…thrives on paradox.

Ran across an article a couple of days ago (HT: Between Two Worlds) in the NYT Magazine titled Who Would Jesus Smack Down, an essay on Mark Driscoll and his church, Mars Hill, in Seattle in specific, and the growing interest in Calvinism in general.

I’m just getting around to putting the final touches on some quick, rambling, and perhaps peripheral thoughts regarding the article:

First, though not the best example of unbiased journalism to be found, I thought it an interesting read even in it’s  rather insufficient understanding of Calvinism.  But there again, I have engaged some of the same misunderstandings until rather recently.

I think sometimes the church wants to react as a pendulum on some issues.  Not growing up with much of a church background, I have not been exposed, other than in examples found in old paintings portraying a soft, medieval Euro-Jesus, to this  feminine church culture alluded to in the article, but I do not question that such exists. That being said, on the other side of the pendulum lies an equally distorted  hyper-masculine polar opposite, a phenomena that I have been witness to on a couple of occasions.  I don’t think this is where Driscoll resides.  More, I perceive he gravitates to a Biblical center.  I strongly suspect a few pastors try to emulate Driscoll  but lack his theological underpinning; there you find at times a reactionary caricature of masculinity. Also, the reference to his reputation as the ‘cussing pastor’ is a bit passé.

It must also be understood that Driscoll is called, and uniquely fitted,  to be a pastor in Seattle with all it’s post-modern, post-Christian cultural distinctions.  Seattle is not in the Bible belt.  Too, I think Ed Stetzer, quoted in the article as follows, is dead on the mark when he says “Mars Hill is “a reaction to the atheological, consumer-driven nature of the modern evangelical machine.” Though they may share some elements, some practices, not all mega-churches are cut from the same cloth.  I think that Mars Hill, unlike many mega-churches, is as deep as it is wide.

All that being said, I really like and have been edified by what I have heard and read by Driscoll.  I also, take a bit of umbrage at this quote found at the end of the article:

At one suburban campus that I visited, a huge yellow cross dominated center stage – until the projection screen unfurled and Driscoll’s face blocked the cross from view. Driscoll’s New Calvinism underscores a curious fact: the doctrine of total human depravity has always had a funny way of emboldening, rather than humbling, its adherents.

One, that is perhaps unnecessarily inflammatory rhetoric and reads more into the described moment than that moment intends, but I understand where the perception comes from. Two, I would say it is the nature of the beast, without regard to embraced theology, to be spring-loaded to a position of arrogance and pride.  It is not unique to any ideology or theology. That being said, when properly understood,  the doctrines of grace presents the most radically humbling and absolutely Christ centered of all theologies, an antidote to arrogance.  Also, speaking and acting with strength of conviction is not necessarily synonymous with arrogance.