Have No Other Gods Before Me: The Rise And Fall Of Evangelical "Rambo Jesus", Misogynist Bully Mark Driscoll

I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ 

because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up."

The Cult of 'Rambo Jesus" Just Took A Hit

In the latest transformation of theology and within Right Wing Christian circles, the cult of "Rambo Jesus" has emerged as the theology du jour: Fmr. Gen. Jerry Boykin recently characterized the Second Coming as Jesus carrying an AR-15.





Blasphemous to many, the cult has nonetheless become a small epidemic, a virus spread by "emerging church" ministers who want to take on an aggressive, take-no-prisoners stance against progressive Christians, atheists and other religions. It has a "become Christian or suffer the consequences" strategy that relies on strict obedience.

Master of Misogyny


Mark Driscoll and his Mars Hill Church (Seattle) came on the scene in 1996. At first the start of "church planting" endeavor, it seemed to grow exponentially, from 11 churches in 1998 to 410 by 2011. Along with Acts 29 (the church planting network) and it's growth, however, other things began to grow: organization, workload ... and Driscoll's ego. Driscoll divested himself of some responsibility, but not the attendant fame and notoriety. He became known as the "cussing pastor", the "Holy Hipster" and the "Rush Limbaugh of Evangelism" as well as an ardent proponent of "Rambo Jesus":

The problem with our churches today is that the lead pastor is some sissy boy who wears cardigan sweaters, has The Carpenters dialed in on his iPod, gets his hair cut at a salon instead of a barber shop, hasn’t been to an Ultimate Fighting match, works out on an elliptical machine instead of going to isolated regions of Russia like in Rocky IV in order to harvest lumber with his teeth, and generally swishes around like Jack from Three’s Company whenever Mr. Roper was around.”

He also became known for out-and-out misogyny: when Driscoll and his wife, Grace, published a book entitled Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship & Life Together, it raised eyebrows not only because it described sex in graphic terms (and OK'd formerly taboo subjects like anal sex), but because:

"Grace [Driscoll] is often cast as the damaged and sinful wife who withholds sex from her deserving husband, Mark the hero who is justified in leaving his wife but instead comes along to rescue her." (Rachel Held Evans)

Jezebel ("Worst Guy Ever")

Women will be saved by going back to that role that God has chosen for them. Ladies, if the hair on the back of your neck stands up it is because you are fighting your role in the scripture.

They're quarrelsome. They're a nag. And some women — you're a nag. You're disrespectful. You're quarrelsome. Being married to you is like a life sentence, and the guy's just scratching on his wall every day.

First, masturbation can be a form of homosexuality because it is a sexual act that does not involve a woman. If a man were to masturbate while engaged in other forms of sexual intimacy with his wife then he would not be doing so in a homosexual way. However, any man who does so without his wife in the room is bordering on homosexuality activity, particularly if he's watching himself in a mirror and being turned on by his own male body.

Driscoll's blog also had a turn at Ted Haggard's predicament:

"A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband is not responsible for her husband's sin, but she may not be helping him, either,"

Father, Son and Spirit. But some chicks and some chickified dudes with limp wrists and minors in 'women's studies' are not happy because two persons of the trinity have a dude-ish ring."

In early January of this year, it was easy for this writer to give Mark Driscoll the Righteous Arrogance Award simply because of this tweet:





Of course, along with the misogyny, the homophobia naturally follows: Driscoll's touting of MMA (mixed martial arts fighting) for "real" men got people to thinking about Driscoll's own sexuality*:
Religion Dispatches (Elizabeth Drescher)

So it is, of course, ironic that the churches and pastors who are touting MMA are doing so in order to inject some masculinity into American Christianity. What they seem to be missing—or maybe just what they refuse to admit—is that they’ve chosen the one sport on the American scene that is highly sexually charged. And the sexuality in MMA is not hetero.

Anatomy Of A Fall


Driscoll's fall from grace could be traced in these steps:

• Janet Mefferd, super Right-Wing Christian radio talk show host accuses Driscoll of plagiarism.
• Real Marriage's bestseller status is discovered to be engineered by ResultSource, Inc., a company paid over $210,000 by Mars Hill (not Driscoll). 
• Acts 29 Network removed Driscoll and Mars Hill from its membership
• 21 former Mars Hill Pastors charge Driscoll with abusive behavior and creating a "Culture of Fear"
• 80 members of Mars Hill allege lack of financial transparency.
• Lifeway Christian Stores drops all of Driscoll's books
• After Driscoll dismisses facebook criticisms because they are "anonymous", former Mars Hill members stage a protest:

A Long, Long Hiatus


Last Sunday, Driscoll stepped down from his role in Mars Hill for "six weeks" while a range of charges are being "investigated." He has also insinuated that, at the request of Acts 29 and others, he is "seeking help". Earlier this year, he stated:

In the last year or two, I have been deeply convicted by God that my angry-young-prophet days are over, to be replaced by a helpful, Bible-teaching spiritual father.

The range and intensity of the allegations, however, belie the possibility of a mere six-week hiatus: Driscoll's anger-management issues alone will take months (if not years) to resolve. He may have to cut back on his core belief in "Rambo Jesus," the theology that made him famous in the first place. In terms of therapy, Driscoll has a long, long way to go.

And his forgiveness may be a long time in coming.

Hollis Phelps, Religion Dispatches

All of which is to say, any criticism of Driscoll should also be directed at the system that allowed him to emerge in the first place. Driscoll may certainly be an extreme case among evangelical leaders and evangelical culture more generally, but we should not understand him as an exception.

The "system" Phelps refers to is one in which obedience and control are keys to a theology that strives to gain a foothold among an already strident American Fundamentalism.



an pobvious fail

*My husband, btw, who is a master at judging male anatomy proportions (even fully clothed) has opined that Mark Driscoll is definitely compensating for something. That may sound like a cheap shot, but given Driscoll's cheap shots at women and gays, it might be fitting.

It's Magdalene Laundry Time Again: Ireland Struggles To Identify The Bodies of 800 Discarded Children.

Writing about this on Sunday - there's definitely a dichotomy: an unholy subject on a supposedly holy day.*

Salon:

They have no headstones, no coffins. No memory boxes of toys and photographs. There are nearly eight hundred of them – and counting. They are the 796 babies and young children aged between two days and nine years whose grave, “filled to the brim with tiny bones and skulls,” was found last week in an unmarked site that once housed a septic tank near a County Galway home for unwed mothers.

The Real Shame of Ireland: The Treatment of Women

When Andrew Sullivan first broke the news about the "800", the most interesting response was from a reader:

There have been small changes in Ireland in the last 30 years, but … there is a place women must know, and it’s weird. It is far different than an American woman’s place.

Children of unwed mothers fare even worse:

However, in the year 2012, I visited relatives in rural western Ireland whose teenage daughter got pregnant. She wasn’t shipped off, she stayed home, had the baby. I came for tea. We talked of everything, but the baby. The baby sat in the room, and no one remarked about it. It was as if there was some creature making a bothersome noise, like an errant animal, and NO ONE TALKED ABOUT HOW THAT CREATURE GOT THERE.

The discarded "creatures" of scorned women. A memorial* to the innocents is already in the making. But what about their mothers?

Compromise

The treatment of women has been a focus of universal concern: from the rape-hanging in India to the kidnapping of 300 school girls in Nigeria, all misogyny seems to be imbued with religion, a patriarchy, and a masculine privilege encouraged by religion around the world. Compromising women has been a millennia-old tradition.

In Clare Booth Luce's "The Women," Mary Haines - a sophisticated woman facing the adultery of her husband - responds to her mother's plea for marital compromise: "Oh, that was alright in your day, mother, when women were chattels, but Steven and I took each other for life as equals, and I won't compromise that equality. It's wrong, shockingly wrong." But later in the play, the street-wise chorus girl, Miriam Aarons, tells Mary that "a woman's compromised the day's she's born."

Miriam's pov is still right today.

What America Has Yet To Learn

Stories from Ireland's Catholic Church and India's rape culture always elicit a "Thank God it couldn't happen here." But what many history-ignorant Americans fail to realize is that it DID happen here: the rape culture was prominent in the South among slave owners and there were actually Magdalene laundries here in the United States. By calling Sandra Fluke a "slut" for merely asking for birth control, Rush Limbaugh showed us that the misogyny of a rape culture still exists, and that women are "compromised" until proven equal.


Today's anti-abortionists have also gotten into the fray of "compromise" by insisting that rape victims give birth to children, fully knowing that those children will be treated with just as much scorn as their mothers, and may be sentenced to a life of a "creature" no one wants to talk about.


And "Duck Dynasty's" Phil Robertson gives little attention to women over 15 as potential wives. What he thinks about unmarried, pregnant girls and their progeny has yet to be determined.

Ann Coulter has posited that most illegitimate children grow up to be criminals.

Compromised women still lead to "discarded" children.



*This author felt compelled to write about it since as many readers know, I was born in an orphanage and possibly escaped the massive Duplessis Orphan scandal of Quebec.


* "It is understood a small financial donation has now been made by the Bons Secours Sisters to help the community build a memorial." The community might react with a large donation of "BFD."