While I was busy ignoring the recent Driscoll furor, having mentioned it only once before, it seems some people decided to hold a protest at Mars Hill’s Sunday service tomorrow. Looks like that’s now been cancelled, after Driscoll met with local christian leaders along with the protest organizers. Driscoll has issued a further statement following the meeting, which was also summarized by Rose Madrid-Swetman, one of the protest organizers. Seriously, this needs to happen more in situations of dispute between christian leaders. We may not need unanimity on many things, but we do need unity and understanding.
The blogosphere response to the meeting summaries and outcome has been very supportive, but I did find one dissenting voice… and oddly, I found myself in the unusual spot of disagreeing with Emerging Grace, who comments here often, whose voice in the conversation I love, and whom I read regularly on her blog. She has posted her response suggesting Mark shouldn’t be let off the hook just yet. My direct comments interacting with her post are in place on her blog, but I want to quote part of the comment here:
You say “rhetoric,” he says “inflamatory language”. Potayto, potahto, imho. I don’t see blame-shifting here… what he said immediately after the comment you cite was, “I was also sad and sorry to hear that various things I have said over the years have been received very personally by some people who felt personally attacked.” This isn’t blame-shifting… taken with the rest of the paragraph which follows, I clearly saw the reflection of a man coming to grips with the wake that his words leave beyond his local Mars Hill context, something he wasn’t fully aware of but is now learning. He even seems to be planning to hire someone to help him understand this in an ongoing way. Good on him for that.
Fundamentally, Mark was misunderstood… but I don’t see any overtone of him whining that he’s “so oft misquoted and misunderstood” in his post. I think you’re insisting that you didn’t misunderstand him, but in general, the judgement for that can only rest with the original transmitter of the message, not the receiver.
Perhaps Mark was misunderstood because he voiced something poorly… but that certainly doesn’t mean he wasn’t in fact misunderstood. Perhaps you can blame him for not speaking clearly, but it’s not appropriate to insist that he did mean what he says he didn’t mean. I’m not quite certain if this is the tack you’re taking though.
At the end of the day, it’s possible that not everyone defines Driscoll’s “offence” the same way. I wasn’t sitting in a living room with any pastors, leaders, protest-organizers, and Mark Driscoll, so I have to defer to them… and following the meeting, those people all have a better understanding of one another and the protest was cancelled. I think it would be naieve to think that the resulting blog posts cover everything that was said, but the end result seems to be that everyone is putting this to rest.
I do recognize that there are some who are going to feel as you do that Driscoll still hasn’t apologized enough… and even if he issued one more statement that satisfied you and half of the other people who want more, there will always be others who won’t let him off the hook, ever. Personally, I think it’s time to move on. I like your list of admirable qualities, but I would add another… “quick to forgive”. Reading Rose’s post, I think it’s fair to say that the whole thing got out of hand on all sides, but in person, wisdom prevailed, and the entire list of admirable qualities, including forgiveness, seems to have been exhibited in that room.
Obviously, I’m not reading Driscoll at all the same way as you are, and I could be wrong… Personally, I’m hoping we can all move on, and hope not to unravel the work that was done in their meeting the other night.
There’s a lot of controversy within Christendom, but for outsiders, a major measure of our faith will be how we deal with it and what we overlook, rightly and wrongly.
At this stage, my comments move off of Driscoll somewhat. Locally, we had some stir with a recent Franklin Graham extravaganza that was in town. A peaceful protest was held to distribute leaflets to conference attenders, ones which urged Graham to retract the anti-Islamic war-mongering rhetoric which is a matter of public record but which he still denies saying. I think Driscoll has responded far more appropriately than FGraham, but some corners of the church have been far less charitable toward Driscoll’s “trespass” than toward FGraham’s, and I don’t quite understand the discrepancy. I’ve mentioned this issue previously,
before and after the event, with considerable discussion and a single final thought.
The Franklin Graham issue, like the Mark Driscoll one, is controversial, and potentially divisive; in many ways I prefer to simply avoid both. Nonetheless, I’m often not smart enough to keep my mouth shut. I think FGraham’s words are far more egregious than Driscoll’s. Driscoll, let’s not forget, is not meeting with the President of the United States and advising him to use nuclear weapons to kill innocent civilians as accptable collatteral damage.
Fundamentally, what I’m observing is Mark Driscoll learning the lesson that Billy Graham learned once upon a time in a post-Watergate world, and which Franklin Graham is refusing to learn in a post-9/11 world. If you follow through my posts which I’ve linked, I think the reasoning for this will be clear, but in essence, Mark is coming to grips with the effect of his words in the wider context which they reach instead of the local context that he’s used to. He’s on a wider stage than he realized, and he’s obviously still working out his understanding of and reaction to this fact. It’s something that Billy Graham learned, and Driscoll is obviously looking to that example. Would that Franklin Graham would do likewise instead of blindly denying words which are a matter of public record. I did suggest cutting FGraham some slack while he learns it, but I’m of uncertain opinion of just how much. Driscoll, on the other hand, deserves some slack: to his credit, is attempting to issue clarifying statements which express his regret for the negative way in which his comments were received.
In any event, I fear I may not get my wish, but I hope this is the last of both subjects, at least in a negative light. I still hope to be able to post a link to Franklin Graham’s eventual retraction someday though.
I read your comment in full on Grace’s blog and her kind response as well.
I think one of things that’s most painful for her and, frankly, I can understand it, is that while Driscoll has indeed adopted an attitude of repentance and has made apologetic noises, he has not made any clear statements that said, “I made x mistake and I’m sorry.” Now, I say all that not to necessarily defend Grace because she’s more than capable, but to make a point.
I think we’ve lost the ability to properly apologize in our culture; particularly amongst our leaders. I think the apologies get lost amongst hedging and backpedaling and schmoozing the press. That’s why h@ll will freeze over before you’ll be able to link to a retraction from FGraham. He may, in his heart, sincerely regret his words. If he is a true man of the Cross he will. But all of his handlers aren’t going to let him show his weakness and vulnerability to the public. Take a look at what happend to Ted Haggard for a good case study. Or Rick Warren and his recent invitation to Barack Obama on World Aids Day. No, proper apologies are for the weak and humble. Those who are strong and leading well, don’t need to apologize because they don’t make mistakes now, do they?
I think that there are many similarities in the stories of Mark Driscoll, Franklin Graham and Ted Haggard. They point out the pressures we (in our broader culture and in our Christian sub-culture) put on our leaders to be perfect at all times. We don’t allow them to make mistakes and when they do, they have no platform on which to apologize or seek redemption. And … they don’t know the first thing about how to go about doing it, because there is no one … no one … setting any examples for them.
So … all of this is not to let any of these leaders off the hook. But to say that we followers also have to ‘fess up for our part in the dance. We have helped to create this unhealthy environment in which they lead along with them. I’m not sure how we go about re-creating a healthy one, but something needs to give.
Hey, Bro,
I must say I’m rather perplexed by your whole line of thought on the Driscoll matter. I’m unsure why, especially when you say that you don’t know much about Driscoll’s thoughts, that you are so determined to defend his intentions.
Can I start with a basic question? Do you think what he said is true? That is, in couples who are not having satisfying sexual lives, do you think that the wives are lazy, believe they have trapped their husbands in fidelity and have let themselves go?
Comments below my first one and Grace’s response on her blog are helpful, I think.
Sonja, perhaps you’re onto something with the idea that we’ve lost the art of the apology in our culture… but if we go down that path, I would need to equally say we’ve lost the art of forgiveness. The model for the latter is summed up in the words, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they do.” You see, forgiveness ought never to be withheld pending a properly-formatted apology which shows suitable remorse as a sign of adequate repentance. In our society, that’s what gets you parole, which is not nearly the same as forgiveness. I think the general look at leadership is complimentary to my thesis that we do need to allow leaders some lattitude to fail as they grow into the kind of leaders we want to see… if we deny them that, then we can be expected to crucify them all before any of them grows into the kind that we really want to have… and therein we teach them to keep their traps shut concerning their weaknesses and frailties, lest they be crucified by their followers. Their sin then becomes a private matter for which they cannot seek proper help and support. Sound familiar? The problem is a systemic catch-22.
Jude, I think you’re missing my intention. As I said in the comments on my prior post about this, the issue is a two-way street. If the sexual lives of any couple isn’t satisfying, maybe one or both partners are lazy… or maybe the root problem is different altogether. I see no reason to conclude that laziness is automatically the problem, nor that it’s automatically the wife’s fault. As I’ve implied, it’s a non-sequitur… and in my view it’s so obviously so that the whole discussion is puzzling.
If you review what I said on Grace’s blog and the discussion following, I think you’ll see that I specifically did not comment on what Grace acknowledges is the heart of her objection. What I did comment on was the parts of her argument which I felt were based on a misinterpretation of or overreaction to Driscoll’s latest response. Without addressing the core of the objection, those items undermine the plea which is stronger without them. In this case, her objection is similar to yours from the earlier discussion, and I’m sure along the lines of what a number of people would still say.
Driscoll’s comments have hurt people, I get that. But even if those all of those people could get together and word his apology for him and have him sign off on it, the hurt wouldn’t go away. If the response has to cover the hurt, it will never be enough… not until forgiveness begins to be extended in his direction.
I’m seeing effort on Driscoll’s part, and I’m seeing effort on the part of those close to the situation. There are some interesting comments on Rose Swetman’s post (linked above) and if you look at her earlier posts on the matter, you’ll see that after Driscoll’s previous response she was disappointed he didn’t apologize. After meeting with him in person, she seems to consider the matter basically closed; we don’t have a transcript of the meeting, so shouldn’t we take some cues from those who were in the room? A continued demand for the head of Mark Driscoll does not do this; worse, I think it disrespects the the process they’ve gone through locally and disrespects Swetman’s conclusion as much as it does Driscoll’s.
As for me being determined to defend his intentions, that’s not really what I’m on about… I don’t have any superhuman insight into those, no more than the next person who isn’t Mark Driscoll. What I am on about is the fact that he’s being convicted in the court of opinion without a proper analysis of what he was attempting to communicate and why. We looked at his words and refused to consider the heart behind them; now that he’s met with people in person to resolve the matter, I truly hope we won’t completely disregard the work of those who set about to bring about resolution and reconciliation. At the end of the day, I’m not defending what people think Mark said, and I’m not defending Mark Driscoll simply because he’s Mark Driscoll. My concerns are more procedural ones, more about the way we ought to live together and listen to one another.
Brother Maynard,
Thank you for your gracious manner of disagreeing with me. Your words and opinions carry weight with me, and so I have tried to hear what you are saying in your responses.
The response of Rose and others at the meeting is the best indication I have that Mark has apologized. They said he did. In hearing that, I was happy and pleased at the peaceful and positive outcome.
However, it was Mark’s response that I found disappointing and undermining of the reconciliation process.
I agree that perhaps I should not have voiced my reaction. I understand that everyone wants to put this to rest, move on, let it go. Therefore, we’re willing to say, “Well Mark gave a little and he kind of sounded apologetic.”
You said, “to his credit, (he) is attempting to issue clarifying statements which express his regret for the negative way in which his comments were received.”
To take responsibility is to apologize for the manner in which his comments were spoken, not in the manner they were received. That in my opinion is blame-shifting.
I am a “deal with the root issue” type of person. In my opinion, anything less is simply sweeping things under the rug until the next occurence.
It is my opinion that at this point, Mark’s humility and apology concerning this incident should be clear and obvious to the entire world, not fuzzy and questionable.
The only question is, that as a person with no investment in the situation, no dog in the fight, and no personal emotions involved, should I even be discussing it? Well, I find it interesting in a mechanical sort of way, but I also need to remember that there are real people involved.
It’s also been an interesting exercise in checking my own biases in following the situation. Thanks for your interaction!
Grace,
One thing I meant to say on your blog but will do so here is that it’s not correct to think you shouldn’t have responded. Dialogue is all about hearing and responding, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I thought that a couple of points in your reaction were off, but as I have said, I didn’t dispute your main one. I hope I’ve been helpful in outlining an alternate view in which one could take less offence with Driscoll, but if not, maybe I should have kept my responses out of it! Your central point stands though… I’ve outlined why I think there’s still an issue and why I don’t think it will be resolved, but what do I know? ;^)
Thanks for continuing the dialogue in so gracious a manner.
Thanks Brother Maynard. I’ve enjoyed the discussion and the challenge of considering a different perspective.
Now, I think I’m done talking about Mark. ;)