Concerning Mark Driscoll on Rob Bell and Emergent Village

Recently there has been a load of commentary about Mark Driscoll’s recent sermon surrounding the Emerging church movement. Before I go any further, I will say that I respect Driscoll greatly and agree with him on a lot theological topics. The man is a brilliant thinker, communicator, is hella funny, and a great Pastor. I think Mars Hill is a great church doing the work of God and is blessing the city of Seattle. This is not meant to personally bash Mark Driscoll or Mars Hill Church.

Driscoll began with his history of how he became a Christ follower and how when he was 25 (around 1998 or so), he was asked by Leadership Network to be a part of a church and the cultural postmodern shift. This became what was known then as the Young Leaders Network and the catch phrase "emerging church" became the prominent (coined by Dan Kimbal) term for which their churches and (church models) were defined and the "emerging conversation" was the dialogue in which these individuals were a part of. Pastor named Doug Pagitt was selected to lead this team of young leaders as they wrestled with what it meant to be the church in postmodern culture. The team was heavily influenced by the late Missiologist Leslie Newbegin his thoughts on what it meant to be a "missional community" in the postmodern era. Along with Mark were a few men such as Dan Kimball, Chris Seay, and Andrew Jones. Months later, Pagitt brought in Tony Jones and Brian McLaren to help lead this team of young men. To make a long story short, Mark eventually distanced himself from this group, because had some growing theological disagreements with them that he felt were "non-negotiable" issues and because he was in the middle of starting Mars Hill Church in Seattle as well as having a wife who was pregnant with their first son. This team of pastors morphed into what was known briefly as the TerraNova project which included theologians such as Dr. Lenoard Sweet and Dr. Stanley Grenz. TerraNova soon morphed into what is now known as Emergent Village. Where Mark parted ways with these men was the "conversation" shifted from "how do we do church in the 21st century?" to questioning particular doctrines of orthodox Christianity such the substitutionary atonement of cross, the authority and inspiration of the Bible, the exclusivity of Jesus, the virgin birth, etc by Doug Pagitt and Brian McLaren.

It should be noted that Mark says that at a young age he considered himself to be very stubborn, selfish, and impatient. He notes very clearly that he dearly loves McLaren, Pagitt as well as the rest of the original team of pastors. They have not personally harmed him or sinned against him in anyway and he still considers them friends.

After this brief emerging church history lesson, Mark then proceeds to take particular classifications of the Emerging church from missiologist Dr. Edward Stetzer in which he uses two, the relevants and the revisionists. Mark concludes that the relevants are individuals who are basically evangelical in when it comes to doctrine and theology but are concerned about reaching a new generation of emerging postmodern minded individuals. "Relevants", Mark considers, are people he such as Donald Miller, Dan Kimball, Rick McKinley, and Chris Seay (to name a few). He shares stories about individual encounters with these folks and to the best of his knowledge, he considers them basically evangelical in their theology. Mark then quickly shifts over to the Revisionist stream, are often connected with or a part of (but not limited to) the organization known as Emergent Village. The revisionist stream, while also passionate reaching a younger generation, also appears to call into question key doctrines of orthodox Christianity, something which Mark finds dangerous. Mark claims that there are three individuals most commonly influential within the Revisionist stream are Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, and Rob Bell. Mark then continues to deconstruct and debunk the "toxic theology" of these three individuals and considers their teachings dangerous and unorthodox.

Concerning McLaren and Pagitt, I will give Mark the benefit of the doubt when calling these two out because Mark knows them personally and has interacted in personal dialogue with them. However, when it comes to Rob Bell, Mark has no NO such interaction. Mark admits that he has never met Rob Bell personally and has never talked with him. My problem with Mark’s lecture/sermon is that I believe he greatly misquotes and misrepresents Rob Bell’s teaching, theology, and doctrinal beliefs. My critique is that Mark just casually ASSUMES that Rob Bell is a part of the Emergent "Revisionist" stream because at one point Brian McLaren preached at Rob’s church (Mars Hill Bible Church. Driscoll and Bell’s churches often get mixed up. The two are not connected in anyway, shape, or form.) and In Mars Hill’s "recommended reading" section of which they use to engage covenant members with the mission and ideology that has influenced Mars Hill community, you will also find recommendation of Brian McLaren’s earlier works (A New Kind of Christian - A Generous Orthodoxy.) At one point, Doug Pagitt also spoke at Mars Hill, when Rob was apparently sick with bronchitis. Pagitt did was not apparently asked, but did Rob a favor by filing in for him for that day. There was no real agenda in Pagitt’s message, and it was simply, from what I can tell of it, a "fill-in" message for the community of Mars Hill. Pagitt’s relationship with Mars Hill comes from a slightly different angle that just being another pastor. Doug’s daughter’s fiancé, the names of whom are undisclosed, is a covenant member of Mars Hill Bible Church. While Doug and Rob share similar visions for social justice, community, and teaching the scriptures (to name a few), I can be sure of it that Rob Bell and Doug Pagitt would have some pretty differing theological disagreements.

Concerning Pagitt and McLaren, I cannot say that I agree with them on all of their theological concepts and ideologies, however I do not in and of myself find (as much as I have read of each) anything that is extremely unorthodox. In McLaren and Pagitt’s later works (The Secret Message of Jesus, Everything Must Change, An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches, etc), I find both men caving to a world of liberal theology. Regardless of my theological disagreements with them, I do not think it wise to throw out everything that McLaren or Doug Pagitt has ever said and I find a lot of McLaren and Pagitt’s insights to be helpful, refreshing, and hopeful.

Now, back with Rob Bell, I find it hard for Mark to make the conclusion that Rob Bell is some how a part of the Emergent stream of the emerging church. Rob Bell has never been part of nor associated with any of the constructs of Emergent Village. While he may have friends who are part of Emergent, that a lone cannot be the basis for writing him off as Emergent. Mark however seems to think that because Pagitt and McLaren have taught at Bell’s church, he must somehow be a part of Emergent. However, if that basis writes off Bell as Emergent, that apparently there are other individuals who must be considered Emergent as well. Dan Kimball, Rick McKinley, Donald Miller, and Chris Seay have ALL also taught at Mars Hill Bible Church and all consider themselves friends with Rob Bell. Furthermore, Dan Kimball and Chris Seay, two of the "evangelicals" that Mark mentions, are members of the Board of Directors for Emergent Village! Mark appears to be assuming that because of Pagitt and McLaren’s liberal theological influences within Emergent, then Emergent must be essentially limited to their beliefs.

Mark proceeds to call out Rob Bell on some of his theological statements in his book Velvet Elvis, particularly, his statement about the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Mark, I believe, greatly takes Rob’s words out of context. Mark’s essential paraphrase of Rob Bell essentially goes "Yeah, we can pull a few bricks out of the wall of theological doctrine, and it’s not gonna fall down. In fact, would we really loose anything if we got rid of the Virgin birth?" However, a clear read of this particular section of Velvet Elvis and one will find the latter statement to be quite a stretch of ideas. In Velvet Elvis, Rob literally says this:

What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly biological father named Larry, and archaeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that we hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? But what if you study the origin of the word Virgin you discover that the word virgin in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word virgin could mean several things. And what if you find out discover that in the first century being "born of a virgin" also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse?...

Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the Way of Jesus still the best possible way to live? Or does the whole thing fall apart?

I AFFIRM the historic Christian faith, which includes the virgin birth and the trinity and the inspiration of the Bible and much more. I’m a part of it, and I want to pass it on to the next generation. I believe God created everything and that Jesus is Lord and that God has plans to restore everything.

But what if the whole faith falls apart when we reexamine or rethink one spring (DOCTRINE) then it wasn’t really that strong in the first place, was it?

(Velvet Elvis, p. 27 Emphasis mine.)

Mark Driscoll claims that Rob Bell says after his discourse about the virgin birth, "would it really matter? Would we really lose anything? He goes on to say, now I believe in the virgin birth, I’m just saying we don’t need it." However, you can clearly see that Rob Bell makes no such claim to throw out the Virgin Birth nor does he objectively question it. Any literary critic can easily tell that Rob Bell is essentially using a HYPOTHETICAL argument to get us to think about our faith. Also, Rob never says we are to "throw out" doctrines, but ponder them, question and wrestle with them, and rethink them, for the sake of coming to affirmation about them. Nowhere in the text of Velvet Elvis does Rob Bell ever say we can throw out Orthodox doctrine. With the statements made by Driscoll, I come to doubt that he has even read Velvet Elvis in it’s entirety and given it some serious thought. To me it seems he simply read another individual’s response to this statement and agreed with them. In this, Mark Driscoll is essentially reading words into Rob Bells mouth (or pen, for that matter) that are not there. What a foolish way to offer critique!

Driscoll also calls into question Rob Bell’s essential analysis of doctrinal foundationalism. Bell essentially argues that doctrines in 20th century evangelicalism have function sort of like a brick wall. Each doctrine stacked onto the next, each one building upon the previous one, creating a brick wall and if one of these doctrines or bricks are even brought into question, all faith and doctrine and theology is lost. Rob Bell essentially says in Velvet Elvis:

"…we can take a spring out and examine it, discuss it, probe it, question it. It flexes and stretches.

In fact, it’s stretch and flex are what makes it so effective. It is FIRMLY attached to the FRAME and the mat, yet it has room to move…" (Velvet Elvis, p. 22, emphasis mine)

However, Driscoll states in his lecture "Now what he says is theology isn’t like a wall where there are many bricks, and if you take one out if falls down. Theology is like a trampoline and it’s flexible and it bends. And he’s arguing in that analogy for post-foundational theological presupposition. Yet, I’ve seen a trampoline. And what I’ve noticed is that it has a frame that sits upon a firm foundation of the earth. He tends to have over looked the obvious in the illustration." However, as you can see above, Rob Bell clearly states that the "spring" doctrines are FIRMLY attached to the frame of the trampoline. The point he is making is that if we aren’t open to respecting other views (flexible) and theology/doctrine and interpretations, being rigid and attached to our own view, then we become extremely biased. Rob Bell states in the book:

"What happens in brick world is that you spend a lot of time talking about how right you are. Which of course leads to how wrong everybody else is. Which then leads to defending the wall… I am far more interested in jumping than arguing who’s trampoline is better." (Velvet Elvis, p. 27)

Driscoll goes on to say what will inevitably happen if one objectionably rejects the virgin birth. Driscoll that Mary said she was a virgin (already assuming the word "virgin" meant one who has not had intercourse) and that if she was really a "lying whore" then that changes the story. Why would anyone believe the claims of the human son of a lying whore? Following, why believe the claims of Jesus brothers James and Jude? While what Driscoll is pointing to is in fact logically true, his argument and Rob Bells point in his hypothetical questioning of the virgin birth are two VERY different things. Rob Bell is stating all the while that if we have rigid theology and won’t ever listen to and invite people into our world and theology and explore with us, then we are really no better than the religious leaders of Jesus time. Driscoll is arguing that if claim that the virgin birth didn’t, we’ve got issues with Jesus’ future claims about himself. That is true, but that’s not Rob Bell’s point. Furthermore, Driscoll already assumes that God HAD to use the immaculate conception of Mary to give birth to Jesus. Did God HAVE to use the divine, immaculate conception of a virgin Mary? No, he’s God. He can do what he desires. However, he chose to divinely input Jesus to us by the way of a virgin, one who has not had intercourse. It’s clear that Rob Bell doesn’t deny the Virgin birth.

Driscoll than goes on to cite that Rob Bell and Brian McLaren both site Ken Wilbur’s (a Buddhist philosopher) book A Brief History of Everything as an influence in how they live their lives. However, in reality I believe Bell and McLaren are essentially just affirming truth in it’s time. Regardless that Ken Wilbur is a Buddhist philosopher, that does not mean that EVERYTHING he says is ultimately not true and unprofitable. The authors of scripture affirmed truth in any religious system, regardless of it’s apparent source. All truth is God’s truth. Regardless of the receiver, if it’s truth it belongs to God. All human beings have received general revelation from God, while not capable of Salvation, is still revelation from God. If it’s true it belongs to God.

As I listen to Driscoll’s disagreements with Rob Bell, I question why he feels he has the right (much less a convincing argument) to paint Rob Bell as a heretic. As he said in this lecture, he does not know Rob Bell and has never talked with him. As someone who has personally met Rob Bell and has listened to his teaching for the past 4 years and as a theology student here at Multnomah, I can honestly say that Rob Bell’s theology is nowhere near liberal and is completely Orthodox. I further doubt that Driscoll has ever listened to one of Rob Bell’s sermons or read any of this books. If Driscoll has read Velvet Elvis, then I discredit him for doing such a poor job at analyzing Rob’s statements in the book. It would be better stated "I disagree with some of Rob Bell’s statements." Regardless of Driscoll’s disagreements with Rob Bell, even if some are simply just theological differences, no one can’t not applaud Mark Driscoll for being such innovative, authentic, creative, and theologically sound teacher and pastor that he is. God is using both Mark Driscoll and Rob Bell (and Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt for that matter) to advance his Kingdom as he brings about restoration to this broken creation.

grace and peace to you,
jeremy