I Love Mark Driscoll!!

I wrote a post last week about my struggles with a pastor on the West Coast by the name of Mark Driscoll.  He had written a rather bullying and unkind statement about "effeminate" male worship leaders.  To his credit, he has removed the offensive post, and even said he was thankful for the challenge from his elder board to do so.  This was not, remotely, an apology, but it is a step in the right direction.

This is my last post that will even reference Driscoll (unless he pisses me off again), but I want to deal with a few last things.  My post, "On Mark Driscoll and My Own Struggle With Manliness", I was fairly harsh in my critique of this faith leader.  However, that post wasn't really about Mark Driscoll at all.  It was all about me.  I was much more critical of myself in that post than on Driscoll.  It was also an appeal for people with good hearts to help me understand how a "good man" should react to difficult situations, and what the heck a "good man" is in the first place.

I have been angry for my entire life.  It was a crutch and a prop for me for as long as I can remember.  People who know me say that can't be true.  I even had some friends write to me, after that post, to tell me that I was way too critical of myself.  They were worried that I didn't see myself as God sees me.  Really good insight, because that is the crux of the post, but more on that in a minute.  Growing up angry was really difficult.  It really did consume me.  My dad was always angry, and no one messed with him.  If people didn't take him seriously, he yelled.  If they still didn't take him seriously, he beat them.  I remember one time, when my uncle was visiting, my dad and he were at the bar down the street, while the women were making dinner.  I was around 3 at the time.  I was playing quietly in the living room, and the house was fairly docile. 

There was always a sense of relief, when my dad was out of the house.  Things were always extremely tense, when he was there.  Everyone moved very carefully, almost like we didn't want to be noticed by him.  I fractured my neck once, and I could only think of not wanting to scream too loud, because my dad was sleeping one off in the next room.  Crying, I had asked my grandmother to please wake him, because I was scared.  I was 2 at the time.

Back to the day of my uncle's visit, everything was peaceful and wonderful.  Suddenly, the door crashed open, and my dad and uncle ran in and quickly slammed the door behind them.  They both closed all of the curtains in the house, and they were laughing and peeking out the front window toward the road.  Only then did I notice they were both covered in blood.  I was confused.  Was my daddy hurt?  My uncle?  If they were hurt, why were they laughing?  Did they fall down?  What was going on?  I sat there, watching them, silently crying so that my dad wouldn't see it.  He would get angry and call me a sissy or something.  He would tell me that he would really give me something to cry about, and then his belt would come off to be used on me.  I just didn't know what was happening.

They were still watching and laughing.  They were flying on adrenaline and probably some other substances.  They were saying things like:

"That was so cool!"

"I know!!  We really kicked their asses!!  I don't see the cops..."

"They should be coming soon.  An ambulance, too.  I mean, did you see those guys?!?  They had to grab the tongue of the one guy, or he would've choked.  He was just flopping on the floor and twitching.  Man, we really trashed him!!"

"Yeah, Don....hey, do you think we should change clothes quick?  If the cops do come, we don't want to talk to them with all of those guys' blood all over us..."

"You're right..," then, turning away from the window and noticing me for the first time, "Hey, Billy....(then, getting angry), what are you looking at?!?  Play with your fucking toys, and mind your own business!!  Jan!!  Get your kid outta here, and grab me and Eddie a couple beers!!"  They left the room to change.

I remember that as clear as yesterday.  It was obvious to me that he felt guilty and inconvenienced by his son seeing him that way.  There were times, in parenting, that I yelled at my son, saw the tears form in his eyes, and yelled at him more.  My guilt at hurting him did not make me respond with compassion.  It made me angry.  Anger insulated me from having to take responsibility.  It made me strong and powerful - untouchable.  It got to the point that I didn't trust other emotions.  I then simply forgot how to have them.  They had atrophied from lack of use.  When a friend would die of cancer, I would feel sad for a second, and then I would be filled with rage at the unfairness of the death, hatred of cancer, and the loss of another person in my life.  All of the other emotions were weak and inconvenient.  Only anger existed for me, and it was a monster that required constant attention and feeding.

Looking back, I realized that I felt completely unsafe, illegitimate, and out of control.  I had no power at all in my life, and I hated that feeling.  It made me despise myself as insignificant, weak, and illegitimate.  When someone would tell me that I am a failure, I wouldn't be hurt.  That was weakness.  I would be angry, and I would work to prove them wrong as an act of self-vindication and revenge.  My dad had betrayed me and abandoned me.  I was angry.  I attacked life with a vengeance, seeking to prove that I wasn't like my dad.  When I kept failing at that, and was even facing a battery charge for beating my own brother, almost to the point of hospitalization, I was angry enough to call my dad and set up a meeting with him.  I pretended to want to catch up with him, but my real plan - I had actually laid this all out in my mind - was to drive out to meet him and beat him until he was dead or I was satisfied.  Whatever came first.

But then I re-met Jesus.  Or, actually, really met him for the first time.  I knew, instinctually, that Jesus was the only one who could set me free from this monster in me.  I had responded to an altar call at 6 years old in a Vacation Bible School at a local Assembly of God, but that had been all about going to Heaven, rather than Hell, when I died.  This time was different.  I needed a Messiah, a Savior, right now.  Today.  In this life.  I needed someone who could save me from this reality, this monster in me, and, really from myself.  In all my efforts to not be my dad, I was becoming him and worse.  I had built this "not my dad" identity for myself, but I didn't have the tools to actually define me.  I started giving Jesus permission to change my heart, tell me who I am, and rewrite my destiny.  Now, in a real George-W-Bush-going-back-to-Iraq kind of way, I was still trying to will myself to overcome the image of my dad.  I was still grabbing control and fighting anger.

It was only recently, in my 40s, that I have finally begun to learn how to really trust Jesus and let Him have control.  Only then have I felt the anger go away.  It was in that process of healing that I encountered my first real trial since trusting Jesus: Mark Driscoll.  He was acting and speaking in a way that I have been battling in myself my whole life.  Plus, he even physically looks just like my dad did in the 70's, sans the pork-chop sideburns.  Not only was he happily frolicking with the monster I was trying to keep at bay in myself, he was sanctifying it!  He was saying it was holy!  He was saying that this was how God wanted men to act!  Flashbacks to my blood-soaked father, laughing and proud of breaking, oppressing, and dehumanizing another human being filled my mind.  Treating other men like animals by bullying and dominating them, all to feel stronger himself.  Treating women like slaves and subjects under their control, like they were built to obey and serve men.  Something in me snapped.

I realized, in that moment, that God was not going to let me off the hook on this one.  I tried to shove it down.  Swallow it.  But it felt like the monster was back.  I started to ask myself why God created me this way.  I mean, I've had this beast in there for my whole life, as long as I can remember.  If it was all darkness and sin, why would God, who only makes good stuff, build that in me?  Who is God telling me I am?  I have misused my anger in the past, but is the anger, itself, wrong?  Or was it just my methodology that was sinful?  I seemed to only get angry when I saw an injustice.  How could standing up for the victims of bullying and the oppressed be wrong?

Then I read a couple of blogs that I love.  I really love the bloggers.  They are all women.  One, Rachel Held Evans, a superb writer and thinker in every respect, wrote an open letter to Driscoll in her blog.  It was wonderfully written, respectful, and dripping with grace.  The 500+ comments that followed were, in many cases, so filled with venom and misogynistic hate, that she had to close comments on the post.  Most of the negative comments came from men, who were telling her she had no right to call out an important leader like Driscoll.  On "Joy in this Journey", Joy, a brilliant writer with a pastoral calling, wrote a post talking about the Evans post mentioned above.  Again, the men came out with their hate and attack.  On Joy's post, I commented that I needed to call out the "elephant in the room".  The only reason she and Rachel had been attacked for speaking out is because they are women.  There is a blatant sexism that is rampant throughout Evangelicalism.  It was coming out in a way that shocked me.  I said that I have written much more offensive things, and I never get attacked like this.  I was so angry at the injustice I saw, that I needed to write.  I immediately set to work.

In my post, I allowed myself to seek the answers to those questions about anger in me and my identity.  If it's sin, why did God put such a passion in my heart?  Suddenly, I was also feeling a broken-hearted compassion to an even greater level for people who have known they were different and battling with homosexual drives and instincts for as long as they can remember.  If it is sin, why did God create me this way?  That would be really cruel.  I'm not starting a debate on whether there is a "gay gene" in this post, so don't comment on that.  I'm just saying that I now have fresh insight into those feelings.

In the past, I had always fought back my anger, swallowed it, it would inevitably break out, I would then get mad at my own failure, fall into despair, and adopt a self-defeating, fatalistic attitude.  That was always the progression.  This time, I dared to let the monster have some say.  However, I wasn't going to let it become all-consuming.  God may have created me with this anger at injustice, but that didn't mean it should override all other healthy fruit in my life.  I wanted to keep my love, my compassion, my character, and my ability to be very open and vulnerable about my own failings.  I decided, rather than just judging him, to only take on the things in Driscoll that I saw in myself.  I wanted to address those things, and get help in dealing with them.  I could not just pray for him and leave it at that.  God didn't make me that way.  No, if I am the one who is gifted enough, angry enough, and dumb enough to speak out, didn't I have a responsibility to do so?  Isn't it possible that this is the exact reason God put this in me?  Then, it is a gift, and not a scary monster at all.  I can speak with authority and power, without using it as a weapon, sacrificing my grace and compassion, or compromising my identity in Christ.  I hit "publish", and immediately called my spiritual director for an emergency appointment.  Her response, at our meeting, was, "Someone has to stand up to bullies for the sake of the oppressed.  Maybe you are just the guy to do it."

So, now that the dust has settled from the post, and I have taken all of the wonderful comments and advice into account, I have come to some conclusions.  First, I need to not go after the man anymore, and I need to move my focus onto the faulty, evil ideology that is behind all of this.  Our battle is not against flesh and blood, and all that.  It was scary, when I saw that this kind of unhealthy teaching is so widespread in Evangelical Christianity.  The very idea that God wants us all to be beer-drinking, belligerent, oppressive, woman-hating, "manly men" is the worst kind of de-legitimizing crap in the Church today (maybe as bad as Capitalist Consumerism).  It must be destroyed. 

Second, I am going to start to destroy that false ideology, and use my anger in a healthy way, by writing a book about our identity as men and women in following Jesus.  I have already started mapping it out, and I will begin writing this week.  If this is the passion God placed in me, I need to exercise it.  In the book, I will not keep attacking the wrong way.  I will fight it by only focusing on our freedom in allowing Jesus to define us as men and women, equal in authority, power, and love.  That's what I want.  To empower people and set them free with the truth of who they are in Jesus.

Finally, I am going to keep praying for Mark Driscoll.  I love Mark Driscoll as I love myself.  He is me, and I am he.  That guy, underneath his exterior confidence and macho image - then digging past all of the brokenness, insecurity, latent homosexuality, self-loathing, and fear of his own weakness and doubt - is a man who is so incredibly loved and cherished by God, it's unbelievable.  He is powerful in the weakest core of himself, and he doesn't even know that truth.  I will pray for my brother to be set free, as God seeks to set him free (not as I would).  God knows Mark better than even Mark does.  God knows the turmoil in that man, but he sees the treasure, more valuable than rubies, in his heart.  I pray for the opportunity to meet Driscoll one day, not to beat him up, but to hug him, pray with him, weep with him, kiss his cheek, and tell him how loved he is, as only a "real man" can.  I want his ministry to bear healthy fruit (in God's view of health, not mine) and to thrive.  I want Mark Driscoll to go down in history as one of the most compassionate and caring and powerful men of God in history.  I love that man.  I know he, like my daughter Maggie, is one of God's favorites.

May his entire life be built on his identity in Jesus!