You Need My Book - Rick Warren's Sermon At Desiring God (Part 13)

The following commentary corresponds to the following video from 43:50 to 45:46

WARNING: Watching the following segment of video may induce vomiting!



This is just getting more and more painful. Just when I thought that Rick Warren could not possibly trump his delusions of grandeur reached thus far, he proves me wrong yet again. In a sermon loaded with moralism, pragmatism, bad hermeneutics, and quotes from bogus "bible translations"; Warren now informs his audience (with all the profound humility he can muster) that they all need to get a book on Bible study methods. For the duration of this sermon, Warren has repeatedly proved that he is the last person at the Desiring God conference who should recommend any Bible study methods. But wait - there's more! The book about Bible study methods that Rick Warren recommends is written by guess who? If you're thinking it must be the humblest guy in the universe then you thought correctly. After 40 minutes of hermeneutical hack job from Pastor Warren, he then has the gall to tell his esteemed audience that they all NEED to get "Warren's Bible Study Methods". If this is not the conduct of a complete jerk then can someone please tell me what else could possibly qualify? The fact that Rick Warren can show up (if via pre-recorded video qualifies) and deliver this garbage without being taken to task just makes me angry and grieved. Is it really that difficult to see through the Rick Warren barrage of self aggrandizing advice?

Warren goes on to scold his audience for not training people to be "self feeders". Aside from the self refuting aspect of this statement, it is a borrowed terminology from Bill Hybels and the world of Willow Creek where they seem to be under the impression that their major failure has been in not teaching their members to be "self feeders". Let's apply this self feeder idea to all of Jesus parables concerning a shepherd and his sheep, or how about the Lord's own words in John 15:5 where he says "apart from Me you can do nothing". And this drives right to the heart of the seeker sensitive/church growth train wreck where the indwelling transformation of the Holy Spirit has been substituted with man made programs and more programs. And when the programs fail they arrive at the conclusion that they should have been doing "other programs". This is what happens when the audience becomes sovereign in these matters. Yes, at times we are called to study Scripture in private, to commune with God, and meditate upon His precepts in the sanctuary of our private prayer closet. But this is not self feeding, it is the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. And until Rick Warren gets that, he just won't get it at all.

Warren closes this section with the discovery of a new attribute - the "skills" of God! Maybe . . . if you want to call omnipotence a "skill"!!!

More to come . . .

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How To Do A Hermeneutical Hack Job - Rick Warren's Sermon At Desiring God (Part 5)

The following commentary corresponds to the following video from 20:50 to 21:45



Pastor Warren is now on a roll and my head is in a spin after the avalanche of information he has given out. Let's eat this elephant (no, not the invisible one in Rick Warren's living room) one piece at a time because there is no way we can digest the entire content of principle three in one sitting. This is so loaded with platitudes, cliches, moralisms, and bad hermeneutics (all filed under "Warrenisms") that I am struggling to process it all. Warren also dazzles his audience with breathtaking examples of his own immense humility. I only have time to serve up one piece of elephant today but what a vital piece of purpose driven elephant it is!

I don't think anyone is going to argue that a true disciple is someone who is constantly learning. I think it goes without saying, since a true disciple is someone who has repented of his man centered pride and knowledge, and submits to the Omniscient Lord and His inspired Word. But it doesn't take long for Warren to try and use this principle to fire a biblically incompetent cheap shot at those who dare to criticize his seeker sensitive philosophy. Here Warren contends that Matthew 11:28-30 is actually about coming to Jesus with our "felt needs" (Bill Hybels/Rick Warren language for the carnal desires of unregenerate sinners). But what does the text say:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

Though Warren's main point from this section of Scripture is "learn from me", he can't help but take a poke at his reformed critics by pointing out that the "heavy laden" and "rest" described here are "felt needs". This is a great example of Warren at his deceptive best. If you twist a verse or proof-text at high speed you get the benefit of sounding theologically impressive while you do a snow job on your audience. Warren regularly proof-texts and gets away with it. But to try this stunt at a Desiring God conference is insulting to the many faithful Bible expositors in the audience. But why can't Warren go the conventional route of finding actual biblical support for his seeker sensitive views? Because there is no biblical support. The whole seeker sensitive movement is built upon a false premise that Scripture clearly repudiates the idea in Romans 3:11 with the words "no one seeks after God"

Have you ever met someone who is not a Christian and yet "feels the need" for the imputed righteousness of Christ? Lost sinners are dead in sin (Ephesians 2:1) and unable to perceive what their true spiritual needs are - unless the Spirit of God does a supernatural work in that valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37:1-10, John 6:44). What a sinner feels and desires is always at odds with what their real needs are (hello - Romans 3!). Any good commentator will point out many vital truths from these verses in Matthew 11 but you won't find anyone describing "rest" and "burden" as the felt needs of an unregenerate sinner. On the contrary, John Macarthur, in his commentary on Matthew 11:28-30, had this to say:

There is an echo of the first beatitude (Matthew 5:3) in this passage. Note that this is an open invitation to all who hear - but phrased in such a way that the only ones who will respond to the invitation are those who are burdened by their own spiritual bankruptcy and the weight of trying to save themselves from keeping the law. The stubbornness of humanity's sinful rebellion is such that without a sovereignly bestowed spiritual awakening, all sinners refuse to acknowledge the depth of their spiritual poverty. That is why, as Jesus says in v27, our salvation is the sovereign work of God.

No this is not nit picking. This is just one small example that draws attention to a continual pattern of behavior and we need to watch out for it. Tim Challies has rightly pointed out that:

Warren has proven repeatedly that he does not and will not honor the Bible. He preaches from the Bible, he knows vast amounts of Scripture and I’m sure he loves studying the Bible. But his ministry makes clear that he does not truly honor it in the way he uses it. I hardly even know where to begin here. Turn to any of Warren’s books and you will see that this is the case. Time and time again he has misused and abused the Bible. Years ago I read The Purpose Driven Life day-by-day and blogged my way through each chapter. I looked up each and every Bible reference. And in almost every chapter I found that Warren had used Scripture poorly, stretching its meaning, choosing translations that, more than being true to the text, furthered his intended meaning. This is the way he always has used Scripture and the way he continues to today. Turn to just about any review of his books and you’ll find multitudes of examples.

John Piper, on the other hand, has a long history of ministry in which he seeks to extend the utmost care to the Bible. He preaches verse-by-verse, carefully expositing the Word of God, seeking to be absolutely faithful to the text. And few preachers have done a better job of this over a long pulpit ministry.

The contrast between these two preaching styles and, even more so, these two ways of using the Bible, could not be more stark. John Piper honors the Bible, Rick Warren very often does not. What frustrates me is that I know Warren knows better! For some reason he does not seem offended by what he must know is his own misuse of the Bible. (online source)

I only covered a small portion of video today but addressed a big part of Rick Warren's modus operandi. Something that we need to be aware of and to warn undiscerning sheep about . . . and bury our heads in bewilderment at why John Piper would invite Rick Warren to come to this conference and serve up his usual hermeneutical hack job. "America's Pastor" would do well to heed his own advice here - never let up on learning - and heed the counsel of the many faithful expositors who have called on him continually to stop twisting Scripture in order to make it endorse his pragmatic consumer driven philosophies. It is God's Word - not a cheap buffet!

More to come . . .

Go On To Part 6
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The Believers Most Valuable Asset Is His Mind? - Rick Warren's Sermon At Desiring God (Part 2)

The following commentary corresponds to the following video from 2:08 to 7:45



It is a big claim to not only tell the hearers that you have a message from God, but also to say that their lives depend on this message. That must be an awfully huge burden on Pastor Warren's shoulders. I am intrigued to see how this message develops and reveals my life dependancy on it.

From the outset here Warren lays out the central focus of his message which is the mind. I imagine this would be mainly due to the conference being themed on the word "think". Now that words are getting mentioned and Warren is speaking I guess I had better give out a large acronym and rhyming alert, I'm sure they are coming. I had also better issue alerts for "four points", "five steps", and "six principles" because I can already see the avalanche of advice coming down the hill. Also, is it just me, or are there more important assets than our mind? I'd be gunning for Christ's imputed righteousness . . . that's a possession of believers.

Here Warren zeroes in on 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 as his key text in what he calls the battle of the mind. I would contend that the surrounding verses here provide some important context that is being missed. That aside, I am intrigued that He claims the reason there are "so many ineffective Christians" is that they don't know how to fight this battle of the mind. And he then blames pastors for not teaching them how to fight this war. There may be an element of truth to what Warren is saying here but his emphasis (as usual) on the "how to do" rather than the "Who has done" really is getting to where Warren differs so much from Christ centered preachers like John Piper. This is all boiling down to how Warren views conversion and I'm sure this will be a major theme as we progress through this message. Matthew 25 also talks about "ineffective Christians" but uses the word "goats" instead.

Yes, I will concede that the Christian's thought life is a battlefield. I hate some of the thoughts that pass through my mind. But the Scripture describes genuine Christians as people who are "new creatures" (2 Corinthians 5:17) with new hearts and desires (Ezekiel 36:25-27). If there is a "how to" it involves the mortification of sin as Jesus clearly described in Mark 9:

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 'where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.' (Mark 9:43-48)

But even this sanctification is more of an indicative than an imperative. The ability to mortify sin in our lives, including mental strongholds, is evidence of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. It is fruit of genuine conversion. The spirit wars with the flesh in the life of a true believer but he is always broken, repentant, and deeply desirous to please His Savior. But I wouldn't describe him as "ineffective". Where Warren offers information and education, Christ points to sanctification. And this sanctification is an indication of the Spirit's work. Where there is no sanctification there is no work of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:11), and where there is no Holy Spirit there is no regeneration.

Yes, the believer can benefit from some education in this area and John Owen's classic work on "The Moritification of Sin" is a great place to go for that. And I am not going to label every individual with the same stroke of this broad brush. But the plague that besets the seeker sensitive universe, presided over by Rick Warren and Bill Hybels, is thousands of people who have said a prayer but never repented, acknowledged Christ but never abandoned their sinful lifestyle, and are purpose driven but not Christ centered. By and large the issue is conversion and the solution is the Gospel. It all boils down to meditating on who we are - sinners, Who God is - Holy, and what Christ has done in His finished work on the cross.

That's all for now, but I'm sure we'll talk a lot more about this issue over the coming posts. More to come on Friday . . .

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Preaching Myths In Modern Pulpits (Part 7)

Myth 7. We need to be seeker sensitive.



The seeker sensitive movement has been the big influence on evangelical Christianity for the last twenty to thirty years with the major influences being Willow Creek in Chicago and Rick Warren’s Saddleback church in California. But Robert Schuller is probably the father of the movement when he pioneered the pragmatic approach to ministry. He started a church with the idea that he needed to find out what all the lost people in his area wanted in a church and he would give it to them. Schuller says:

The secret of winning unchurched people into the church is really quite simple. Find out what would impress the non churched in your community then give it to them. (Robert Schuller, as quoted in Gary Gilley, This Little Church Went to Market (Evangelical Press, 2005): 76.)

A lot of people came to Schuller’s church because he gave them what they wanted – but it should be remembered that many who joined Schullers church were not new converts but people who didn’t enjoy the conviction of their previous church. These were people who loved the way Schuller built up their self-esteem. Schuller had a high view of man and a low view of Scripture as evidenced when he said:

I don't think anything has been done in the name of Christ and under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to human personality . . . than the often crude, uncouth, and unchristian strategy of attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition. (online source)

It’s such a shame that Robert Schuller wasn’t there when Paul was writing the book of Romans. I think I’ll listen to Paul over Schuller who said that he did not know he was a sinner except that the law showed him; and that God demonstrated His love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were sinning. You cannot show God’s love without exposing mans sin!
Paul actually said in Romans 3 that no one seeks after God. It is God Who seeks and saves the lost!

Truth 7. No one seeks after God. But God seeks and saves the lost. We need to be sensitive to the One true Seeker by being faithful to the message He told us to preach.

For further and more in depth critique check out Todd Friel's excellent critique of Willow Creek and the results of their internal survey of members.

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The False Teaching Food Chain

The scary thing about living in Denmark and becoming well acquainted with a typical "danish evangelical" is that we must be close to the bottom feeders in the false teaching food chain. The foul emergent postmodernism and church growth philosophy that filters out from mega church suburbia seems to be manifold worse by the time it reaches our shores.

It is scary to listen to Paul Washer's caricature of the state of modern evangelicalism in America as he lays out in his "Shocking Youth Message". What is even more scary is that Paul Washer's caricature would be a vast improvement on the state of the supposed gospel preaching that goes on over here.

Places like Willow Creek (Bill Hybels) and Saddleback (Rick Warren) have created a monster of sorts with no seeming way of domesticating it. Here is the lay of the land as I see it and I welcome your feedback as to whether you think I'm onto something or not.

With people like Robert Schuller pioneering the consumer driven church (where we survey pagans to see what they want in the church) we saw the trend of dumbing down of biblical teaching. A culture of biblically illiterate consumer minded church goers emerged. Smaller churches with little entertainment became the catchment areas for seeker sensitive mega churches. The continual influx of these people concealed the high number of people going out the back door who were bored with the same shallow entertainment week in week out. Making the narrow gate into a wide gate by focussing more on self esteem, success, and sensuality, and less on sin, self denial, and sanctification was certainly one way to draw large crowds.



These large crowds drew attention from leaders in places like Denmark where they sat in the ruins of the reformation pondering how to "revive" their non-existant congregations. Biblical theology had been abandoned on both sides of the Atlantic leading to liberal heresies in Europe and pragmatic methodology in the US. Enamored with the perceived success of the seeker sensitive gurus in the America, people outside the USA have gravitated towards this methodology at the expense of sound theology.

Biblical discernment has become unbelievably low paving the way for people like Brian McLaren and Rob Bell to step out of the church growth trojan horse and say "hey, we've got some new ideas about what the Gospel really means but don't worry, trust us we're orthodox!" William P Young can write a blasphemous book about the Trinity (The Shack) and get rave reviews.

There are still many good and faithful preachers in the USA who are continually proclaiming the truth and turning on the light. But I want to put forward my contention amidst the woeful biblical discernment I'm experiencing here in Europe. I beleive it may be time to preach with greater and greater focus on exposing darkness. The civility Rick Warren longs for is actually becoming the problem over here. Civility coupled with a complete lack of biblical discernment is producing a sub culture of people who say amen to John Macarthur and Joel Osteen. Who download Paul Washer and read the Shack. Who can't tell the difference between the teaching of Rob Bell and Ray Comfort.

I come from Australia, and when I take my five year old daughter there I don't spend time discussing with her the best way to handle snakes - I tell her to stay a million miles away. When we talk about Hitler we don't try and balance the death of 6 million Jews with all those great roads that he built. We call evil what it is. If someone is preaching a false gospel, don't spend time trying to write an even handed review pointing out the virtues as well as the short comings - even a broken clock gets it right twice a day! The Apostle Paul said:

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed (Galatians 1:8-9).

If a shepherd loves the sheep he will protect them from wolves. A key responsibility for pastors in a time of severe biblical illiteracy is to provide clear lines of demarkation between truth and error, as well as remove the fog of seeming semi-approval that rests between each end of the spectrum. How dare any other gospel come along and try to replace the precious blood of our wonderful Savior. Be like Paul and totally slam any other gospel that tries to pass itself off as the real one; all the while persevering in the true biblical Gospel that God is good, man is evil, God must judge, heaven and hell, Christ the penal substitutionary atonement, and the need for all men everywhere to repent from sin and trust in Jesus!

Willow Creek "Revealed" - The Conclusion

Above, we see one of the many charts that highlight Willow Creek's understanding of the Gospel and how it drives their approach to mission and feeding their flock. Scripture undoubtedly talks about the process of sanctification whereby the true believer is brought closer to the likeness of Christ through obedience to God's Word and enablement by the Holy Spirit. But the idea of this sliding scale of people (some of whom are unbelievers) who are "exploring" (or seeking), and getting closer to Christ is without biblical basis.

The unregenerate man is dead in sin (Ephesians 2:1) and dead men can't move in any direction. Dead men must be born again - they need resurrection life! This requires more than making the "narrow gate" into a wide one. It requires a miraculous transforming work of God Himself - the God Who asked Ezekiel if those dead bones could live! RC Sproul had this to say:

Evangelicals today have unconverted sinners who are dead in trespasses and sin bringing themselves to life by choosing to be born again. Christ made it clear that dead people cannot choose anything, that the flesh counts for nothing, and that we must be born of the Spirit before we can see the kingdom of God, let alone enter it. The failure of modern evangelicalism is the failure to understand the holiness of God. If that one point were grasped, there would be no more talk of mortal enemies of Christ coming to Jesus by their own power (The Holiness of God p182-183).

Getting the Gospel wrong at this level leads only to an exponential unfolding of further disaster where we end up housing large groups of goats and try to coach them to act like sheep. I recently heard a visiting missionary say that "people are getting saved, but there are also miracles happening" as he proceeded to spend the whole hour talking about supernatural healing. Emergents like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren often disdainfully remark that is the Gospel only about salvation or is there more? These attitudes reveal a complete failure to recognize the miracle of conversion. As long as it remains, in there eyes, as something that happens when people pray recited prayers, or just decide to live like Jesus then they will persevere with this perverted view of what happens when God regenerates a man who is dead in sin.

Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (II Corinthians 5:17).

Preach that which is "unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (I Corinthians 1:23-24). Let people leave the meeting convicted, converted, or angry . . .

Willow Creek "Revealed" - The Saga Continues

So Willow Creek got it wrong!! But to all those countless churches who benchmark everything they do off the Willow Creek blueprint - don't worry, they're doing another survey! That's a relief . . .



How about the church growth strategy found in the book of Acts? The disciples preached the Gospel and God grew the Church. But why repent in sackcloth and ashes when you can merchandize the data instead . . . the saga concludes on Tuesday.

Heir Or Outcast - Christianity Has No Middle Class

The "church growth" or seeker sensitive movement has carried the pre-eminent clout in mainstream evangelicalism for several decades now. That is quite staggering when you consider that it's foundations were built upon a false premises. The idea that lost people seek after God is foreign and contrary to Scripture. Paul tells us in Romans chapter 3 that noone seeks after God. Jesus elaborated on the "why" of this in the verses that followed His most famous:

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved (John 3:17-20)

People don't seek God because they love darkness and hate the light and the light will expose their evil deeds. And such were we! Before God graciously saved me I was:

dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2:1-3).

As Ray Comfort so eloquently paraphrased: "lost people can't find God for the same reason that a thief can never find a policeman". Paul Washer also states that while we do need to be seeker sensitive, we need to understand that there is only one Seeker! Men don't seek God, Who was it who cam to seek and save that which was lost? Unregenerate men cannot come to God unless God draws them (John 6:44) There is a lot more that could be said about this and there is certainly no shortage of people much sharper than myself that can provide a more in depth analysis. It would seem only natural that the first false premise would give birth to others . . . and so it has!

The man made idea that unregenerate men seek after God has led to the faulty premise that there is some sort of "sliding scale" of Christianity. This scale is bordered by the extremities of complete pagan and fully committed follower of Christ. Everyone, according to this idea, lands somewhere between these two poles. It would seem that they have confused sanctification with an imaginary process of salvation. But Scripture is clear that there are only those who are dead in sin, and those who are new creatures in Christ. You are either an heir to the King of kings or an outcast awaiting damnation. Christianity doesn't have a middle class.

Just as purgatory was the invention of Catholicism, so too is the "nearly there" and "carnal Christians" of the modern seeker sensitive mega church. The mother ship of this phenomenon would have to be Willow Creek pastored by church growth guru Bill Hybels. It would seem that after almost 30 years of trying to lure pagans into church through entertainment and programs, they have finally found themselves painted into a corner of what to do next. Eventually, the well of innovations and new concepts runs dry and the reality of the difference between goats and sheep becomes too obvious to ignore. The analysts at Willow Creek heard the alarm bells but didn't go to Scripture for a remedy - instead they surveyed their congregations - AGAIN!.

Here, Todd Friel gives some excellent critique of the "Reveal Survey" at Willow Creek . . .



Continued saturday!

Mark Driscoll is Not a Heretic, He's Just a Very Naughty Preacher (Part 1)

One of the red hot debates - and I mean RED HOT - among those in the conservative reformed camp, centres around Seattle preacher Mark Driscoll. The blogosphere seems to be raging in debate. Volleys of "friendly fire" are hurtling back and forth as a wide variety of sound biblical thinkers take sides and stances.

The subject of the debate concerns the boundaries of decency and appropriateness when speaking from the pulpit as well as the legitimacy of contextualization as an integral part of mission endeavor (I'll be expanding on these tomorrow). The issues at stake here extend well beyond Driscoll but he has certainly become the poster boy/villain at the centre of the storm.

From the outset I want to say how much I love much of Mark Driscoll's preaching/teaching ministry. One of my favorite sermons (it is on my website) was preached by Mark at the Desiring God conference in 2006. But his raw and racy preaching have landed him a reputation as "the potty mouth preacher". This has probably been misleading for many as there is a wide perception out there that Driscoll is a preacher who regularly cusses. Though I haven't heard every sermon by Mark I have never heard the use of expletives in his material. The potty mouth label is actually more directed at his willingness to tackle what some might call x-rated subject matter.

I must confess that this subject matter and occasional locker room humor can make me nervous when listening to Driscoll and does give me great cause for concern. Here is a sample of the rollercoaster emotional experience I can go through when listening to a Mark Driscoll sermon:

"Amen preach it brother . . . wow that was profound exposition . . . ohh he got a bit irreverent with that comment, oh well . . . yeeeahhh stomp on the head of that heretic, way to go Mark . . . did he just say what I thought he said??? Naaah couldn't have possibly meant . . . man this guy is funny! . . . should I be laughing at this? . . . no Mark, don't do it, don't go there, please leave it alone, no don't, arrgghh! why did he talk about that . . . where's my medication? . . . great, he's back on the text, bloodpressure lowering, feeling better, will give Mark Driscoll the benefit of the doubt, amen brother Mark . . . hang on just a second did he just make a joke out of that . . . but he's so orthodox and what about that reformed theology . . . I get the feeling he's watching a bit too much Simpsons and South Park . . . but he's on our side . . . no Mark no, please don't do it, just throw that Song of Solomon sermon series in the shredder and nobody gets hurt and we can all go home"!

Mark lives in Seattle which is one of the most unchurched cities in America - certainly not Bible belt. Undoubtedly this presents challenges that a pastor in Dallas may not face (at least on the same scale). We're talking about a lot of young people with no biblical literacy or Christian heritage. Staring at this scenario Driscoll has taken it upon himself to become very culture savvy whilst remaining with a very tight grip on biblical orthodoxy and delivering thumping sermons loaded with reformed theology.

He looks like a night club security guy (you know, the guy with big biceps and the optional neck . . . but he didn't take the option). Mark is acutely aware of the surrounding pop culture and loads up his sermons with a wide variety of illustrations based on what is current and hip - he calls it contextualization but his critics call it worldliness. What sets him apart from the myriad of cool wannabe seeker sensitive pastors with mullets, soul patches, and untucked shirts is that he is very sharp and uncompromising when it comes to biblical doctrine and not afraid to label a heretic. He is certainly no sissy boy - a manly man if you like - and would not look out of place beating up Rob Bell for his lunch money.

When it comes to church eldership Mark says hasta la vista ladies - men only! He certainly isn't backward coming forward on this issue as Bill Hybels and the gender neutral folk at Willow Creek found out. When approached about making a church planting video for their annual conference at Willow Creek, Mark obliged in true Driscoll style. To say that people got offended would be an understatement. This is the video and it is definitely worth the look because it really encapsulates the Mark Driscoll persona.



Is it wrong that I find myself cheering? I really want to like Mark. I rejoice that he preaches the Gospel. On the issue of contextualization I can see both sides of the argument and perhaps we can all extend some grace. But has Mark Driscoll crossed the line of decency with some of his subject matter. Unfortunately, I think he has, and tomorrow I'll tell you why!

Continued tomorrow

Go On To Part 2