism by treating the law as something that is to be challenged. Which is in itself a challenge, because Paul himself was a Jew. Paul was re-envisioning the landscape of what it meant to be a Christian. By spending a lot of time on the Law, Paul was essentially distancing himself from what the Law represented. Its much like the person who overstates their case or exaggerates their position for the sake of direct irony.

The negation of something is found not in the public negation of it, but in the public acceptance of it. In fact, Paul’s re-envisioning of the Law from the ethnic to the personal took something objective and made it subjective. He seems to publicly accept the Law by speaking it, but he then changes the Laws focus on to the Christ ethic, the way we treat each other – Love.

Love is the

    new

Law.

The Christ-Ethic is the new way we see each other.

He took something initially meant for the small and made it big. He replace the Law with an Ethic. But this ethic is experience subjectively rather than objectively. If anything, in this regard was more a subjectivist act than not. (The danger is to hear this and assume that that is a bad thing). I see the letter of Paul not necessarily as a collection of modern-day handbooks with which to measure ourselves against, but rather as letters between himself and his communities. Almost like two-way journals into their ‘personal’ journeys toward understanding God.

In fact, in Pauls’ statement there is an anticipation toward a neutered identity. That there is a reality where all of our identities are suspended in the Christ ethic. That when we treat one another as Christ teaches us, there is something that occurs within the human condition – we stop seeing each other as labels. When we love there is no Methodist, no Baptist, no Mormon, no Buddhist, no Muslim and no Christian – because in this instance there is only what Christ represents.

It doesn’t mean we lose our distinctiveness, it means we lose the spirit of competitive aggression.

It means we die to ourselves.

Paul believes this reality can exist. I think it partially lies in what he says after the ethnic designation, that there is neither bound nor free. In our society there is a ritualistic addiction in having and not having. The have’s tend to compare themselves to the have not’s. Those who are ‘bound’ to the things they have seek justification in their violent comparison against those who lack. Paul says in this new landscape of hopeful equality, there are no have’s and have not’s.

That we all exist as equals.

That one religion isn’t better than another, nor is one house better than another, or one bank account is bigger than another, nor is one country better than another, that all exist as equals in this cosmic Christ. Paul is perverting the Law to the point that is beyond something that we could ever be bound to, in fact, in his talk of the law he continously turns the conversation back on to Christ. Essentially, make Christ the ‘new law’ or the new objective. And in Christ we are all one. We are all beyond the law, we are neutered yet defined in this Christ ethic, in the way we treat one another. When we treat one another in this new Christ Way we are perpetuating the dream of God.

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