I’ve been splitting my mental energy between March Madness and sorting through the reading I’ve been doing on the church. If you are a newer reader you might not be totally aware of my love of college basketball.  It is the only sport I follow. I follow MSU football, but I don’t follow college football. I follow the Detroit Tigers, but I don’t follow MLB. I follow college basketball quite closely for a middle aged woman who never played any sports. LOL! I did quite well on my brackets to this point. All of my Final Four teams are still alive (MSU, OSU, UNC and UK) and seven of my Elite Eight teams are still alive (missed on Missouri).

Anyway, on to more important matters like the body of Christ, trends in Christianity, and more drivel from Mark Driscoll.

Some of you are probably wondering why I continue to bring up all this negative stuff about the church. My purpose isn’t to be negative. It is to drag the yuck being spoken in Christian circles out into the light and exposing the destructive teachings that they are. I believe anyone who reads this little blog is deeply interested in knowing truth while they follow Christ. And so I’m sharing some of the things I find. I share what I find to make people aware and see how God will lead them. I only wish I could spend a few hours each day writing here because, frankly, the amount of info I’m trying to process is unbelievable. I had a two and a half hour phone conversation with an online friend the other day and I continue to be amazed at how there are so many people finally starting to put two and two together in many of these areas. It’s as though we’ve reached a proverbial tipping point with some of these issues and God is now starting to reveal some of what has been going on.

Anyway, here is another video of Mark Driscoll decrying the chick-i-fied version of the church. But the clincher is at the end. Watch the brief video and then read on below the embedded video.

Video no longer available

Did you get that? The comment at the end? If you don’t get the young men, you don’t get anything. What was he referring to? Young men get married, make money, make babies, build companies, buy real estate, etc. They are going to make the culture. And if you don’t get that, you don’t get anything. Hey! Widows, unmarried folks, single moms, retirees, etc. You are nothing! If you aren’t connected to a young man and what he is going to accomplish in his life, you frankly don’t mean much to Mark Driscoll.

Those were his words, not mine. Building up the church is about grabbing control of the culture through the young men, not bringing the lost to Christ. Getting to those men (not women) with power and connections is apparently what matters, not freeing someone from the bondage and despair of sin. If you are a married woman, Driscoll sees the way to get to you and your children is through your husband. That’s what he said. You are simply the extra prize, not the real goal. And notice it is men who build culture, not women.

And that’s not even touching on the rest of the video where being a godly man means you apparently punch people in the face, own a truck, and shoot a gun. And that sixty percent of the church is “chicks.” Sorry, Driscoll the Dude, I’m not a “chick” and I don’t think most women in the church would appreciate being referred to in that manner. You say your views on masculinity and women are supposed to be great for the church and great for women, but I don’t see how viewing your sisters in Christ as “chicks” and saying it in such a derogatory manner does anything to advance the cause of Christ.

There is a huge shift going on among the most vocal complementarians. It is profound. I don’t think this has trickled down yet into most of the mainstream complementarians which is what I would consider most of the comps with whom I interact.

But the leadership in this area is changing the debate, changing the parameters, and redefining the terms. I really do believe we are heading toward the point where your views on men and women’s roles will be used by many Christians to determine if you are actually a true Christian. Confessing your faith in Christ will not be enough for them. Think I’m exaggerating? I’m not.

More on that in the days ahead.

Follow up post: The future of the church courtesy of Acts 29 Network and Mark Driscoll