{"id":364,"date":"2009-01-13T15:17:24","date_gmt":"2009-01-13T15:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/01\/mark-driscolls-bullying-pulpit.html"},"modified":"2009-01-13T15:17:24","modified_gmt":"2009-01-13T15:17:24","slug":"mark-driscolls-bullying-pulpit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/01\/mark-driscolls-bullying-pulpit.html","title":{"rendered":"Mark Driscoll’s Bullying Pulpit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Driscoll (aka the cussing preacher) was profiled in The New York Times Magazine<\/a> on Sunday. \u00a0Here is an excerpt:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

“God called Driscoll to preach to men — particularly young men — to save them from an American Protestantism that has emasculated Christ and driven men from church pews with praise music that sounds more like boy-band ballads crooned to Jesus than “Onward Christian Soldiers.” What bothers Driscoll — and the growing number of evangelical pastors who agree with him — is not the trope of Jesus-as-lover. After all, St. Paul tells us that the Church is the bride of Christ. What really grates is the portrayal of Jesus as a wimp, or worse. Paintings depict a gentle man embracing children and cuddling lambs. Hymns celebrate his patience and tenderness. The mainstream church, Driscoll has written, has transformed Jesus into “a Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ,” a “neutered and limp-wristed popular Sky Fairy of pop culture that . . . would never talk about sin or send anyone to hell.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Driscoll desires to save Jesus from this horrible description and to make Jesus more macho not so feminine or, even worse, gay. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n
Masculine, or muscular Christianity is not new to those who know recent Christian history. \u00a0It was popular in the victorian era and even some social gosplers embraced it as they\u00a0conceived\u00a0of such institutions as the YMCA. \u00a0People like Reinhold Niebuhr<\/a>, the cold war realist and social justice activist preached and practiced an antidote called neo-orthodoxy – a Christianity that would confront evil humbly yet powerfully – who argued famously that divinity resided not in men’s muscles but with God.\u00a0\u00a0Like Driscoll, Neibuhr’s thought appeals to men, men such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
Driscoll is the grandson of those early victorian\u00a0crusaders. \u00a0Yet his muscular Christianity seems more like testosterone Christianity, gained by injecting a steroidal mixture of judgement and scorn that covers fear with a puffed up faith.\u00a0Instead of a muscular Christianity we need a healthy, limber, and fit faith today to confront the serious challenges to both personal faith and to societal injustices. \u00a0We need an\u00a0athleticism\u00a0of belief that is open to all people and calls upon them to be active and powerful children of God.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
I’m curious if \u00a0those of you who are more familiar with his faith journey and perspective can tell us how Driscoll reconciles his own understanding with Jesus’ words from the sermon on the mount: \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Matt. 5:Blessed are the poor in
\nspirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for
\nthey will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed
\nare those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed
\nare the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart,
\nfor they will see God.\u00a0 <\/span>Blessed are
\nthe peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

\n
\n
\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Driscoll (aka the cussing preacher) was profiled in The New York Times Magazine on Sunday. \u00a0Here is an excerpt: “God called Driscoll to preach to men — particularly young men — to save them from an American Protestantism that has emasculated Christ and driven men from church pews with praise music that sounds more…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christians"],"yoast_head":"\nMark Driscoll's Bullying Pulpit - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/01\/mark-driscolls-bullying-pulpit.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mark Driscoll's Bullying Pulpit - 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Progressive Revival","og_description":"Mark Driscoll (aka the cussing preacher) was profiled in The New York Times Magazine on Sunday. \u00a0Here is an excerpt: “God called Driscoll to preach to men — particularly young men — to save them from an American Protestantism that has emasculated Christ and driven men from church pews with praise music that sounds more…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/01\/mark-driscolls-bullying-pulpit.html","og_site_name":"Progressive Revival","article_published_time":"2009-01-13T15:17:24+00:00","author":"Paul Raushenbush","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/01\/mark-driscolls-bullying-pulpit.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/01\/mark-driscolls-bullying-pulpit.html","name":"Mark Driscoll's Bullying Pulpit - Progressive Revival","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-01-13T15:17:24+00:00","dateModified":"2009-01-13T15:17:24+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/01\/mark-driscolls-bullying-pulpit.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/01\/mark-driscolls-bullying-pulpit.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/01\/mark-driscolls-bullying-pulpit.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mark Driscoll’s Bullying Pulpit"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/","name":"Progressive Revival","description":"Politics from the New Religious Progressives","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805","name":"Paul Raushenbush","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","caption":"Paul Raushenbush"},"description":"Rev. Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}