Tony Jones on Mark Driscoll: What came first, the thug or the theology?

Yes, what Kate said…

When I jumped (and I do mean jumped, a ready or not here I come, head-first dive) from the Sunday-mainstream-church-going-because-it’s-what-you-do nominal/cultural Christianity that I was raised with into “serious” Christianity (to use the vernacular: born again, spirit filled, Bible believing, charismatic, etc.) and became what was at the time called a “Jesus freak” (it was 1972) I expected something from the church which was very different than what I found. Yes, I was idealistic and naive (goes with the territory when you’re 15). But I expected to find in those who took their faith seriously (especially those in leadership) the type of character my Dad lived out, every day. I expected to find people who took seriously the things that Jesus said. Not the literalist, angels on the head of a pin nit-picking and I’m-right-you’re-wrong-you’re-damned “seriously” that I ran smack dab into. No, I mean the down-to-earth basics. “Love your neighbor as yourself”? Check. “Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you”? Check. “Blessed are the peacemakers”? Check. “You cannot serve God and mammon”? Check. “Go, sell what you have, give to the poor and follow me”? Check.

Of course, what I found was very different. None of those basics seemed to even register.

If they ever floated into view, unless chapter and verse were also quoted in a very circumscribed context, they were dismissed as “liberal”, “socialist”, “unrealistic”, “under the law”, “wimpy do-good social gospel” – you get the drift.

Oh, sure, I expected theology to be debated – I grew up with that, too. Dad was an elder in the Presbyterian church and his closest friend was our minister. Single at the time, our minister’s Sunday afternoons were spent visiting parishioners and he was a regular at our table. After-dinner discussion and thoughtful debate ranged from politics to theology to philosophy to Cardinals baseball.

When I was 15, I “gave my life to Christ” – not in a church, but alone, in my room, after months of reading and thinking and looking for purpose and meaning and direction and something bigger than the depressing and lonely life I seemed to be stuck with – and I expected to find those things. Shortly after that, I found what seemed to an outlet for and door into the “something bigger” – an energetic, exciting, dynamic Charismatic youth group at what was quickly becoming one of the first mega-churches in the US. Purpose, meaning, drive – and a bunch of other young idealists. We were going to change the world, bringing people to Christ and living out the gospel.

Yeah, right. “True believers” like me were sucked into the vortex. Down the rabbit hole I went. After all, the pastors and elders and teachers were sent to us by God, weren’t they? There were lots of verses to support that supposition. There were so many others who’d been at this whole born-again-spirit-filled-Christian thing a lot longer than me, so they must understand something I just couldn’t see. I read, and studied, and underlined, and memorized, and filled reams of notebooks – and absorbed the doctrine, swallowed the party line. Even though so much of it seemed, down inside, not quite right. But there was always a spin, an explanation, an excuse, another take on another verse, a clever rationalization despite a glaring contradiction. And, of course, shame and emotional manipulation. The problem isn’t the answer (or lack of a reasonable one) – the problem is the question. Not what the question is, but that there is a question at all. Because these are God’s men. And bears eat children who question God’s men (and question = derision = mocking God = you deserve to die, or whatever bad things might happen – and outside of your “covering” all bets are off, don’tcha know.) Keep quiet in church, you rebellious woman who has the temerity to think she has a usable non-deceived brain. You are only fooling yourself. Listen, obey, raise children, serve your husband – and be thin, beautiful, and traditionally feminine while you’re at it – but don’t dare to step outside the very small box which has been constructed for your safety, or else — because outside your “covering”, all bets are off…

What a load of horse shit.

The patriarchal, macho, controlling, manipulative, shaming, money-grubbing, name-it-and-claim-it, fear-mongering, other-despising, fiefdom-making, using and abusing, excuse for narcissistic and plain old selfish and power-addled appalling behavior that is commonly called “church” and “church leadership” has nothing whatsoever to do with anything the person or character or compilation or concept called “Jesus” ever reportedly or theoretically said, did, or conveyed. And if it does, shame on that Jesus – the good Jesus deserves better.

It took me years – decades – to leave that crap behind. And decades after leaving, I am only recently able to say this stuff out loud – there was too much at risk, with family and community. My departure from the church and departure, some time later, from the faith were not cause-and-effect (although there was some overlap). Today I’d say I’m agnostic – generally of the atheist opinion but sometimes wishful deist – socially Christian with a strong affinity for Buddhist philosophy. And that is so much healthier than anything any so-called “church” of that ilk has to offer.

you’re welcome cronut!

@brad “Not all psychopaths go around killing people…. some get jobs as CEOs or megachurch pastors.”

One reason among many I gave up on religion a long time ago. Thanks DH for hosting a safe place to talk.

Look for the points of irony? Tell me what is NOT ironic about the Christian church as it exists today. It’s ALL ironic! There are a few people around who seem to be living out the love-your-neighbor, whatever-you-do-to-the-least-of-these kind of principles. I know a couple of them. Neither is associated with any church . . . why would they be? To me the most ironic of all are the ones who think God wanted a human blood sacrifice, and the only possible way to get on God’s good side is to acknowledge that. Seriously, what? So you make that acknowledgement, then you sign up to be a member of an institution that owns property and has bank accounts. You get together and try to make sense of the Christian bible, as if it were a guidebook for living instead of a motley collection of old myths, political writing, poetry, and history. It’s all ironic.

This evening, I spent some time skimming through the first 40-50 comments, and thinking about the original topic of the post. The one about theology/pathology before … well, I wouldn’t say the thread went “off-topic,” but more like went “on-exploration-and-application.” Anyway, it occurred to me that there are at least three possibilities for the theology/pathology chicken/egg question.

The first is more along the lines of Lord Acton’s maxim about power: “All power tends to corrupt; absolutely power corrupts absolutely.” You may start out with well reasoned and good-intentioned theology, but once in a position of power, the system goes to closure and the creative power goes to inertia, which brings corruption and corrosion to the system. Theological ascendency when in a position of authority leads to pathology.

The second is more along the lines of author Frank Herbert, who explored in his Byzantine Dune saga just about every major system of power dynamics from religious/mystical to technological to political to tribal to financial to ecological to physical. According to interviews with Herbert, “Power is a magnet that draws the corruptible.” Power draws pathological theologians and practitioners.

The third is one of my own device that I’m still experimenting with on how to present. It is a riff on the problems I’ve seen in people in leadership roles that I have no other way to interpret but as them demonstrating sociopathological behaviors – no apparent conscience touched by issues of right/wrong, no apparent compassion and empathy for others who are suffering or how their own abusive actions induce suffering. At this point, my quotable is: “Corrupt people desire power and find a path for their pathology, sometimes in a theology.”

So, FWIW, I’m wondering if really this is a triangulation of three items instead of a duel between two: position/role of authority, system of theology, and personal pathology. Seems it could start with any of the three elements, depending on the person and his/her situation, and go in any direction from there to pick up other elements in different permutations. Maybe there’s a chicken, an egg, and a road to cross?

Meanwhile, I’m still musing my way through whether there are “inherently abusive fault lines” in every theology that we need to be aware of and beware of overemphasizing them. For instance, I noted these on a Twitter conversation about this thread:

Look for the points of irony, and that may be our indicators of fault lines in our theology …