Here's the post, by Rachel Held Evans.
The post itself is short and to the point, unless like me you read the articles linked within it, and the comments that overflow beneath it. I've been in the process of reading these for several days, enjoying the feeling of outrage at some commenters and at Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill church in Seattle -- whose youtube videos are easy to find, and who espouses views of manhood and womanhood that directly contradict my theology, experience, and most fervent hopes for the world -- and in that sense actually enjoying the toe-in-the-water experience of being reacquainted with some of evangelicalism's foibles.
There are so many of the foibles. But as an exangelical, I feel only we-the-formerly-initiated can truly understand and laugh at them. Only we can feel the bitterness of the prescriptions and proscriptions of contemporary American fundamentalism...and be sucked in by them again and again.
It's partly that evangelicalism has so much outrage within it, I think, that makes me insist on reading comments urging "men should be encouraged to act like men" and accusing Rachel Held Evans herself of bullying and slander. (The slanderer a woman, no less! Reading between the lines I feel this is implicit in every comment calling her a "gossip" and excoriating her character for pointing out the public faults in Mark Driscoll's. These sorts of objections all began when Paul said in the epistles that he doesn't permit a woman to speak in church. You know the ladies, always gossiping and saying nonsense before the lord.)
I enjoy the superiority of knowing these particular commenters are dumb, and that I know the truth. I enjoy the irritation at their ability to continually rehearse their ridiculous views. I like to be mad at idiots.
But of course, there's the regular human part of me -- the part that's more ex-evangelical than clinging conservative -- that feels pained by all of this. Without that part, I'd be a sociopath. Without that part, I'd never have been an evangelical at all.
Because here's the thing about evangelicalism, at least as I experienced it: it's partly about the pain, superiority and outrage. It's about the external pain, sometimes invented but no less painful for it, of being confronted and judged by the whole world while knowing you're saved. It's about the internal pain of knowing simultaneously that you have the only truth that matters and the injunction to disseminate it, and also that you don't entirely believe it yourself. It's about the pain of flogging yourself and others into service for Christ. It's about conflict, and debate.
I love this kind of stuff.
Reading and mentally repudiating (or "refudiating," more like) the positions of those who for no listed reason (other than Bible verses once again taken out of context and applied liberally only when we feel like it) decided that Rachel Held Evans calling for the end of an unapologetic bashing of "effeminate" worship leaders was actually her speaking out of turn and "slandering" the guy who keeps showing us he hates feminism...that is the work of an evangelical -- or an exangelical. It is the work of evangelicals to quote those Bible verses, applying them liberally only when they support existing doctrine. And it is the work of evangelicals to dispute them.
We are debaters. We are thinkers, but we are most importantly Think-My-Wayers. We are talkers, because if you don't say the prayer just right, Jesus may not understand you and you'll end up in Hell.
It is the work of evangelicals to pretend to be nice, but to hide under politeness and "I'll pray for you"'s a warrior spirit that can cut down the non-believer, the dissenter, the back-slider. Instantly. As though the infected might contaminate you as well.
(We will, too. The infected will infect with doubts, alternatives and indifference.)
For that reason, I can kind of see the points of the commenters saying we should let Mark Driscoll do his thing without questioning him, because the point is not questioning, the point is answering, and Mark Driscoll is answering.
And for that reason, I doubt Mark Driscoll has much to fear from a bunch of emails asking his elders to ask him to stop being such a bully. Driscoll believes in warriors. He calls for Christians (men) to take on that character, and beat up the rest of the world with it. That's what evangelicals are doing, everywhere, laying waste to the flesh and the world like Sherman's army.
Rachel Held Evans' blog, and the comments there, just proved it.
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2 comments:
I heart this blog post. I think there's maybe a belief that through all of his ignorance, Mark Driscoll is bringing people back into the church, and young folks are praying the sinner's prayer at Mars Hill on Sunday, so he must be doing more good than harm, so we'd better not criticize. Such thinking does not take into account all the people who have been alienated by the words and work of Mark Driscoll, who have been wounded ONCE AGAIN by the church's refusal to call him out. If the man can be credited with the good (and/or apparent good) that comes out of his ministry, then we can blame him for the bad too. If Christians don't start calling other Christians on their bullshit, the church is really doomed.
I, too, heart this post. And I want a bumper sticker that says "I like to be mad at idiots." I know several people who'd buy them.
Once again, I most also point out my favorite paragraph because it is so on the money in terms of evangelical thinking:
We are debaters. We are thinkers, but we are most importantly Think-My-Wayers. We are talkers, because if you don't say the prayer just right, Jesus may not understand you and you'll end up in Hell.
Alicia, I need to be around you more.
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