The Church Discipline Controversy

We have had quite a few hits here over the last few days thanks to controversy at Mars Hill concerning Church discipline.  Recently, a member of Mars Hill was placed under Church Discipline and released the documents outlining his path back into the good graces of the church, as well as a statement posted on Mars Hill’s inner website called, “The City” in which members were taught how to respond to this young man if they ever saw him in public.

You can read up on the controversy here.

As a practicing Roman Catholic this whole thing strikes me as being very strange and, yes, abusive.  As a Catholic what shocked me most was that this young man, Andrew, was being disciplined for what we call “Private sin.”  In the Catholic Church, we do excommunicate, but it is most often for “Public sin.”  There is more to excommunication in the Catholic Church than that, but that is an important distinction that Mars Hill doesn’t seem to have.

But this whole thing is frustrating to me for a different reason.  Pastor Mark repeatedly makes the Catholic Church (as well as the Eastern Orthodox Church) out to be nothing more than a bunch of legalistic rule following and powerful people lording it over people without power.  Remember that video that went viral recently titled, Why I hate religion and love Jesus?  Well, the young man in the video is a Mars Hill member and pretty much sums up most of what I have heard Driscoll say about “religious people.”

If these documents are authentic they are far more controlling and legalistic than anything I have experienced as a Catholic.  I am not saying the Catholic Church’s leadership is beyond criticism.  Spiritual abuse and other types of abuse happen in the Catholic Church too.  We certainly have some unfortunate moments in our history that include prescribing a severe set of penalties for people who didn’t see things our way.  It just drives me nuts that he saw the speck in our eye and couldn’t see the beam in his own.

It has been claimed repeatedly here at Driscollwatch that we love and respect members of Mars Hill Church and their pastor, Mark Driscoll.  As far as we could see, this was just a typical evangelical Church.  Obviously, we didn’t know the whole story.  So, if it needs to be stated, while we respect people who seek to know Jesus Christ, we do not support this system of “discipline” described in these blog posts and we condemn any spiritual abuse inflicted by any religious tradition, including our own.  Extra prayers will be offered for anyone who has been wounded by Mars Hill because of this system.

And we pray for Mark and the elders of Mars Hill to rethink their disciplinary procedures.

Some required reading: This post from The Internet Monk about how having a seal of confession helps Roman Catholics avoid this problem.  Also, this response  to the Religion vs. Jesus video from Fr. Dwight Longenecker at First Things.  The Key line…

The young man in the video was clearly attracted to a Jesus Christ who was a young, table-turning radical. His Jesus was impatient with the religious establishment and on the side of the sinners and revolutionaries. His Jesus was the quintessential outsider—the rebel with a cause—a punk who all those rich hypocrites excluded and persecuted. In other words, he was just like the young man in the video.

We all fall into the trap of making Christ in our own image, so it is understandable, and if understandable, forgivable. This, however, is the main justification not only for religion, but also for a dogmatic religion. A dogmatic religion corrects our tendency to make Jesus in our own image.

Free Book Offer for Mars Hill members!!!

Surprise!  A brand new post on Driscollwatch!

Yes, we’re still on Hiatus, and at this point we have no plans to not be on hiatus.

So why are we posting?  Well, Pastor Mark and his wife Grace have recently put out a new book called Real Marriage.  The book has already sparked a bit of controversy within Christianity in that it apparently endorses anal sex within marriage.  This would not be a new thing for pastor Mark.  He has already endorsed the practice, with admitted reservations, on the Mars Hill Blog.

The Catholic Church condemns anal sex – even within marriage – because it is not marital in nature.  A lot of non Catholic Christians – ok, even a lot of Catholics – do not take Catholic teaching on sexuality very seriously.  From the outside it looks like a bunch of obscure and arbitrary, and oppressive rules that keep husbands and wives from enjoying each other completely.  While there are a lot of rules, they are certainly not obscure or arbitrary.  The rules that Catholics have for sex (i.e. Do not fornicate! Do not commit adultery! Do not use contraception! do not have anal sex!) are all about our freedom!  Our freedom to love as God loves!

Pope John Paul II dedicated the first five years of his pontificate to teaching the faithful about real marriage.  His series of Wednesday audiences (now known as the Theology of the Body) were designed to help married couples live the fullness of marriage.  Young Catholics around the world are embracing the late Holy Father’s wisdom as they apply it to their vocations as husbands and wives and, yes, even celibates.  The Theology of the Body is unlike any other theological work on human sexuality.

The Theology of the Body is only now being popularized.  One of the leading voices in its popularization is a man named Christopher West.  He himself has a controversial approach and, at his own admission, is far from perfect.  But he has been quite successful at popularizing the Pope’s teaching and his book, Theology of the Body for Beginners is the best thing we have seen for men and women who aren’t well versed in theology.

So, if you are from Mars Hill OR you are a pastor from an evangelical Church, we want to buy Theology of the Body for Beginners for you.  I will buy a copy of this book for the first 5 Mars Hill Church members or evangelical pastors who email me at driscollwatch@gmail.com.  The things that you like about the Driscoll’s Real Marriage will likely still be present (complementarian views of sexuality, etc.), but will be elaborated upon at a deeper level.  Yes, it is a shift in world view, but it might set you free to love your husband or your wife as God loves.

True love is beautiful.  Marriage is beautiful.  The Catholic Church’s teaching about marriage is beautiful.  We want to share it with you.  Just send us an email and so we can tell you the truth of what marriage really is.

Update: Not sure how people are misunderstanding this post, but just to clarify, I am NOT giving out copies of Mark Driscoll’s book.  I am giving away 5 copies of Chistopher West’s book called Theology of the Body for Beginners.

Update II: Only one book was claimed despite some relatively heavy traffic, so I’ll extend the offer to any evangelical protestant who wants a copy.

On Hiatus

Well, as you’ve probably noticed, Driscollwatch has been on hiatus and will continue to be on hiatus. The reason is actually good. Several months ago we contacted Mark Driscoll and actually had the opportunity to meet up with him for coffee and a little bit of theological discussion. It was a wonderful meeting and hopefully will not be the last.

Pastor Mark seemed to be quite sensitive to our concerns and since our meeting he hasn’t said anything about Catholicism we’ve taken issue with. We are continuing to monitor Mars Hill, however any issues we have will be dealt with Mark Driscoll and the Mars Hill staff personally before they are written about here.  I will, however, be continuing to monitor the comments if you’d like to discuss anything written up until this point.

We are thankful to Mark Driscoll and the folks at Mars Hill and look forward to future meetings.

Could he be talking about…

Nah.  Couldn’t be.  Could it?

From his Sermon, Jesus Heals on the Sabbath, given on January 30, 2011.

And [religious people] show up in the weirdest places. Jesus is walking from Galilee to Jerusalem over the course of many months, he’s out in the middle of nowhere in a field and it says the Pharisees were there. Like they teleported in. These guys are stalkers, they’re just following him around. Religious people love to keep an eye on everyone else. And now in the age of the Internet and Facebook and Twitter and blogs, they’re worse than ever. Keeping an eye on everyone and everything, always looking for a fight. It’s a religious attitude.

I don’t know exactly who Mark Driscoll is talking about here, but I have been very clear that I started this blog for one reason and one reason only and I think it is at least a good time to take the opportunity to reemphasize it.  I did not begin Driscollwatch for any of the reasons that Mark mentions here. I’m not here to tear down anybody’s faith, in fact, I have repeatedly praised Mars Hill here on this blog. So Pastor Mark probably wasn’t talking about us, although I’d love to know that he has read what I have to say (there are, after all, plenty of other evangelical protestants who spill a lot of cyber ink on Mark and his style of preaching).

Mark Driscoll says many things that I don’t agree with as a Catholic.  I disagree with his theology of predestination, his stance on birth control, his theology of Grace in the life of a Christian and many other things.  But I didn’t start this blog to try and fight him on any of his theological positions.  Mark Driscoll and the folks at Mars Hill have every right to worship God and believe in him according to their conscience, and as a Catholic I defend their right to do so.

But I did start this blog for a reason, and that reason is to defend my faith against what I believe to be unfair explanations of my faith, whether they are made out of ignorance or whether they are deliberate. I hope to educate him and people that he has influence over as to why I and other faithful Catholics believe what we believe and do what we do.

The thing about some religious people is that they like to pretend like they know everything, not just about their own beliefs, but about everyone else’s beliefs as well.  All I want is for  Pastor Mark to explain my beliefs accurately, as I’m sure he would all expect of me.

So Mark, its pretty simple.  If you ever bring up my beliefs, just explain them accurately!  If you ever need help or clarification for anything again, just send me an email ( Driscollwatch@gmail.com ) and I’d be happy to explain things to you.  And if you don’t, I’m going to keep writing here to explain my beliefs for you.

Mark Driscoll and Thomas Aquinas

Today, January 28, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps one of the most gifted but certainly one of the most influential theologians that has ever lived.  His most famous work, The Summa Theologica, is one of the most widely studied works of theology in history by Catholics and protestants alike.  Because his theology was so influential, the Catholic Church has given him the special title of Doctor of the Church.

The title Doctor of the Church, is not one that is handed out very often and is reserved only for those that taught the highest doctrines.  In the Western Church there are only 30 men and women that have received this title.  Others include St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Athanasius, St. Bernard, St. Theresa of Avila and St. Therese de Lisieux (a personal favorite of many modern Catholics, including myself).

Personally, I was a little surprised when I was perusing Mars Hill’s website and other sites connected with the Church a few months ago and came across what is a great synopsis of St. Thomas’ life, written by Pastor Mark Driscoll.  I didn’t expect to find much praise for Aquinas on the website because he held so many theological positions that are distinctly Catholic, including the teaching that God gives Grace through the sacraments and the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which is the belief that the bread and wine used at Mass actually undergo a change in substance into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.  Yet, as you saw, there was a wonderful write up by Mars Hill’s pastor on one of his websites.

But as I’ve read more and more of Pastor Mark’s writings I have encountered a spirit of St. Thomas throughout.  First of all, Pastor Mark does not shy away from objections to his theology especially in areas that pertain to culture and morality.  Furthermore, I have seen St. Thomas’ theology and language spring up throughout his sermons.  Take for example his sermon from his series on the prophet Habakkuk simply called Faith.

In this sermon Pastor Mark gives a definition of faith which, although he attributes to the reformers, syncs up rather closely with some of St. Thomas’ thoughts on the subject.

So today, Catholics around the world – and perhaps even a few reformed Christians as well – remember St. Thomas Aquinas and celebrate the amazing mind which God gave him to help us all understand the sacred mysteries of our faith in the Triune God.  I ask St. Thomas – who is alive in Jesus Christ today – to pray that all who profess faith in Jesus Christ will thirst for truth and discuss all aspects of faith with humble Charity.

Let us Pray:

God our Father, you made Thomas Aquinas known for his holiness and learning.  Help us to grow in wisdom by his teaching and in holiness by imitating his faith.  Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, on God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Further Reading:

• Called to Communion has an excellent post up on St. Thomas and the Mystery of God.
• Another great article from Ignatius Press.
• Although I have not read it, I am told that GK Chesterton’s book on Thomas Aquinas is excellent.  I’m inclined to believe it, because GK Chesterton is awesome.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. – John 17:20-21

“Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time it entails the desire and resolution to change one’s life, with hope in God’s mercy and trust in the help of his grace.” – Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1431.

After a brief hiatus to work on an upcoming book (and hopefully spend some extra time hanging out with his family) Mark Driscoll was back in action January 2nd preaching a Sermon called “Jesus and Repentence.” Whether he knew it or not, some of the sermon’s contents were quite fitting for the month of January which Marks the upcoming week of prayer for Christian Unity.

Thirty Eight and a half minutes into the sermon Mark Driscoll declared:

Angelus Domini!

Sorry for the silence as of late.  School is busy and I’m preparing to return to Seattle for Thanksgiving and the installation of Seattle’s new pastor, J. Peter Sartain.  Rather than give you a post, I will give you something Beautiful that I appreciate and enjoy very much.