Preacher Mark Driscoll Disparages Virgins and Virginity (Again) – The Feelings of Fornicators Always Take Precedence With the Anti-Purity Culture, Anti-Slut- Shaming, and Pro- Cheap Grace Crowd

Preacher Mark Driscoll Disparages Virgins and Virginity (Again)

Disclaimer 1.
If you have found this blog post by way of another source, please note that the person sharing it likely does not necessarily agree with all opinions expressed below.

Disclaimer 2.
I do not personally agree with ALL of Purity Culture teaching (or with how it is taught), but I still believe that Bible does prohibit sex except for married couples (married being ‘one man to one woman’).
Unfortunately, many of the anti-Purity Culture proponents I see online seem to think the Bible does not teach sexual ethics at all, or, they seem to feel that everyone should just ignore what the Bible says about sexual morality and do whatever they want.

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This is the sort of post I would rather not make. It’s the sort of post I sit around hoping another blogger will address, but it looks like it falls to me.

Preacher Mark Driscoll has disparaged virgins and virginity before (see (Link): this post on my blog)- his views on adult singleness are also narrow and un-biblical.

As I’ve noted in a much older post (please see (Link): this post), about the only people I see defending fornication (pre-marital sex) are those who are either on an “Anti Purity Culture Crusade,” or are they themselves self-admitting fornicators.

How convenient that adults who have not lived up to the Bible’s standard of no- nooky- prior- to- marriage are the very same ones who shame adult virgins for being virgins, for wanting to marry a fellow virgin, and/or for being upset that their intended spouse is not a virgin.

I’m pretty tired and worn out by self-professing fornicators lecturing me (or people like me), a 40-something actual, honest- to- God virgin, about sexual sin, sexual standards, and grace.

Here is a link to the piece I am discussing in this post:

(Link): Mark Driscoll Admits to Being Sexually Active Before Marriage in Message on Marrying a Virgin (hosted on the site “The Christian Post”)

Before I excerpt that post and discuss it, I wanted to direct the reader’s attention to these former posts of mine about Driscoll:

(Link): Adult Singleness and Virginity Ridiculed by Preacher Mark Driscoll from 2000 – and anti Homosexual and Sexist Rhetoric

(Link): Preacher Mark Driscoll Basically Says No, Single Christian Males Cannot or Should Not Serve as Preachers / in Leadership Positions – Attempts to Justify Unbiblical, Anti Singleness Christian Bias

(Link):  Mark Driscoll’s Hypocrisy About Single Men – and other Driscoll stuff

(Link): Mark Driscoll on Single Christian Women Who Desire Marriage – the positives and negatives of his piece

I post those links to older posts – which have quotes by Driscoll – showing his horrible, dismal misunderstanding of topics such as virginity, adult singleness, celibacy, and dating. Given that this man gives such horrible commentary on those topics and mocks virginity, why on earth would any sane, mature, thinking adult take advice from this guy in regards to any of it?

I resume with the main point of this post:

(Link): Mark Driscoll Admits to Being Sexually Active Before Marriage in Message on Marrying a Virgin (hosted on the site “The Christian Post”)

Excerpts:

Sept 7 2016

By Stoyan Zaimov, Christian Post Reporter

Pastor Mark Driscoll of Trinity Church in Arizona has released a video advising Christians on whether non-virgins should marry virgins, and admitted that he was sexually active before his was married and became a Christian.

…This week’s question came from a Christian man who said his fiance is finding it difficult to cope with his sexually active past.

…Driscoll explained that turning to Jesus Christ not only forgives people’s sins, but also removes the things that made them unclean.

…[Driscoll speaking to man who wrote him or e-mailed him]
“She  [the man’s finace] may have been told to keep herself pure, but you also need her to know that Jesus has made you pure,” he said, and encouraged the woman to study the scriptures on these themes.

“Satan may be haunting her, tormenting her, causing her to have images of you with other people,” Driscoll said.

“If she sees you as unclean and defiled, and she sees herself with you, and sees that being with you actually defiles her, makes her dirty and filthy and unclean, and what that will cause is a defilement of the marriage bed.”

This same topic has been addressed on my blog or elsewhere before:

1. (Link):  Christians Who Attack Virginity Celibacy and Sexual Purity – and specifically Russell D. Moore and James M. Kushiner

2. (Link – off site): Where are America’s virgins? Discouraging the virtuous by Julia Duin

Suffice it to say, I don’t agree with Driscoll’s attitude.

The Christians who toss cheap grace around like this end up telling the person who “walked the walk” – who actually stayed sexually pure (and virginity is in fact a form of purity; it’s refusing to engage in consensual sex) and basically scolds such people for having succeeded at the Bible’s sexual ethics.

A view such as Driscoll’s also shames such a person for quite understandably having a preference to marry a fellow virgin.

In these discussions, the onus is always put on the virgin to accommodate the fornicator, by I note, self-admitted fornicators. How convenient for them. They break the rules about sexual behavior that the Bible lays down but then insist that those who have followed those same rules should stoop down to their level and just “suck it up buttercup”.

View points such as Driscoll’s make moot  and make a mockery of my 40- some- odd years of virginity.

I’ve already determined that when or if I next get into a serious relationship with a man, I am going to have pre-marital sex with that man if I so choose. (I was previously engaged in my 30s to a man, and I had the opportunity to have sex with him but was committed to waiting until marriage. That man and I broke up, however.)

So, again, if or when I get into another committed relationship with a guy, I’m ready to take a tumble in the sheets with the guy. I’m no longer waiting until marriage if I feel right about the guy. And there is nothing a seller of cheap-grace and a fornicator such as Driscoll can say in response to that.

If Driscoll tries to hit me over the head with a Bible and say, “But pre-marital sex is a sin!,” then all I have to do is blab on  in response about, “but all I have to do is rely on the grace of God, and Jesus will make me pure. I’m pure in Jesus, no matter how much I sleep around” – and toss his same easy-grace, get off scot-free, antinomian drivel right back at him.

By the way. There is a former preacher named Tullian Tchividjian who used to have a TV show that I watched. Tchividjian has also published books and been on Christian radio programs. I’m uncertain as to what his occupational status is currently, if he is employed at a church in some capacity or what not.

Tchividjian was big-time into selling easy-grace. It was a big theme in most of the sermons I saw him give. He later admitted to having at least two extra-marital affairs.

You can read more about that here (off site links):

(Link):  Tullian Tchividjian Confesses Second Affair Concealed by Two Coral Ridge Elders (on Christianity Today site)

(Link): The Lies and the Least (on Nate Sparks’ blog)

But you see one possible outcome of a self-professing Christian if he runs around stressing “grace, grace, grace, purity under Jesus” rhetoric? You may as well live anyway you want, because, hey, you’re pure under Jesus and God’s grace will excuse your extra-marital diddling.

For all the ex-Christians, liberal Christians, and so on who keep griping on their forums, Facebook groups, blogs and Twitter accounts that Christians “worship” virginity or make too much out of sexual purity, let this be yet another example to you that this is not always the case.

Sometimes Christians go too far in the other direction and disparage virginity, sexual purity, celibacy, and those who are virgins and celibates – and in the process remove any incentive such people may have to keep holding on to their sexual purity.

The anti-Sexual Purity, anti-Slut Shaming, and pro-Cheap Grace advocates do not care at all about how they are hurting, offending, or discouraging the sexually pure. They are too busy defending their sexual sin and trying to argue away Biblical sexual morality or insist it is really of no consequence.

Last but not least, I don’t enjoy writing these types of blog posts, where I have to stop and read gross opinions by a person I pretty much loathe (Driscoll).

Anyway, I refer you again to these links if you’d like to read longer rebuttals to views similar to Driscoll’s:

1. (Link):  Christians Who Attack Virginity Celibacy and Sexual Purity – and specifically Russell D. Moore and James M. Kushiner

2. (Link – off site): Where are America’s virgins? Discouraging the virtuous by Julia Duin

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Related Posts:

(Link):  Adult Singleness and Virginity Ridiculed by Preacher Mark Driscoll from 2000 – and anti Homosexual and Sexist Rhetoric

(Link): The Dear Driscoll Site – Re: Mark Driscoll – Christians: Stop Supporting Driscoll, any church Driscoll runs, and Stop Supporting Guys Like Him!

(Link): Christian Preacher Admits He Won’t Preach About Sexuality For Fear It May Offend Sexual Sinners

(Link):  Sexual Atheism: Christian Dating Data Reveals a Deeper Spiritual Malaise by K. Luck

(Link):  In Today’s Pop Culture Virginity Is A Dirty Word

(Link):  Preacher Mark Driscoll Was Not A Virgin When He Got Married – He Admitted So In Book and Blog

(Link): Christian Response FAIL to Sexual Sin – Easy Forgivism

(Link): More Virgin and Celibate Shaming in Article: How the New Abstinence Movement is Trying to Reshape Our Views on Sex (from Relevant Magazine) Another Christian Anti Virginity Hit Piece – Fornicators Need To Repent of Their Pride in their Fornication Testimonies Maybe?

(Link): Preacher Mark Driscoll Bashes Single Christian Males Some More

(Link): Obnoxious and Sexist Preacher Mark Driscoll Wants Christian Singles to Stay Single Indefinitely – And Even Though Unwanted, Prolonged Singleness has Been a Huge Issue For Christian Singles for A Couple Decades Now – Driscoll: ‘Christians should not marry pro choicers’

(Link): More Singles Commentary by Mark Driscoll (“Two Mistakes Singles Make”)

(Link):  Viral Virgin Brelyn Bowman Talks Purity Backlash From Christians, New Book ‘No Ring, No Ting’ (Interview) 

(Link): Anti Virginity Editorial by Christian Blogger Tim Challies – Do Hurt / Shame Feelings or Sexual Abuse Mean Christians Should Cease Supporting Virginity or Teaching About Sexual Purity

(Link): I Notice It’s the Fornicators Who Want to Ignore or Downplay the Bible’s Teaching that People Are To Stay Virgins Until Marriage

(Link): I thought Christians “worshipped” virginity? Guess not: TLW (True Love Waits) Spokesman Says TLW Will NOT “Elevate Virginity” – Life Way to Relaunch “True Love Waits” Campaign

(Link): The Christian and Non Christian Phenomenon of Virgin Shaming and Celibate Shaming

(Link):  An Example of Mocking Adult Virginity Via Twitter (Virginity Used As Insult)

(Link):   Some Atheists Are Just As Ignorant About Adult Singleness and Celibacy as Progressive Christians, Secular Feminists, and Protestant Evangelical or Conservative Christians

(Link): No, Christians and Churches Do Not Idolize Virginity and Sexual Purity (they attack both concepts)

(Link):  Salon Author Amanda Marcotte Thinks Media Shouldn’t Judge Women’s Sexuality But She Has Mocked Women Over Their Sexual Choices Before (To Remain Virgins)

(Link): Secular, Left Wing Feminist Writer Marcotte on Anyone Choosing To Be a Virgin Until Marriage: “It’s a Silly Idea” – What Progressive Christians, Conservative Christians, Non Christians, and Salon’s Amanda Marcotte Gets Wrong About Christian Views on Virginity

(Link):  When Adult Virginity and Adult Celibacy Are Viewed As Inconvenient or As Impediments

(Link): Pat Robertson [Christian TV show host] says ‘Virginity Has Nothing To Do With Marriage’ and Says (Paraphrasing) ‘Virginity Was Fine For Mary But Not Applicable For Any Other Christians’

(Link): Douglas Wilson and Christian Response FAIL to Sexual Sin – No Body Can Resist Sex – supposedly – Re Celibacy

(Link):  I Shouldn’t Need An Excuse To Be A Virgin – (Secular Editorial Defends Virginity – More Rare Than a Unicorn Sighting)

(Link):  Christian TV Show Host Pat Robertson Disrespects Virginity – Says Pre-Marital Sex Is “Not A Bad Thing”