Daily Archives: September 22, 2009

Film, Faith, and Justice 2009

Posted by on September 22, 2009 1 comment

To those in the Pacific Northwest or who are able to travel from elsewhere, you should really try to be at this year’s Film, Faith, and Justice conference, put on by The Other Journal. The event goes from the 15th through the 17th of October, and promises to be a great installment of a great conference.

The speakers this year include Kelly Johnson, Emmanuel Katongole, James K.A. Smith, Mark Russell, Rob Morris.

The movies and schedules are online and we’re looking forward to a really great event, where we’ll be looking at issues of Human Trafficking, Human Rights, Business as Mission, Reconciliation post-Genocide, and Facing Tragedy.

On Not Seeking Glory

Posted by on September 22, 2009 14 comments

“I do not seek my own glory” (John 8:5). With these words Jesus set a precedent for all those who claim to follow him. Fundamental to the call to discipleship is the renunciation of seeking to glorify, to magnify, to enhance and promote oneself.

It is often thought that this calling is based on the distinction between God and humanity. God should be glorified, not us. Therefore we refuse to glorify ourselves and instead glorify God. Indeed, aspects of the Reformed tradition insist that God’s whole aim in being involved with the world is to glorify God’s own self. Thus, we glorify God rather than ourselves because God wants to glorify God’s self rather than humanity.

However, this is all entirely wrong. Jesus, according to the Christian confession is God’s very self come among us. Thus, when Jesus reveals that he does not seek his own glory, he is stating something that is not only to be true about us, but preeminently about God’s own life. God’s life consists in the refusal to seek self-glorification. Rather, the life of the Godhead itself consists in the loving mutuality of the trinitarian persons who only seek the glory of one another. Thus, Jesus seeks the glory of the Father rather than his own, and so also the Father seeks to glorify Jesus (John 7:18). Finally, God also fundamentally desires to glorify humanity: “those he justified he also glorified” (Rom 8:30).

So, we do not reject the quest of self-glorfication to somehow “make room” for God’s desire to self-glorify. Rather we reject self-glorification because that’s precisely what God is like. To reject the quest for self-exaltation is, counterintuitively, the very epitome of what it means to be God-like. We don’t reject self-glorification because self-glorification is reserved for God alone. We reject it because self-glorification in any form is demonic.

Putting all Questions to Rest

Posted by on September 22, 2009 43 comments

If there were any doubt it is gone now. If there was even the slightest question that Mark Driscoll is simply rabid misogynist who’s boarderline psychotic, this quote clears all that up. There really are no words for this kind of mindless stupidity:

Without blushing, Paul is simply stating that when it comes to leading in the church, women are unfit because they are more gullible and easier to deceive than men. While many irate women have disagreed with his assessment through the years, it does appear from this that such women who fail to trust his instruction and follow his teaching are much like their mother Eve and are well-intended but ill-informed. . . Before you get all emotional like a woman in hearing this, please consider the content of the women’s magazines at your local grocery store that encourages liberated women in our day to watch porno with their boyfriends, master oral sex for men who have no intention of marrying them, pay for their own dates in the name of equality, spend an average of three-fourths of their childbearing years having sex but trying not to get pregnant, and abort 1/3 of all babies – and ask yourself if it doesn’t look like the Serpent is still trolling the garden and that the daughters of Eve aren’t gullible in pronouncing progress, liberation, and equality.

Mark Driscoll, Church Leadership: Explaining the Roles of Jesus, Elders, Deacons, and Members at Mars Hill, Mars Hill Theology Series (Seattle, WA: Mars Hill Church, 2004), 43.

As I said, there really are no words. This sort of juvenile and petulant  hatred of women speaks for itself. Driscoll really doesn’t give a shit about the Bible or “what Paul said.” He just is desperate for power and control over women. Its very sad that some people consider this bastard a pastor who has something to contribute to the church. He’s nothing more than a parasite who preys on the weak and opposes the Gospel at every turn. Hopefully more people will grow to see this and the cancer that is Mark Driscoll may go into remission.

Thanks to Rachel for pointing me to this horrible quote.

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