Mark Driscoll’s Hypocrisy About Single Men – and other Driscoll stuff
This is sort of a part 2, or a follow up to this post on my blog:
(Link): Adult Singleness and Virginity Ridiculed by Preacher Mark Driscoll from 2000 – and anti Homosexual and Sexist Rhetoric
The WenatcheeTheHatchet blog has been covering Driscoll and Driscoll’s Mars Hill church in depth now for a few years.
He has many posts about Driscoll that are eye opening. The main one I wanted to discuss was the page pertaining to Driscoll’s hypocrisy about single men.
First, the other links – ones demonstrating that Driscoll is freaky, has some issues, hates women, and is obsessed with sex:
(Link): Mark Driscoll on the naked virgin Catholic model Adriana Lima at the Resurgence in 2006
(Link): Mark Driscoll in 2008 on the efforts he took to protect his wife
In the “if you get the young men you win” commentary, Driscoll writes:
Most churches are built to cater to 40-something-year-old women and their children and the guys are nowhere to be found.
— end Driscoll quote —
No, let me assure you, as a 40-something woman, most evangelical and Baptist churches most certainly do not cater to me or to women in general, regardless of age.
Most churches either cater to married men (women and singles of either gender are not permitted to serve in meaningful capacities), or churches are built to support married couples who have two or three young children still living at home.
One reason of many I no longer attend church, and may never return, is precisely that churches do nothing for 40 something, single, childless women such as myself. Mark Driscoll is once again spouting off about a bunch of crap he knows nothing about.
Here is the main reason I am making this blog post – these posts:
(Link): Pussified Nation in the context of Driscollian real estate in 2000
The point of those posts is that Driscoll, particuarly about ten years ago, ranted and railed against young, single men in books, forum posts, and sermons. He accused them of being lazy, homosexual, wussies, and clowns because they were not self-supporting, did not own their own homes and cars, etc.
What the post goes on to explain is that at the height of his single-man bashing, Driscoll himself was strapped for money. He had to take in young single men as roomies to help him make payments on his home.
Here are some excerpts (from WTH blog, the first link):
What problem needs to be fixed? The young men need to be yelled at so that they shape up and fly right. They need to get real jobs, find women, marry them, make babies and do all this for Jesus’ fame.
The possibility that many of those 20-something men won’t find “real jobs” because of changes in the economy in a post-industrial context where “we” exported a lot of our unskilled labor overseas or a lot of unskilled labor is unglamorous drudgery “real Americans” don’t want to do may not be on the Driscoll radar.
That neo-Calvinists lament the median age of first marriage has soared up to the highest levels we’ve seen in the last forty years may need to be offset by the observation that the last time that number got so high was during the Great Depression.
It may be people would like to get married but we don’t have a housing or employment market of the sort where a bootstrap social conservative Social Gospel in the closet will work any better now than the progressive Social Gospel that, whether people may remember this or not, was more characteristic of evangelicalism over the last 150 years than contemporary political discourse might have us believe.
— end excerpt —
((click here to read that entire blog page))
Excerpts from (Link): Pussified Nation in the context of Driscollian real estate in 2000
So while Driscoll was venting his spleen about irresponsible single guys he was not necessarily venting about the male renters who helped cover the mortgage on his house he was living in that he got through a lease-to-own deal because his credit was so bad all he could rent was an outhouse.
— end excerpt —
So, Driscoll doesn’t mind taking money from young, single men, but he sure does like to chew them out in forums, books, sermons, and blog posts.
If you’re trying to teach, or encourage, responsibility among young, single men, I would think there have to be more sensitive ways then telling them all the time what losers they are.
Related posts this blog:
(Link): Aged Out of Church by M Van Loon (For Christians over the Age of 35 – 40)
(Link): Why Are So Many Single Women Leaving the Church? by K. Gaddini
(Link): The Nauseating Push by Evangelicals and Neo Calvinists for Early Marriage
(Link): Why Singles Belong in Church Leadership by L. Ferguson
(Link): If the Family Is Central, Christ Isn’t
(Link): Study: Couples Without Children Have Happier Marriages / Study: Having Kids Ruins Your Life
(Link): ‘It’s a break from the kids’: Why parents cheat more than childless couples
(Link): Is The Church Failing Childless Women? by Diane Paddison
(Link): Do You Rate Your Family Too High? (Christians Who Idolize the Family) (article)