A few folks from the more Reformed end of the big wide blog-world have taken issue with Mark Driscoll’s sermon in which he talks about birth control, and in particular are upset with the “vulgar” Q and A he ran at the end of the late evening service. I’ve wanted to talk about Driscoll on here for a while now, and this seems like a good opportunity into jump into the subject.
First off, I am a fan of Driscoll. I found him about a year and 1/2 ago now and am grateful that I did. I’ve listened to a lot of his sermons, and have read his books. Of course I don’t agree with him on everything (who does) but someone needs to be doing what he’s doing and I praise God that it’s him.
The sermon is question is the first sermon in a series of 9 where they had people submit questions to a website and then vote on what questions he should cover in a series of sermons. A few really important questions made the top 9 (Question #1 should be a really interesting sermon for all the Reformed people out there!) and I have been looking forward to this sermon series since it was announced.
Now the question of birth control is an very practical question for people, and obviously one on the mind of people who listen to Driscoll. Although I am not married (and thus it’s not yet an issue for me) I have been involved in discussions on the subject, and was surprised by some of the answers from people I know on this subject. Why there is even a an issue with Driscoll tackling this subject is beyond me. He speaks frankly on the subject, attempting to apply what scripture says in general terms to this specific question. I thought it was a really good sermon that took a very pastoral approach, and I would recommend it to anyone (along with this statement by Piper) who approaches me with questions on the subject. However, the big complaint by some folks is not so much with the sermon, as with the Q and A session.
Why the issue with the Q and A session? According to Frank Turk “that’s a talk which simply goes outside the bounds of public decency.” Now unlike many other more Reformed bloggers, I actually enjoy Mr. Turk’s blog and think that he often has good insights on things, but on this one I strongly disagree with him. He goes on to say “It’s one thing to give that kind of advice (such as it is) in a private context, but from the pulpit?” If not from the pulpit then from where? Paul had no problems addressing issues of sexual morality in an open letter to the Corinthian church, why should we have problems with doing it from the pulpit.
The people in the audience were the ones sending in the questions, and like one of my profs at university was fond of saying, “If one of you asks a questions, there are likely 5 others in the class with the same question and it therefore needs to be answered.” I’m convinced that part of the reason that sexual sin is so predominate today is because the church has failed to talk about it, so I applauded Pastor Driscoll on taking on those questions he was asked. It was done in an orderly manner, on the spot, and dealt with real concerns that people want to know what scripture has to say about.
Now what is the particular question that has raised this uproar? Well those who don’t think it should be discussed from the pulpit obviously don’t want to name it in their blogs but if I would have to guess it was the first question which asked; is masturbation a legitimate form of birth control. From this question Driscoll discussed if it is ok between married couples (as birth control), and if it is for the single person (instead of pre-martial sex). I’m not sure if I agree 100% with his answer (still far better then what focus on the Family says on the issue), but I think what he gave was thought out and deserves consideration, but the main issue with those who oppose him on this is not his advice (thats secondary) but that he discussed this from the pulpit.
Grow up guys, it’s not as if the people in the audience were 10 year old kids. It’s the late service, where the majority of people (I’ve been told) are late teens early twenties who have never been taught on this subject before and seem to want a real answer. It was a serious question and a serious answer (in Driscoll’s typical style); we need not squirm and turn red when someone teaches on masturbation (Even Piper sees the need to write on it.)
Is the fact that Driscoll used a joke at the beginning of the question to drive his point home about the misuse of scripture of this subject bad? Was it a crude joke? Trust me, I work with people who love to tell crude jokes and it doesn’t come close to having me leave the area of the joking like what I hear at work does. It was a real situation that he was involved in, and he used that experience to lighten the mood a bit with before diving into a lot of really serious stuff. I might not have made that joke, but I’m not going to condemn it as a vulgar joke either. If thats the best example of Driscoll being vulgar then he’s doing great in my mind.
You may have preferred Driscoll to approach the issue differently then he did, and thats fair. There are a multitude of ways to approach addressing these kinds of topic, but I wouldn’t start roasting him over the fire on this one. Be careful to make sure it’s a real biblical objection to how he handled the question, or a preference on before doing that. Steve Camp claims that the question wasn’t addressed in the “fear of the Lord or reverence for God,” I would encourage people to listen to the question and answer itself and determine if it was a God honouring answer or not.
I managed to listed to Mark Driscoll’s sermon, in spite of the fact that my broadband didn’t seem broad enough to make it play smoothly.
My comments:
1. I was not offended. In the context of no young children, I have no problem with anything he said and I did not view anything as indecent, vulgar, or not fit for a public sermon. I’m not really sure why the bloggers you linked to were so upset.
2. I thought the question itself was a bit odd. Usually the question is, “Is masturbation wrong?” But this question was about masturbation as about birth control, thus making us to assume the couple in question were married. If that is the case, maybe they have the definition of masturbation wrong. In any case, Driscoll covered the various angles and I pretty much agreed with what he said.
Yeah, I can’t seem to get it to play. Really weak server it appears.
I had problems also, they’re probably getting too much traffic.
Bryan’s article broke their site! It’s our massive readership!
I’m having a hard time trying to understand why they are so upset as well, but it’s really getting harder and harder for me to be sympathetic towards their position on a subject like this. I guess that means any Reformed credentials I had left are gone.
Well, I’ve listened to a good portion of it. So far, I haven’t seen anything I’m “offended” by, though I have sympathy for those who think that this subject should perhaps be discussed in men-only and women-only groups. But in this day and age, they see and hear worse on TV. I would be upset if someone said this at a church where people were pretty cut-off from the world and its trappings, but Mars Hill???
Even if it would be better discussed in a different setting (I haven’t seen it), the fact is that in today’s church setup until something is addressed from the pulpit at the main meeting time(s) then it’s not going to be considered something that’s really important, and many church people will miss it all together.
I listened to the sermon and the Q & A, and I didn’t hear anything inappropriate. It would have been nice to have a few more Scripture references, but there just isn’t that much Scripture that can be legitimately applied to the question of birth control.
Bryan, I appreciated reading this article a lot. Questions about birth control are very important and are rarely (as is the same for sexual issues as well) addressed in a sermon. There seems to be little difference in how teens or adults (who identify themselves as Christian) view or discuss sexual relationships inside or outside of marriage. However, Christians should be concerned and look for the wisdom that God has provided in the Bible on these subjects. The John Piper article that you link to is excellent.
All of the Answers from Q&A are also posted on Youtube.. You will have to sit through the 2 or 3 minutes of warnings each time, but it is still worth it. you can also download the audio or video through iTunes if the flash player is not working.
In Typical Driscoll fashion, he is going to irk both the liberals and conservatives. He refused to condemn what the bible doesn’t condemn, and he is going to be pretty unapologetic about calling Sin what it is. His advocacy or tolerance for oral sex during marriage has always been a lightning rod.
I really liked the Q & A stuff. It seemed like he recognized partway into it, that he needed to approach these questions as a pastor, and not just a preacher. It allowed us to see a different side of his personality and heart.
The people who are offended seem to be ones who already have objections to Mark Driscoll’s style of preaching. The specific objections in this case are:
1. Driscoll used crude jokes
2. Lack of reverence for Scripture, specifically the joke about Ecclesiastes 9:10
3. Driscoll’s decision to explicitly list and define sins is a form of reveling in sin
I can agree with #1, because I think a few of the jokes were unnecessary. #2 is just plain wrong–Driscoll was making a joke about the misinterpretation Scripture, not a joke about Scripture itself.
I don’t know what to make of the third objection. It’s pretty hard to talk about sin and righteousness without knowing what sin is. We live in a culture that has no understanding of sin, so our consciences are seared. Add a taboo subject to the mix and you’ve got a lot of confused people. I applaud a pastor who can make some concrete statements about what is and what is not sin rather than speaking in generalities. (Not that I heard a whole of those statements from Driscoll in this sermon. It wasn’t a sermon about sin.)