"Where ya gonna live?...The best thing you can do is buy a home. From an investment standpoint, from a tax standpoint, from a security standpoint, particularly you single guys..." -Mark Driscoll 18 Oct 2008
And Jesus said to him, "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." -Luke 9:58 NASB
I have long hesitated to this blog. This is mostly because I try not be totally negative. It's also because the podcast that motivates this blogs annoyed me. There was so much fail in it that I didn't know where to start. Then again, I might just be being hissy. I digress a bit.
Anyway, it was very strange when Christianity Today included Mark Driscoll in their list of hipster, cutting edge, pastors. Every time I listen to the guy, he sounds like a stick-in-the-mud conservative. Nowhere was this more evident that his Biblical Man Sermon. This teaching starts with a few verses from proverbs, and then continues with practical advice for about an hour. This "Biblical" teaching is so deeply seated in cultural assumptions, self-help wisdom, and patron-saints of middle class that it raises the question: what does "Biblical" even mean?
When I ask that question, it is not for you to think it is a joke. This is serious. What do you think of when you attach the word "Biblical" to a term? What synonyms would you use? How do you define that adjective as you understand it? Maybe you would agree that it means something like "from the Bible" or maybe "in adherence to the Bible"? Whatever it means when said in the evangelical vernacular, I think we can all agree that it recognizes the Bible in some sense because of its very spelling.
In listening to this sermon, it is hard to understand how Driscoll can mean Biblical in that sense. Now, the sermon is not bad rhetorically. It is sprinkled with stimulating, engaging, questions. The problem is with the answers. The idea is that we need to set goals, and make plans to achieve those goals. We need to think about what lives we want in the future and "reverse engineer" it so that we will arrive. For instance, in planning our lives we must understand what is urgent and important. We must get the job and own the home. We must also make a list of appliances, furniture, and other such things that we will have in our home. In that home we must also be prepared to add equity and value to it so we can buy a bigger home, so as to make our wife and children happy. Sound good?
The problem with all of this is that it it is not "from the Bible." The first chunk of advice seems to come from an amalgamation of books like Rich Dad Poor Dad
, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
, and probably a dozen other books of the same genre. He even cited Stephan Covey at the end of the sermon, who by the way, is a Mormon! The other huge chunk are anecdotes of Driscoll's own success. It probably does not count as bragging, but Mark Driscoll did not write an Epistle. So do not think this is biblical.Now, understandably, some might think that I'm endorsing laziness, sloth, or perpetuated adolescence. You might be thinking, "so you don't think setting goals is good? Do you believe that developing plans is bad? Setting yourself up to build wealth or provide for yourself and others is evil?" To all this I answer an emphatic, "no of course not." I think a books like 7 Habits or Getting Things Done, are great reads. Rich Dad/Poor Dad gave me a lot to think about. Of course all these things are good, but they are not biblical.
So why bother writing this blog? Well, because it is important -for Christians- to know where their values come from because God might challenge them. Some of the things we hold as Biblical might not be so Biblical after all. Take the whole home-ownership issue. Does owning a home, building equity in the home, and buying a better home make you a Biblical man? Is it a necessary goal for the Biblical man? Well, interestingly enough I know lots of men in the Bible who had no homes. Most of the patriarchs were nomads, and Jesus as cited above, warned those who sought to follow him that "the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Let's not forget that he was born in a stable.)
It seems that Jesus is not a Biblical man. Furthermore, he seems to caution would-be disciples that if the follow him, they may not have homes either! I can imagine that many missionary families understand what this means. So what about the denizens of Seattle?
But maybe I am being harsh? It wasn't as if Driscoll didn't use some distinctive Christian topics in his sermon. Driscoll did, after all, talk about God as a gracious God. He also encouraged men to "walk with God" in this sermon. Yes he did. God is so gracious, that he might get you into the home of dreams (complete with white picket fence!). "Walking with God" means prayerfully setting up your plans. If you think this is hyperbole, listen to the sermon yourself.
It seems so blindingly obvious that the pervading culture, not an exegesis of scripture, is what is authoritative here. It leads to the bizarre conclusion in which Jesus wouldn't live up to Driscoll's standards. I am not the first blogger to notice this either. If hipster Christianity is the liberal-arts student, who smokes clove cigarettes while reading "the Imitation of Christ" at an indie coffee shop, than Mark Driscoll is the transparent poser wearing his high-school letterman jacket over a Radiohead t-shirt. According to Christianity Today, the Christian hipsters want a faith that distinguishable from the values of suburbs. They probably need to look outside of Mars Hill.
So what does the word "Biblical [man]" mean? As far as I can tell, it is nothing more than a synonym for "upright middle class [man]" or "socially and fiscally, conservative [man]" or maybe just simply "right." It is nothing here than a staple phrase for the American Civic Religion. And you know what? Let's go for it. I am not against the nuclear family, setting goals, or steadily building financial success. There's nothing wrong with finding the right career and being nice to your neighbors. I wish that all guys reading this would pick up 7 Habits and all those other great books to enhance their relationships, careers, and share such guidance with others. We can all be on the suburban band wagon and our kids can play little league together.
But when we do, let's drop the pretense. Let's remember that the civic religion is nothing more than that. Let's discard the illusions that it is "from the Bible" and remember it has but a thin connection to the Christian faith.
Thanks for reading, and your comments are always welcome here.
