God loves Mark Driscoll (and everyone else)

God is love. God doesn’t hate anyone. God poured his wrath on on Himself, because He loved us too make us drink that cup. Mark Driscoll needs to be reminded of that.

But, you know what?

So do I.

Sometimes I get this idea in my head that God hates all the same people I hate.

Sometimes I believe that God hates Mark Driscoll.

I won’t lie– Mark Driscoll isn’t my favorite person in the world. For one, he glorifies a part of me that I hate– the violent, angry part of me that I’ve been trying to put to death for years. For another, he puts down others and mocks them (another part of me that I hate, actually). Thirdly, the guy loves him some gender roles, and as a feminist, I just can’t stand some of the things he says about women and men. Finally, we have the same jacket– he’s totally cramping my style:

Mark Driscoll  and I would disagree on a lot of things (well, besides fashion, obviously).

But God doesn’t hate him.

God loves Mark Driscoll. God loves Mark Driscoll boundlessly and relentlessly. God loves Mark Driscoll more than a father would love his son, more than a husband would love his wife (yes, Mark is the woman in this analogy, and if he challenges me to a cage match for saying that, I accept). God loves Mark Driscoll enough to die for him.

God loves Mark Driscoll as much as God loves me.

And because, as a Christian, my job is to be Christ to the world, I need to do everything I can to love Mark Driscoll as much as God does.

I need to look beyond the angry words and the misguided comments. I need to look beyond the faux-hawk and the extremely fashionable jacket and see the human underneath. The human who cannot live without love.

Now that I’ve gotten to know Jesus and he’s changed my heart, it’s easy to love the oppressed. It’s easy to stand up for those who think they’re not loved by God and tell them otherwise. But it’s hard for me to love the oppressors. It’s hard for me to love those who would dare point a finger at another person and say, “God hates you.”

But as hard as it is, I need to love. Both the oppressed and the oppressor need to be loved into freedom.

God loves everyone. 

Even Mark Driscoll.

Do you folks ever forget that God loves everyone? Who are the hardest people for you to love?