I enjoyed this podcast conversation with Mark Driscoll and Doug Wilson:
I especially liked the part of the discussion where they contrasted pastors with social media influencers. Many social media influencers are insulated from the “real world” implications of their content. Pastors deal with the messy details of people’s lives (or at least they should). Pastors live with the consequences of their teaching in real time. A lot of social media influencers do not. “Life is complicated and people are in process” as Driscoll put it. You can tell the podcasters who live in a community versus those who are doing their content from an ivory tower (or from mom’s basement, as the case might be). Pastors who further their reach with podcasting can do great good. Those social media influencers who play internet pastor to a virtual congregation (which is to say, no real congregation at all) can do a lot of harm, and there is no real accountability mechanism when they go off the rails. Both Driscoll and Wilson made the point that the best pastoral and homiletical applications come not from the study but from time spent with the flock — with real people going through real struggles. The danger of the internet age is that the virtual will replace the real – that an online influencer will take the place of participating in the life of a congregation and knowing a pastor. We must not let the algorithm replace the life in the body of Christ, under the authority of elders who know their people.
I don’t really follow Driscoll closely and never have, though appreciate that he is anti-woke and I was glad to hear that he is still Reformed in his soteriology (comments trashing Calvinism notwithstanding). He seems to be doing good work. I read a bit of his series on family systems a while back, and while I would not vouch for all his attempts to ground the insights of family systems therapy in exegesis, I do think he provided a lot of wise insights. I catch clips of his sermons (or conference talks — I’m not sure which) on youtube and I’m glad he is still preaching boldly and speaking to the issues of the day, especially for men. I’m sure we still have a lot of theological differences.
But the part of the podcast caught my attention more than anything else was the part that rehearsed Driscoll’s history in Seattle. It reminded me that I had actually put together some notes on Christianity Today’s podcast on “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.” The podcast was well-produced, but dreadfully misguided in its assessment of the real problems at Mars Hill (which is par for the course at CT these days). I lost interest in the project at some point – I’m not even sure if I finished listening to all the episodes. I never reworked the notes into an essay. While the notes are rough, I will post them here, with the caveat that this is not a finished product, nor is it all I’d want to say about that podcast series, and much of what I include has been said better elewhere in other things I have written. I did not always mark which episode my notes are from and so the notes associated with each episode may not be right — but that probably doesn’t matter much at this point. The bottom line is that the podcast was not really about Mars Hill as such, but weaponized what happened there against any form of Christian patriarchy/headship. In other words, CT tried to use the Mars Hill fiasco to further push the evangelical church in a feminist, egalitarian direction. These notes were put together back when the podcast first came out (I think it was 2021).
—
Part 3
I’m actually pretty sympathetic with a lot of what MD goes through and does in this episode, at least the first part.
I don’t fault him too much for, eg, strongly opposing the guy who was a universalist at the conference – strong language is not always wrong when the stakes are eternal.
I don’t fault him for emphasizing masculinity and gender norms in our androgynous society.
I don’t really fault his “us versus them” view of the world, especially as he was coming out of the emergent movement which was compromising with postmodernism.
I do fault his arrogance and anger issues, insofar as they are honestly documented here.
The problem is MD had no one to really guide him through his theological transitions so his “cage stage Calvinism” was out in the open for everyone to witness and it may have done some damage.
More training on the front end of ministry and more accountability/oversight after he got into ministry could have saved MH and MD a lot of trouble. He would have had protection that might have kept him from becoming so power hungry and suspicious of everyone else. He felt he had to protect his turf – what he had built – and it eventually got him into trouble.
His “God told me stuff” was a huge part of the problem. It seems to me his charismania is far more to blame than his Calvinism or his views on the sexes for the MH explosion – if he had to make a reasoned, wise argument for things instead of just saying “God told me in a vision,” it would have all unfolded differently. A charismatic personality combined with a charismatic “God told me” theology is a recipe for disaster.
My guess is the podcast is going to treat Driscoll’s view of masculinity as the biggest problem (rather than, say, character or ecclesiology or charismatic leanings).
It’s odd that when men sin, masculinity is to blame but when women sin no one ties it to femininity….or do they even acknowledge that women can sin too? The podcast is coming from a feminist perspective.
The fact that Kristin Du Mez has already been brought in tips me off to where they are going…they are going to get pseudo-evangelical progressive feminists to do their analysis — and because it will come from women like Du Mez, people will be hesitant to counter-punch in defense of MD because “you can’t win when you fight a girl.” Du Mez is a foolish woman — and a very subversive one.
Parts 4-5
MD got so much so right….and so much so wrong. But CT gets wrong what MD got right and misses what he actually got wrong.
Does anyone bother asking why so many men came out to MH? What was the alternative? Why was he so successful reaching men, especially young men? Is anyone curious about these kinds of questions? How did MH rise before it fell?
There are some heartbreaking stories in parts 4 and 5, and some of MD’s rhetoric was unwise. But to be fair, most every church has people with “horror stories” because people are sinners and sometimes things can go very wrong even in a generally healthy church.
Men should not view women per se as threats. The threat is their own lustful flesh. Men should also be trained in how to view women in the church – not as sex objects or temptresses, but as sisters in Christ.
But MD was right about sexually aggressive women. His warnings echo the Bible — the story of Potiphar’s wife, Harlot Folly in Proverbs 7, etc.
This dynamic is real when the Bible’s teaching on sex is skewed: Women who feel responsible to protect their husbands from sin + not drawing others into sin by how they look/dress/act = women experiencing a great deal of sexual anxiety/shame. But the podcast does not give proper answers to this issue (and there are perfectly good and wise answers in Scripture).
Should wives fulfill their husbands fantasies? See Proverbs 5 ands 1 Corinthians 7. It’s weird to focus on this issue — as if Christian marriages should not have a vibrant sexual dimension. It seems to me the podcast itself encourages a very flawed view of sex. There are certainly sexual fantasies that should not be fulfilled — but there are salso some that, within marriage, are perfectly legit. MD wanted couples to have good and enjoyable sex lives — and that’s a good thing in itself.
The pornification of marital sex is a real problem given how many people (mand and women) use porn — but we need a better idea of what constitutes a healthy and appropriate male sex drive. We must not pathologize the way God made men. We must not confuse creation and fall. There is nothing wrong with the fact that a man’s sex drive is the strongest physical drive in his life. Men are made that way by design.
Du Mez suggest the idea that men are protectors is rooted in Cold War politics, not nature/creation. She’s just too dumb for words. Her book “Jesus and John Wayne” is a travesty – but it’s become so influential because it goes with the drift of the culture and many pastors are cowards so they don’t challenge her or the wider cultural narrative about men and masculinity.
The point of the podcast series seems to be: “Look what happens when the church emphasizes gender roles, traditional masculinity, etc – it blows up.” No, these are biblical teachings. These are natural, created realities. The podcast creators have chosen accommodate the culture than confront it — on that score, MD had more good things to say than this podcast criticizing him.
The fact that they are using a fool like Du Mez to frame the narrative tells me all I need to know about their integrity in this series. They are not really serious about critiquing MD fairly or biblically; they are using his story to advance a progressive, egalitarian agenda.
Bringing in RD and associating her abuse story with MD is just a way of creating suspicion and bad associations. These same women will be triggered by reading the Apostle Paul or the wisdom literature of Solomon. Why are so many modern Christian women immature in how they deal with sex within marriage? Are they not attracted to their husbands? Do they have baggage from premarital sexual sin? Are they getting bad messaging about sex? There is a lot here that needs to be unpacked.
Interestingly, and frustratingly. the podcast does not turn to the text of Scripture to evaluate if MD is right; instead, they ask a handful of progressive female influencers.
Also – the semi-ridiculous James Dobson story aside – the podcast cannot conceive of the idea that women could really be temptresses. Women must be innocent no matter what – no matter what they do, say, act, or wear, they are justified. This denial of female agency in attempt to “protect’ women from accountability actually dehumanizes them. The reality is that there are women who seek to leverage their sexuality to trap, manipulate, or entice men. Could Cosper ever warn men about the kind of women Solomon warns his son about in Proverbs 7?
The Potiphar’s wife story got quickly dismissed but Proverbs 7 (not to mention the history of the human race) shows women leveraging sexual power to trap or manipulate men in some way is a common phenomenon. The whole thing is white knighting in the extreme. The message is clear: “We must rescue innocent women who are victims of mean patriarchs like Driscoll.” There is a play being run here – and the aim is to further an egalitarian agenda, not a biblical agenda.
The irony in this whole thing is that, if anything, MD was something of a white knight himself. He was far, far harder on men and men’s sins than women and women’s sins. He castigated men publicly for their failures. He screamed at men to “do better” in front of their wives and girlfriends. His preaching was often closer to misandry than misogyny. He railed against men for not protecting, providing for, and generally loving their wives. But because he dared to point out that women have sexual responsibilities to their husbands, he got labeled as a misogynist.
Women making advances toward MD is totally believable — this kind of thing happens frequently. Women can sin, and they can sin sexually. The way Cosper said, “there is no talk about the imbalance of power” in the Potiphar’s wife story was crazy. Yes, she was in a powerful position, but she also attempted to use her feminine power and made a false accusation against a righteous man. Cosper is avoiding the obvious, in order to keep women from being held responsible. Lauren Winner once pointed out that women think that they ought to be able to dress any way they wish without being judged — but that’s not the way reality works. Here’s the paradigm at work:
To be woman = original righteousness.
To be a man = original sin
I do think MD could have taught with a great deal more wisdom on sexual issues. He could have taught husbands how to cultivate attraction and responsivenessy. The way he put things, sex within marriage was framed in terms of demand/obligation, which is only part of the picture.
In our culture right now, the answer to men’s innate sexual aggressiveness is to pathologize the male sex drive instead of see it as a gift to be channeled.
One of the women on the podcast talked about how women were objectified because men desire them for sex. The term “objectification” may be problematic, but yes, God gave you to your husband in part to fulfill his sexual desires. See Proverbs 5. To be offended by that is to reject the way God made the world. In better times, women could enjoy being the “object” of their husband’s deepest desire. Now it’s offensive to be wanted. How did we get here?
Where has all this shame around sex has come from for so many women? In the case of women who were abused, it’s obvious. But so many women talk about sex in terms of shame that goes far beyond the embarrassment of a blushing new bride. Where does that come from? That question needs to be answered. Further, wives need to understand that you do not have to be a beauty queen in order to arouse, please, and satisfy your husband. A moderate amount of effort to look good combined with a willingness (even enthusiasm) about sex is more than enough for the vast, vast majority of Christian husbands. Frankly, husbands are not that complicated — and not hard to keep reasonably happy. We have done a really bad job teaching wives what it means to be a wife.
You have to wonder how much evangelical Gnosticism plays into the shame of sex. Couple that gnosticism with a widespread culture of sexual exploitation (eg porn), and sex is always put in a negative light. In a gynocentric culture that treats the woman as the norm (e.g., the woman’s sex drive as the measure of what a sex drive should be), and it’s easy to see how people conclude the men are pigs. Women are angels, men are pigs has been the evangelical trope for 100+ years.
Gnosticism + gynocentrism = sexual shaming of women who have sex and sexual shaming of men for wanting sex. This is completely unbiblical. To MD’s credit, he was trying to correct these kinds of problems, but he did so in a clumsy way that did not always help.
The podcast is basically an apology for evangelical wokeness. Part of the “wokeness” project is tearing the church down through continual bashing, criticism, and accusation. It’s a form of deconstruction. Several big names have made constant critique of the church one of their big themes – David French, Russell Moore, Beth Moore, Ray Ortlund, Rachel Denhollander, Kristen Du Mez, and now Mike Cosper. All of these figures are telling progressives, “Yes, evangelicals are just as bad as you think they are, maybe even worse. And evangelicals who teach the doctrine of a husband’s headship are the worst evangelicals — they are abusive misogynists.”
Reflecting further on the MH podcast, I have concluded the point is not to attack MD as such, but to weaponize MD against any remaining conservatives/traditionalists in the evangelical church (especially on gender/sex roles). By beating the dead horse of MH, especially on gender issues, the message is sent – no one should ever try to emphasize masculinity and femininity (like MD did) again
The main point of the podcast to push evangelicalism in a liberal, egalitarian direction. They showed their cards by bringing in people like RD and especially Du Mez to frame the narrative.
Masculinity is constantly problematized. Women are innocent victims. That’s the theme. Women have no issues they need to deal with, and no sins to repent of; man are the problem. This is simply not true to reality.
The podcast also fits with the “failure porn” stuff which celebrates weakness – it’s a form of effeminacy. It’s an attack on masculine strength.
My assessment of what went wrong at MH:
If MD was presbyterian or had a decent ecclesiology, there would have been a more orderly way of removing someone from office who did not fit the qualifications. One issue Aaron Renn has raised is the lack of accountability in low church evangelicalism — MH could be exhibit A. MD needed the kind of accountability that would come with a healthy presbyterian system around him.
Who is called to account for massive failures like Josh Harris and MD? Apparently no one. That’s a real problem.
But the problem is bigger than just “celebrity pastors.” There would be no celebrity pastors without people who crave to have a celebrity pastor over them. The problem is not just the product but “consumers” who demand it. Traditional liturgy and hymnody is one of the best ways the church can insulate itself against all of this – along with polity structures that can at least theoretically hold people in check.
MD did make mistakes, eg, mocking and attacking people is not good pastoring in the long run. But the good he did is completely ignored in this podcast. He was reaching men at a time when men had largely checked out of church.
Nevertheless, the whole approach to church life they took at MH was not sustainable – but they also could not risk reinventing themselves every few years the way many mega-churches do. MH was really built around the style and personality of MD — a bad way to do things.
One vignette that sums up the approach of the podcast:
They dismiss the notion that women might be temptresses, seeking to seduce men, by criticizing the way MD used the story of Potiphar’s wife and by giving a semi ridiculous story from James Dobson. If Cosper is to be believed, women do not sin, and certainly not sexually. In a nutshell this is the whole problem with the quasi-feminist view of most evangelicals today. Cosper is white knighting way too hard – but that is obviously part of the agenda – women must be rescued from big, bad patriarchalists like MD. Hard feminists like Du Mez and soft feminists like RD are brought in to underscore this point. The evangelical/Reformed church squashed women and needs to liberalize – that’s the takeaway.
On the podcasts’ view, the male sex driven gets pathologized and women exonerated. Men are made to feel guilty/shamed for how God made them, while women are justified no matter what they do.
Two questions should have been asked on the podcast that never were:
1. Why did MD, even briefly, have so much more success with reaching men than most evangelical churches? In other words, what about his message resonated with men for positive reasons? Can we hear more about MD might have gotten right? As we perform the autopsy on MH, let’s also look at what they did well, even if briefly.
2. Why did women express such sexual anxiety over being taught that they should be “sex positive” and should make themselves sexually available (and enthusiastically so) to their husbands? I’d like to hear Cosper and others give their own exegesis of 1 Cor 7:1-5, Song of Solomon, etc. Why assume MD got all that wrong without argument? The podcast is a perfect example of how gynocentric evangelicalism has become – the woman’s feelings and expectations (rather than Scripture) have become the norm and standard by which men are judged. The woman’s feelings are exalted even above Scripture.
Some people are simply offended by the way God made the world.
I do think MD was wrong in how he sometimes taught about sex from the pulpit. In the Bible, marital sexuality is presented in beautiful, elegant, poetic terms that leaves a great deal of mystery, while sinful sex is described in crass, raw terminology (compare Proverbs 5 to Proverbs 7). MD mixed this up and ended up describing marital sex in pornographic terms – many of which derived from the culture (including porn culture) rather than Scripture. So he was misguided in how he taught about sex – but not in the way the podcast suggests.
Another problem with how Driscoll taught on sexuality: He does not seem to have taught husbands how to cultivate a sexual response from their wives; instead he seems to have taught husbands to demand that sexual response. “Honey, you heard what the pastor said – start stripping for me!” But husbands will never get the responsiveness they want – and should get, per 1 Cor 7 – unless they are continually becoming the kind of man she would *want* to sleep with. Desire cannot be negotiated — but it can be cultivated.
MD should have done more to explain hypergamy, the masculine burden of performance, etc. – all those “red pill” concepts that explain the male/female dance.
While MD was good at telling men to “man up,” there are are a lot of missing pieces to the puzzle and my guess is a lot of men who heard his preaching only got more frustrated with their marriages when they continued to get put off in the bedroom and could not figure out why. While Paul in 1 Cor 7 certainly structures marital sex in terms of rights and obligations, there is much more to be said – and MD did not fill it in in the right way.
My take away at this point:
1. Cosper is woke and wants to pull the church in an egalitarian direction. He is woke progressive, effeminate. “The patriarchy has failed – we must go in a different direction – we can never let another MD figure arise because this kind of teaching on manhood and sex oppresses women. Perhaps we even need to rethink our position in women in ministry so their voices will always be heard.”
2. Driscoll was a mixed bag, but he got a lot things right that the evangelical church today is getting wrong. A more mature and sustainable approach from a similar perspective could be incredibly powerful in a good way.
The episode on branding revealed that MD was far from the only immature person involved at MH. These guys had no real grounding, no compass to guide them beyond mega-church marketing strategies. I actually think the fall of MH is really representative of the failure of the whole mega-church model (not true of all mega-churches, but many of them).
Episode 7 – At this point, the show has pretty much jumped the shark. You could go to every church that has ever existed, interview ex-members, and find horror stories. In some cases, it’d be the members own fault, in other cases the leadership’s fault, and in many cases fault could be found all around. I didn’t find much of interest in this episode
My critique/solution can be summed up this way: “MH should have been presbyterian.”
I’d like to see them do Platt’s church next- they had a recent congregational meeting that practically turned into a riot, the church is being sued by its own members, etc. But it’ll never happen because Platt is “woke” so “The Rise and Fall on McLean Bible Church” would not fit the narrative. They can’t leverage Platt’s abuse in an anti-masculine, pro-egalitarian way so it’ll be ignored.
Still, in a weird way, these folks like Cosper have come to practically celebrate failure, weakness, and victimhood in evangelicalism. Strongly masculine leaders are considered inherently abusive.
Gregoire says women are “traumatized” by being told they must have sex when their husbands want it. No – they are sinning according to 1 Cor 7. Sexual obligation is a part of biblical marriage. Also, other people’s actions can never excuse my sin but they may be contributing factors. These women teachers would acknowledge that in other areas (eg, parents who exasperate their children and thus provoke rebellion) – but they do not see it as possible in this case of a wife sexually rejecting her husband (despite the explicit teaching of 1 Cor 7!).
TPC Pastor's Page 