davidleong.info

[h/t to eliacin] i don’t normally plug the millions of mark driscoll-hater blog posts (seriously, there are way too many to track), but this one was just too interesting to pass up. titled who can mark driscoll worship?, it’s a harsh diatribe against driscoll’s oft-critiqued gender theology as it applies to jesus. what initially drew me in was the images (who draws these!?)- and the sad realities they point to about our distortions of jesus’ character as we remake him in our image (instead of the other way around), repainting him as a reflection of our own brokenness, or projecting our own insecurities onto his mysterious, seemingly contradictory duality of divinity and humanity.

about the post- while i do agree with much of its underlying critique (that driscoll takes his machismo jesus way too far and that such a jesus is not found in the bible), i also think its tone drifts into potentially unfriendly territory, and that driscoll’s controversial quote- while polarizing, overly reactionary, and full of theological problems- does not represent the whole of his theology. and as strange as it feels to defend the guy, i don’t exactly see how constructive it is to attack him personally.

on the other hand, you could make the argument that since he dishes it out, he should be able to take it. driscoll isn’t soft on his detractors and critics, so perhaps he deserves to be judged by the measure he uses against others. either way, as much as i disagree with him on a number of significant theological issues, i can’t help but feel like the vitriolic polarization that so often characterizes the christian blogosphere isn’t really helping anyone beyond inflating our blog egos. and that’s pretty sad.

i’ve never really wanted to waste too many words contributing to the endless online debates that can really sidetrack important things christians should be doing (like living in community, working for justice, and loving our neighbors), and yet i also recognize that i’ve carved out my own blog space with a particular theological agenda, so maybe i’m part of the problem and not the solution.

ultimately, i think it’s important to be advocates for orthodoxy in the sense that “right doctrine” is crucial to our sense of praxis (after all, i am a vocational “theologian” of sorts), but i never want to drift so far into the critique that i can’t come out on the other side with a positive, constructive affirmation about who God is and what he’s doing in the world.

with that said, jesus is certainly not a pride fighter, but i do find christus victor a very compelling perspective on the atonement. driscoll’s more of a classic penal substitutionary atonement guy (as all you reformed folks nod in agreement), but i think he could move to a both/and view if he saw that christus victor triumphs over evil not by beating anyone up, but by embracing the victorious non-violence of the cross.