Driscoll, Mahaney – Culture Warriors of a Different Sort
WAKE FOREST (BSCNC Communications) – A recent New York Times Magazine article called him the cussing preacher. A preacher with sermons too racy for GodTube because talking about sex isn’t family friendly. A preacher whose sermons are “radically unfashionable” and “un-American” because he teaches that a person is a “depraved worm” that will get nowhere based on hard work and good deeds. A preacher who wears jeans, T-shirts with skulls and a black skateboarder jacket.
Apparently, un-American messages are in style these days, at least they are to the nearly 1,500 who showed up to hear Mark Driscoll at the recent 20/20 “The Gospel Comes to Life” Conference at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Surely, on a Friday night, the college students, seminary students, high school students and adults who poured into Binkley Chapel could have found something to do instead of listening to a man whom the Times said leads a church “bent on staying perpetually hip” and has an “ego and taste for controversy.” A man who gives messages not necessarily easy to hear. After all, as the article noted, according to Driscoll the mainstream church has transformed Jesus into a “neutered and limp-wristed popular Sky Fairy of pop culture…that would never talk about sin or send anyone to hell.”
Perhaps these students in attendance know what Driscoll knows – culture has got Jesus Christ all wrong and needs to know the Savior Driscoll knows. Perhaps Driscoll’s messages have been deemed un-American because some are blinded to the truth of the Gospel – the human race really is a bunch of depraved sinners without hope except that which is found in the grace and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Perhaps Driscoll, pastor of the 8,000 member Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Wash., is not bent so much on staying hip as he is on staying relevant and engaged in culture, which he made the focal point of his message during the opening plenary session on Feb. 6. Driscoll knows that it doesn’t matter if he preaches in jeans or a suit, so long as the Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed. Driscoll knows that what is displayed on the Mars Hill Web site, “It’s all Jesus,” is what he is all about.
So call him what you will, but when Driscoll took the stage at Southeastern, people listened – because he spoke truth. He spoke with a passion for truth and a passion for people.
To begin, Driscoll took the audience back to the beginning. Adam and Eve sinned and everything changed. Rebellion cast all of humanity under sin’s curse. Everything in culture is now affected by sin and culture is “marred by sin,” he said. The question Driscoll and other conference speakers addressed is how Christians live in culture – now tainted by sin – and live for the Gospel at the same time.
Driscoll began by explaining that culture applies to every individual and is not some elitist term. Culture encompasses all aspects of human life and being a culture maker, a culture keeper, is what it means to be human. Christians grapple with the notion of engaging their culture while living for Christ, perhaps because people tend to be blind to their own culture and need a “new set of lenses to evaluate culture” – and Driscoll offered six. A quick glance at the lives of Old Testament servants Joseph, Daniel and Nehemiah offers a biblical lens for how believers should live in the culture. “They loved their cities and their nations,” Driscoll said. They were concerned not just for Christians but for all His image bearers – including their enemies. “God loves his enemies and I once was one,” Driscoll said. True, these men had secular vocations and worked for godless leaders, yet they brought the Gospel to bear life to their culture.
Pharisees are hard-core fundamentalists, Sadducees are compromise liberals, Zealots are politically motivated and Essenes are culturally withdrawn. Driscoll compared these four contextual views of culture to that of a contextual view based on being a disciple of Christ concerned with missional living. A disciple of Christ will not be like the Pharisees who “loved the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law” and who were often more guilty of sins of omission than sins of commission. A disciple of Christ engaging in culture will not be consumed with social status like the Sadducees. A disciple of Christ will see what the Zealots did not: politics do not make culture – politics follow culture. A disciple of Christ will not be like the Essences, withdrawn from culture and always looking to feel God’s presence. In today’s language this means going from retreat to retreat for a “spiritual high” and finding another retreat once the high wears off.
If Christians are going to bring the Gospel to life in culture they must get out there in it. To use an ecclesiological view of culture, the church cannot be a bombshelter. In other words, the church tends to think like this: the world is dark, the world is bad, there is no hope, huddle up and die. Nor can the church be a mirror for culture, meaning it reflects culture back to culture, nor can it be a parasite for culture, meaning the church lives in culture, enjoys benefits of culture, but does nothing to serve the city. No, the church must be a city within a city. “Too many pastors move on to quickly,” Driscoll said. “You have to plant your flag, you have to drop your anchor, you have to be there. We love events, but not lifestyles.”
A decade ago homosexuality was considered a disorder. Now, the American Psychiatric Association does not consider homosexuality a disorder. What happened? Christians are living downstream. Driscoll compared culture to a river and said believers spend too much time “fishing junk out of the river instead of moving upstream.” Driscoll challenged those in attendance to seriously consider moving to the city, because it is not the number of people that affect culture, but the “number of culture makers upstream that affects culture.” A historical lens of culture is proof that the early work of the Gospel began in the city. It is not a sin to live away from the city – but culture flows from the city.
The missiological lens of culture reminds believers that Jesus was a missionary. He went into culture. Cultural immersion “heats up” the sense of urgency and necessity to be sanctified and to be sanctified by the truth of the Word of God. As Christians seek to be sanctified and engage in culture they should consider what in culture needs to be rejected, what should be received as opportunity to share the Gospel, and what can be redeemed.
Extravagant Devotion
Two people spoke about C.J. Mahaney from the stage before he came to speak during the opening plenary session, and both said the same thing; After spending any time with C.J., you start to wonder if you are really a Christian. Not because Mahaney tosses around big theological terms or brags about his spirituality, but because he has such a deep, pure love for Jesus Christ that it is unmistakable and greatly attractive.
After finishing a C.J. Mahaney book one almost feels like a good friend has just shared this wisdom. By the end of the book the reader has shared a glimpse into the heart and soul of Mahaney. So it was as Mahaney shared from Mark 14. He began by using a Sports Illustrated article which noted that this world is marked by “profound bologna.” Superlative words get tossed around so carelessly that they are like “bees that sting once and then die.” C.J. Mahaney, president of Sovereign Grace Ministries, used the article as an example of how difficult it would be for him to accurately communicate to his audience, considering the age of profundity and a year when the Super Bowl is considered historic, the historic importance of Mark 14:9. In this passage Jesus says that Mary’s story will be told throughout history. Why the Savior chose this woman, and her only, to make this promise was the crux of Mahaney’s message. “This story must be told because of her anticipation of his death and her appropriate response to this death,” he said. “She shows the transforming effect of the Gospel: extravagant devotion to the Savior.”
Mahaney offered two points of application from Mary’s story. First, extravagant devotion is evidence of genuine conversion. Mary poured the expensive perfume over Jesus’ head out of extreme love and devotion. This kind of love is not possible if one has not truly met the Savior and been forgiven of sins, and Mahaney shared from his own testimony of grace to prove this point. Before he was saved Mahaney did drugs daily. He rebelled against his Roman Catholic faith, had no interest in the Gospel and “sought to train others” in the sins he committed. “I loved sin,” he said. But one day a friend, a believer of only a few weeks, came and shared the Gospel with Mahaney and his “affections were altered.” He became a Christian. Those with affection for Christ in their hearts should remember it was placed there by God and is evidence of genuine conversion.
Extravagant devotion should not only be present in the life of the converted, but should be the increasing experience of the converted. Think about the context of Mary’s extravagant act. It was during a party. A festive party with guests including the disciples and a man raised from the dead and a man healed of leprosy. Yet, when Mary poured the oil over Jesus’ head, no one asked if they could help. “The whole place should have broken out in adoration for the Savior,” Mahaney said. Instead, they mocked her. Mahaney pleads for believers to review and reflect on the Gospel; to be restored.
Mahaney reminded those in attendance of this statement from Martin Luther: “I feel as if Jesus died only yesterday.” “We all want to feel deeply, but we don’t want to think deeply,” Mahaney said. They want an “effortless experience.” But that does not define the life with Christ. A quote from Charles Spurgeon invites believers to “dwell where the cries of Calvary can be heard.” How often do you dwell where the cries of Calvary can be heard?” Mahaney asked. “When extravagant devotion has diminished, the Gospel has been neglected,” he said. “Go at once to Calvary.”
