Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Mars Hill Megachurch: A Blankety-blank Macho Jesus Theology


Now It's The M****r F****n' Church of Tinsel Face!

Where Jesus is not a "Sky Fairy"
(from New York Times, Jan. 6, 2009 -
Who Would Jesus Smack Down? by Molly Worthen)
“Pastor Mark, is masturbation a valid form of birth control?”

Driscoll doesn’t miss a beat: “I had one guy quote Ecclesiastes 9:10, which says, ‘Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.’ ” The audience bursts out laughing. Next Pastor Mark is warning them about lust and exalting the confines of marriage, one hand jammed in his jeans pocket while the other waves his Bible. Even the skeptical viewer must admit that whatever Driscoll’s opinion of certain recreational activities, he has the coolest style and foulest mouth of any preacher you’ve ever seen.

Pastor Mark Driscoll preaches hellfire and brimstone with old Calvinist theology: you know, the no matter what you do on earth, good or bad, you're pre-destined to go to heaven or hell kind of theology. He's in Seattle.

Seattle, please keep him there.

His homophobic, misogynistic rhetoric packs in the creme de la creme of skinheads, goths and bad-assed youth that Seattle can come up with. He's reviled by both ends of the Christian church yard stick: the Right hates his cursing while the Progressives hate his Calvinist, hellfire theology.
The mainstream church, Driscoll has written, has transformed Jesus into “a Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ,” a “neutered and limp-wristed popular Sky Fairy of pop culture that . . . would never talk about sin or send anyone to hell.”

After Cowboy churches, Prosperity church-stadiums, basement churches, "unchurched" churches with skateboard parks (Rick Warren), now comes the church of the Blessed Blankity-Blanks.

Question: after almost 2000 years, can't these guys get it right?


Just a thought.

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