Not long ago, I posted a blog entitled, "I smell bacon - no, it’s not the cops. The pig I smell is Pastor Mark Driscoll." In addition to posting it on this site, I posted it on Tumblr as well, where it received a lovely comment - one to which I've already countered. I'm now awaiting the commenter's next move. Here's a breakdown of the debate. First off, here's the blog I posted:
It’s people like evangelical leader Mark Driscoll who pushed me away from the Christianity and honestly, religion altogether.
Driscoll is the pastor of the Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington, who gave a sermon recently which has a few people talking.
At this sermon, Driscoll said:
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be their own husbands in everything.”
He wasn’t done there. Driscoll added this:
“If the wife disrespects the husband in front of his coworkers, will they respect the husband? No. Women who publicly disrespect their husbands, they encourage others to disrespect their husbands. And this doesn’t mean you don’t disagree with your husband but you do so respectfully, privately.”
The portion of the sermon which has garnered the most attention is the following:
“Being married to [nagging wives] is like a life sentence, and the guy’s just scratching on his wall every day. Proverbs talks about certain women - they’re like a dripping faucet. You ever tried to sleep with a dripping faucet? Plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk. It’s what we use to torture people who are prisoners of war.”
It’s no wonder people like Driscoll don’t believe gays should receive equal treatment and rights, for he (they) doesn’t (don’t) even believe women should receive equal treatment and rights. It amazes me Driscoll adamantly declares that women must treat their husbands with respect, yet he also states that women must “submit” to their husbands and that the “husband is head of the wife.” So, in other words, the wife must respect the husband, but it’s not necessary for the husband to respect the wife. Driscoll then went off the deep-end by comparing a nagging wife to torture. I’d like to hear him define “nagging wife,” because I have a feeling when she’s not worshiping him as he so wishes, that would constitute her as one.
Here’s how I picture Driscoll would want his wife to always behave:
Mr. Driscoll: “Hello, honey. How was your day? Were you a good wife? Did you clean the house, take care of the kids, run errands, do laundry, do the dishes, and cook dinner?”
Mrs. Driscoll: “Of course, sweetie - anything for you. I love you so much. You’re my man. You’re the greatest man in the history of the world, outside of Jesus, of course. You’re the kind of man and husband God envisioned. Let me bow down to you.”
Mr. Driscoll: “That’s very good. It’s the 794th consecutive day you’ve followed both my and God’s orders on being my slave, I mean, wife. Now, I’ve drawn a few new things for you to try. Do them… Right now…”
Mrs. Driscoll: “Anything. Just name it. I’m just a woman and can’t think for myself. Please tell me what to do, oh master of all that is wonderful.”
Now here’s how I picture Driscol wound envision his wife as nagging:
Mr. Driscoll: “Hello, honey. How was your day? Were you a good wife? Did you clean the house, take care of the kids, run errands, do laundry, do the dishes, and cook dinner?”
Mrs. Driscoll: “Of course, sweetie - anything for you. How was your day?”
Mr. Driscoll: “No questions, remember?”
Mrs. Driscoll: “Yes, of course. So, dinner is ready. Would you like to sit down and eat now or would you like to relax for a while and I can warm it up in a bit?”
Mr. Driscoll: “I told you - no questions!”
Mrs. Driscoll: “I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you? Anything at all?”
Mr. Driscoll: “That does it! Nag! Nag! Nag! Nag! Nag! I’m going to take my food and head up to my room! You may pick up my plate and clean it once I ring the bell.”
Yes, Mr. Driscoll obviously feels that women are inferior to men, which is funny to me, because if it weren’t for a woman giving birth to him, he wouldn’t be alive. Women need to respect men? Very well. But men also need to respect women. If Mr. Driscoll doesn’t learn that, he may wind up being single and writing a personal ad like this and not receiving any responses:
“My name is Mark Driscoll and I am a man of God. I’m looking for a woman to treat me like her God - to praise me, worship me, spread the good word about me, and do all that I ask without question. She must be good at all the things real women and wives are supposed to be good at: Cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, pleasing me sexually, allowing me to be lazy, and letting me treat her like my slave. Let me be your master, so that I don’t have to masturbate any more. Oh, and I like long walks on the beach.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/mark-driscoll-nagging-wives-torture-megachurch_n_3157069.html
Here is the response to that blog:
"I see a lot of unjustified assumptions in this post. Everything I’ve read or listened to/watched from Driscoll points to the belief that men should respect their wives - loving your wife as Christ loved and loves the church inherently includes that. I think it’s just the complementarianism thing being misunderstood that gets him a lot of flack. While he is a flawed human being in many respects, I really don’t see him as some gigantic villain like non-believers like to make him out to be.
Just my two cents :)"
Here is my countering his response:
I’m puzzled by the claim that there are a lot of unjustified assumptions. Approximately 125 words of the writing are my own and stated in a serious manner. A large majority of the first portion are Mr. Driscoll’s words. The second portion of the writing is comprised of fiction used to poke fun at Mr. Driscoll’s comments and through that, instigate laughter. The only paragraph to which your claim would be relevant is the following:
“It’s no wonder people like Driscoll don’t believe gays should receive equal treatment and rights, for he (they) doesn’t (don’t) even believe women should receive equal treatment and rights. It amazes me Driscoll adamantly declares that women must treat their husbands with respect, yet he also states that women must ‘submit’ to their husbands and that the ‘husband is head of the wife.’ So, in other words, the wife must respect the husband, but it’s not necessary for the husband to respect the wife. Driscoll then went off the deep-end by comparing a nagging wife to torture. I’d like to hear him define ‘nagging wife,’ because I have a feeling when she’s not worshiping him as he so wishes, that would constitute her as one.”
The only bit which could be potentially classified as an unjustified assumption is with regard to my claim, based on Mr. Driscoll’s own words, that it’s (according to him) of lesser importance for the husband to respect the wife as it is for the wife to respect the husband (that they don’t deserve equal treatment and rights). Based on these quotes and many others, I have a difficult time believing Mark Driscoll isn’t a sexist.
Driscoll engaged in the following back-and-forth with British radio host Justin Brierly, largely revolving around Brierly’s wife being the pastor of a church:
Driscoll: “I’m not shocked by the answer, by the questions you ask. I love you, but you’re annoying. ‘Cause you’re picking on all the same issues that those who are classically evangelical, kind of liberal, kind of feminist do.”
Brierley: “I think it’s because those are the issues here that people are thinking about. … [Brierley says he’s impressed by much of what Mars Hill Church is doing].”
Driscoll: “Kay, let me ask you a few hard questions.”
Brierley: “Go ahead, go ahead.”
Driscoll: “So, in the church that your wife pastors, how many young men have come to Christ in the last year?”
Brierley: “Well we’re not a huge church, unlike yours, but I’d say there’s two or three probably in the last year who certainly, yah, I’d say have come to Christ in a pretty meaningful way.”
Driscoll: “Okay and in the church, what percentage is young men, single men?”
Brierley: “It’s difficult to say off the top of my head, but I’ll freely say it’s certainly not a big percentage, no.”
Driscoll: “Kay, and are you okay with that? Do you think that’s the best way to go?”
Brierley: “No, but can it be so easily put down to the fact that the church is being run by a woman? I mean, is that …”
Driscoll: “Yup. Yup. You look at your results, you look at my results, and you look at the variable that’s most obvious.”
Brierley: “Well, in our case, the …”
Driscoll: “This is where the excuses come, not the verses. This is where the excuses come, not the verses.”
Brierley: “… Up to the point my wife took over, it had been run by men. Since she’s come, lots of new families, lots of younger people, both men and women, have come. I wouldn’t say the balance is right perfect yet by any means. But it’s certainly a lot better than it ever was. And so I don’t necessarily see quite the same situation that you paint there in terms of men not relating. I see more men in the church since she’s been there than before she was there, in a way.”
Driscoll: “What kind of men? Strong men?”
Brierley: “Well, men. I mean, men come in different shapes and sizes. I mean, yah, both really. Men who are very masculine, men who are, I guess, on a spectrum, more effeminate. But I couldn’t say that there’s been a sort of dearth of men in the church since she’s arrived. I mean, Mark, I don’t want to get into a sort of argument.”
Driscoll: “No, no, you don’t want to sit in my seat, I understand. So does your wife do counseling with men? Sexual counseling? Does she talk about masturbation, pornography, the stuff that I do?”
Brierley: “Well no, she doesn’t.”
Driscoll: “Well, who does talk to the men about those things, especially the young men?”
Brierley: “Well there are other people that she can pass them on to. We have male elders in our church who, you know, would be able to tackle those kinds of questions. I mean, but would you speak with those kinds of issues to a female in your church?”
Driscoll: “Uh no. If they’re a married couple we might meet with them as a couple. But if it’s a woman, we would have women leaders meet with them.”
Brierley: “Sure, well it’s the same scenario in our church really.”
Driscoll: “Well except for who’s in charge.”
He also stated the following in a sermon:
“Men, I am glad to report to you that oral sex is biblical…The wife performing oral sex on the husband is biblical. God’s men said, Amen. Ladies, your husbands appreciate oral sex. They do. So, serve them, love them well. It’s biblical. Right here. We have a verse. ‘The fruit of her husband is sweet to her taste and she delights to be beneath him.”
The definition of sexism is: “attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles” and “discrimination or devaluation based on a person’s sex, as in restricted job opportunities; especially, such discrimination directed against women.”
How can one possibly deduce based on the quoted sermons and the interview (among many other quotes I’ve stumbled upon) shared above and in the previous post that Mr. Driscoll doesn’t possess an “attitude or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles” or that he doesn’t “discriminate or devalue based on a person’s sex”?
Here’s a man who told wives to “submit to your own husbands,” that “the husband is the head of the wife,” that nagging wives are akin to torture, that it’s biblical for women to please men via oral sex, that the only difference between his church and radio show host Justin Brierly’s wife’s church was “who’s in charge,” etc. If that’s not sexist, I don’t know what is.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/01/18/did-anyone-else-know-pastor-mark-driscoll-was-sexist/
http://barthsnotes.com/2009/06/27/mark-driscoll-slammed-by-baptist-press-over-sex-teaching/
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sexism?s=t
Driscoll is the pastor of the Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington, who gave a sermon recently which has a few people talking.
At this sermon, Driscoll said:
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be their own husbands in everything.”
He wasn’t done there. Driscoll added this:
“If the wife disrespects the husband in front of his coworkers, will they respect the husband? No. Women who publicly disrespect their husbands, they encourage others to disrespect their husbands. And this doesn’t mean you don’t disagree with your husband but you do so respectfully, privately.”
The portion of the sermon which has garnered the most attention is the following:
“Being married to [nagging wives] is like a life sentence, and the guy’s just scratching on his wall every day. Proverbs talks about certain women - they’re like a dripping faucet. You ever tried to sleep with a dripping faucet? Plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk. It’s what we use to torture people who are prisoners of war.”
It’s no wonder people like Driscoll don’t believe gays should receive equal treatment and rights, for he (they) doesn’t (don’t) even believe women should receive equal treatment and rights. It amazes me Driscoll adamantly declares that women must treat their husbands with respect, yet he also states that women must “submit” to their husbands and that the “husband is head of the wife.” So, in other words, the wife must respect the husband, but it’s not necessary for the husband to respect the wife. Driscoll then went off the deep-end by comparing a nagging wife to torture. I’d like to hear him define “nagging wife,” because I have a feeling when she’s not worshiping him as he so wishes, that would constitute her as one.
Here’s how I picture Driscoll would want his wife to always behave:
Mr. Driscoll: “Hello, honey. How was your day? Were you a good wife? Did you clean the house, take care of the kids, run errands, do laundry, do the dishes, and cook dinner?”
Mrs. Driscoll: “Of course, sweetie - anything for you. I love you so much. You’re my man. You’re the greatest man in the history of the world, outside of Jesus, of course. You’re the kind of man and husband God envisioned. Let me bow down to you.”
Mr. Driscoll: “That’s very good. It’s the 794th consecutive day you’ve followed both my and God’s orders on being my slave, I mean, wife. Now, I’ve drawn a few new things for you to try. Do them… Right now…”
Mrs. Driscoll: “Anything. Just name it. I’m just a woman and can’t think for myself. Please tell me what to do, oh master of all that is wonderful.”
Now here’s how I picture Driscol wound envision his wife as nagging:
Mr. Driscoll: “Hello, honey. How was your day? Were you a good wife? Did you clean the house, take care of the kids, run errands, do laundry, do the dishes, and cook dinner?”
Mrs. Driscoll: “Of course, sweetie - anything for you. How was your day?”
Mr. Driscoll: “No questions, remember?”
Mrs. Driscoll: “Yes, of course. So, dinner is ready. Would you like to sit down and eat now or would you like to relax for a while and I can warm it up in a bit?”
Mr. Driscoll: “I told you - no questions!”
Mrs. Driscoll: “I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you? Anything at all?”
Mr. Driscoll: “That does it! Nag! Nag! Nag! Nag! Nag! I’m going to take my food and head up to my room! You may pick up my plate and clean it once I ring the bell.”
Yes, Mr. Driscoll obviously feels that women are inferior to men, which is funny to me, because if it weren’t for a woman giving birth to him, he wouldn’t be alive. Women need to respect men? Very well. But men also need to respect women. If Mr. Driscoll doesn’t learn that, he may wind up being single and writing a personal ad like this and not receiving any responses:
“My name is Mark Driscoll and I am a man of God. I’m looking for a woman to treat me like her God - to praise me, worship me, spread the good word about me, and do all that I ask without question. She must be good at all the things real women and wives are supposed to be good at: Cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, pleasing me sexually, allowing me to be lazy, and letting me treat her like my slave. Let me be your master, so that I don’t have to masturbate any more. Oh, and I like long walks on the beach.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/mark-driscoll-nagging-wives-torture-megachurch_n_3157069.html
Here is the response to that blog:
"I see a lot of unjustified assumptions in this post. Everything I’ve read or listened to/watched from Driscoll points to the belief that men should respect their wives - loving your wife as Christ loved and loves the church inherently includes that. I think it’s just the complementarianism thing being misunderstood that gets him a lot of flack. While he is a flawed human being in many respects, I really don’t see him as some gigantic villain like non-believers like to make him out to be.
Just my two cents :)"
Here is my countering his response:
I’m puzzled by the claim that there are a lot of unjustified assumptions. Approximately 125 words of the writing are my own and stated in a serious manner. A large majority of the first portion are Mr. Driscoll’s words. The second portion of the writing is comprised of fiction used to poke fun at Mr. Driscoll’s comments and through that, instigate laughter. The only paragraph to which your claim would be relevant is the following:
“It’s no wonder people like Driscoll don’t believe gays should receive equal treatment and rights, for he (they) doesn’t (don’t) even believe women should receive equal treatment and rights. It amazes me Driscoll adamantly declares that women must treat their husbands with respect, yet he also states that women must ‘submit’ to their husbands and that the ‘husband is head of the wife.’ So, in other words, the wife must respect the husband, but it’s not necessary for the husband to respect the wife. Driscoll then went off the deep-end by comparing a nagging wife to torture. I’d like to hear him define ‘nagging wife,’ because I have a feeling when she’s not worshiping him as he so wishes, that would constitute her as one.”
The only bit which could be potentially classified as an unjustified assumption is with regard to my claim, based on Mr. Driscoll’s own words, that it’s (according to him) of lesser importance for the husband to respect the wife as it is for the wife to respect the husband (that they don’t deserve equal treatment and rights). Based on these quotes and many others, I have a difficult time believing Mark Driscoll isn’t a sexist.
Driscoll engaged in the following back-and-forth with British radio host Justin Brierly, largely revolving around Brierly’s wife being the pastor of a church:
Driscoll: “I’m not shocked by the answer, by the questions you ask. I love you, but you’re annoying. ‘Cause you’re picking on all the same issues that those who are classically evangelical, kind of liberal, kind of feminist do.”
Brierley: “I think it’s because those are the issues here that people are thinking about. … [Brierley says he’s impressed by much of what Mars Hill Church is doing].”
Driscoll: “Kay, let me ask you a few hard questions.”
Brierley: “Go ahead, go ahead.”
Driscoll: “So, in the church that your wife pastors, how many young men have come to Christ in the last year?”
Brierley: “Well we’re not a huge church, unlike yours, but I’d say there’s two or three probably in the last year who certainly, yah, I’d say have come to Christ in a pretty meaningful way.”
Driscoll: “Okay and in the church, what percentage is young men, single men?”
Brierley: “It’s difficult to say off the top of my head, but I’ll freely say it’s certainly not a big percentage, no.”
Driscoll: “Kay, and are you okay with that? Do you think that’s the best way to go?”
Brierley: “No, but can it be so easily put down to the fact that the church is being run by a woman? I mean, is that …”
Driscoll: “Yup. Yup. You look at your results, you look at my results, and you look at the variable that’s most obvious.”
Brierley: “Well, in our case, the …”
Driscoll: “This is where the excuses come, not the verses. This is where the excuses come, not the verses.”
Brierley: “… Up to the point my wife took over, it had been run by men. Since she’s come, lots of new families, lots of younger people, both men and women, have come. I wouldn’t say the balance is right perfect yet by any means. But it’s certainly a lot better than it ever was. And so I don’t necessarily see quite the same situation that you paint there in terms of men not relating. I see more men in the church since she’s been there than before she was there, in a way.”
Driscoll: “What kind of men? Strong men?”
Brierley: “Well, men. I mean, men come in different shapes and sizes. I mean, yah, both really. Men who are very masculine, men who are, I guess, on a spectrum, more effeminate. But I couldn’t say that there’s been a sort of dearth of men in the church since she’s arrived. I mean, Mark, I don’t want to get into a sort of argument.”
Driscoll: “No, no, you don’t want to sit in my seat, I understand. So does your wife do counseling with men? Sexual counseling? Does she talk about masturbation, pornography, the stuff that I do?”
Brierley: “Well no, she doesn’t.”
Driscoll: “Well, who does talk to the men about those things, especially the young men?”
Brierley: “Well there are other people that she can pass them on to. We have male elders in our church who, you know, would be able to tackle those kinds of questions. I mean, but would you speak with those kinds of issues to a female in your church?”
Driscoll: “Uh no. If they’re a married couple we might meet with them as a couple. But if it’s a woman, we would have women leaders meet with them.”
Brierley: “Sure, well it’s the same scenario in our church really.”
Driscoll: “Well except for who’s in charge.”
He also stated the following in a sermon:
“Men, I am glad to report to you that oral sex is biblical…The wife performing oral sex on the husband is biblical. God’s men said, Amen. Ladies, your husbands appreciate oral sex. They do. So, serve them, love them well. It’s biblical. Right here. We have a verse. ‘The fruit of her husband is sweet to her taste and she delights to be beneath him.”
The definition of sexism is: “attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles” and “discrimination or devaluation based on a person’s sex, as in restricted job opportunities; especially, such discrimination directed against women.”
How can one possibly deduce based on the quoted sermons and the interview (among many other quotes I’ve stumbled upon) shared above and in the previous post that Mr. Driscoll doesn’t possess an “attitude or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles” or that he doesn’t “discriminate or devalue based on a person’s sex”?
Here’s a man who told wives to “submit to your own husbands,” that “the husband is the head of the wife,” that nagging wives are akin to torture, that it’s biblical for women to please men via oral sex, that the only difference between his church and radio show host Justin Brierly’s wife’s church was “who’s in charge,” etc. If that’s not sexist, I don’t know what is.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/01/18/did-anyone-else-know-pastor-mark-driscoll-was-sexist/
http://barthsnotes.com/2009/06/27/mark-driscoll-slammed-by-baptist-press-over-sex-teaching/
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sexism?s=t
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