Mark Driscoll has posted a transparent piece on his blog. He has experienced quite a technological flogging following his posts on how young pastors can help avoid the shamefully sinful actions of Ted Haggard. He discloses some of the events that followed his posts, including a helpful and no doubt interesting dialogue with Haggard’s niece, the looming pressure of a pretty intense protest organized by the anti-Driscoll’s, a meeting with Seattle’s religious establishment, as well as, most importantly, a steady meditation on James 1.
I really enjoyed reading this post which seemed to be springing from a humble pen. I do pray that God would be using this trial in his life to accomplish his own desired end, the perfect result, which is expressedly stated in James, “that you may be perfect, complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1.4).
I am greatly encouraged to read of this quote from Mark:
I also learned that as my platform has grown, so has my responsibility to speak about my convictions in a way that invites other people to experience charity from me, which means inflammatory language and such need to be scaled back. 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.
Personally I am a Mark Driscoll fan. Sure I have some considerable differences in theology with him, however, many of the main things are the same. And I really appreciate his thoughts on fundamentalism, liberalism, and the relationship of the church to culture. The one thing that I could not get over was some of his language, particularly from the pulpit. (for a minister of the gospel must be an example of speech) With language I mostly mean cussing, not things like ‘God having his boot on your neck”. So I am encouraged by this post and would invite the anti-Driscoll establishment to read his post with the same meticulous scrutiny.
Update: MSNBC ran a story on Driscoll. Included in the article are a series of quotes from Driscoll, my personal favorite: Driscoll reinforced the concept of a Holy Trinity – “Father, Son and Spirit. But some chicks and some chickified dudes with limp wrists and minors in ‘women’s studies’ are not happy because two persons of the trinity have a dude-ish ring.”