Mark Driscoll: I “Watch” Molestations and Affairs in Progress

Now I believe I can hear the philosophers protesting that it can only be misery to live in folly, illusion, deception and ignorance, but it isn't -it's human. Desiderius Erasmus 

 

Dee's bluebird's babies minutes after birth, ready to eat! 

 

The Bizarre Sixth Sense of Mark Driscoll

We will continue with our series on psychology and the church next week. We received a number of emails asking us to read material that is specific to some of the ministries we intend to discuss. Although we both have some very strong opinions on this topic, and have read extensively to this point, we thought it would be prudent to read the materials received so that we cannot be accused of “being ignorant.”

We have also received several more testimonies from people harmed by various methods of so-called “Biblical” counseling. We would like to record some of their experiences as well. So we ask you to bear with us.

Several weeks ago, we received a link to this disturbing video of Mark Driscoll. Due to various circumstances, we decided to wait a couple of week before posting it. I want to commend Phil Johnson, of the Pyromaniacs blog for posting this video at You Tube and alerting people throughout the blogosphere of its’ existence.

We want to make a couple of statements up front.

  • We believe that this video raises serious questions about Driscoll’s psychological well-being.
  • TWW has no difficulty with charismatic gifts. We do not believe that this video presents a gift. We leave it up to our astute readers to figure out what sort of manifestation it is.

Mark Driscoll claims that he sees actual rapes and clandestine affairs exactly as they occurred. He even talks about the sexual positions preferred by the parties involved. Of course this is Biblical, isn't it? Don't we know exactly how David performed with Bathsheba?

He claims to see molestations of children. Oddly enough, since such activity is against the law, he does not, as far as we know, report it to the police. Since he is convinced this “gift” is real, we advise him to put his reputation on the line and report it to prevent further molestations by pedophiles. Bet he won’t though.

The video reminded me of  a popular movie called A Sixth Sense. Most people are familiar with the blockbuster line from that movie. Watch this 30 second video which features Haley Joel Osmont saying the famous words.
 

 

The following is the short, disturbing video by Driscoll. If you miss any of the words, here is a link to a post called Pornographic Divination by Phil Johnson in which he posts a transcript of Driscoll’s words.

 

It absolutely flummoxes this writer why Driscoll is allowed to have such influence in the “New Calvinism” movement. These Calvinistas claim to be “oh so Biblical” in their theology. But it sure seems to me that they sell out their theology so long as their guy writes books, makes lots of dough, holds to hyper-authoritarianism and strict complementarianism, and gets people with tattoos to come to church.

Here are some thoughts from Phil Johnson. Link

"This is bad teaching. The biblical "Gift of discernment" has nothing to do with soothsaying and everything to do with maturity, clear understanding, the ability to make wise and careful distinctions, and (especially) skill in differentiating between holy and profane, clean and unclean, truth and falsehood (Ezekiel 44:23; Hebrews 5:14).

The counsel Driscoll gives is bad counsel. If by his own admission Driscoll's divinations are not "a hundred percent always right," he has no business accusing people of serious sins—including felony crimes—based on what he "sees" in his own imagination. Much less should he encourage his congregants to dream that they have such an ability and urge them to "use that gift."

The salacious details he recounts are totally unnecessary. They serve only to reinforce the concern some of us have raised: Why does Driscoll have such a fixation with obscene subject matter, ribald stories, and racy talk? The smutty particulars regarding a counselee's tryst in a cheap hotel are not merely unnecessary; "it is disgraceful even to speak of [such] things."

We have covered the issues surrounding CJ Mahaeny and Sovereign Grace Ministries. CJ Mahaney is supposed to be mentoring Mark Driscoll. What is wrong with this picture????? Since this crowd seems hell bent on protecting each other, I have a strong piece of advice. When I was confronted with serious injustices and legalistic theology in a previous church, I walked out of the church, sending a text message that I was“gone.” We advise any of you caught up in nonsense, such as the stuff demonstrated by Driscoll, to get "gone." Mark our words. We believe that there will continue to be serious issues with Driscoll in the future if his church does not get him some help.

We have decided that the following music video of Montgomery Gentry singing Gone will be the theme song for TWW. So, close your blinds, kick off your shoes and sing out to your heart’s content. The first is the concert and the second is the lyrics. I suggest you memorize them. The way things are going, you may need them one day. 

Gone- Montgomery Gentry in Concert

Lyrics


 

 

Lydia's Corner: 2 Kings 8:1-9:13 Acts 16:16-40 Psalm 143:1-12 Proverbs 17:26

Comments

Mark Driscoll: I “Watch” Molestations and Affairs in Progress — 153 Comments

  1. One of the reasons I am repulsed by Driscoll is because how much he reminds me of a former pastor.

    That pastor claimed to be able to “read other people’s mail”. He just knew what other people were thinking and what was going on in their heads. He didn’t, of course. He only projected his own thought patterns of them. Because he was a rebellious youth, he decided that all the youth in our youth group had rebellious thoughts like he did, thoughts that had to be corrected. They all didn’t. He just decided that they did.

    The man is no longer a pastor, no longer married and is having a complete mental breakdown now and threatening to kill people for ruining his life and calling a church “demonic” because they aren’t making his wife come back to him and his abuse.

    It was a long road to that place. It took years and years. But the train wreck is happening. And Driscoll is on those same tracks toward a trainwreck. It is very hard to watch. It gets tiring trying to warn people when all you get is, “Driscoll is relevant, you aren’t. You’re a prude, Driscoll is cool and with it.”

    Whatever.

    The trainwreck is coming. May as many people escape the destruction as possible.

  2. Pingback: Driscoll redux | Civil Commotion

  3. Driscoll is a douche bag. (Is it ok to say that here?) If it is, then let me repeat that Driscoll is a douche bag.

  4. I wonder whether Mark Driscoll saw the guy coming after him with a machete BEFORE it happened…

  5. Deb
    That’s it! It hasn’t happened yet. It’s a prophecy not an actual event. You are soooo smart.

  6. NBTT,

    Considering where the douchebag goes when it is doing the job for which it was created, I would rather not go there.

    ostomy bag…..yup, Dris coli is an ostomy bag because he’s full of $**t!

  7. And why are all of these “visions” either a sexual or abusive nature? Why no visions of any good things? Is Driscoll’s TV stuck on the crime channel? Why no visions of anyone being blessed? Maybe he should go to Joel Osteen’s church for a while. I would rather hear the health, wealth, and prosperity message than Driscoll’s perverted visions. “Name it and claim it”, “blab it and grab it”, or whatever else you want to call the “word of faith” movement cannot be any worse that Driscoll’s demented dribble. At least Osteen tries to encourage people, and I have never seen him verbally abuse anyone or talk down to anyone.

  8. “And why are all of these “visions” either a sexual or abusive nature?”

    Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

  9. What is this guy proclaiming?! Astral projection?! certainly not the Word of God. argh! God have mercy on men who declare their sovereignty as compared to the Lord’s. I can not wait until Judgment Day.

  10. Don’t know about Driscoll, I do think there are believers who, for a variety of reasons, are gifted with spiritual discernment in ways that I am not and do not want to be. I’ve run into people who seem able to sense evil, have premonitions about future events and just seem closer to the spirit world.
    I don’t have that gift, I don’t want that gift. I don’t want to be able to sense evil spirits nor do I wish to be able to experience premonitions that turn out to be true.
    Maybe Driscoll’s background has brought him into contact with evil and burdened him with more active spiritual warfare.
    If it’s true, he can have it. I’m content with a closed and locked door between me and the world of powers and principalities.

  11. Unlike Phil Johnson and co, I totally believe in the existence of the charismatic gifts, and have seen them used to great effect to bless people. But they look nothing like this. I do not believe the Holy Spirit needs to send people pornographic videos to shed light on darkness. why is Driscoll so into everything pornographic and salacious? (Mind you, it’s possibly the flipside of his hyper complementarianism. He’s already reduced women pretty much to the role of non-persons, which is a form of objectification — is it such a big jump to turn women from slave-object to sex slave object?)

    The other thing that really got under my skin watching this is that he says how he doesn’t talk about this — and then proceeds to do so in great detail. What????

    I agree, this man is one sick chicken — and one day, unless he gets real help, it is all going to implode in some horrible way

  12. I know this post doesn’t really deal with the Driscoll…er, issues, but I wanted to post because by the time I thought long enough (which, for me, takes a while) things had moved on.

    NBTT,
    I was think about the discussion on the previous thread regarding your perspective on the Christian faith. Now, my response is based on what I believe is your premise, that being that all are saved regardless of whether or not they confess Christ as Lord and Savior in this life or not; that is whether they have what is sometimes referred to as “saving faith”, and that because of Christ’s atoning death, all are saved, and no one is, well, not saved. Now, if my understanding of your premise is wrong, then you can pretty much disregard everything here on out.

    So, after thinking a while about it, the one thing I noticed that I couldn’t seem to get away from was, I believe, the logical conclusion of your point of view. What I came up with is this:

    If one doesn’t need to be a Christian per se, that is, does not necessarily need to believe in Jesus to be saved, but all are saved regardless of whether they acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior or not (John 3:16 refutes this perspective, I think) then, really, it makes everything in the Bible irrelevant. If there is no need to accept Jesus and Savior, no need to believe in Him, then, really, there is no need of Him at all. No need of his teachings, the apostles and their teachings, Moses, the Prophets, the Patriarchs, or even Adam and Eve. If everyone is saved as they are, then what is the point of any of it? Why would God even bother explaining, let alone go through all the motions of describing sin, setting down the law (all those measurements of the tents and rooms and arc and cloven hoofs and whatnot…I’m being serious, not cute, here) getting Moses involved, writing all the Psalms, sending his Son to die horribly on the cross. Seems like a lot of work if everyone is just outright saved, regardless of whether they care about any of it.

    If one doesn’t need to believe in Jesus to be saved, then one, for all practical purposes as it pertains to anything about his/her life, doesn’t really even need God. If Jesus is superfluous, then surely God is as well.

    If there is no need to accept Jesus as Savior to be saved, then He is irrelevant, and so sin is irrelevant, the law is irrelevant…any word written in the Bible, any of our knowledge thereof is irrelevant, and God Himself is irrelevant. If there is no saving faith needed, and people can be and do and believe anything they please, whether they choose Christ or not, then God, Christ, all he did, all that came before, the law, sin and its definition, good/bad, is meaningless in the end. That being the case, for people, God might as well not exist to them in their lives. There is no practical point for Him, because it doesn’t matter whether they follow Him or not.

    If there is no such thing as needing to believe in Jesus as Savior to be saved, then the Bible is all just blank pages. There is no Jesus, and there is no God.

  13. By Faith alone
    I truly think there is a major screw missing. There is something amiss with Driscoll and he is not being helped by those surrounding him. If this video is any indication, Driscoll appears to have major problems. C’mon, all you Calvinistas. Man up and do something about this!

  14. Lynne
    Well said. This has nothing to do with charismatic gifts. There is something deeply amiss here and I cannot believe that the people surrounding him do not love him enough to stop this train.

  15. Dee, your next post could be about the folly, illusion, deception and ignorance of Seneca Griggs/James Brown

  16. Stangela

    People at his church are now aware of his posts. I would imagine that some of his comments will raise eyebrows.

  17. Hi Argo,

    I do not want to derail this thread like I have all the other threads. ALL of those things you said are true. But we desperately need to define what we are being saved FROM. “Saving faith” as per John 3:16 is about being saved from SIN, not from Hell. That is present tense salvation during this life in the flesh. All of the things you mentioned pertain to this salvation from sin in this life. People are perishing in their sins. Sin brings ruin and destruction to marriages, relationships, jobs, governments, etc etc. People are in desperate need to be saved RIGHT NOW!

    Then there is a future reconciliation of all mankind to a sinless state in the next life (1 Cor 15:42ff). The context makes it clear that is in NOT just about Christians but about the human body of all mankind. So there is a present day salvation from sin, and then a future TOTAL salvation from sin for all mankind. Romans 6:7 also says “He that has died has been freed from sin.” But why wait till we die? We can die right now with Christ and be crucified with Christ. I want to be free from sin RIGHT NOW! I do not want to wait another minute.

  18. If Driscoll pastors in a church that has real, mature elders, this would be enough to dismiss him as pastor or send him to receive psychiatric care. I don’t know enough about his church to know the situation.

    This is very sad.

    In this case, Charismatic theology meets Calvinism has produced something strange.

  19. Driscoll appears to have an unclean spirit. I would think he cannot distinguish it from the holy spirit, and knows he is getting his information from a spiritual source, and assumes it is holy.

    Sickening.

  20. It will be interesting seeing who, among the religious leaders of our day, will stand up and make public comment on this.

    The silence on C.J. Mahaney is deafening so far.

    Reminds me of doctors covering each other’s arses.

  21. Ted, I just pulled up the video you posted, but there is no audio. Is this a C J silent film?

  22. I think Driscoll is very ill… and that his “visions” are a result of his illness.

    What stumps me: how and why nobody in his churches has told him to get help – publicly. He’d kick them out, I’m sure (based on his past actions), but it needs to be stated as publicly as possible.

    (For some reason, he’s beginning to remind me of the narrator in “The Fight Club.” ;))

  23. Maybe “symptom” is a better way to say it than “result,” though I think both things are true.

    Machete incident: lolz!

  24. I think it is the frog in the kettle syndrome. He has gradually gotten worse, so people have gotten use to more and more of his sick theology. They cannot even see now how perverted he has become. This is now the norm for his church. I was in a very dangerous cult at one time, and the leader could do no wrong. If he had run naked through the mall, it would have had some deep spiritual significance. He was infallible. If we had any doubts about his “holiness” then there was something wrong with us, never with him. This is why most are unwilling or unable to see this gross perversion for what it is.

  25. I also believe the gifts of the Spirit, including the discerning of spirits. I’ve seen in in true operation.
    But as someone mentioned above somewhere, the discerning of spirits looks nothing like what Driscoll displayed.
    What Driscoll has displayed are the rantings of a sick mind or the channeling of an unclean spirit, (both mentioned earlier by others.)

  26. y’know… it’s like this:

    “I can control you because I see things.”

    I wonder if he “sees” members who dissent. [only partly sarcastic comment]

    I also wonder if any of the things he claims in this video are real, outside of his own mind, that is. He sounds delusional. (*Not* sarcastically meant, because I know someone who *is* delusional and yet somehow functions in the real world, in their job – seemingly without anyone calling them on their strange ideas and comments.)

  27. **Warning: explicit words used**

    Here’s my guess because I’m willing to admit we don’t know for sure.

    Driscoll is basically telling us what programming he chooses to view. I live the words “in progress”, especially because it’s often used when referring to television programming. He tells this as if he is watching some video account of these occurrences.

    I have said before that I would bet he has a porn addiction and a sexual addiction. Any average person who had such a vision would be terrified, especially in relation to children. And honestly, one wouldn’t find it appropriate or helpful OR edifying to share with a larger audience or congregation. People with a healthy and normal sense of what’s appropriate would have never shared that. And that’s clue no.1–what should be alarming, frightening and handled with extreme discretion and care is “dinner table” talk to this man.

    Driscoll has already given us a view into his mind with his encouragement of anal sex. Not only that, but he continues to remark about his wife’s hotness; he tells us that he gropes her in public. It’s also apparent that he deals with bullying and anger issues. I am not and would not be surprised if he has a penchant and liking towards aggressive and borderline violent sexual acts. His “visions” are clearly not from God and are his own thoughts. I believe they haunt him (if this be his). I believe this man is trying to tell us what he thinks, envisions, sees and desires because he is haunted by his own thoughts and by the pleasure he receives from it, but I’d burdened because they are forbidden. It’s like a person truly crying out saying “see, look what I’m doing! Please rescue me from this!”

    We can pretty much deduce from his constant focus on sex that this guy probably demands and requires a very frequent and active sex life from is wife. But if she is somewhat more modest than he then this creates a problem. Men who struggle in this way tend to solicit prostitution, deal heavily in pornography, and often will transfer their own thoughts, behaviors and attitudes on others even insofar as aggressively condemning others and believing truly that they are doing what he is doing.

    Pornography is a drug of choice like any other. It’s like that first hit of cocaine or marijuana or heroine for the would-be addict. They chase that initial high relentlessly. The milder forms that used to satisfy simply don’t anymore. Activity becomes more frequent, more aggressive, and increasingly dissatisfying. It is generally at this point that a person will delve into other areas of sexual distinction and misconduct–viewing others, voyeurism, fetishes.

    Most men who become addicted to child porn (I’m not saying that Driscoll is, BTW–I’m using this to show an example) don’t start there. What happens is the guy who is searching the internet for regular soft-core porn finds it. It satisfies for awhile. The sites begin to flood with advertisements and pop-ups. They lay on the temptation. Enticing titles. He then follows those links. Now, where he normally may be viewing women well into their 20s or early 30s even, these women are now early 20s. After a short while, he gets bombarded with more invites to view hot 21year olds. But in reality, the girls shown are actually 18. Still legal. But then come the invites to view hot still legal 18 year olds–who in reality are 16. Now he’s used to seeing what are really 16 year olds but doesn’t know it. When the invite comes to view 16 year olds he has to make a decision. But they don’t look that much different than the girls he’s been viewing and well, although illegal, he sees them as mature adults and at least they are not kids, right? But those 16 year kids are 14 and 12. And by that time, he’s too sucked in to turn away. He either stops there or he gets sucked into seeing really young children.

    Sexual addictions, sexual aggression often can work on a slope in the same way. The guy follows the line into the trap before he even sees it. What was once normal and healthy has become perverted because of other underlying issues of brokeness. Left undealt with turns into aggression, violence, control, etc…

    And we have someone like Driscoll who is potentially any of the above. But his appetite will continue to evolve and the things that once satisfied will continue to fail him. Only time will tell. But I see this guy telling on himself. He’s already doing that and doesn’t realize it. We shall see.

  28. OK… the other thing about these claims: Who on earth is going to stand up and back him up on what he supposedly saw?!

    A pattern emerges:

    1. He claims to have been rushed by a man with a machete, but there are no police reports of said incident and, apparently, no eyewitnesses.

    2. He claims to have been hit on by women who put notes in his pockets (!!!) after church, in a now-deleted post on his blog (written right after the Ted haggard scandal 1st broke).

    OK – where are the eyewitnesses? If his wife knows this to be true – or false – she’s not telling.

    3. he claims to have seen sexual molestation, physical assaults, adultery (etc.) as if it was happening right in front of *his* eyes.

    Once again, where are the eyewitnesses?

    I think he is fabricating ALL of this stuff – no ifs, ands or buts. he may even believe it’s true.

  29. Numo–

    It’s called fantasy. He wants us to believe it’s spiritual visions and discernment when it’s just aggressive and violent pornographic fantasy. Back in the day, they’d already be building the gallows.

  30. @ NLR – gotta disagree here. I think he’s very ill and a pathological liar on top of it all.

    he seems to be fabricating situations where *nobody* will ever stand up and challenge him, among other things. Yes, it’s all very dark and sexually charged, but I think that’s only a small part of what’s going on. (See “man with machete” and “women trying to hook up with him” and probably a slew of other falsehoods from the pulpit and in writing.)

    Remember, this is the guy who acted totally controlling toward his then-fiancee – I know that either Dee or Deb posted about that this past spring, as part of a series on domestic violence.

    “Controlling” is the operative word.

  31. also… Deb and Dee have posted about the blow-up at Driscoll’s church several years back, when some folks who disagreed with him were kicked out.

    He said (direct quote) “They are sinning through questioning.”

    This man is (imo) a complete fraud, but one who is incredibly accomplished at emotional and psychological manipulation.

  32. I’ve heard of Driscoll, but this was the first video I’ve seen of him. If he actually does have the gift of “a word of knowledge” , he surely has no grasp of how to be appropriate with its use. Note to Driscoll: a little discretion goes a long way.

    Within the “reformed/charismatic” circles I traveled long ago, there were people I respected who had what was termed the gift of a “word of knowledge” — in other words, at times, but not all the time, they received knowledge or details about situations that were, in reality, not known to them, and there was no way they knew this other than some kind of spiritual impartation. This often came as they were praying about something, or sometimes in counseling situations. But they would never have embarrassed someone by spouting off details. Somehow, it was helpful to them in praying, or in offering advice in a situation in which someone had asked for their help. I’ve also known a few busybodies who claimed to have this gift, but in reality they just wanted to be seen as indispensable to the work of the Holy Spirit in someone’s life. It seems that almost any time I’ve seen genuine examples of God’s gifts, I’ve also run into some counterfeits.

    When Driscoll called his visions “discernment”, I had to roll my eyes. I’m not quoting chapter and verse here, because it’s too late and my eyes won’t handle looking up, but maybe someone else can chime in. The gift of “discerning of spirits” was explained to me as the spiritual gift of being able to determine if a spirit is actually of the Lord, or a tool of the enemy. Or being able to determine someone’s word of knowledge is genuine or counterfeit.

    Discernment (often pronounced dizernment by those who wish to make my skin crawl and/or appear to be especially dizerning) is another word for plain old ordinary wisdom — the kind gained from years of praying, studying the Word, and living out the good-bad-&-ugly of Christian life. Those who demonstrate such wisdom do not necessarily receive “words of knowledge” about stuff, and do not necessarily possess the spiritual gift of discernings of spirits, but they’re pretty good at figuring things out.

    I don’t know how this squares with current “reformed/charismatic” teaching, but it makes sense to me. Driscoll’s explanation of what he claims to be able to envision does not make sense.

    Years ago, I read about a man who woke up in the night, having “seen” a murder, woke up his wife to tell her what he’d “seen”, and they reported it to the police. Later, he was charged with the murder, because he provided details that only the perp would have known. It was fascinating to me — his wife was absolutely sure he had received a “word of knowledge” and was innocent. The police figured he could’ve actually left the house, commmitted the murders, and come back home to wake up the wife, but the timeline was really tight and he’d have had to run several miles to do it, and would’ve been covered in blood, etc. I wish I knew how things finally turned out in that case, but I apparently don’t have a word of knowledge about it because I can’t remember where I read about it.

    Moral of that story, of which Driscoll should take note, to quote the late, great Lewis Grizzard:
    “Don’t believe I’d a told that.”

  33. NLR said,

    “Driscoll is basically telling us what programming he chooses to view. I have said before that I would bet he has a porn addiction and a sexual addiction.”

    I think you’re right. I also believe demon influence is involved.

  34. Dee and Deb – I’m glad you highlighted this story on your blog.

    I wrote about it a few weeks ago, and I wanted to point out a few things here for your readers:

    – as you mentioned, the first question is: if his visions led him to see these crimes, and he confirmed they happened, did he report them to the police as required? Is there a police report on the molestations he mentions? The man who grabbed the woman by the throat, did he report this?

    – in the graphic story he tells of the woman having sex with a man in a hotel room: listen carefully, and as he tells it, he sprung this allegation, blindsiding the woman and her husband in a counseling session! Why would a minister who has knowledge of a woman’s cheating from 10 years prior, spring that on the husband without the woman’s consent?

    – notice that his visions are all sexual or violent in nature. Why isn’t God giving him visions of good things, like a grandpa picking flowers with his grandchild in the woods? Or why is he not seeing visions of sins like lying, or being greedy?

    – my view of this stunt, declaring to have special visionary powers to see the sins of his congregation, is all about power. Once he declares his special “gift”, he now can claim to see the sins of a deacon he doesn’t care for and require he be removed. Can you imagine the power he must feel over people in his church if he has them convinced that God allows him to see their sins?

    Too bad First Baptist Jax didn’t consult Mark Driscoll on the identity of the First Baptist blogger back in 2008 – they could have avoided all the trouble of putting a cop on their discipline committee, and having him pull subpoenas. Who needs subpoenas when a pastor can see the past?

  35. In the sociological literature, cult leaders are particularly distinguished by:

    -Extensive paranoia regarding the intentions of both outsiders and members of the group. Constantly presenting themselves as being persecuted by those who want to suppress “the truth”.
    -Successful ‘coups’ whereby they establish total control and dominance in community structures and expel any potentially dissenting voices.
    -Attempts to exert extensive control over the lives of congregants, including the media they watch and the people they associate with.
    -Extensive meddling in personal and financial affairs of congregants, particularly attempts to gain information about and control their sex lives and the way that they spend their money.
    -Presenting this meddling as being the fault of those on the recieving end. The leader does not *want* to become involved, he *has* to become involved because of the depravity of group members and their inability to live “proper” lives without his involvement.
    -The cult leader will frequently imply that he holds omniscient knowledge of the inner lives, thoughts, and private conduct of his members. This creates a sense in followers that they may be being watched at every moment, and so extends the authoritative control of the leader to every aspect of their lives and even to their thoughts.

    This website: http://www.anandainfo.com/cult_leaders.html gives some good information on the characteristics of cults, and features the following quote:

    “The purpose of a cult (whether group or one-on-one) is to serve the emotional, financial, sexual, and power needs of the leader.”

    If anyone doubted that Driscoll is using his ministry as a way of acting out his own sexual desires, this video should convince. The only purpose of Mark Driscoll’s ministry is to fulfill the increasingly bizarre and outlandish needs of Mark Driscoll. I shudder to think how this story is going to pan out. Thanks for putting it in the spotlight ladies.

  36. Lou,

    Thanks for weighing in with some important information. The website you provided is extremely beneficial.

    Sadly, Driscoll used the oldest trick in the book – SEX – to reign in his sycophants, and now they’re hooked…

  37. Tom,

    Loved this comment!

    “Too bad First Baptist Jax didn’t consult Mark Driscoll on the identity of the First Baptist blogger back in 2008 – they could have avoided all the trouble of putting a cop on their discipline committee, and having him pull subpoenas. Who needs subpoenas when a pastor can see the past?”

    Hope you and your family are doing well.

  38. Here’s what Tim Challies had to say about the Piper/Mahaney duo giving Driscoll “brotherly correction”.

    Driscoll Piper and Mahaney

    “Last Sunday, at Mars Hill Church, Mark Driscoll preached a sermon on the Regulative Principle. For a few minutes, just at the end of the sermon, he discussed some “behind-the-scenes” time he has spent with both C.J. Mahaney and John Piper. In this brief audio excerpt, posted below, he explains to his congregation some of the ways he has failed to serve them and how he hopes to grow in and by God’s grace. This is in light of some private brotherly correction and feedback he received from John Piper and C.J. Mahaney at the recent Resurgence conference…. I thank God for Piper and Mahaney and their ministry to Mark Driscoll and, through him, to the church at large…”

    The last comment on this post was somewhat prophetic:

    Don Sands wrote: “Time will show forth the fruit in Mark Driscoll, if indeed the lord will give increase from Pastor Piper and Mahaney’s watering and planting.”

    Remember folks, we are just scouting the crop and inspecting the fruit.

  39. While I appreciate Phil Johnson’s efforts to expose Mark Driscoll, I hold John MacArthur & Co. accountable for giving credibility to C.J. Mahaney and giving him such a lofty platform. In this video Mahaney has just been introduced by MacArthur at the 2007 Shepherds’ Conference (a pastors’ conference held at Grace Community Church).

    The Perils of Pride – Mahaney

    According to Mahaney, MacArthur reached out to him way back in 2005. The silence from MacArthur, Piper, etc. is deafening…

  40. Mahaney is now living the perils of his pride. Too bad he did not practice what he was preaching. He is a phony.

    One time at a “Celebration” weekend in Orlando, I got a chance to speak to Mr Mahaney for the first and only time. I was pouring my heart out to him, when he interrupted me and said, “Can you hurry it up, I have other people waiting to talk to me.”

    When I shared this with some other SGMers, they were sure that I was mistaken. I was not.

  41. Pingback: Why “Tell it to the church”…and why “Rebuke them publicly”? vs. Suffer Pastoral/Church Abuse for Christ and Keep Silent (Via Calvary Chapel Abuse) « The Reformed Traveler

  42. NBTT,

    Your encounter with Mahaney at that Celebration event is so telling. Thanks for sharing it.

  43. NBTT,
    I don’t want to derail the thread either, so if you’re not comfortable answering this here, then I understand. I’ll keep it short.

    Forgive me, but I’m still struggling to get my head around your perspective.

    If sin has no eternal consequences, how (and why?) could it have any temporal consequences?

    Or, another way to look at it: If a belief in Jesus in this life as Savior is unnecessary for freedom from sin, eternally, and therefore separation from God (in hell), eternally, as a consequence, then sin itself is moot, no matter in this life or the next. It is not real. Therefore, it cannot create bondage or misery in this life. All those things are just, well, just are. They’re not good or bad, they just are. Sin is a non-existent concept.

    Additionally, if sin has no meaning or consequence in the next life (and we don’t need to repent and confess Christ in this life to be saved), then God should have us all just skip this life and be born straight into heaven. Without the need to acknowledging Christ in this life as a basis for forgiveness of sin and freedom from hell in eternity, this temporal life is pointless. It’s just torture without reason.

  44. Hi Argo,

    God warned Adam and Eve they would surely DIE – not go to Hell. All of the punishments for their eating the forbidden fruit were temporal to this life. No mention whatsoever of any punishments after death.

    Again, the wages of sin is DEATH. Jesus DIED for our sins. Jesus defeated death and rose again. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. So the permanent punishment that Christ overcame for all mankind was death – not Hell. The consequences of sin were made clear by God to Adam and Eve when they brought sin into this world. Not one word about Hell – nothing. Earthly consequences and death.

    God becomes man and dies for us! We would have never known that kind of love and forgiveness had he just made us in Heaven to start with.

  45. To Whom It May Concern,

    I certainly hope we can keep the comments related to the post. Thanks for your cooperation. Blessings!

  46. Another perverted aspect of Mark Driscoll is his demented teaching about God being some sort of eternal terrorist who torments people in Hell for eternity.

    There, now that subject is related to this post. 🙂

    (THAT WAS A JOKE!)

  47. Dee,

    Thanx for the pic of the bluebird babies! They are as precious as precious can get. Give it time though and I’m sure some moron will accuse you of worshipping the creature above the creator.

    I liked the Erasmus quote too. I think it profiles an aspect of our humanity that we’d just as soon forget. Misery loves company.

    When I did the Calvary Chapel thing all those years ago, I couldn’t see it because the trees got in the way. The smarmy Pauline doublespeak was sold as a balm that you had to keep using to keep the pain away and the misery at bay.

    Driscoll is just another showman in a long parade of showmen who promise short-cut answers to life without actually having to live life itself.

  48. This is how I see it.

    Spiritual things — including the impartation of information whether it be in word form, word pictures, metaphorical images, more literal images — come to people in spite of their problems & imperfections. However the person responds to what they sense / see is of necessity filtered through the person they are (their personality, their social skills, communication skills, hang ups, fears, anxieties, prejudices, etc.).

    Certainly, when such information is shared with others, it is better received when the person presenting it has enough sensitivity to know how much or how little to temper it with discretion (even to the point of choosing to not present it at all). I would expect Mr. Driscoll to be nothing less than stark (that’s his way). But his presentation doesn’t necessarily negate / disqualif any legitimacy of his experiences. Nor does it necessariy indicate a dubious spiritual source.

    These situations are challenging. Our “modern” industrialized, nuclear age, information age mentality and way of doing things is based on SCIENCE(!!) [sorry, just hearing the scientist in “She Blinded Me With Science” in my head], empirical evidence, things we can know by what we see, hear, and touch with our physical eyes, ears, and hands. We are used to controlling and predicting our world and our experience of it. That is the goal.

    For spiritual things to be given place, such control and predictability aren’t quite so apppicable. These are hard things to give up. (like in the movie “The Abyss”, & the demonstration of the mouse learning to breath an oxygenated liquid, and the sheer panic when the mouse first filled his lungs with liquid rather than air; after a while he calmed down and found he could breath after all. Like a new normal.)

    We are more than physical bodies living in a physical universe. Someone in pursuit of God (read, “christian”) would heartily agree, and embrace it as a faith matter — based on something unseen, intangible (for the most part at least). So, it’s like we allow for the unproveable when it’s all safely buttoned up in rhetoric and practice that we can control & predict. Yet when spiritual things move into areas beyond what we can control & predict, we balk at the fact of the unseen and intangible and the unproveable, and we reel in our willingness to remain on a plane of faith.

    Are the points I’m trying to make readily available, or am I spiralling down into convolution?

  49. That is exactly how “discernment” has been practiced since the early days of GOB and before.

    It is nothing more than the christian version of psychic stage entertainment in the style of other more well known charlatans and clairvoyants.

    From Wikipedia,

    “In 1948, psychologist Bertram R. Forer gave a personality test to his students. He told his students they were each receiving a unique personality analysis that was based on the test’s results and to rate their analysis on a scale of 0 (very poor) to 5 (excellent) on how well it applied to themselves. In reality, each received the same analysis:

    you have a great need for other people to like and admire you.
    You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.
    You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.
    While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.
    Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.
    At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.
    You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.
    You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof.
    You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
    At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.
    Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.
    Security is one of your major goals in life.

    On average, the rating was 4.26, but only after the ratings were turned in was it revealed that each student had received identical copies assembled by Forer from various horoscopes.[2] As can be seen from the profile, there are a number of statements that could apply equally to anyone. These statements later became known as Barnum statements, after P.T. Barnum (“We have something for everyone”)

    That people think this crap is real is a sad commentary on the state of humanity.

  50. The offensive video is a couple of years old already. It is hard to imagine that since then, the ‘Calvinista’ crowd has become even more chummy with Driscoll, as well as the Southern Baptists and others you would expect would be more circumspect. They are either extremely naive, or complicit, or just choose to look the other way. Despite the tough-guy pugnacious attitudes, coarse jesting, the sexual innuendo, the bullying of church members and elders, the attention and adulation continues to grow – more book deals and endorsements, more conference appearances, more real estate, more apologists, more wannabees, more famous “Christian leaders” lining up genuflect before the celebrity.

    Think that “I see everything” video is a shocker?
    Here is a treasure trove of more:

    http://www.youtube.com/user/ReallySad1

    http://prayingheart.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/mark-driscoll-and-company-master-architects-of-arbitrariness/

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11punk-t.html?pagewanted=4

    http://dannimoss.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/spiritual-abuse-mars-hill-church-and-mark-driscoll/
    /

  51. Ted,

    We’ve featured the video you highlighted here before, along with others. Check our archives for Driscoll for our other rants. Why do people put up with this nonsense? I am sick to death of the Driscoll sycophants!

  52. Dee said “Keep posting. The truth has a way of worming its way into hearts!”

    EXACTLY! Thank you for that very good exhortation.

  53. Elasti girl said, “This is how I see it.

    Spiritual things — including the impartation of information whether it be in word form, word pictures, metaphorical images, more literal images — come to people in spite of their problems & imperfections. However the person responds to what they sense / see is of necessity filtered through the person they are (their personality, their social skills, communication skills, hang ups, fears, anxieties, prejudices, etc.)”

    I think that’s well said. Sen

  54. I think that this is from Mark’s “Spiritual Warfare” Series from a few years ago. If I remember correctly, he gave this talk for leaders of Mars Hill, then released it for general consumption. I seem to remember that the series also had Mark talking about all he would do to get people to respond the way he wanted: threaten, cajole, etc. Mark has a domineering personality and is very, very manipulative.

  55. Ok, so we all agree that Mark Driscoll is a complete jerk. Now what? Do we write a letter to our congressman?

  56. Dee said “Keep posting. The truth has a way of worming its way into hearts!”

    Nothing could be further from the truth then that statement. Look at the plethora of superstitious beliefs, religions, psychic nonsense, ghost hunters, crystal ball readers, priests, shamans and supernatural nonsense that abounds.

    If the truth will eventually worm it’s way into people’s hearts (personally I’d prefer into their brains) I sure wish it would get started…seems like the more time passes the more ways we have of concocting some new nonsense to chase after.

  57. Anonymous said, “Look at the plethora of superstitious beliefs, religions, psychic nonsense, ghost hunters, crystal ball readers, priests, shamans and supernatural nonsense that abounds.”

    Send them over here. We will straighten them out!

  58. Dana

    I believe that Mark needs help. This goes even deeper than manipulative. Donald Trump would be considered manipulative. But he doesn’t have “visions” of molestations and rapes and what positions the principles assumed. This is crazy. I cannot believe that folks like Piper actually tolerate this stuff. He, along with his buddies, must be losing it.

  59. Anonymous

    You are right. It needs to get into their brains. What I meant is this. If Driscoll keeps going at this pace, something very bizarre is going to occur. Look at Ted Haggard who always seemed a bit “off” to me. Eventually, something gives. And I predict that it will be very, very embarrassing.

  60. NBTT
    Send the video around to your friends. Let the folks in church know. Speak out when someone says they “like” Driscoll. Imagine this conversation. “I really like Mark Driscoll.” You reply “How do you like the fact that he sees rapes and molestations in progress in visions. Perhaps he can teach you how to receive the same.”

  61. One of the chief concerns I came to have about his descriptions of his spiritual discernment whether in Reformission Rev or from the pulpit is that he says 1) that he prefers not to discuss it too much 2) discusses it at all from the pulpit anyway and then 3) describes things which when claimed or described as happening for other Christians he lists in “charismaniac”.

    At one point he described himself as leaning very heavily toward the cessationist position. He said this circa 2001-2002 over dinner at Denhy’s in Ballard as we discussed theology over dinner. He knew of Wayne Grudem and Gordon Fee and respected their work but in terms of pastoral work he still leaned very heavily toward cessationism in practice. About 2003 things began to change. I can’t say for sure why and I was there from late 1999 to mid-2008.

    He has not, to my memory, described someone ELSE as having spiritual discernment or comparable gifts to the ones he says he reluctantly says he has. Were a person to describe having the spiritual ability to see and perceive things such as demons around some member of the church or someone attending an event, or someone speaking at Mars Hill, if that person were not Driscoll the person would likely be considered by Mars Hill people to be subject to a psychotic break or delusional episodes. But not, it seems, Driscoll. If a person who ardenly attended MH services circa 2008 and thought of themselves as having spiritual discernment actually made their opinions known and, to repeat my case, happened to NOT be Driscoll that person might likely be described as crazy. The question this raises for me is one not of hypocrisy as such but of special pleading and double standards. A hypocrite is someone who claims to live one way and does not live that way. Special pleading is how double standards are often justified and it holds that what is acceptable for “me” must be viewed with suspicion if it is something “you” claim for yourself. Prophets recognized other prophets, so if MD considers himself to have prophetic giftings it might be useful to know who else he grants as having comparable God-given superpowers.

    I suggest that MD really believes he has these abilities. People who assume he’s a scammer and a fraud may find that less scary an idea to subscribe to than that he sincerely believes he’s got these gifts. Whether or not they have a demonic or spiritual origin at all is not something I wish to field here. This comment has gotten long enough already I suppose.

  62. I disagree. Mark doesn’t actually believe he has these abilities…he is quite aware of the fact that he is “faking it”, as is every other person who “claims” such powers and abilities. So when another member of Mars Hill (or anywhere else) claims these abilities those in actual leadership positions view it for what it they know it to be…either a cry for attention, vying to take authority or power from established leadership, or some form of psychosis…and they respond accordingly.

    It’s nothing more than self-delusion by insecure people to promote the feeling that “they too” are part of an “elite” group or they are being intentionally deceptive for the purposes of manipulating the behavior of others, maintaining authority over the group or with the intent to defraud those naive enough to buy into the dog and pony show.

  63. W The Hatchet

    Then we conceivably have someone who is delusional. If he believes he is special, which I have no doubt is possible with this guy, then we have the makings of a megalomaniac. That is a very dangerous. It is also a sign of serious mental illness.

    I am assuming he believes these things. Just like I believe he thinks a guy with a machete rushed him on stage. That is what is most disconcerting. He will begin to act more and more on these “visions” that he refuses to discuss. That, in itself, shows that he is perhaps a bit worried that he is nuts.

    The people who surround him must know that this stuff is not normal. Are they all so afraid of him that they refuse to do an intervention? Are they afraid to lose their jobs or the elder status? Is that position all that important that you would sell out the truth?

    They claim to be real men at this church. I have yet to see anybody act like real men except those pastors who did disagree with him and lost their jobs. I think that Driscoll is afraid of real men. That is why he pretend he is one – to keep the opposition away.

    There is something very, very wrong with this man. But maybe those who attend his church don’t get it. He attracts lots of “different” people which is great. But maybe these folks do not have the discernment to understand that Driscoll’s preaching is a bit whacked.

  64. Anonymous

    I actually think that Driscoll may have some mental health issues and that he believes he is seeing this stuff. Anyone who would add details such as sexual positions into a vision is crazy. The fact that he will not discuss this stuff shows he knows something is wrong.

    Now don’t get me wrong. I believe Driscoll has some understanding of his actions and realizes that they are wrong. But I think it is all mixed up in one very complex psyche which is creaming out for help but his followers make excuses. I believe this will prove to be a disaster in the making. Hmmm< is that a prophecy or just an old nurse's experience?

  65. Here is Mark Driscoll preaching last week on my favorite subject.

    http://www.sermoncentral.com/pastors-preaching-articles/mark-driscoll-turning-people-back-from-the-dangers-of-hell-1012.asp

    I would absolutely love to debate this man, one on one, with no rules. I would love to confront him, rebuke him, embarrass him, demoralize him, humble him, humiliate him, and tell his church to reject his false and perverted visions and teachings. He is a liar, a pervert, and a false teacher.

  66. I agree with you, Dee. I think MD could use some help. What I was trying to say is that MD is willing to have “visions” and use them to persuade his followers to assume the position, so to speak. He wants people to do certain things and be certain ways and believes that whatever he needs to do to make it happen is right. I think that he does believe he is seeing these things. I think he does believe that he is right and doing the right thing. All the time. I think that he has so much invested in being “right” and “godly” that he just can’t ever back down now. Self-reflection at this point for MD might be disastrous.

    If I’m not mistaken, Narcissistic Personality Disorder has been removed from the official list of mental illnesses (I forget the name of the list). Too bad.

  67. Driscoll hit my radar three or four years ago and I was astounded at his arrogance. And as I saw more and more of his videos I was perplexed by his ever sickening pride and abusive expressions. I was perplexed that he still maintained his position of authority. His pride should have absolutely disqualified him from having a teaching ministry. And what was truly sickening was how he was engendering a whole army of Mini-Marks, replicants of his arrogant and abusive spirit.

    My personal discernment is that Driscoll is a sick and controlling individual. He’s dangerous.

    Check this one minute video out of Pastor Mark patronizing and stigmatizing those within in his church who question and challenge a decision he made in firing two pastors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM7dCj7QWKs

    Back around the time of the above related crisis Driscoll confessed to his congregation his own sinful pride; see an incredibly sick and slick three minute video wherein Pastor Mark turns the table on those who would want to hold him to a biblical accountability.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6mmTXVTil8&feature=related

    In regards to his visions, I don’t know if he’s telling the truth or not. What I do know is that they could very well be real visions of real events. And if so, I suspect that the source of these visions were most likely demonic. I know of a Christian man who had similar impressions that he once regarded as spiritual discernment. However, when he had been delivered from a certain demonic stronghold related to sexual sin in his life—guess what? He was also delivered from his spiritual discernment. His special knowledge had left him.

    Of possible interest: Johanna Michaelsen’s book _The Beautiful Side of Evil_

  68. I can’t help thinking that the “lack of discernment” mentioned above is a direct result of the deep distrust of psychology/psychiatry and basic medical understanding of mental illness.

    That nobody has intervened to date – that we know of – is unconscionable.

    Wasn’t it Ann Landers who used to say “Wake up and smell the coffee”?

  69. I don’t think that anyone (scholar or layman) seriously doubts that the invention of agriculture enabled the rise of a priestly class with the means to live handsomely off the labor of others. It should be noted also that the brand of religion in this model is immaterial, only that it has existed for millenia.

    Piper, Mohler, MacArthur, MaHaney, yes; and even Greg Boyd fit this model to a tee. They are the latter day beneficiaries of this arrangement.

    Driscoll is an entirely different story. He is like a shaman from a far earlier time when humans were still hunting, gathering, and bashing each other’s brains out with skillfully constructed warclubs of stone, hardwood, and sinew. The shaman weilded far more power (in a direct sense) than the priests which came after them.

  70. Muff,

    Driscoll and others are simply extreme examples of what every pew sitter is…self-deluded, aware of it on some level, but for whom being “accepted”, getting “attention” or exerting “control” is far more important than personal honesty.

    From the group at a prayer breakfast, each pretending they can hear God’s voice, to the Pentecostal speaking in tongues, to those who have large congregations and pretending to do everything from laying hands on the sick, to speaking prophetic utterances from God Himself, to those with international reputations who live off the ignorance and gullibility of the global sheep market…it’s all the same, just different in how they justify it and the degree to which they carry the charade.

  71. Driscoll’s just a human being like any other and his capacity for self-delusion does not seem appreciably different than that of any other. Scientists and philosphers have been discussing the unlikelihood of fully eliminating a propensity to believe in gods and the reason this is probably not likely to happen is that the theory of mind which allows a human to imagine the thoughts and feelings of another mind that may mistakenly imagine a god is the same brain and socializing process through which empathy is possible. Even if there were no gods to believe wars would still happen and ethnic and racial oppression would still get justified. It seems that while religious people have deluded themselves into thinking there are gods secularists have deluded themselves into thinking they are different from religionists. Both more or less establish the human mind’s capacity for both delusion and empathy emerging from the same apparatus.

  72. Anonymous, the assumption of asymmetric insight is a gimmick that is useful in the hands of anyone wanting to present themselves as smarter and more insightful than others. Notice how you’ve used it on Driscoll just as Driscoll has used it on other people. He uses an appeal to super powers of divine origin; you appeal to what you consider to be a superior knowledge base but the ethical and social act is still fundamentally the same. There’s an assumption that you know the minds of the people you look down on more than they know their own minds and thus reveals that emotionally, socially, and intellectually you’re exactly the same sort of person you assume others are. A self-appointed prophet uses the device of asymmetric insight to control others while a secularist may use the assumption of asymmetric insight to assume that religious people are less real, less sincere, less informed, and ultimately less truly human. It’s useful to note for those sorts of secularists that Camus mentions that most religious people, ultimately aren’t all that bad. Even Christopher Hitchens, an ardent opposer of religion if there ever was one, has conceded that ultimately if given the power to eliminate all religious ideas he would not wish to use that power. If I may hazard a guess, Hitchens may know enough about the theory of mind discussions in philosophy and brain research to appreciate that the strength of our capacity for empathy is also our weakness.

  73. Dee “Why do i get the feeling you know this guy and are not enamored of him?”

    Dee not bad- two for two!

  74. Wenatchee,

    Please remember that these people are claiming supernatural events or powers for which there is zero external, observable and verifiable support. While that doesn’t, ispo facto, make the claim false, it does make it extraordinarily unlikely and well beyond the scope of reasonableness.

    Secondly, this isn’t a case of asymmetric insight, I am not claiming to know their internal thoughts or motivations better than they might understand my motivations. What I’m trying to get at, is that if the supernatural does not exist (highly probable), then what other conclusion is there other than delusion or intentional deceit when believers at any level claim some type of supernatural encounter, whether it is visions of abuse or simply a claim of hearing God’s voice in answer to prayer?

  75. … if Driscoll had made statements like this back in the 70s, people would probably have assumed that he’d taken one acid trip too many.

    And they would likely have been very close to the truth!

  76. Wenatchee & Anonymous,

    It’s important to note that what I wrote above are just observations and have no connection whatsoever to internal human mechanisms either real or imagined which would account for them.

    I have long been away from the pews and have no intention of returning. I now believe in living, letting others live, & treating others as I want to be treated under the aegis of nature & nature’s God.

    John Adams a once ardent Calvinist put it this way in 1816:

    “…Phylosophy is not only the love of Wisdom, but the Science of the Universe and its Cause. There is, there was and there will always be but one Master of Phylosophy in the Universe. Portions of it, in different degrees are revealed to Creatures. Phylosophy looks with an impartial Eye on all terrestrial religions…”

  77. Muff, I wasn’t directly addressing anything you wrote about priestly classes, though I believe it is delusional to think there will never be a human race without the equivalent of a priestly class. Whether we’re dealing with the predicted effects of a disobedience to a god or the environmental effects of not changing one’s carbon footprint or pushing for a gold standard that can magically fix a currency there will be a priestly class of some kind in humanity pushing for something that everyone must do to make things better.

    Anonymous, I brought up asymmetric insight because you wrote “Mark Driscoll does not believe he actually has these abilities.” You stated Driscoll is quite aware he’s faking things. Okay, how do you know that? On what basis can you prove that? Let’s take the presuppositionalist Christian apologist who claims that 1) atheists are deluded into believing there is no god 2) atheists are liars who lie to themselves and others about whether or not god exists. I take it, then, that the Christian apologist isn’t working from the illusion of asymmetric insight in making those claims? 😉 The metaphysical rightness of one’s conclusion doesn’t preclude the possibility of a social cognitive bias, does it?

  78. Regarding earlier comments about MD’s likely being a sex addict, I don’t know that I want to be in a spot to find that out. From statements he made at break-out sessions to the effect that polaroids of the naked wife as Bible book-markers circa 2001-2003 it may be that while MD may assiduously avoid formal porn hey may have found things over time that he considers sanctified in some way. I.e. a guy may decide that so long as he’s looking at pictures of his naked wife he’s not really looking at “real” porn. Word got around that at a mens’ retreat MD said that if he went without for longer than three days he got “wiggy”. Certainly on the old Babblerash forum Morgan74 expressed a belief that MD’s views about sexuality and sex were abberrant but that was on a long abandoned php forum from circa 2002-2003 and obviously from a pseudonym. It is something I remember, though, because concerns that Driscoll’s whole approach to sex was problematic goes back a way.

    The stuff about claiming to see molestations in the past that happened … ugh, even in secular psychology a lot of “recovered memories” work done in the 1990s has been debunked and cognitive research has shown that memory can be wildly unreliable and easily molded. Many therapists consider recovered memories of sexual abuse to be ciphers for problematic relations in the present; conversely, the more work is done on brain research and cognitive development in children the more it appears to be the case that long term memories are possible around the age of about 5 and that memories or perceived scenes of abuse from, say, the age of 2 are difficult to establish. At the same time, something as traumatic and substantial as sexual abuse will tend to stick in the memory.

    One of the things I have found problematic about church pastoral counselors and lay “healing of memories” sorts is that “memories” of sexual abuse tend to play out in creepy ways. There is a kind of script in which an ethnic foreigner or a conveniently dead relative or authority figure can be remembered in later life as having been an abuser when no actual memories of such things can be verified. Denial of incident ends up feeding the belief even more. It is possible for a pastor to suppose a history of sexual abuse in a church member as a way to turn a member against his/her family and to present the church as the alternative “real” family founded in common belief. This is not to diminish the trauma of those who are sexually abused but I have wondered if in some cults memory manipulation and emotional steering haven’t permitted pastors to claim that so and so was sexually abused. Not necessarily linking it to the explicit examples referred to earlier, but perhaps others have already connected dots in that direction anyway.

  79. Wenatchee,

    Point taken, I should have phrased it differently. It would be more accurate to say that given the relative unlikelihood of the existence of the supernatural, that Driscoll and others are EITHER deluded or are intentionally being deceitful. You are correct that I shouldn’t have preferred one of those possibilities over the other.

    I will add though, that I think one could probably make a good case for “deceit” over “delusion” in those who are national level leaders. Being in that position is very closely equivalent to being a CEO of a large business…delusions alone will rarely, if ever, get you into those positions…it requires a deliberate, skilled and well thought out and executed plan to achieve that goal.

    Again, not that it’s impossible or unheard of, but on the whole very unlikely.

  80. I believe God can give people pictures of things. But why would God have needed to show Mark Driscoll that the lights were on, she was on her back, her blouse coming off, etc, etc, etc? A simple word that she cheated with this tall blonde man ten years ago in a motel would have been enough to convince her. Why all the salacious details? Doesn’t make sense.

    And what is up with the first story he tells with a perverse little smirk as he is repeating supposedly the confession of the pedophile?:

    “No that never happened”

    “Go ask them…”

    They went and asked this person

    They said, “When I was a little kid, did you do this?”

    And the person said (smirk), “Yeah, but you were only like a year or two old. How do you remember that?”

    “Pastor Mark told me.”

    I’m sorry, but not only was his facial expression odd in that, but that is not the way pedophiles usually confess. (The average pedophile doesn’t even acknowledge that “maybe” something happened until after a year of intense therapy.) This video has too many red flags to be believable. Not that God may not show him things, but there’s something more to this video that he is not telling us.

  81. One last thing while I’m on the subject of our founding fathers. And I do hope our illustrious blog queens will not consider it too far off topic to be pertinent.

    Although Adams greatly admired human reason as an abstract ideal, he was equally skeptical of reason becoming a god and installed in a new temple where all must worship.

  82. Where are the people coming forward to verify Mark Driscoll’s “visions”? He could make up any story he so please because of the pastor/counselee privacy privilege. No names are mentioned (of course)and no one coming forward to confirm these outrages stories.

    I think Mark Driscoll is a liar and a con artist.

  83. anonymous, I agree that Driscoll is being deceitful. But I do not agree with your statement “given the relative unlikelihood of the existence of the supernatural”.

  84. Anonymous,

    I think it’s best that I cease and desist. The owners of this blog are primarily concerned with the mores & happenings within Southern Protestantism and not so much the tangential issues which may result along those curves.

  85. Muff,

    I’m not sure that makes a lot of sense. How can one be concerned with “behavior and mores” and at the same time turn a deaf ear to those issues which may either give rise to that behavior or at the very least have an impact on how you judge the behavior in question?

  86. anonymous – I have been healed instantly and supernaturally by God. I know for an absolute fact that God is real and that the supernatural power of God is real.

  87. NBTT,

    Unfortunately, while I cheer for your good health…many people, of many different and varied faiths all have claims of healing by their Gods…each of them convinced that their God did the healing and each of them convinced that all the other Gods are false Gods.

    What does that say to you…everyone is wrong but you? I’m not trying to be mean spirited, just trying to bring some reasonableness to the discussion.

    When I talk about what you or I may “know” I am doing so with the understanding that knowledge is based on fact, facts are objective, verifiable, testable things. As someone once said, “Everyone is entitled to their own set of opinions, but not to their own set of facts”.

    I would humbly suggest, that a more accurate way of saying what you said earlier is that you “believe” or have “faith” that God exists, how can you “know” when there is no objective evidence? This is why every religious believer says that they “know” their god or gods exists, even though most of those claims are contradictory in nature with others making similar claims….they can’t all be right?

  88. anonymous, I know God for an absolute undeniable fact. I had been an atheist for over 5 years. God proved Himself to me beyond the shadow of any doubt. I have had numerous miracles in my life and incredible fulfilled prophecies. I passed the “faith” stage a very long time ago.

  89. But you didn’t address any of the issues, lots of religious people say the same things.

    Saying you “know” god exists is no more valid than people who “know” that he doesn’t

    Care to share one of your miracles?

  90. I went to the hospital double over in super intense stomach pain. While still waiting for someone to come, all of the sudden I instantly stood up straight without even trying or wanting to. The super intense pain was 100% gone within the blink of an eye. No left over pain whatsoever – NONE! And I walked away from the hospital without that ever happening again.

    And please do not try to explain this away with some “reasonable” alternative. I have heard them all. I know exactly what happened. it was 100% a miracle.

    As far as other religions are concerned, God can heal whoever He so chooses. If they give the credit to another god, He can handle that. I have had many more miracles and fulfilled prophecies. And no one can ever KNOW that God does not exist. That is totally absurd.

  91. That to you is proof of the supernatural, really? I can think of lots of explanations, here’s a simple one, from person experience…you passed a kidney stone! One moment doubled over in agonizing pain and literally in the blink of an eye you feel perfectly fine like it never happened.

    Saying you “know” it was a miracle, when there are plenty of more likely explanations is just being silly…sorry, but let’s call a spade a spade. Now if you have something which truly at least appears miraculous, we can try again.

    Believing something really really fervently does not make it true, no matter who you are. Got something a little less mundane?

  92. This is why Jesus warned us not to throw our pearls before swine (no offense). You will NEVER admit it was God, no matter what I tell you. So why do you even ask? You did not call as spade a spade. You do not have a clue what has happened to me. You are not in my skin and you have no idea the numerous miracles and fulfilled prophecies.

    I do not “believe” anything. My relationship with God is based on 100% fact. I have absolute undeniable proof. If you cannot or will not accept that, then so be it. I know that I know.

  93. NBTT

    I’ll repeat it for the benefit of those not listening the first time…you BELIEVE it is the truth….that’s a far cry from actually BEING the truth.

    No matter how much I believe that a stork left me on the welcome mat outside my parents door, rang the bell and flew away doesn’t make it true.

    Believing something with all your heart, soul mind and strength doesn’t make it true…doesn’t make it false either…the strength with which you believe something is totally irrelevant!

    Saying things like “you’ll never believe anyway”…is disingenuous. If you have evidence, put it on the table for all to examine. Facts are facts for everyone, they don’t come and go based on your beliefs. If you don’t have any facts to put on the table, then on what basis do you “know” or is this like a junior high school argument, I know because I know because I know…so there!

    It’s alright if you believe just because you want to (without evidence), but that’s faith…not fact.

    By all means, defend your position…let’s hear some facts.

  94. anonymous, I do not BELIEVE anything. I have KNOWLEDGE based on absolute undeniable FACTS!

    Can you prove that your love for your spouse exists? Or do you just believe it exists? There are supernatural facts that natural people cannot know or understand. It is like telling a joke to a dog. The dog has no sense of humor, so the joke is wasted on the dig. You have no sense of the supernatural, so telling you about God falls on deaf ears. That is why Jesus calls it “pearls before swine”. Dogs don’t “get” jokes, and you do not “get” God.

  95. NBTT

    That’s just an excuse used by people who don’t have any facts. It’s about as lame as it gets and as excuses go, pretty immature.

    I don’t “get” god, that has to be the stupidest statement of all time. Give me a break! If you don’t have any “facts” to share at least be man or woman enough to admit it and move on, but don’t try to pretend that somehow it’s the rest of the world’s fault that they just wouldn’t understand you anyway…please!

    You seem to not understand the word “fact” at all.

    You provide no “facts”, no “definitions” for the words you use, you just keep repeating yourself louder and louder….yup, great way to make a convincing argument.

    But, maybe you have a point, after all I keep asking for facts, asking for hard evidence over and over, but to no avail…maybe like the dog, you just don’t “get” it.

  96. anonymous, I already gave you some facts. But you had some other “reasonable explanation”. The FACTS are that you could not care less about God and you do not want to know God. You just want to argue.

    If you really want to know God, go get your own facts. Google “miracles” and maybe you will find one that meets your high standards.

  97. Anonymous

    I agree with your basic premise. We can put together all the manuscript evidence which contains eyewitness testimony, use the creation as testimony, and on and on and for many it is not enough. If God were to place His face over all the earth so that everyone would see Him once and for all, there would still be denials-cosmic hallucinations and such.

    In the end, it boils down to faith. However, it is not a mindless faith. It is based on interpretation of evidence but , in the end it is faith, nonetheless. I believe that God has given us free will to believe or not. I also think there are very intelligent people who have chosen not to believe just like there are intelligent people who do believe. In the end, one must choose. For me, the choice as simple. For others, it takes a lifetime. And for others it is never.

    In my opinion, God is gracious, allowing us freedom and does not drag us kicking and screaming into His presence. As for me, “you’ll never believe anyway” is impossible to say unless one can read the future. And if that is the case, I want the winning lotto number.

    I appreciate your comments and you are welcome here.

  98. NBTT

    If everything was based on incontrovertible facts, then faith would not be necessary. I have a suggestion for you. Why don’t you go on over to New ExChristians.net and spend some time reading? I did this for 3 years before starting this blog. You might find some cogent rebuttals to your questions about “love for spouse.” I learned to appreciate their arguments even though I disagree with their conclusions. Better yet, enter one of their forums such as The Lion’s Den in which all gloves come off and they go for the jugular. I did and learned much.

    I do NOT like you quoting the pearls before swine to anyone that visits this blog. There are many people who are interested in dialogue even if they don’t believe. You sound very much like the angry atheists that I have encountered in my life but you have no excuse because you supposedly “know” the Scriptures. If you insult any guest, I may play a game known as Where’s NBTT. I won’t delete your comments but I will move them into blog obscurity. I want you to tone it down with Anonymous and Jerry.

    Take a deep breath. You are acting like a Know It All. Surely you understand that most of us, including your adorable blog queens, do not agree with your “proof” of universalism. But, unlike other blogs, you viewpoint is allowed to be expressed.

  99. Dee, if you will look closely, you will see that the first time I mentioned that verse, I put (no offense) to anonymous. Please see my quote on Thurs, Sept 1st at 10:21 PM.

    You said: “I do NOT like you quoting the pearls before swine to anyone that visits this blog.” Jesus made that original statement, not me. To whom do you think that verse was intended? Are you telling me that I cannot quote a specific verse from the Bible to someone???? Are you serious???? Jesus DID NOT put a qualifier (no offense). So are you mad at Jesus for His comment?

    Jesus insulted the Pharisees ans offended people on a regular basis. So now His quotes are being restricted from this site???? Are you going to put Jesus’s own words into “blog obscurity”?

    Did you read the comments from NLR to Arce? He used some real rough language with 4 letter words. Why did you not confront him/her? Because he/her is not a Universalist????

    I am very interested with dialogue with unbelievers. But I do not have to share my miracles and fulfilled prophecies (pearls) with them. THAT is what Jesus was referring to. Jesus warned about being torn to pieces, which is exactly what is now happening, even by you. Your rebuke is way out of line here Dee. If you have a beef with me being a Uni, then deal with it. I will NEVER apologize for quoting the words of Jesus Christ.

  100. Dee, how about when Jesus told the Canaanite woman who was pleading for her daughters deliverance from demons, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

    Should Jesus not have said that? At first, He would not even answer her! Then He refers to her as a dog?

    “Blog obscurity” for Jesus!

  101. Wow,

    Well, let me start by saying, that NBTT’s tone doesn’t offend me as much as it frustrates me.

    Saying things like “I gave you facts” when what I was given was simply an experience…while the experience itself is undoubtedly factual, the attributing of that experience to a supernatural entity is not “factual” in any normally used sense of the word.

    If NBTT wants me to believe in the supernatural, than I would think he would welcome the opportunity to share his/her reasons and experiences…

    If we are going to quote scripture, then I choose to end with this one:

    “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (I Peter 3:15 )

  102. Anonymous! That is a wonderful verse and I accept it! Ok, her goes.

    The Lord told me who I was going to marry, years before it happened. This girl was one of the most beautiful in the city where we lived. She had not interest in me whatsoever – NONE! When the Lord spoke this to me I laughed and said to myself “That’ll be the day! I thought it was mt wild imagination that was speaking to me. Well as “coincidence” would have it, we got married and are still married 30 yrs later.

    So this is just some self fulfilled prophecy or incredible coincidence, right? As are all of the other numerous fulfilled prophecies in my life. How many fulfilled prophecies would it take to convince you? How many healings would convince you?

  103. NTBB,

    Glad we are speaking again…First, congratulations on a wonderful and long marriage. Now, answer me this, what of all the other young men who surprisingly found a lovely women to love and marry (even when the women might have been against the idea!) who didn’t get a “special message” from the heavens?

    You see what I am saying? The things you describe, are things that happen all the time. They are common occurrences…how can you take an event which happens all the time for people who are Christians, non-Christians, Muslims, atheists, Hindus, Druids, Witches, good people, bad people and, just for you Dee, even some Calvinistas and then claim when it happens for you….it’s some type of absolute proof of the existence of the supernatural?

    It makes no rational sense…

  104. Anonymous

    I love that verse. Years ago, when I had my crisis of faith, I used that verse to challenge me to always be prepared to have an answer. I realized that I was lazy, giving pat answers that no longer satisfied even me. It took my on a journey that is still ongoing. I have found many answers, my faith is strong but I still have questions. Actually, I enjoy having questions. It makes me humble. Gives me something to contemplate and causes me to be far more understanding of others.

  105. NBTT
    You do not know what goes on behind the scenes. I have picked on far more Calvinistas than I have universalists, even though, theologically I have more in come with the Calvinistas than I do with a universalist.

    Frankly, this is my blog and I think that I am far more accepting of unique belief systems than most evangelicals out there.

    I still do not like your approach and find that you can be somewhat dismissive and arrogant, just like some Calvinistas. I really urge you to visit exChristians. They will definitely dialogue with you and it may be an eye opening experience.

  106. Anonymous, the difference is that The Lord told me exactly who I was going to marry and spoke her name to me. Again, this was years before it happened and this girl had no interest in me whatsoever and we had never dated previously. This was a fulfilled word that was spoken to me by the Lord. That is NOT a common occurrence. I do not know one other person that had a similar experience.

  107. Dee, I have dialogued long and hard with many ex-Christians as I have already explained. I spent numerous hours on Debunking Christianity which is filled with ex preachers, ex Christians, etc.

  108. The Lord told me who I was going to marry, years before it happened. This girl was one of the most beautiful in the city where we lived. She had not interest in me whatsoever – NONE! When the Lord spoke this to me I laughed and said to myself “That’ll be the day! I thought it was mt wild imagination that was speaking to me. Well as “coincidence” would have it, we got married and are still married 30 yrs later.

    Not to detract from your story or single you out, but it’s always struck me how the Lord always leads the men to the most beautiful women. You never hear a guy say the Lord told him he was going to someday marry the most unattractive woman he ever laid eyes on.

    Note to blog queens: Can you please get the man behind the curtain to fix the preview function? It hasn’t worked in ages.

  109. NASS, I sure hope there is no man that thinks his wife is ugly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This girl was WAY out of my league. She was much more mature and very classy. I was a jerk, just like I am now. But she loves me anyway! How is that for a miracle!

  110. NSS
    We are upgrading all the functions on the site. Guy behind the curtain is away until this weekend and will begin adding stuff in the next week. Sorry for any inconvenience.

  111. NSS, it was specific wording that came into my mind. Like I already said, I thought it was my vivid imagination at work when I first heard it.

  112. NSS
    I just remembered this statement from my pastor. He said that it is most interesting with some of our current star pastors how they always seemed to be “called” to churches where they would make more money and have better benefits. I wonder how many of these guys were ever called to be like Paul, making his own living and routinely serving jail time?

  113. Dee, you said: “I have picked on far more Calvinistas than I have universalists.”

    That certainly is a no brainer, is it not? How many universalists have you had on this blog? I have not seen any others since being on here. And why “pick on” anyone? And why no answer to my question about what Jesus said to the Canaanite woman after He did not even speak to her?

    You confront me for my arrogance. Yes, I am arrogant. Do you have anything that needs to be removed from your own eye? Are you qualified to cast the first stone?

  114. I sure hope there is no man that thinks his wife is ugly.

    I agree, but someone is not always attracted to someone else because of looks. In fact, I suspect some people, if they were honest about it, would say they were not only not physically attracted to their future mate in the beginning but actually found them to be rather unattractive.

    My point, and it was not directed at you personally, was you never hear some man say, “This girl was one of the most unattractive girls in the whole school. I had seen her only from afar. She had no interest in me whatsoever nor I in her, but the Lord spoke her name to me. I laughed and said to myself, ‘That’ll be the day!’ Then when I got to know her I saw what a beautiful person she really is and we are happily married 30 years later.” Instead the stories are always more yours. Nerdy, awkward guy (not calling you either) spies beautiful girl from afar and thinks “no way” and before you know it he’s won her heart. Many a movie script has been written using this same plot.

    Think of the judges’ reaction when Susan Boyle walked onto the BGT stage last year. Then she opened her mouth and sang like an angel and people’s opinions instantly changed.

  115. NSS, do you want me to lie to make my story more attractive to you? All the guys at my church were talking about what a knockout she was. That just happens to be the facts of my story. I am sorry that you have not heard stories like the one you told. That is not my story, so I will not tell it.

  116. NSS, I now realize you said that was not directed to me personally, and I do understand your point. I am sorry for sounding too harsh with my last post. Please forgive me. I need to read more carefully.

  117. NBTT

    and just how, exactly, did you “know” it was the lord that told you these things and not simply the voices that all of us hear in our head when we think about things, or imagine things?

    Are you going to tell me that you “know” it was God simply because you ended up married?

    What were the details…did you go and talk to her after you heard this voice in your head? Did you know who she was prior to hearing the voice? had you spoken with her before? When you talked to her after hearing the voice, did she immediately respond with…I heard that voice too, let’s get married?

    Here’s a more difficult question….calvinista’s will love it. Do you believe that after you heard the voice that God “made” her fall in love with you or do you believe that she just naturally got to know you better and realized what a wonderful guy you were? I assume that since you believe it was God talking to you, that you could have said anything you wanted to her, even been a jerk or not talked to her at all and you still believe she would have come to swoon at your feet…that right?

  118. Hi anonymous,

    I knew her casually from church and she was a teller at my bank. We became close friends LONG AFTER the Lord told me we would get married. I did not tell her what the Lord and spoken to me until after we got engaged. There were many in the church that wanted to date her (and did). But not me – until after I had left that church I met her at.

  119. NSS, I understand now. Please forgive my denseness and my uncalled for defensiveness.

  120. RE Anonymous on Thu, Sep 01 2011 at 07:33 pm:

    Actually it does make sense when viewed from this angle: I have been a TWW denizen for awhile now. At first I was tolerated as a novelty of sorts, and rightly so, because TWW is truly one of the more tolerant blogs out here. Over time however the novelty of Muff has worn off and he has overstayed his welcome much like a wandering Jew in one of the cities of old Europe.

    These things happen, and when they do, it’s best to heed the old Ray Charles tune and: “… hit the road Jack…and doancha’ come back no mo’…”

  121. Pingback: Wartburg Watch « Notwsetapart’s Weblog

  122. MUFF!!!!!!!!!!

    What in the world are you talking about????????? When did anyone say you have overstayed your welcome!????? Don’t you go ruining my Labor Day Weekend. I have always loved having you here. Your comments are great. Am I missing something? I can be a little dense at times.

  123. NBTT,

    So, let’s see if I understand correctly…you knew this girl before the “prophecy”, you apparently liked her or at least thought she was cute…she wasn’t particularly fond of you…initially anyway. At some point you heard a voice in your head…a LONG TIME after the prophecy (not sure how long..but it sounds like sufficient time to change and get to know each other)…at some point you both fell in love and got married.

    A very sweet story, but hardly uncommon or the stuff of miracles…the only thing that separated your experience from thousands (millions?) like it, was the fact that you heard a voice in your head (and I’m reasonably sure that a “voice telling you that’s the girl you were going to marry” isn’t that unique either…but we’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.

    While I appreciate you sharing how you and your wife met, I would have to say it’s hardly evidence of a miracle or the supernatural….guys have been hearing voices in their head since the first cute cave girl walked by a young strapping caveman in a flimsy fig leaf skirt and v-cut neckline…holding a handful of wildflowers…

  124. Anonymous, I also was run over by a train and severed into 3 separate pieces. Those pieces came together and I walked home. I never told anyone about that before. How is that one?

  125. Muff – what’s going on here?!!! PLEASE don’t quite commenting.

    Lots of us would miss you!!!

    *

    About people believing that God told them they were going to marry X person: well, nobody’s talking about all the times that turned out to not be God, eh?

    I’d bet it’s 99 & 9/10ths of the time. Would even put money on it. 😉

  126. numo – that is an EXCELLENT point! So then when it finally DOES turn out to be God speaking to someone, now we have something to talk about!

  127. NBTT,

    Well, if you are going to tell me it was your head, thorax and both legs I might have to reconsider my position. Medical miracles are high on my list of suspect…but being severed into three pieces is certainly different.

    OK, let’s start with what pieces exactly, completely severed? How long until you walked home…did the doctors actually DO anything or did God just say the word and all the pieces came together miraculously in the ER?

  128. Numo
    Do you know why Muff is upset??We need to start a concerted effort to keep Muff present and accounted for.

  129. “stangela” is a member at our church named martin “marty” phillips. Marty and “Seneca” Jim Brown are at wars trying to create a schism in our small church and i”m seeing it take place here. I’m very saddened by these events

    Dan

  130. Dee & numo,

    Thanks to both of you for your concern. Allow me to explain. I suffer from a mild form of depression which shows up in the form of cynicism, lashing out at the things I like, and making irrational comments on blogs.

    When I was first diagnosed, they wanted to put me on one of the popular drugs so highly touted in some (not all) medical circles for the treatment of depression.

    Of course I adamantly refused, because I have no confidence in such drugs whatsoever.

    Luckily for me, my depression is a mild form, and through a second medical opinion, I was introduced to CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) and I have had good results with it.

    The approach (CBT) for me is much like invoking a restore point when one’s computer goes haywire & restarting from there. In addition, I have chosen the red-tailed hawk as a spiritual totem from my Native American heritage. It enables me to get above the landscape and see the warning signs early so that I can do a restore point and avoid an episode.

    I am very embarassed with my previous comment. It sounded like a little kid announcing that he’s pissed and gonna take his marbles and go home. So I asked mr. hawk about it and why he didn’t give me adequate warning, and his reply was: “…I gave ya plenty warnin’ ya dumb sumbitch, you chose to ignore it…”

  131. Muff

    I am most familiar with CBT. I have been taught the technique myself and it is wonderful. And no apologies are necessary! I am just glad that our Muff is back! I was actually getting depressed myself, as was numo when we thought you were gone. Your comment has restored my smile. And thank you for sharing so transparently. Please know that you are in my prayers.

    BTWm I have a golden hawk who visits my feeders on my deck everyday. They are magnificent creatures. I am not sure I have ever seen a red tailed hawk. I think I have told you that i worked and lived for two years with the Navajo Tribe. They were so kind and accepting of this city girl from the northeast at that time. Which tribe were your relatives?

  132. Muff, just for you (and me)

    “Cynicism, after all, springs not from cruelty or viciousness, but from precisely the opposite: a fatal love of virtue. If we were mere realists, we’d have no need for cynicism; the world would never disappoint us because we’d expect so little of it. But the best cynics are still idealists under their scarred hides. We wanted the world to be a better place, and we can’t shrug off the disappointment when it lets us down. Our cynicism gives us the painful power to behold life shorn of its sustaining illusions. “

  133. Dee,

    I am from the Stockbridge reservation of the Menominee people. It’s about 40 miles NW of Green Bay WI. And yes I am a diehard Packer fan! The Wolf river which runs through the res., is one of the few pristine rivers still left east of the Mississippi.

    When it became known that a multi-billion dollar fortune in copper and zinc lay deep under the headwaters of the Wolf river, big capital began salivating like Pavlov’s dogs at what could be extracted. The Menominee, other tribes and even native whites forgot their differences, banded together and stopped what would have been the Crandon mine and an ecological disaster for the Wolf river basin.

  134. Bounded Reality,

    Thanks for the quote. I never considered that angle and if it’s ok, I’m going to log that one away.

  135. Only one thing I will say about all of this is that in this country, you are free to voice your opinion. If you do not like Driscoll for what he says – hey, don’t listen.

  136. Janet
    The goal of this blog is to listen. We do so and make our thoughts known. That, too, is what this country is all about. BTW, you should read our post called Mark Driscoll-Did He Stutter. you will see that we listen closer than many, many people. Frankly, it kinda weirded me out.