UPDATE: Check out Mark's latest blog-post where he has time to spell out some advice on how churches can respond with this kind of scandal. Hear the guy out. Lets not take one or two words from Mark's previous post and run a cross country marathon with them. Huh???
And when you are done, jump in below and read the original post.
ORIGINAL: Mark Driscoll has a fair bit of press right now with his controversial post about women and wives. He has got himself mentioned on Andrew Sullivan - one of the biggest bloggers in the world. Andrew Sullivan probably doesn't know that I exist, even though I am only 4 notches down from him in the Google world of aggregated "Andrew" rankings. But he knows about Mark Driscoll. This is the quote he picks:
"Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives. At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him either." [Read the original here on Mark's blog]
Heres a flashback from me:
"And i would expect a few of those dangerous moments on his blog as well. Hopefully it will be driving adventure without the wreckage. . . . His blog is called Resurgence"
TSK, Is the Blogosphere ready for Mark Driscoll (Jan 28, 2006)
I bring up Mark's comment, not because i have time for controversy, but because;
1. Mark is a good friend and I love and respect the guy. I am willing to take one for him if i need to.
2. Until now, I have been the Christian blogger with the most insensitive blog comment about women. And I am more than happy to officially hand over my mantle to Mark .
3. There is a fair bit of conversation about Mark's comment on my other blog posts and i would rather shift it here to a dedicated post.
4. Its going way too far. People are accusing Mark Driscoll for saying things that i know he would not say.
Example here where Mark goes beyond the fat lazy comment to say that God hates us and the non-Christian world are all cannibals. COME ON! This is crazy. Mark is one of us. Don't believe everything you read!
Technorati Tags: haggard, mark driscoll, ted haggard
In Marks favor,
- realize that Mark is talking in generalities, not specifically about Gayle Haggard - who we all agree is a fine looking woman and has not let herself go in the least.
- also realize that Mark gives quite a number of thoughts on the Ted Haggard scandal and the concern for wives letting themselves go is just one of them
- realize that if Mark is able to add to that comment, he will probably agree with a lot of the criticism -
YES - men let themselves go also and
YES - that is no excuse for grazing in other pastures and
YES - its Ted's fault and
YES - its more than than looks that count . . . . etc
and the whole argument doesn't have to be gender specific. In fact, I know one or two male pastors who have let themselves go . . . one or two. . .
Having said that, there is no argument that his comment has opened up a can of squirm. The ladies are seething and the men are not always seeing where Mark went wrong. It is here that I should open up the wound of my own insensitivites . .. before one of you beats me to it. The notorious post of mine, Urban Poor and Girls, commonly known as "the GIRLS Post', was a case study in sloppy blogging and gender stupidity. It is the only post I have ever made that has its own anniversary, with people emailing me to remind me each year of its reunion. Students of the blogosphere were taking notes on the rate of comments and the spiraling anger. I had over 50 comments before i looked at it again and those where the days (almost 3 years ago) when nobody in my world ever got more than 50 comments on anything.
You can read the Definitive History of the Girls Post if you are interested in such things.
But 50 comments on my blog is not the same as 50 blogs commenting on Mark Driscoll.
Now that i have fessed up, what say you [ladies], if anything, about the comment of Mark Driscoll? And [men] was I unfair to Mark to call his comment "untimely" in my post Haggard and the Hazzard of Hotels?
Related:
Mark Driscoll: The Skinny
Mark Driscoll Responds
The fat lazy blog-post that has let itself go.
Is the Blogosphere Ready for Mark Driscoll?
