Chalcedon Blog

Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs--he wants to please his commanding officer. Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor's crown unless he competes according to the rules. The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops. Reflect on what I'm saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this. ~ 2 Timothy 2:3-7

Mark Driscoll, the quasi-emergment masculine-touting metrosexual pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA, is not altogether pleased with the reaction to a video he submitted to a church planting event. The criticism that brought Driscoll disappointment was that of megachurch leader Bill Hybels who said the video did not highlight female church planters.

Driscoll whined because he "spent half a day in freezing weather at a military cemetery shooting scenes" and sent a team to the Florida event with "suitcases of videos" to be handed out. Allegedly, Driscoll "spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of wasted effort." He then posted it on YouTube (see below).

The video is entitled "The Good Soldier: A Conversation with Pastor Mark Driscoll" and is shot in a military cemetery filled with standard white military grave markers and sprinkled with statues of soldiers. The obvious theme is the symbol of the soldier and the hardship that entails.

Isn't that what we've all been looking for? A "conversation with Pastor Mark Driscoll?" The ego-centric audacity of these guys is staggering. What's next, Pastor Mark? A book entitled "Humility" with your picture on the cover?

"Macho, Macho Man. I've Got to Be a Macho Man!"

Driscoll is simply forcing his "brand" of what he thinks Christianity should be. He blends the Starbucks culture of the emergent movement with the chest-thumping of the modern men's movement. This video is intended to highlight all the "manly" traits a modern pastor must have in order to contend and survive in modern church warfare.

Driscoll attacks the straw-man caricature of the "nice guy" pastor who sets up chairs, exercises tolerance of strange Christians, and counsels well. Instead, Driscoll shows the church planter as a "scrapper" and one that is quite adept at "rebuking" strange Christians as "the woman with the tambourine" or the "guy with the end times eschatology charts."

He highlights the alleged decline of modern church planting and concludes that the first and most important factor in a lasting church is "the leadership ability, and the quality of that senior leader; that founding pastor; that man who is to endure hardship and fight like a good soldier."

He mentions the high "body count" is due to all the pressures and stresses of contemporary church planting. Men fail for financial pressure. They fail because of the "demonic" attacks. Quite a bit fail because they simply burn out.

In addressing the second aspect to a successful church plant, Driscoll believes church planting men do not have, or are losing, their sense of mission. They are not able to gather and inspire people--especially young twenty-somethings. This demographic Driscoll describes in a profane way. Here's a fine example of the nonsensical macho rhetoric that men like Driscoll use as their "brand":

"The least likely person to go to church in the United States of America is a young man in his 20s. These are guys who have absolutely made a wreck of everything. They're banging their girlfriends. They are guys who are blowing all their money, staying up all night playing World of Warcraft; finding free porn on the internet, and trying to figure out how to get bigger subwoofer into their retarded car."

Driscoll represents the next step in a long line of American church fads. We're already suffering as more young pastors are adopting this "tough guy" persona in order to reach their constituencies. This is what men do when they are not reformed, theonomic, and presuppositional. Their starting point is man--especially successful men--and they'll mimic whomever can assure them ministerial career success. I expect more from men like Driscoll since he's allegedly reformed in theology.

Postmodern Reactionism

Driscoll's crowd is a reaction. They are a reaction to the alleged "postmodern age." This goes also for the Left Wing branch of emergent leaders such as Brian McLaren (Driscoll refers to his branch as "resurgent). I find it disturbing that the church allows itself to be shaped by the prevailing culture and its philosophical trends. We are not of this world, but Driscoll and others look and sound no different than the host of American Idol. In fact, they probably have the same stylist.

Postmodernity is a fraud and should not be taken seriously. Sinful man is enormously creative when he's seeking to evade the pervasive eye of God Almighty. Postmodernism is contrived to avoid the responsibility all men owe to their Creator. The Bible refers to such philosophies as foolish. For churchmen to conform their ministries to such philosophical foolishness reeks like Laodicean vomit.

Apostles vs. Emergent Church Planters

Driscoll's video focuses on one analogy that Paul uses in his letter to Timothy--that of the soldier. However, the apostle (Paul, not Driscoll) expands his point in comparing apostolic ministry (what Timothy was actually doing in Ephesus) to that of an athlete competing according to the rules and the justification of a hardworking farmer receiving a share of the crops (2 Tim. 2:5-6).

The enduring of hardship has greater meaning to the genuine struggles of the first century church. Let's not compare that to the "stress" of setting up chairs at the local high school cafeteria every week. Financial pressure, and the pressure of time upon families, is not the kind of hardship the Bible mentions. In fact, if you can't deal with this stuff, you aren't cut out for the task.

Apostles were like soldiers in their focus upon their God-given tasks. They were like athletes in that the winning of the prize must only come by competing according to the rules--the "rules" being suffering in this case. They were like farmers in that they were guaranteed to taste the firstfruits of their harvest. These passages reek with eschatological promise for the faithful apostolic/evangelist. The "prize" and the "harvest" is granted to the faithful in the last day:

That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day. ~ 2 Timothy 1:12

Much of our modern church problems stem from this warped ecclesiology of the one-man rule that Driscoll espouses. That's probably why the macho persona is exploited. The domineering leader must use the force of his personality to maintain rule in a dysfunctional church setting. This too will fail. It's the deterioration of 20th century Protestantism.