the parish

Mark Driscoll's Penis (Tangentially); or, Wherefore art Thou, Moral Authority?

With apologies to the great bard...

The task for half of my freshmen this past two weeks is to explain the system of moral authority in their lives. The question is fairly simple: are you what you do, what you believe, or a combination of the two? By what you do I mean actions in the world, not a job. For the record, I'm pretty sure there's not a great answer to this question, but the point of the question isn't to find the solution; it's to track the decision making process, including moral justification, when confronted with a moral dilemma.

I started thinking along this track when reading through Driscoll's sex freak book (real title Real Marriage). In it, Driscoll uses the Bible to help his penis, and yours if you're a boy, find its way around the female form: hands, mouth, vagina, and rectum. And if you think I'm being needlessly crude, read Driscoll on oral sex based on Song of Songs. Driscoll's discussion of dangling fruit reminds me of Patton Oswalt's G-Rated Filth (and that is not for the faint of heart, folks. watch only if extremely graphic language gets you aroused...er...doesn't offend you). Driscoll uses the Bible as a moral authority by which he assesses the rightness and wrongness of particular sex acts, which is quite frankly hysterical, given that he thinks it's ok to bugger his wife but not to spank his aforementioned penis, neither of which the Bible mentions. This is, of course, as I said in the previous post, an exegetical model based on personal preference. I'll go ahead and say it now; all exegetical models are based at least partly on personal preference. That Mark Driscoll is a psychotic narcissist only makes his percentage of personal preference higher than someone who at least attempts to be honest about the complexities of interpreting an ancient and often ambiguous (if not silent on an issue) text.

Moral authority is always complex at the conceptual level. When I ask students the question about how they decide what is right and wrong, inevitably they give the standard answers: parents, pastors, peers, God. The first is easiest to dispense with; most humans have willfully disobeyed parents when the desire outweighed the fear of reprisal, or when they simply stopped believing as parents did. In the first case, did they really believe what they were doing was wrong, or did what they want to do really constitute what they believed about the action? Parse at your leisure. Pastors and peers we can ignore for now, as the first is seldom really heard and the latter work more as justification or consolation than character formation. The real problem is God.

When people say God is their moral authority, I'm absolutely certain they don't understand what they're saying. First, God is not immediately available to talk to them, and as for those (like one student) who said a relationship with Jesus was key to understanding the Bible, I simply ask why you have so many denominations and traditions if that relationship steers you the right direction. It's simply a way of avoiding the dilemma. God is not your authority because God is not telling you what to do. A book is. The authority people believe is resident in God is mediated through a text, and that text must be interpreted; God, over against Elijah's assertions, is not readily available to answer questions. That leaves a community, or in most cases, an individual to ascertain which portions of the Bible function as moral authority. All this to say, if an individual is making the assessment about particular texts, then the locus of moral authority is the individual's conscience and desires, not God and not the text. The text may give shape to the parameters, but it certainly doesn't dictate particular choices. 

An example. If I read that a man may not lie with another man as with a woman, and I take it as a moral command, then I create an exegetical model that dictates that all such plainly worded commands must be interpreted consistently throughout the text. There is a problem, though. When I turn over to Matthew 5-7, Jesus gives many plainly worded commands (Don't resist an evil person.) that Christians plainly ignore. The calculus seems to be how difficult the command actually is to carry out. If I don't want to have sex with a man, then that command is easy and can easily be read literally. If a man has broken into my home, the second command becomes radically difficult and must therefore be parsed. The parsing happens inside my own complex assemblage of emotion, desire, preference, will, and honesty. My personal preference becomes the moral authority. Over against the one I call Lord, I make a decision that is contrary to what he says, and to do that, I must justify it in such a way that I'm allowed to remain part of the group called Christian. At this point, I point out (hypocritically) the competing verses in the text, especially the ones about violence, to justify my decision. Hypocritical because if challenged on other issues, I'm likely to insist there is no conflict; gays can't have gay sex. Period.

The further complicating factor is the issue of forgiveness. That I am able to make decisions that allegedly go against what I actually believe is largely a function of the practice of so-called repentance. I can believe premarital sex is wrong and still engage in it as long as I make a show of saying I'm sorry to God. This, of course, allows me to do whatever it is I actually desire to do while making a feeble nod to God with faint promises of "trying harder." Once again, my own preference is the moral authority since it is what gives shape to what I actually do. That Christians have watered down the ideals of forgiveness and repentance has in fact made it harder for them to make disciples, and it has contributed a great degree to the dualism inherent in modern evangelicalism.

An example. I said, "Let's say I do everything Jesus tells me to do. I feed the poor, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners, obey the commandmentes, sell my goods and donate to homeless shelters, live generously, forgive easily, love sacrficially, all because I'm crazy about this Jesus guy.  I then tell you I don't believe in God. Am I a Christian?" At this point it's clear that it's a trap. Whatever they've said previously about how important actions are, it's clear now that they will disqualify all my actions based on one "false" belief. This is the heart of the problem. Belief, functionally, is the determining factor in moral authority. As long as I believe it's the authority, it doesn't matter what I do; I believe the right things. (The soteriological dilemma should be obvious here, too.) My belief insulates me from the demands of ethics and allows me to remain part of the group even as I behave in ways that are contrary to what the group says is vital to group identity. 

Back to Driscoll. Reverend Sex Freak begins with a desire: I would like to insert my penis into my wife's x. I now need moral authority to do so. I parse the Bible. Oh, how convenient--here's a verse about a woman sitting in front of low hanging fruit (ironically, the description is an apt one of Real Marriage). Clearly God wants my wife to pleasure my fruit. Where the Bible is clearly silent, as if it wasn't on that issue, Driscoll finds authority in different places. That's all fine, except that this is hermeneutics in reverse. I start with my desires and then find their justification--metaphorical, implied, or explicit--in the text. This makes the text functionally worthless, and it's not just worthless for people who misuse it as egregiously as Driscoll. Without a consistent rubric to direct the exegetical process, how do you avoid exegesis based on personal preference? No one will believe you if you don't do the hard stuff, and they shouldn't. Even if you do though, how can I know that your rubric isn't arbitrary?

Reverend Sex Freak, or Why Mark Driscoll is a Sign of the Eschaton

The beginning of the end of my tenure as pastor probably began the day I invited two of my staff members to play the "whom would I have sex with" game at the end of a staff meeting. We took out the church roster and went through it name by name. It was hands-down the stupidest thing I ever did intentionally as a pastor. Some (all) bells cannot be unrung. You see, I was playing with two women, and we came to the point where we had to answer the question about each other. Yeah. Stupid, right? 

I offer that for two reasons. One, nearly everyone I know likes sex in some form, especially if porn and strip clubs are a form. Second, I'm about to criticize Mark Driscoll for being a complete freak. I made fun of him a while back for writing this:

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.

Not only is this one of the most idiotic things a pastor has ever said, it's potentially destructive in terms of young men internalizing this horseshit and the accompanying guilt. (For more on Driscoll as non sex expert, read the amazingly insightful take by Rachel Held Evans. For an equally good assessment on Driscoll as the real reason people are buying an otherwise ordinary book, read Susan Wise Bauer.) However, what struck me as the most obvious problem with the quote is the way Driscoll approaches sex. It occurs to me that if I'd been writing about whether or not masturbation is a gay sex act (clearly it's not), I would never have put that last qualifier in. Who the hell gets turned on by his own body? Who the hell masturbates in front of a mirror in order to get turned on by his own body? These are the ideas deep inside the murky, freaky mind of Reverend Driscoll, aka Reverend Sex Freak. No idea if the twitter account is available, but if you get it before I do, give me a brief shout out.

I made the mistake of thinking that joking about sex with staff members would make me "more real" or would at least give me the opportunity to engage in some fantasies about one of them. Driscoll makes a similar mistake every day, it seems, but he's not learning from them. His arrogance is so huge right now that he conflates Biblical authority and his words in the intro to the book, encouraging readers not to ignore his "godly wisdom" in the form of an otherwise uninteresting piece of misogynistic nonsense. Bauer nails it in her assessment:

What Real Marriage has going for it, in the end, is the only thing it doesn't share with scores of other marriage books: Mark Driscoll. Driscoll has preached the book's content, he tells us, in "England, Ireland, Scotland, South Africa, Australia, India, and Turkey" and has talked personally to "hundreds of thousands of couples." The author's bio reminds us that he is "one of the world's most downloaded and quoted pastors." He pastors the "2nd most-innovative church in America." The hype in the press release isn't, ultimately, about Real Marriage; it's about Mark Driscoll.

The scandalous chapter 10, the one in which "real parishioners" are allowed to ask, "Hey, Pastor Mark, can we _______?" is where things get weird. First, let me say that if you're a grown up and are in a relationship with a consenting adult and you need to ask your pastor if you can bugger your wife, you might have bigger issues than sex will fix. Second, and Held Evans is so right about this, pastors are not sex experts. Third, trying to justify certain sex acts exegetically from a Hebrew text is so fucking weird and narcissistic that I can't wrap my head around why someone needs the Song of Songs to provide him the justification for liking a blow job. Know why people like 'em, Mark? 'Cause they feel good when done right. Absent the ability to find "thou shalt not suck pole" in Leviticus, a grown up should feel content being sucker or suckee if both are consenting. Pretty sure your concept of god doesn't really care who gets a hummer as long as no one gets hurt.

What's even more bizarre about this book is not our fascination with sex, and yes, people in church like sex too, even those who say they don't; the most "shaking my head not believing this shit" issue with the book is that Driscoll thinks he's qualified to write it. "Hey, I'm Mark Driscoll. I fucked my wife. Wanna read about it? What's that? Doggie style? Hell yeah, bro. Nailed it!" He's a frat boy in charge of one of the largest churches in the world, and he's so drunk on his own celebrity that he regularly excoriates other Christians for being too effeminate or too weak or too female. He has become the authority behind the exegesis in Mars Hill church and in the thousands of Mars Hill clones springing up everywhere that are pastored by equally grating erstwhile frat boys who can't believe God will only let them fuck one woman for the rest of their lives. Well, if that's the case, she might as well be my flexible gumby whore. I'll need some biblical justification for the anal, but hey, I am a man. This would be high satire if people weren't taking this freak seriously.

The problem with Driscoll is that his exegesis is based on Driscoll. It's the ultimate reading the Bible through the lens of my desires and preferences, and he's just smart enough not to see it but to sell others on it not being the case. Driscoll has become a sucking black hole of narcissism and in an irony of comedic proportion the men around him have been brow-beaten into submission by the man they're all afraid will call them fags or women. This is Christianity post-reasonableness with a big dose of machismo, celebrity worship, pop sex psychology, and misogyny. This is what happens when all those pro-male verses are read literally and then added to the aggressive nature of Western male misogynistic sex fantasies. I used to think megachurches were destroying the church; now I'm pretty sure it's the egos behind the megachurches that are doing the most damage, and in all Christendom the spirit of discernment is getting the shit kicked out of it MMA style.

A Room With a View, or Nikolai Gogol, I Love You

Apologies to E.M. Forster...

The end of the world is in a house near Bowlegs, Oklahoma. Every year, a holy man asks his students to visit the house, a dilapidated, shotgun shack on a half acre just south of Bowlegs. The students are not given explicit instructions. Rather, they are told to take food for a day's journey, water for an additional night, and a candle with matches. The standard question is "Will I need to spend the night, master?" The holy man shrugs and says, "I don't know."

"What do I seek there, master?"

Again, the shrug. "You seek the end."

"The end of what?"

Shrug. No answer.

The students go one at a time to the house, each on a different night of the month of their completing the program of study. Most leave after a few hours. Some find the tenacity to spend the entire evening. All begin with the investigation of the rooms. Those who don't stay all night do not complete their program. They typically don't care that they fail.

The first room is the living room. There is nothing in it. The second room, down a short hall, is the master bedroom. It contains a chair. The students typically sit in it and listen closely to the silence. It remains silence. Beyond the master bedroom is a bathroom. Its very functionality assures the students that nothing is to be learned there. Down the hall is a smaller bedroom. It contains the frame of a bed with springs still intact. Students typically recline on the bed and listen dutifully to the silence. It remains silence. 

Upon leaving the small bedroom, students make their way back down the hall, and upon turning left, find the kitchen. The cabinet doors are closed. The diligent student will open them all and find nothing. Even the tap handles on the sink yield nothing but an airy squeal. The nicotine-colored stain on the floor where the refrigerator used to be is normally searched with proper attention to pareidolia. No symbols, animals, or recurring patterns are found. The most stubborn of students will make his way back to the living room, light his candle, and sit down to wait for whatever revelation of the end is to be found.

The silence remains silence long into the night and long after the candle is extinguished. As dawn breaks, the hardiest make their way to the door, inclining their heads toward the house's interior just in case the reward is given to the persistent. The silence remains silence. The master is waiting for them on the porch.

"What did you discover in the house, student?" He asks.

"Rooms, master."

"And in the rooms, student?"

"In one was a chair. In one was a bed frame. All others were empty."

"And in the emptiness?"

Finally the student feels trapped. The worst will remain puzzled, staring at the master with befuddlement. The honest will say, "Nothing, master." The rest, determined to take a lesson from their sojourn at the end of the world, will say/ask: "God?"

The master will shake his head. "What did God say to you, student?"

The student will realize his folly too late. The best of them will say: "I heard my own questions, master." 

 

Tongues, Tebow, and Tagalog, or Grating Public Faith

Tim Tebow was praying in tongues yesterday. Not a joke. I'm almost certain of it. I saw him on the sidelines late in the loss to Kansas City, kneeling on the turf, head bowed, lips moving remarkably fast. Unless he was reciting the Lord's Prayer over and over at blistering speed making all his lip movements unreadable in terms of real words, he was praying in tongues. I've tried to discover whether or not he's a charismatic. I assume he is, and I just don't care about that. I'm not going to hate Tim Tebow. He's not done anything hateworthy. He's a remarkably good guy by any account, and he defies the odds occasionally. Four things happened—two before Christmas and two yesterday—that make this a topic I'm finally going to get to.

Here are the four things: I went to a very nice holiday wine party with a very hospitable Christian family and happily avoided a conversation about Tebow. Bill Maher raised a storm of controversy (no shit) when he tweeted:

"Wow, Jesus just fucked #TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler "Hey, Buffalo's killing them"

Yesterday, Bronco punter Britton Colquitt pointed godward with both hands when a Chief's return man (Arenas maybe?) failed to field an otherwise average punt. The ball rolled twenty more yards making it a very good punt. Colquitt assumed this was part of the divine mystery instead of shitty football and responded accordingly. Fourth, Tim Tebow prayed in tongues.

I'm seriously okay with public expressions of faith that respect the Constitution, as in no faculty/admin-sanctioned prayer in public schools, no prayers at inaugurations, etc. Praying over your meal in a restaurant seems oddly normal to me. I don't find it offensive, so long as you don't pray so loud that I have to listen, and then it's not offensive, just annoying. Want to wear a Christian tee shirt or a brooch of the Buddha? Not a problem. I don't want you wearing a "Muhammad was a pedophile" tee shirt to my class and call it religious expression, but if yours says "Jesus is Lord," I'll understand why you feel that way.

All that to say that Tebow's public expressions of faith don't trouble me. I do think it's worse than stupid to assume god gives two shits about the outcome of a game, but I understand why some fundangelicals believe he does. Tebow sports a Bible verse on his eye-black. So? At least it's not Leviticus 18:22. He prays. Billions of people pray. He prays publicly. You get the point. He's acting like a very committed, outspoken man of faith. Give it a rest, people. If you hate Florida, say so. If you don't like that he's big and goofy and gives all the credit to his god, say so. I will admit to some glee at watching his evangelical fan base gnash their teeth when I mock them with tweets about Dagon being god of Denver, just as Maher annoyed millions with his tweet. There seems to be this strange ability amongst certain people of faith to say that they know something isn't true (God cares about football games) while still holding onto a belief that it is true. Mocking them along that axis leads to anger and/or a bit too much celebration when Tebow wins. As one recent poster said: "Go Tebow! Go Jesus!" Yeah, words fail.

Where I get annoyed is with people who simply believe nonsense or when sports are portrayed as spiritual warfare. First, the party. A very nice lady said, "Tim Tebow doesn't talk openly about his faith. It's the media that keeps talking about it." This is willful ignorance or outright lying. She was nice, so I'll go with the former. Her follow-up statement was even more ridiculous: "The Bible says the Gospel is offensive. That's why people hate Tebow." The Bible verse she is referencing is in Romans, and it refers back to Isaiah, and as usual, it's Paul's updated version of the Tanakh. Isaiah warns the people that YHWH will become a stone of offense to them because of their disobedience. In view here is the coming punishment of the nation of Israel at the hands of Babylon. How any of this applies to Tim Tebow being a tad grating is clearly beyond my comprehension. Maybe it's one of those things that must be "spiritually discerned."

Sports as spiritual warfare. For those of you unfamiliar with praying in tongues, it's a common practice in churches known as Charismatic. The churches are a later form of Pentecostalism inasmuch as they believe in the ongoing gifting of the Holy Spirit in extraordinary forms (tongues, prophecy, healing, etc.). If I don't know how to pray, as Paul says, the Holy Spirit will help. Add to that the "though I speak with the tongues of men and angels..." and you have a rationale for praying in tongues. Why Tim Tebow is praying in tongues rather than watching the game is beyond me. Is the Holy Spirit supposed to help him pray that he can defeat the other team (and its Christian players), or is he perhaps praying to accept God's will for this game? Sigh. Evander Holyfield was the first athlete I remember practicing a prayer language during his events. He prayed in tongues when he fought Tyson, about whom an argument for demonic possession can surely be made, especially post face tattoo.

It's an odd cosmology that assumes a sporting event is the battle ground between the forces of good and evil. It's more than a little narcissistic, but that goes hand in hand with the evangelical worldview. I am important. Jesus died just for me. God has a plan for my life. They are taught to study David and Solomon and Peter and Paul and pray for the plan of God for their lives, all the while ignoring the untold millions who simply lived, worked, loved, prayed, and died. Tebow is following in his father's footsteps. His father runs the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association, a ministry that focuses on the Philippines to "bring the Gospel to the whole country." The ministry web site claims:

In 1998, BTEA began to implement a plan to preach the gospel in every barangay (village) in the Philippines. In a country of 92,000,000, it is estimated that over 65,000,000 Filipinos have never once heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Who is doing the estimating? According to the CIA World Factbook, the population of the Philippines is roughly 83% Catholic. Now my math sucks, but I'm pretty sure 65 million is more than 17% of 92 million. Right?

It's conceivable that people raised to believe nonsense like this (the above quote) might have a slightly elevated view of their own importance. God has chosen them to make an impact, or some other such construct. The problem with any story like this is that it's only waiting for you to interpret it along whichever axis you prefer: theist or non-theist, skeptic or believer, fan or hater. Please, pray in public all you want. Cheer for Tebow. I too enjoy watching sports commentators scratch their heads when he wins on determination, athleticism, and love of the game. He's fun to watch, primarily because of his unpredictability. He's a little like Roethlisberger in that way. What I don't need is a well-meaning if deluded believer explaining that God is using the Broncos and Tebow to bear witness. It's football, folks. Football.