Posted by Helen on: 05.01.2007 /
(HT to Tall Skinny Kiwi for the content of this entry)
This video was made by Jen of My True Self. I love it. I think it’s a wonderful response to the the sexism in some forms of Christianity (and to some extent, the sexism outside Christianity)
The ‘pastors wives’ quote of Mark Driscoll made it into the video. Mark Driscoll is complaining on his blog that a video he made to be distributed at a church conference was not distributed because Bill Hybel criticized it.
The video was aired at the conference right before Bill Hybels talk. Evidently Bill Hybels began his comments with “After that video I would like to acknowledge that there are women in this room and they have spiritual gifts.” For visual people, here’s a helpful graphic rendering of what happened, by Steve McCoy (from this blog entry of Steve’s)
Anyway according to a conference volunteer (see Henry Judy’s comment), no decision was made not to hand out the video. It was simply that the number of people handing them out and the places they handed them out didn’t effectively get them into every attendee’s hands.
I can see why Mark is upset but he should check his facts before jumping to conclusions that his video was ‘banned’. To set the record straight, I watched his video about church planting and he does mentions women at least twice. I remember him saying young men are banging their girlfriends and also that young men want to know how to have sex with their wives at least once a day. Here’s an excellent response to the daily sex comment by Michael Spencer
You can read about Jim and Casper’s experience at Mark Driscoll’s church in their new book Jim and Casper go to Church. Casper has summarized his thoughts on our new Church Rater site.
Comment by: grace
1Helen,
Good post. I’m waiting for a retraction and apology from Mark for the distorted conclusions on his post (waiting, but not holding my breath).
Comment by: Helen
2Thanks Grace.
Comment by: benjamin.ady
3The video from Jen is awesome. Go Jen!
Comment by: Helen
4Yes, I love the video!
Hey I have an alternate theory about why the video didn’t get handed out which fits the facts I’ve heard better than Mark’s theory does.
Maybe some strange unprecedented synchronicity of events happened, like, all the volunteers who weren’t real men suddenly had to go to the bathroom when it was time to hand out videos. Since they weren’t real men, they couldn’t wait. We all know how long the lines are at women’s bathrooms, so, by the time many of the not-real-men were back, it was too late; the people who were supposed to get videos were gone.
Maybe that’s not how it happened but hey, if Mark can speculate, so can the rest of us…
Comment by: grace
5LOL!
From what I understand, at the end of Bill’s talk there was an altar call which many people responded to. Rather than interrupt this time of ministry, they decided to hand the videos out at the exits. In the commotion of leaving, some people got videos and some didn’t.
But I do like your version and love the use of the word synchronicity.
Comment by: joe
6Or maybe all of the volunteers were instantly locked in a form of spiritual paralysm that meant they could not lift their arms and distribute the videos.
Or maybe someone saw the video and let everyone else know that it was COMPLETE GARBAGE.
Or maybe the potato men arrived from the planet zog and kidnapped all copies from under the noses of the unsuspecting volunteers.
Who knows. Who cares.
Comment by: Keith
7Thank you for the video, Helen.
Comment by: benjamin ady
8why do we have “feminism” but not “masculism”? Does Mark qualify as a “masculist”? Would such a term encompass all the negative and positive connotation which has been associated (by various groups and people) with “feminism”?
Comment by: Keith
9Joe,
I disagree that Driscoll’s video was complete garbage. I know that Driscoll takes some pretty good beatings (often deservedly so) here at CatE, but to say the video was complete garbage is incorrect. Much of his message was valuable. IMO.
Comment by: benjamin ady
10there seemed to be space to hope, back after the whole foofoorah last year when Mark kind of backed down, that maybe he would begin being a bit more … gentle/careful in his comments. Mark said back then
and now
As far as I can tell, Mark’s understanding of what actually happened there is quite a bit off from what actually happened. This does not seem to reflect a huge change in “clearly articulating” so as to avoid being “misconstrued”
Alas I am a terrible cynic. I wasn’t at all convinced back after that other foofoorah that Mark would be changing. And perhaps I am interpreting current events through my cynical lens. But it looks to me like I was right.
Comment by: Helen
11Joe wrote:
What I really care about is: before accusing someone of intentionally going back on their word, why not ask them why they evidently didn’t do what they said they would do?
I’m not claiming I never post anything that’s wrong or misleading. However, I do make an effort to verify what I write before I post it. I hope if I had been in this situation it would have occurred to me: “Maybe I should ask the organizers why people didn’t get my video before I post my own theory about it”.
Comment by: grace
12I never feel like a “feminist” until I listen to Mark (which is why I usually choose not to listen to him).
Comment by: joe
13Keith – I don’t care how important his message was (it wasn’t) the man produced a video walking around a cemetary.
Furthermore, even if he does have sex with his wife more than once a day, I am not interested. I have never met anyone who is enquiring about christian marriage ask how often you can expect to do it in 24 hour periods.
He clearly has no tact. Which makes him rather disqualified to be in a position of responsibility as a christian minister in my book. Shut up and sit down, Mark.
Comment by: benjamin ady
14My god, here I am about to defend Mark Driscoll. Who’d a thunk?
here’s wiki on “tact”
I agree with you that Mark has little tact. But I disagree that this disqualifies him as a Christian leader. Jesus didn’t seem to have an enormous amount either. From Matthew 15
Comment by: benjamin ady
15Here’s what a group of Ph.D.s found out in one of the most rigourous survey based pieces of research on sex in america:
So much for sex everday. 8% is way out in the tails–almost two standard deviations out. It’s abnormal.
Comment by: Helen
16Benjamin, this is just my theory – I think Jesus said that with a smile on his face and the woman thought “fun – it’s a game – let me see, what’s the right answer?” And she did come up with a great answer, in fact.
It would be easier to tell if I had a videotape of it ;-)
Comment by: Helen
17Joe, I agree about the cemetery – I think that was tactless.
Comment by: Rachel
18Grace, I like to use Alan Alda’s famous definition: “Feminism is the belief that women are people too.”
Comment by: trissa
19It makes me laugh when people refer to the call for equality, among the sexes within the church, “feminism”. The women who I see making a difference within the church are very different than the feminists I know in the secular world. Mark Driscoll is so irrelevant to the world outside of the church. His thoughts and ideas are so antiquated that if he tried to hold a conversation with many of my non-Christian friends (both male and female), they would look at him like he was an alien. Just because he wraps his 1800s views and values into a hip package does not mean that he’s relevant.
Oh, btw, I really enjoyed the video
Comment by: Joy
20If you use Alan Alda’s definition, then I’ll sign up to be a feminist. But I think the opposite of that would not be masculinist, but patriarchal. But MD himself has referred to himself in this way. And this is a quote:
“Fifth, I am myself a devoted heterosexual male lesbian who has been in a monogamous marriage with my high school sweetheart since I was 21 and personally know the pain of being a marginalized sexual minority as a male lesbian.”
What is THAT??
As for the sex-stats, would this make MD a sexual deviant?
And my opine on retractions and apologies: There will be a restatement of how those of us reading are uber-sensitive and how we misconstrue what he says and he will be sorry that we do so.
Thanks for the conversation Helen. As usual, you are right on target!
Comment by: April Terry
21Isn’t it interesting, too, that women make up the majority of people going to church? Does anyone have statistics on that figure? All I know is that nearly every woman I know who goes to church very often does it alone or with their children. Maybe that is just my experience, but I don’t think I am wrong.
So, for the few men who are doing what they are supposed to and actually going to church, it seems to me that they are being illogical by holding the “men in leadership only” viewpoint. Every church I have ever gone to was at the very least sixty percent female.
Comment by: PRU
22>”So, for the few men who are doing what they are supposed to and actually going to church, it seems to me that they are being illogical by holding the “men in leadership only” viewpoint. Every church I have ever gone to was at the very least sixty percent female.”
Complementarians believe that women should be in leadership (deacons, teachers, group leaders, ministry heads), they just cannot hold the office of elder (because that is what scripture dictates). A church with 60% women should be full of women leaders, but if they can’t find a handful of men to serve as elders, then something is seriously wrong somewhere. You can’t really make your argument that women should be elders just because they make up the majority, right?
Comment by: benjamin.ady
23Joy,
Actually, “deviant” is a word that is talking about violating “accepted” norms, which is different by a good ways from “statistical norms”. So even though someone who has sex every day is statistically “deviant” in the sense that they are way out in the tails, they are not “deviant” in the commonly accepted meaning of the word, at least in our culture, where in some sense we worship sex. At least that’s my understanding
PRU,
If the complementarians are so adamant about women not being elders “because that’s what scripture dictates”, then what do they do with all the really wierd ass things that scripture dictates? That is to say, if we can’t interpet scripture through culture at some level, then we are either going to have to throw it out, or we’re going to end up saying and doing some very strange and perhaps even dangerous or illegal things (not that some Christians aren’t already doing and saying some very strange and perhaps dangerous things)
Comment by: Paul
24lol, storm and teacup spring to mind – then again mark gets lots of free publicity for his vid and none of us are really any the wiser to what really did or did not happen as a few scores get settled or renewed between camps. Who said history never repeats itself :)
Comment by: Helen
25Paul wrote:
Hi Paul – I agree that we’ll never know everything there is to know; but I expect the volunteer who commented that no decision was made not to hand the videos out is telling the truth.