Why Do People Go To Mark Driscoll's Church?

[katecake]

The book of Ester is also in protestant Bibles.

[shrillharpy]

The book of Ester is also in protestant Bibles.

Yep. I've heard many Esther sermons in my years as a Protestant. I've never heard one with Mark Driscoll's interpretation, though. He seems to be making up his own interpretation to fit his message : wimmen are ebil.

The other sermons I've heard always made the same point about Esther: that she made the most of being in a really bad situation by having faith, and calling on her people to have faith as well. Regardless of whether I believe any of it, it was a radically different tale than the one Driscoll is spinning.

[thoughtful]

You know, the way he approaches the story of Esther, vis a vis the way I've always understood it (which meshes with thoughtful's description- it never even occurred to me that Esther was in a position where she could be all, "Seriously, Xerxes, I'm really flattered, but I'm not that into you," and just leave the palace) is, to me, a very profound illustration of Christian privilege. I don't presume to speak for the entirety of world Jewry, but I think it's reasonable to say that given the cultural and religious background the average Jew (even a secular one) is bringing to the table, the idea of Esther just turning Xerxes down, or of Mordechai busting through a palace wall like the Kool-Aid Man and carrying her out of there isn't even on the radar. Of course she couldn't just refuse to participate in this thing- her entire family (and possibly her entire community) would have likely been killed. Of course Mordechai couldn't just roll in and "rescue" her- his family (and potentially his entire community) would have been in line for revenge killings, as well.

Contrast that with Driscoll's almost laughably naive interpretation of the story, in which it's unthinkable that Esther and her family weren't in a position of power sufficient for them to take control of their own destinies and flatly refuse to have any part in what was going on. Driscoll literally cannot conceive of such a thing, because in all likelihood, he has never in his life been in a situation where he wasn't operating from a position of privilege, be it as a man, as a white person or as a Christian (or all of the above). It's very telling, I think.

This. All of this.

And, to the bolded -- :clap: :lol:

[Hane]

ITA that Driscoll is a misogynistic Godbaggy douchecanoe of the first water, and astonishingly oblivious to his white male Christian privilege, but enough with the fat-bashing, please.

[FaustianSlip]

The book of Ester is also in protestant Bibles.

I stand corrected. I must have been thinking of Maccabees, the source of the other rabbinic Jewish holiday. Whoops!

In any case, the rest of my point stands. Heh.

And, to the bolded -- :clap: :lol:

If nothing else, it would make for a hell of a Megillah reading, am I right?

"And so, Mordechai did breach the outer retaining wall, saying as he did so, 'Ohhh yeah!'"

[TudorRose]

. . .

I'm also somewhat confused as to why he's talking about Esther in the first place, when the book of Esther is not canonical to Protestant Christianity. The Catholics include it in their Bible, I believe, but not the Protestants. I can't imagine that Driscoll would be going out of his way to emulate the Catholics of all people (God forbid!), so what's going on? The whole sermon, based on what I've read here, just seems really strange.

there's "The Rest Of Esther" included in the Apocrypha. Protestants & Catholics end the narrative at different places.

[FaustianSlip]

I'll admit to never having heard much of Esther until I started attending synagogue. I feel like we must have covered the story in some capacity, but it definitely wasn't a major Sunday school topic like Noah and the Ark or the loaves and fishes or anything.

[Austin]

ITA that Driscoll is a misogynistic Godbaggy douchecanoe of the first water, and astonishingly oblivious to his white male Christian privilege, but enough with the fat-bashing, please.

I don't usually get involved in these "fat bashing" debates, but I understood that the comment was probably made in response to Driscoll's well-known assertion that if a man cheats, it is because his wife "lets herself go" (aka, gets fat). So I'm not sure its inappropriate in his case to point out that he's not exactly a model of physical fitness himself.

[rock_girl]

I don't usually get involved in these "fat bashing" debates, but I understood that the comment was probably made in response to Driscoll's well-known assertion that if a man cheats, it is because his wife "lets herself go" (aka, gets fat). So I'm not sure its inappropriate in his case to point out that he's not exactly a model of physical fitness himself.

Oops, was that me? It's not so much fat bashing as it is hypocrite bashing. Driscoll has no business demanding that women stay trim when he's so very clearly not keeping himself in line. Plenty of women like their men lean; if Mrs. Driscoll is one of those then I hope she takes this opportunity to go and get herself a bit on the side. After all, her husband has pretty much given cheating a pass when one spouse finds religion not in the church, but in a big pile of muffins.

[Austin]

Driscoll pretty much blamed Gayle Haggard for Ted Haggard's affair with a male escort:

Driscoll blames Haggard’s affair with a male escort not on the former pastor’s homosexuality — which he abhors as much as that other spawn of Satan, feminism, — but on his wife, Gayle Haggard. Why? ‘Cause, he says, Gayle let herself go.

“At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this,†he wrote on his blog. “It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him either.â€

http://www.salon.com/2006/11/07/driscoll/

[FaustianSlip]

That was how I took it. Not, "Wow, what a fat slob," but, "Jeez, for a guy who has said multiple times that if a husband commits adultery, it's because his wife hasn't worked hard enough to be attractive for him, Pastor Mark there really doesn't look like he spends a lot of time at the gym or otherwise maintaining his appearance." I don't think that's fat-bashing, it's pointing out Mark Driscoll's blatant hypocrisy.

[Closed Womb]

Oops, was that me? It's not so much fat bashing as it is hypocrite bashing. Driscoll has no business demanding that women stay trim when he's so very clearly not keeping himself in line. Plenty of women like their men lean; if Mrs. Driscoll is one of those then I hope she takes this opportunity to go and get herself a bit on the side. After all, her husband has pretty much given cheating a pass when one spouse finds religion not in the church, but in a big pile of muffins.

FWIW, I despise fat bashing. Even more so, I despise when one assumes that people can decipher anything about a person by their weight (well, except their body shape/size, clearly that can be deciphered ;) )

But since you said (paraphrasing), "He's fat, which would be okay if not for the bs double standard he preaches", I don't consider that fat bashing.

[infooverload]

Driscoll pretty much blamed Gayle Haggard for Ted Haggard's affair with a male escort:

http://www.salon.com/2006/11/07/driscoll/

I remember seeing his wife on the special TLC did when he was trying to start the new church after the scandal. From what I recall I she was not unattractive and I think very irresponsible for Mr. Driscoll to assume she was sexually unavailable to her husband. On a side note I can not believe he has a church in Portland. The thought of that makes me sick. It is way out of the way for me to even attend just to see what the atmospher is like. We have another mega chuch called City Bible Church and personally I hated it, but you will hear how brillant people think the pastor is. I thought is was a money grabbing jack ass trying to fleece his congregants at every turn.

[Austin]

I remember seeing his wife on the special TLC did when he was trying to start the new church after the scandal. From what I recall I she was not unattractive and I think very irresponsible for Mr. Driscoll to assume she was sexually unavailable to her husband. On a side note I can not believe he has a church in Portland. The thought of that makes me sick. It is way out of the way for me to even attend just to see what the atmospher is like. We have another mega chuch called City Bible Church and personally I hated it, but you will hear how brillant people think the pastor is. I thought is was a money grabbing jack ass trying to fleece his congregants at every turn.

I watched that special, too and I found Gayle to be a very attractive and well-proportioned woman. No, she wasn't twenty years old any more, but geesh. . .. I thought she looked like she was attempting to conform a great deal to conventional ideas of fitnes and beauty, which was why Driscoll's remarks seemed so weird. Even weirder than usual, which is saying something. But I guess he had to blame Haggard for being teh ebil gay on someone.

[debrand]

Hugh Grant and Schwargnagger(He whose name I can not spell) cheated with women far less attractive than their spouses. Being beautiful and sexually available is no guarentee that your spouse won't cheat. I'm sure that there are people who cheat because they are miserable in their relationships but I think most people cheat because they want someone different.

Haggard cheated because he is homosexual and trying to live as a straight man.

[Closed Womb]

I remember seeing his wife on the special TLC did when he was trying to start the new church after the scandal. From what I recall I she was not unattractive and I think very irresponsible for Mr. Driscoll to assume she was sexually unavailable to her husband. On a side note I can not believe he has a church in Portland. The thought of that makes me sick. It is way out of the way for me to even attend just to see what the atmospher is like. We have another mega chuch called City Bible Church and personally I hated it, but you will hear how brillant people think the pastor is. I thought is was a money grabbing jack ass trying to fleece his congregants at every turn.

Good point.

It also worth noting that MD should not assume that his narrow definition of beauty is shared by everyone.

As a not fat/not thin person (that is, not fat enough to be obviously discriminated against for it, but not thin by BMI chart standards), I can almost assure you that MD would claim I had "let myself go." What he wouldn't know is that my hubs met, proposed to, and married me at my current proportions (and, gasp, revels in my non-standard beauty.)

Moreover, there is an entire culture of Fat Admirers and Chubby Chasers. Of course, MD would probably just dismiss them as deviants for appreciating beauty he cannot see.

Ugh.

[B5SnowDog]

"And so, Mordechai did breach the outer retaining wall, saying as he did so, 'Ohhh yeah!'"

:lol:

[thoughtful]

If nothing else, it would make for a hell of a Megillah reading, am I right?

"And so, Mordechai did breach the outer retaining wall, saying as he did so, 'Ohhh yeah!'"

:lol: :clap:

And so, the tradition of fruit-flavored drinks on Purim was born . . .

(for the non-Jews -- no, there is no such tradition -- I'm just being goofy).