SEBTS & Mark Driscoll: "Forget the Cussin'! Let's Talk Sex!" by Peter Lumpkins

This may be the final post I publish with hopes in making more people aware of some uncharted waters Southern Baptists are sailing as we drool over linking ourselves to the innovative ministries of controversial pastor, Mark Driscoll.

I'm quite sure I'll receive the standard "Why do you hate Driscoll so much?" replies, as well as the "Mark Driscoll does more for evangelism and church growth than all SBC pastors put together!" ones.  Not to mention, of course, the concerns I raise are but the musings of an "ill-informed" blogger who unfortunately doesn't know what he's talking about.  

Between the Times, a blog sponsored by SEBTS, published a joint statement this week, finding it necessary to defend their relationship with Driscoll.  In it, the authors asserted,

"One of the speakers, Mark Driscoll, has received significant criticism from some Southern Baptists in recent days. At first the criticism was limited to ill-informed bloggers, but yesterday Baptist Press entered the fray with an article titled “Driscoll’s Vulgarity Draws Media Attention.” We were very disappointed in the BP piece, which we believe was inaccurate in content harsh in tone..." (emphasis mine).

Founders Ministries followed in support (here). My own contribution to the discussion is here. 

Personally, I would like this thing to go away.  I take no joy in raising concerns about the wonderful institutions with which our Lord has graced us. Yet, when Between the Times insisted critics read Driscoll himself before making "ill-informed" judgments, I could not resist their plea. 

They wrote: 

"We suggest that those who have concerns about Mark’s ministry actually listen to his sermons and read his books. You may listen to Mark’s recent chapel sermon and two 20/20 addresses-and all of the other excellent 20/20 sessions-at Southeastern’s multimedia page."

I took their advice but I did not go to the multimedia page.  Instead I hopped over on Driscoll's site via the link Between the Times gave.  Some material on Driscoll's site is impressive.  Some is also profanely vulgar.

One of the popular criticisms leveled against Driscoll has been his alleged "cussing," which, supporters insist, Driscoll has long ago put behind him.  While I am unsure about such, let's, for the sake of argument, accept their defense.

Even so, without a moral blink, how Southern Baptists can partner with a ministry obviously obsessed with some of the most rabid, gutter-oriented understanding of sexuality evangelicals imagine I cannot fathom.  What, under the blue sky, was Between the Times thinking when they linked to a site that, more probable than not, could not be accessed from their own seminary browsers?  Driscoll's series on sexuality includes images so base and utterly vulgar that I'd bet a weekly Starbucks Southeastern's web security filters would block access to some of the pages!

It shames me to do this but Southern Baptists need to know. 

Indeed they must know.

On Driscoll's site is an entire series of sexually explicit posts in Q/A format.  Some of the questions are both appropriate and timely.  Issues like sexual boundaries between the unmarried, overcoming lust, intimacy apart from sex, etc.

Perhaps one could quibble about the most appropriate venue where either discussions or teaching times on subjects like these would best fit the context.  However, for questions like the above, even given the reservations on venue, there is surely a place to explore them in biblical sexuality. 

Thus, it is not sexuality teaching that is at issue here.  Instead, it is questioning exactly how far to take this "study."  The fact is, other explorations Driscoll pursued are in an entirely different category than the above.  Indeed, many of his topics are so morally repugnant that I refuse to link them on the main page of SBC Tomorrow.**

For Between the Times, then, to link to Driscoll's site--a site which is definitively X-rated...a site with pages which probably could not be opened on the campus browsers due to security filters--for Between the Times to do such, while pleading for others to dismiss criticism against him from the "ill-informed," and instead read Driscoll directly, must be among the most morally confusing decisions I've ever observed from an administrative standpoint.   

And, while I am writing this post, a Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary professor has issued a further defense of Mark Driscoll.  After giving a who's who in church history about whom he possesses both admiration and concern, here is what Professor of Evangelism, Alvin Reid, writes about Driscoll,

"I have a problem with Mark Driscoll. Driscoll, the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle and recent speaker on our campus, has seen possibly more hardcore unchurched young adults come to Christ in the last decade than any church in the US. He has led a church planting movement as well. But sometimes his language is a little edgy for my tastes, and I interpret the Bible differently than does he on the place of alcohol" /link

In addition, Professor Reid commendably underscores his own weaknesses, concluding he has a problem with himself.

Finally, Dr. Reid concludes, after singing the melodies of the Conservative Resurgence, with a lament, expressing his problem with the Southern Baptist Convention:

"But I have a problem with my convention, when we seem more intent on witch hunts than on contextualizing the gospel in our time, when we love to pick at each other’s differences than unite for the sake of the gospel...when we castigate younger men who love Jesus and His truth for simply doing what we taught them to do: study and honor the Word...I was a supporter of the conservative resurgence...But the resurgence I supported did not include a Pharisaical legalism that expects conformity in nonessentials...I am tired of talking good younger men off the ledge from leaving the SBC." (emphasis mine)

Though Dr. Reid does not explicitly say, presumably his problems concerning "witch hunts," "pick[ing] at differences," "castigat[ing] younger men," Pharisaical legalism," and "conformity in nonessentials" addresses, or, at minimum, is occasioned by, criticism toward the Driscoll liaison with SEBTS.  If so, we unhappily have a much greater issue before us as Southern Baptists than we have imagined thus far. 

I profoundly disagree with what can only be legitimately described as a white-washed description Professor Reid gives toward Driscoll's alleged potty mouth.  If there is truth to it, then pulpit use of the "F" word must solicit significantly more than merely language a "little edgy for my tastes."

Even more, if Dr. Reid and Between the Times remain entirely comfortable morally categorizing the sincere concerns some Southern Baptists express about the sexually absurd pastoral counsel offered by Driscoll on his site, as nothing less than a "witch hunt," led by men tragically embracing "Pharisaical legalism," who seek but to "pick at differences" over "nonessentials" by "castigating younger men" who are only "loving Jesus" and "following Scripture," then Professor Reid is correct about at least one thing: he nor I signed on to a Conservative Resurgence which promoted such an agenda. 

On the other hand, when our ethical lens is so morally scuffed, we can no longer rightly discern proper biblical categories...when we so badly blur distinctions, mistaking sincere conscience for unconscious antinomianism, excuse me if I confess--as a full-throttle supporter of the Conservative Resurgence all through the bloody eighties--and, confess just as boldly as did Dr. Reid:  Neither did I sign on to a Conservative Resurgence then, or will I sign on to a Great Commission Resurgence now, which would sell its moral soul for a bowl of nihilist pottage.

With that, I am...

Peter             

**If you must read for yourself, click the link below.  I forewarn you, sexual advice not lacking on many secularly-driven nihilist sites you will find--

XXXExplicit

Comments

[Dan]

Peter,

In what way am I to identify myself. I've given you my name and e-mail address.

Dan

[peter lumpkins]

THIS IS LONG. MUCH LONGER THAN I WANTED. YET DAN HAD SOME HEFTY CHARGES I HAD TO ADDRESS

Dan

You write, " if you are "forgetting" the "cussin'" you sure did a great job of bringing it back up for absolutely no reason. Of course, once was not enough, you had to mention it again later in this sentence, "If there is truth to it, then pulpit use of the "F" word must solicit significantly more than merely language a "little edgy for my tastes."

Fair enough, Dan. However, your assumption that I mentioned it in the body "for absolutely no reason" is just that--an assumption. The fact is, the defenders, almost in unison, have kept bringing it back up, and my statement you quote acknowledges such--"which, supporters insist, Driscoll has long ago put behind him."

You further query, "What are you unsure of?" I suggest you read the thread on the first post I published on this issue. There you will find several attempts to insist Driscoll repented. The only commenter who offered a source, I checked. If that's the alleged public repentance source for that about which I wrote, know that is the basis of my lack of certainty. If that doesn't satisfy, Dan, what can I say?

As for the second time I "brought it up," once again it was in direct response to a recent defense--namely, Alvin Reid. If the level of vulgarity is correct, then to describe it as "a little too edgy for my tastes" cannot be taken as anything less than white-wash. If you do not agree, Dan, I give you my express permission to do so.

You further write: "While I don't think urging married heterosexuals to pray about incorporating this is necessarily the wisest practice, I do not see, textually, how I can rebuke a heterosexual, married couple who does so. Scripturally speaking, it is none of my business or yours."

First, to place such an act in an "unwise" category rather than a moral one, Dan, is both strange and entirely inadequate. Are you suggesting there is no moral reasoning, embedded in biblical sexuality to warrant boundaries in this area?

Second, you conclude, "Scripturally speaking, it is none of my business or yours." Begging pardon, if it is none of my or your business, would you agree it's none of Driscoll's either?

If what you say is so, Scripturally, a large portion of the entire series Driscoll has online is Scripturally none of his business. Hence, if it's Scripturally none of his business, perhaps you need to say so, publicly admonishing him to take those things down which are Scripturally none of my, your or his business. Are you willing, Dan, to make such an announcement?

Next, Dan, you accuse me of misrepresenting SEBTS "in both what you write and what you omit."

First, how I can "misrepresent" when you actually state " You are probably right" is a new kind of criticism from which I rarely hear. I'm "probably right" nevertheless, I "misrepresent." Ummm...

Just because you can think of terms that will not pass the SEBTS filters any more than something found on Driscoll's site has jack squat to do with whether or not what I was suggesting was so or not. I quote you, here--"[I am] probably right."

And, while you could have simply pointed out such, instead you raised the stakes and chose instead to make your point a blatant charge, insisting I "misrepresented" SEBTS which, in my view, is drawing unwarranted conclusions.

Nor, Dan, is it relevant to anything I've written here to suggest I somehow "misrepresented" SEBTS because I overlooked a book Dr. Akin has written. I suppose I was also unfair to SEBTS because Reid wrote a book and I didn't mention it.

To suggest someone "misrepresented" another by what they did not say has got to be one of the silliest suggestions someone has offered to me of late, Dan. Sorry. By the way, for the record, I neither knew about nor have read "God on Sex."

You conclude, "The positons of the seminary faculty are more likely aligned with what he writes in that book than with any other source." I do not doubt this. Why, then should you not join those who've raised questions about Driscoll? Since you were aware of Akin's work and you've concluded SEBTS staff is undoubtedly in line with it, would it not be helpful to suggest the apparent discrepancy?

Let's move in a different direction. You quote me and then give your commentary: "'At the end of the day, husbands are to be about the business of pleasing their Lord and their Lord only. Wives are to do the same.' Uh, Peter, I fully affirm that husbands and wives are to relate to one another under the mutual submission to the Lordship of Christ. I do not affirm, however, that pleasing the Lord and pleasing one's mate are dichotomos. The Lord wants marriage to be pleasurable for both, and He wants husbands to please their wives and vice versa. A man who says, "I'm just gonna please Jesus" while thinking that means he doesn't need to think about pleasing his wife is a Biblical egg head."

First, Dan, why you chose to not take the entire section I wrote, but chopped it apart I find curious. Perhaps you didn't understand what I wrote and unintentionally butchered it. Or perhaps you were just overzealous in wanting to respond to me that you got a bit carried away. This makes some sense since you later commented on your "hope" of my alleged "corrective."

Whatever the case, my statement got butchered just the same, strangely leaving out a section in your commentary, a section detrimental to my point!

So, allow me to cite my entire comment--minus your annotations--in its entirety:

DAN: "At the end of the day, husbands are to be about the business of pleasing their wives and their wives only. Wives are to do the same."

PETER: "That is biblically incorrect. At the end of the day, husbands are to be about the business of pleasing their Lord and their Lord only. Wives are to do the same. A healthy biblical focus caters to the Lordship of Christ. Human relationships must wait their turn. But aren't human relationships important to fulfilling Lordship to Christ? Yes. But human relationships are only properly fulfillable in conjunction with, not contrary to, the Lordship of Jesus. Question: does the Lordship of Jesus in a man's life solicit from him prayers to heaven concerning sodomizing his wife? I think not."

Now let's take your annotations in turn:

1) " Uh, Peter, I fully affirm that husbands and wives are to relate to one another under the mutual submission to the Lordship of Christ. I do not affirm, however, that pleasing the Lord and pleasing one's mate are dichotomos. The Lord wants marriage to be pleasurable for both, and He wants husbands to please their wives and vice versa."

First, I was not alluding to "mutual submission" to the Lordship of Christ. Instead I was referring to individual submission to Christ's Lordship. Hence, the number one priority in a husband's marriage is the Lordship of Christ and the number one priority in a wife's marriage is the Lordship of Christ. If you have a problem with that, Dan, I think you need to take it up with Someone else. My pay-grade just doesn't climb that high.

Secondly, you affirm--in your own mind, I suppose--contra to me, that pleasing one's mate and pleasing the Lord are not "dichotomos" [sic]. I did not say they were. Nor did I remotely imply pleasing one's spouse is not indicative of proper Lordship.

In fact, I even made sure it would be clear (I thought) by prognosticating the question: "But aren't human relationships important to fulfilling Lordship to Christ? Yes. But human relationships are only properly fulfillable in conjunction with, not contrary to, the Lordship of Jesus."

Why you chose to overlook this in your annotations, Dan, only you know. Whether you intentionally or unintentionally gutted my meaning, it was gutted nonetheless.

Thus, the caricature at the end, remains just that--a caricature of what I actually said: "A man who says, "I'm just gonna please Jesus" while thinking that means he doesn't need to think about pleasing his wife is a Biblical egg head." Please read carefully before drawing such ridiculous conclusions.

2) "A healthy biblical focus caters to the Lordship of Christ." I think this is your own corrective to your overstatement above; I hope so." No, Dan. It was not a corrective at all. It was an attempt to be clear. Had you not prematurely ripped it from the final apart of what I wrote (which you omitted from your annotations) you would have had no reason to question whether I was offering a "corrective."

Moving on in the concerns you raised, you write, "It is clear you are not comfortable with sodomy. I have no problem with that. Indeed, we're on the same page. But, I cannot find a shred of Scripture to condemn a married heterosexual couple that does engage sexually in this way."

First, it is not about being "comfortable." We're not speaking of things that solicit embarrassed faces. For the record, Dan, I pastored over 22 years. I've counseled on sexual issues and, believe it or not, I've publicly read and preached the Song of Solomon from the pulpit.

Funny Mike seems to think I am some sort of sexually backward buffoon because I left some letters out of the links I posted. Interesting. For that too I "prognosticated" based on my experience with the internet community.

The truth is, no matter which way I posted those links, I predicted I'd get slammed for it. If I left them up, someone says, "You're promoting what you're condemning! Gotcha!" If I left some letters out, another comments, "Baptist preachers have got to be the corniest, culturally ignorant guys! Gotcha!" For me, it was really only who would first say something. Mike gets the prize!
Enough about me.

I write the above to say, for me, it's definitively not about "comfort." Nor is it about preference. Nor is it about proper (though decorum surely is in the mix). For me, it is moral. And frankly, Dan, that you can't find a shred of Scriptural evidence to "condemn a married heterosexual couple that does engage sexually in this way" assists in where you--and others--are coming from.

We've got two different interpretative grids at work here, which is not going to be settled on this post. In addition, there may be two different understandings of sola scriptura at work as well.

Suffice it to say, from my understanding, to attempt to work out every moral issue by doing a concordance search for an explicit Bible verse to back it up is a woefully inadequate hermeneutic.

As for the implication I "colored outside the lines" by employing rhetorical images may fit your coloring book, Dan, but it doesn't mine. Actually, I was asking for misstatements of facts, etc. Besides, I do not agree with your interpretation that critics have pumped out a "steady stream of Driscoll bashing." Hence, if you and Driscoll's defenders consider what I write as "Driscoll bashing" while coloring inside the line, how is it coloring outside the lines because I lament selling ""moral soul[s] for a bowl of nihilist pottage"?

The real problem, however, is not the above. Instead, it's your reading of what I'm actually writing. This is twice now I've had to correct you on this, Dan. Please be careful to understand what I actually write. I'll repeat the formula I used in your first misquote of my words:

PETER: "Fifth, you exhort, "resist the urge to make a blog or a response say more than it says." O.K. Where have I colored outside the lines?"

DAN: "Where have I colored outside the lines?" Well, many places. But your strong implication that Dr. Reid and others who have taken issue with the steady stream of Driscoll bashing are guilty of selling their "moral soul[s] for a bowl of nihilist pottage" should suffice as evidence."

The truth is far from what you say I said or implied, Dan. Here is what I actually wrote: "Neither I did sign on to a Conservative Resurgence then, or will I sign on to a Great Commission Resurgence now, which would sell its moral soul for a bowl of nihilist pottage."

First, this was the trailer to a larger point I was making in conjunction with Dr. Reid's very well-put focus. Though a staunch supporter of the Conservative Resurgence, Dr. Reid rehearsed all the things he did not sign onto such as "witch hunt," "Pharisaical legalism," etc, rightly suggesting this was not the CR's agenda. I agreed.

The point I took from Dr. Reid was not personal; he mentioned things persons do or believe--persons hunt for errors and persons believe moral legalism.

My point was exactly parallel to Dr. Reid's. As Dr. Reid made his list about what the CR was not supposed to be, I too made my list about what the GCR was not supposed to be--scuffed moral lens, unconscious antinomianism, sincere conscience, etc.

Thus, my cash point, I left at the end: "Neither I did sign on to a Conservative Resurgence then, or will I sign on to a Great Commission Resurgence now, which would sell its moral soul for a bowl of nihilist pottage." Note carefully, Dan, just as Reid was referring to signing on to a movement in his criticism, so was I referring to a movement in my criticism.

What you did, Dan, was fundamentally change my meaning. You charge, "your strong implication that Dr. Reid and others who have taken issue with the steady stream of Driscoll bashing are guilty of selling their "moral soul[s] for a bowl of nihilist pottage" should suffice as evidence."

In short, you replaced my point about not signing on to an impersonal movement, selling "its moral soul" with a personal condemnation toward Dr. Reid & others for selling "their "moral soul[s] for a bowl of nihilist pottage." You, sir, are dead wrong.

If you're going to quote me, please quote me accurately. Even more, don't change the meaning of what I write. In this case, you've made me to explicitly charge Dr. Reid & others of selling their souls. I most certainly did not do any such thing.

Incidentally, you've offered me the perfect illustration about precisely why I refuse to allow anonymous commenters on this site.

This post is getting much too long. I'm going to speed it up.

I acknowledge, Dan, that you don't like my alleged "sarcastic remarks." Reid's history is a perfect source to offer the illustrations for which I asked. Nor do I recall even attempting to be cute or "sarcastic" when I wrote it.

For me you do need a Gallop poll (or some evidence)--IF--you're going to make blanket statements about what Christians ask, and then make sweeping conclusions here.

In addition, you write,"I do not, however, believe the best pastoral approach is to dismiss a young adult beleiver's questions about sex." Nor do I. However, you've may have some tension with this and what you earlier suggested: "Scripturally speaking, it is none of my business or yours."

Last one: "Maybe answering them on the web is not the best approach, but I can stomach that more so than I can baptizing babies or proposing that a Baptist church accept for membership people who were baptized before their conversion." False dichotomy, Dan. There is a third way...

I hope this helps. With that, I am...
Peter

[Chris]

Peter, Thanks for bringing this to light. It is to our shame if we are not watchman in this day and age. You have herald the call weel my brother.