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

Interesting analysis, Danica—and yep, it’s another brick in a very solid wall of noted misogyny among theological circles.

From my vantage on this thread, it’s very hard not to feel “unmarginalized”, if you will, unless you at some point drank the Emergent kool-aid. The overall exchanges have been interesting to read to me, because with the clear exception of Julie—who was outright wronged and is due the apologies she seeks—it reads like a lot of typical in-house backbiting, now that things have come to light. Which is just like every other theological trend out there where people are trying to justify their turf of where they were “right”, where they were “misled”, and where they have been “wronged”. Other takes on the theology have largely gone unaddressed, or have been one-offs—because frankly, no one is interested in having those discussions, misogyny or no.

Danica

This is such an important point. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

So I have been feeling slightly unheard on this thread (this isn’t about poor Danica, and I’m not posting it to get sympathy, but to share my findings), so I decided to use David’s newly implemented ‘like / dislike’ buttons to crunch a few numbers, and compare the responses to the men on the thread vs the women. I felt like I was getting a disproportionately low number of ‘likes’, and a disproportionately high number of ‘dislikes’, as were other women, in the thread.

I did not tally the gender neutral responses. I only started counting after Julie came in the first time (because I wanted to focus on the debate surrounding the Tony / Julie situation). I stopped counting after Brother’s comment on Sept 25 at 9:30am, since that was where the thread ended when I started my number crunching (the numbers continue to rise, but I feel like I have a fairly representative sample to go off of).

Of the total comments, as defined by the above parameters, 243 were made by women. 188 were made by men. Proportionately, women made up 56% of the comments, and men 44%. So women talked more often than the men did.

The women got a total of 1864 likes. The men got a total of 4142 likes. Proportionately, women got 31% of the likes, and 69%. So, men got ‘liked’ more often than men did. A LOT more often, especially considering that there were more women who commented.

The women got a total of 25 dislikes. The men got a total of 39 dislikes. Proportionately, women got 39% of the dislikes, and men got 56% of the dislikes. So men were still more likely to get noticed, but women were more likely to get negative attention than they were to get positive attention.

I have wondered often if it’s all in my head, this perception that I must speak ‘nice’, or I wont’ be accepted. And that my voice isn’t as important as a man’s anyhow when I do speak. But the numbers seem to back up my feelings.

Misogyny is alive and well, folks, and I think much of it is internalized even by those of us who want to fight against it. I know if I’m honest with myself, I liked men’s comments more than women’s. The reason I bring this up here, since it may seem off topic to some, is because Julie’s fight against the EV machine feels like a fight of one woman against misogyny. It feels like the struggle of a woman to have her voice heard amid the loud, dominant male ones. This is a struggle I identify with deeply, as I have felt for a long time that on many blogs (especially the ‘theological’, intellectual type ones), I do not have as equal a place at the table as the Emergent leaders would tell me. And this is the thread where I decided I was tired of being quiet and cowed by the big, dominant personalities, especially Tony Jones, who shot me and dozens of my sisters down when he asked the question, ‘where are the women?’, but then refused to hear when we told him that we were simply weary of not being heard.

Bill,
I have serious doubts as to whether this is a battle that’s worth fighting for me. I look at this event, and others that have gained attention just in the past few years, and what I see is behaviors that are even less morally upright than that of the folks who hung out in the bars I used to frequent. And there was a whole lot less back-stabbing and in-fighting going on in the bars compared to churches.

I’m not talking about renouncing my faith, though, just the connectivity and community aspects of church. Barely an hour goes by on my Twitter or FB feeds where someone is proclaiming that church community is of the utmost importance. Well, it seems to me that this “community” is one that makes a concealed-carry permit a near necessity. It doesn’t give off the vibe of a safe neighborhood that I’d care to live in anymore.

I am someone who was fairly involved with the EC movement for several years, but I exited around 2010 – partly because I no longer resonated with the (what seemed to me) increasingly inbred nature of the dialogue, and because (probably more importantly for me) my trajectory was taking me beyond specifically post-Evangelical, emergent conversations, and into an exploration of higher consciousness in general. And in that trajectory, many of the questions being asked and debates being had (over and over again) just weren’t all that relevant to me anymore. Claire Grave’s Spiral Dynamics might give you some idea as to the reasons why.

Having stumbled across this thread, after having been absent for several years, I can’t say I am too surprised with some of general movement dysfunction. However, I am certainly appalled by the degree to which the inbred/machine-like nature of the EC movement effectively ran over people like Julie in its march forward. Having explored this thread for a couple of days now, I feel great compassion for Julie, and immense respect for her resilience in pressing forward and protecting her children.

In order to add my own two-cents to this conversation, I would like to relay a couple of incidents I remember from around the time in question. I was one of a group of people who one day, seemingly out of the blue (to me, anyway), received an email from Julie (because, I suspect, I was on TJ’s email/media connections list). In the email, if I remember correctly, Julie asked TJ’s extended community to help address what was going on in their marriage. I believe this was the same time as the RV tour.

I remember being disturbed by that email, and it added to my sense at the time that the blogging-focused/issue-centric/religio-critical nature of the EC movement allowed people (perhaps sometimes enabled them) to ignore their home-lives, family relationships, etc. After all, it’s very easy to “do community” through a blog network (of which my online magazine was a part), when doing so keeps the light away from the inner-workings of our lives and most intimate relationships (where the rubber truly hits the road, IMO). That was part of the reason I bowed out back then, because I sensed my own priorities needed adjustment.

Soon after receiving that email from Julie, I remember getting an email from Mark Scandrette. In the email, Mark basically said (going by memory here) that there was a group being formed that would serve to collectively counsel T and J, and that our prayers were asked for in that endeavor. I remember being relieved that the issue was being addressed, though, of course, now, after hearing Julie’s harrowing account, I see that the quality of that “counsel” left much to be desired.

I’d like to add a couple of additional points. One, while memory is notoriously inaccurate in some ways (see studies on witness testimony), it seems to me that Julie has more than enough support for what she’s shared here to say that there were some major missteps. Furthermore, in this case, the seemingly premeditated nature of some of the alleged actions is chilling, as is the legal onslaught Julie had to deal with afterwards.

Let me also say that, in reflecting on those days, I often noticed a startling disconnect between the quality of the intellectual discourse and the actual living of integrated lives. Many of us were so external-issue-engaged that we often missed what was going on elsewhere in our lives, closer to home (literally and figuratively). I remember meeting TJ in person (during the RV tour), and getting the sense that he was really “in his head” a lot. Now, again, in all honesty, I think the same could have been said of me during those years. And it was partly that growing realization about myself that led me elsewhere. I sensed then that my personhood was not balanced, and I think that’s probably true for many of the players in this emergent sphere – at least that was the case then; again, I’ve been absent for several years, so I’m I can’t speak to recent developments.

I would also like to say something about how it’s important not to equate a person solely with their actions – especially one set of actions. And I’m thinking specifically of people like Brian McLaren and Mark Scandrette. I have some acquaintance with both of these men, and my sense is that, by and large, they are kind, open-hearted, humble people. That said, in the handling of the situation with Julie, mistakes appear to clearly have been made. I would like to see Julie get the apologies she’s asked for (that’s not asking for much). But I’d also caution us not to write people off entirely, even when they make mistakes – because we all make them.

Lastly, as someone involved in those circles “back in the day”, even if indirectly, I want to express my wholehearted sorrow for Julie. I am so sorry that happened to you, Julie. While marriage is messy and complicated, some things are just beyond the pale. And I feel for your children as well, having had to experience their family being ripped apart in such a manner. Also, if I may add, in the religious focus on keeping marriages together (at all costs), there is often a blanket overlooking of the matter as to how to end a marriage well; with mutual respect and support for all parties being held as the aim. If we are to be truly “spirit-filled” and “higher-consciousness oriented”, then surely the nature of the endings should be addressed as much as the beginnings. To me this all speaks to incarnation. That was a word tossed about often in the EC blogoshere, but evidently all too often in short supply in actual practice.