Posts Tagged ‘The Radical Reformission’

Driscoll’s View on Drinking

Posted: March 2, 2012 in Church Ministries
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Mark Driscoll gives his testimony that before and right after his conversion to Christ, he was a teetotaler (a total abstainer of alcohol). But after he entered the ministry he was “studying the Scriptures for a sermon about Jesus’ first miracle of turning water into wine, as reported in John’s gospel, a miracle that Jesus performed when he was about my age. My Bible study convicted me of my sin of abstinence from alcohol. So in repentance I drank a hard cider over lunch with our worship pastor.”[1] When I read his testimony, I have to admit, that was a first for me. Usually the testimony is the opposite, that, having come to Christ, the drinker surrenders his drinking habits or addictions. While Driscoll accomplishes much for the work of the Lord, his promotion of drinking is dangerous and unbiblical.

We commend the impact he is having on the young men in Seattle and the training he provides, with one exception. Driscoll trains “them in what it means to be a godly man. So far our training is on everything from how to study the Bible, get a job, invest money, buy a home, court a woman, brew beer, have good sex, and be a pastor-dad to their children has been very successful for hundreds of young men.”[2]

Driscoll would say some things in culture are wrong such as homosexuality and extra marital sex, and we would agree completely; but drinking is not only not wrong, it is Christian: “I personally long to return to the glory days of Christian pubs, where God’s men gather to drink beer and talk theology.”[3] According to Driscoll, it is not a sin to drink but it is a sin to drink light beer. The title of chapter six in Driscoll’s The Radical Reformission is “The Sin of Light Beer.” 

Three Views on Social Drinking

There are three views on social drinking which Driscoll explains. I will give Driscoll’s discussion of the three views, and then my response to Driscoll’s preference. The first view is prohibitionism which holds all alcoholic consumption in the Bible is sin. Therefore, Jesus created and drank grape juice. Driscoll argues that since Jesus created and drank real wine so should believers today drink distilled wine.[4]

The second view on social drinking is absentionism which advocates drinking alcohol is not prohibited in Scripture but the believer should still abstain. One reason to abstain is to avoid leading a weak believer into sin. Driscoll states that Jesus drank (Mt. 11:19) undoubtedly in the presence of alcoholics. If that did not stop Jesus why should it stop believers today.[5]

Moderationism is the third view and Driscoll’s: “Alcohol itself is neutral and can be used in both good and bad ways. When used in a right and redeemed way [moderately and carefully], alcohol is a gift from God to be drunk with gladness.”[6]

After discussing the wine issue in the Bible, Norman Geisler came to a much different conclusion: “Therefore Christians ought not drink wine, beer, or other alcoholic beverages for they are actually ‘strong drink ’ and are forbidden in Scripture. Even ancient pagans did not drink what some Christians drink today.”[7]

Modern Distilled Wine is Different From Wine in the Bible

One of the reasons for coming to this conclusion that believers should not drink wine today is because modern distilled wine is not the same as the wine in the Bible. Wine in the Bible was more like purified water because the wine was diluted with water. On average for every one part of wine there were three or four parts of water mixed with the wine to purify the unsafe water. Jesus was not a teetotaler but we should be because the alcoholic content was different in the wine he drank and the wine society drinks today.

Drunkenness is clearly and repeatedly condemned in Scripture (Dt. 21:20-21; Eph. 5:18; Gal. 5:19-21). Yet, pastors and deacons were not forbidden from drinking some wine (1 Tim. 3:3, 8) and the reason was because with water being unsafe, wine was used as a medicine as Paul reminds Timothy in the same Pastoral Epistle: “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your often infirmities” (1 Tim. 5:23).

The same truth is found in the Old Testament that repeatedly condemned drunkenness (Hab. 2:15). Wine could, however, be used to relieve suffering. After the writer condemns leaders drinking wine and strong drink in Proverbs 31:4-5, he advices to “give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts” in verse six. We accomplish the same result today when doctors give suffering patients morphine to lessen great pain.

The Gamble of Moderation

One of the reasons believers should not drink wine today is because it may lead a weaker brother into sin. This truth is found in Romans 14:21: “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby your brother stumbles, or is offended, or is made weak.” Geisler made this observation: “A believer should ask himself, ‘Will my drinking cause anyone else to sin? Even if it would not be a problem to me, is it possible that it would cause someone else to stumble?’ The writer knows of former alcoholics who have attended church communion services in which fermented wine has been served, and just the taste of a little bit of it drove them back into alcoholism.”[8] For this reason it is best not to use wine in communion services today.

The proper elements used in the communion service should be unleavened bread and “the fruit of the vine” as Christ stated in Matthew 26:29; Mark 14:25; Luke 22:18. While the Bible refers to “the cup” being used at the first Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:27; Mark 14:23; Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25-27), the Bible never uses the Greek word oinos for the communion service. “Of course it was juice from the grape, but whether fermented or not is not stated. Unfermented wine was used more in the time of Christ than most suppose. Nevertheless, if this was fermented some it was apparently diluted with water. For the sake of converted alcoholics or even to forestall anyone beginning to drink, unfermented juice is preferable in the light of today’s worldwide problem with alcohol” (Ryrie, Basic Theology, page 425).

Another justification for abstinence is because social drinking can lead to alcoholism. Geisler stated that one out of ten social drinkers will become alcoholics.[9] Why gamble or cause someone else to gamble with alcoholism with those odds?

John Piper has an excellent sermon entitled Total Abstinence and Church Membership. Here part of his argumentation:

 “Some people rank alcoholism as our second greatest health problem in America….There are about 10 million alcoholics and 20 million persons who consume an immoderate amount of alcohol. About 70% use alcohol as a beverage. As a result, alcohol contributes to 205,000 deaths each year. Life expectancy of the alcoholic is reduced by at least a decade. One-half of all traffic fatalities are the direct result of the abuse of alcohol. It is directly connected to one-half of the homicides and one-third of the suicides. It costs business alone 19 billion dollars a year. And now one out of every twelve marriages comes apart over drinking.”[10]

I have heard men justify their drinking by saying, “I am not hurting anyone but myself.” Ask the wife and children of the alcoholic if he is only hurting himself. Even if he were only harming himself, he is dishonoring God with his body and life and that is reason enough to quit. But the drinker is not just hurting himself, he is destroying his marriage and family. If Jesus lived today, I believe he would be a teetotaler, and so should we.

[1] Mark Driscoll. The Radical Reformission (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 146.

[2] Ibid., 184.

[3] Ibid., 147.

[4] Ibid., 149

[5] Ibid., 150

[6] Ibid.,150.

[7] Norman Geisler. “A Christian Perspective on Wine-Drinking” Bibliotheca Sacra 139: 553 (1982): page 51.

[8] Ibid., 53.

[9] Norman Geisler. Criswell Theological Review-Volume 5, Issue 2, 2008.

[10] John Piper, Total Abstinence and Church Membership, Sunday Evening Message, October 4, 1981.

An Expose of Emerging Church Preaching, Part 4

Posted: November 20, 2009 in Emerging Church, Homiletics/Preaching
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What unifies the doctrinally divergent EC is the passion to impact culture. This passion is driven, in part, by the philosophy of liberal postmillennialism where the church will build the Kingdom of God which is followed by the return of Christ. The premillennial view of Christ’s return is that Christ will return and establish the culture altering Kingdom, not the church.

Tony Jones after poking fun of pretribulational rapturists like Tim LaHaye who say “when things ‘down here’ become bad enough, Jesus will return in glory.’ But those of us represented in this book take the contrary view. God’s promised future is good, and it awaits us, beckoning us forward. We’re caught in the tractor beam of redemption and re-creation, and there’s no sense fighting it, so we might as well cooperate” (Tony Jones. An Emergent Manifesto of Hope. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007, 130).

The mandate of the church is not to impact culture but to “make disciples” in Matthew 28:19-20 by winning people to Christ, baptizing them, and teaching God’s Word. Will fulfilling the Great Commission impact culture? The answer is that culture will to some degree be impacted by fulfilling the Great Commission. Historically this has been the case. One of the most colorful of all preachers was Billy Sunday. Sunday’s most famous sermon was “Booze” and the common result of Sunday’s city wide campaigns was the closing of saloons (Robert A. Allen. Billy Sunday Home Run to Heaven (Milford: Mott Media, 1985), 87).

His preaching impacted culture. But the church’s commission is not to impact the culture.

When impacting the culture drives a church, however, then there is the potential for what has happened in the EC: Culture impacts the church. For example and in contrast to Billy Sunday, EC preacher Mark Driscoll (though to his credit, he has distanced himself from the EC) endorses Protestant Pubs: “I personally long to return to the glory days of Christian pubs, where God’s men gather to drink beer and talk theology” (Mark Driscoll. The Radical Reformission. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004, 147).

Mark Driscoll encourages his men to brew their own beer. According to Driscoll, it is not a sin to drink but it is a sin to drink light beer (Driscoll, 139).

Part of Driscoll’s leadership training of the young men in Seattle includes “how to study the Bible, get a job, invest money, buy a home, court a woman, brew beer, have good sex, and be a pastor-dad to their children” (Driscoll, 184).

It has been claimed that Sigmund Freud enjoyed telling his followers a story of a pastor who visited an atheist insurance agent who was on his death bed. The family had asked the pastor to share the gospel with their dying loved one as they waited in another room. As the conversation continued longer than expected there was hope that the pastor was being successful in his mission. When the pastor finally emerged from the bedroom it was discovered that the agent had not converted to Christ but he had been able to sell the pastor an insurance policy.

Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Seminary, after providing this example applied it to our discussion. “In rejecting the very real defects of fundamentalism during the past few decades, evangelicals have begun to take very seriously their responsibilities to the larger culture – and with some obvious signs of success. The questions we must face honestly are these: Have we sold a new policy to the culture – or has the culture sold us a policy” (Richard J. Mouw, The Smell of Sawdust (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), p. 64, quoted in Gary E. Gilley, “The Kingdom of Emergent Theology-Part 1” http://www.svchapel.org/Resources/articles/read­_articles.asp?ID=139).

The verdict is in: Culture has sold the EC a policy. McLaren has the philosophy of the liberal postmillennialists who sees the goal of the church to impact the globe. McLaren has contextualized the message of the gospel as well as the lifestyle of Christianity. McLaren’s gospel is social.

“African and African American Christians (Black theology) and Latin American Christians (liberation theology, integral missiology) have been hitting these themes with intelligence and passion for decades, but few of us listened to their spokespeople, whether it was Dr. King or Desmond Tutu, Gustavo Gutierrez or Rene Padilla. Eco-feminist theology—articulated by authors like Sallie McFague and Mary Grey….In many ways all of these voices echo what earlier Christian leaders (from Charles Finney to Walter Rauschenbusch…had been saying: the modern Western understanding of the gospel was too often truncated, shallow, thin, bland, anemic, privatized, personalized, polarized, and compromised” ( Brian McLaren. An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, Church Emerging: Or Why I Still Use the Word Postmodern but with Mixed Feeling. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007, 147-148).

While Driscoll exposes the heresy of the McLarens, he states, “we must help cultivate a kingdom counterculture where we live” (Driscoll, 170) and “we seek to build our kingdom culture” (Driscoll,184).

Culture is mostly neutral and not worldly for Driscoll. Many aspects of culture can be used in building the kingdom culture, according to Driscoll. Consequently, culture has impacted his ministry.

In my next post I will state the views of John McArthur and Tim Challies concerning the impact of culture on Driscoll and his ministry.

The Noncontroversial Topic of Church Music, Part Two

Posted: April 21, 2009 in "Reader's Favorites", Church Ministries, Music, Pastoral Theology
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Mark Driscoll passionately believes the church must impact culture, and rightly so. “To be in reformission, we must embed ourselves in a culture and develop friendships with lost people so that we can be informed and avoid making erroneous judgments…. As a missionary, you will need to watch television shows and movies, listen to music, read books, peruse magazines, attend events, join organizations, surf websites, and befriend people that you might not like to better understand people that Jesus loves” (Mark Driscoll, The Radical Reformission, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004, pages 97, 103).

The issue is how deeply do we embed in culture to get educated to reach the lost. This philosophy will affect our styles of music. There are basically three styles of music according to Driscoll: high culture music, folk culture music, and pop culture music.

Driscoll describes high culture music as a gourmet meal that is prepared by professionals. Its equivalent in music is opera, classical music, and ballet. The church which prefers high culture music will sing old hymns accompanied by an organ and robed choir.

Folk culture is like mom’s home cooked meal made from scratch. Folk music reflects the personal touch of local communities like black spiritual songs. This church has sold the old hymnals on Amazon.com and writes its own songs and music.

Pop music is like a fast-food meal served without the sophistication of high culture or the personal touch of folk culture. Pop music is fleeting and changing and is represented by Michael Jackson who “continually reinvented his image so thoroughly that he has transformed from a black man to a white woman” (Mark Driscoll, p. 99). Instead of a “minister of music” there is a worship team casually dressed with a keyboard, acoustic guitar, and bongos.

My question for you is, “Which meal do you prefer?” Or do you like eating at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and Hillbilly Hide-Away and McDonalds? Is it possible for churches in our circles to have High, Folk, and Pop music if they are done in good taste? I believe it is possible.

Mark Dever offers this advice: “Healthy churches avoid worship wars. They even avoid worship skirmishes. Wise church leaders know that using a wide variety of songs and styles over time broadens a congregation’s tastes, exposing them to different kinds of music from different time periods and cultivating in them at least a modest level of appreciation for the best selection from each. Conversely, variety in worship songs and styles helps prevent people from becoming militantly entrenched in a certain style or period of music” (The Deliberate Church, page 123).

Another question of great importance for me is, “How deeply do we embed in our culture to get educated?” Driscoll discusses three responses to this issue.

The Fundamentalist is not embedded enough and is too restrictive. The Fundamentalist forbids Christians listening to certain musical styles, getting tattoos, watching movies, smoking cigarettes, consuming alcohol, and body piercing (Driscoll, 103).

The Liberal is too embedded and too permissive condoning drug use, fornication, homosexuality, and cohabitation before marriage.

The Reformissionist is not too hot or too cold but is just right (Driscoll, 103). I personally think Driscoll is embedded too deeply when he condones drinking and any musical style no matter how radically performed. Driscoll once advised, “If you’re going to be a fundamentalist or moralist… Don’t pick something stupid like, ‘Don’t listen to rock music.’ I don’t know who’s choosing all the legalisms, but they picked the worst ones” (Christianity Today magazine, April 21, 2009). At least, Rick Warren warned against the lyrics of rock music.

Here are some broad principles to help guide us in our music style choices. These principles will be interpreted differently by each of us and therefore we should allow latitude in their application in different churches in different cultures.

1. Does this music offend a weaker brother (Romans 14:13)? This is a tough one for me. If you have a blended service and use traditional hymns, Southern Gospel, and contemporary, one third of your congregation is offended all the time. Probably, “upset” is a better word than “offended.” The youth like the contemporary but not the Southern Gospel. The older generation like the traditional but not the contemporary. The group who likes Southern Gospel accuse the youth of liking rock and roll, worldly music. But Southern Gospel originated from White Jazz. So which is worldly?

Romans 14:23 says, “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” If a brother has not been taught liberty to listen to other styles, for him it may be sin (because of the wrong teaching). That weaker brother needs to be taught and hopefully he will become a strong brother who is generous in allowing others to worship to their preferences without judging them. Until a church reaches that kind of maturity we should not needlessly offend by forcing a new style on that church.

Mark Dever gives some helpful counsel: “Don’t try to change all the music all at once. Youth is the mother of impatience, and a young, highly motivated, strongly convicted pastor might tempted to drive 85 miles per hour in a church with a speed limit of 30″ (The Deliberate Church, page 124)

2. Does this music teach God’s Word (Colossians 3:16)? What about hymns that teach unbiblical concepts such as crossing Jordan River as entrance into Heaven?

3. Does this music edify other believers (1 Corinthians 10:23)? Do the lyrics build up believers.

4. Does this music appeal to my emotions more than my intellect or spirit (1 Corinthians 6:12)? The key words are “more than.” Do I want my preaching to appeal to the emotions of my listeners with tear jerking stories “more than” the intellect of my listeners with sound Bible teaching? It not either or but which has the priority in my preaching and singing. The message should trump the music.

Mark Dever says, “Simple is best. There’s certainly nothing wrong with electric guitars or a driving backbeat, and there are plenty of contemporary examples of churches and worship bands that are faithfully wedding popular music with theologically accurate lyrics. We are persuaded, though, that sparse, lightly amplified instrumentation and unobtrusive leaders are best for the weekly corporate worship gathering. The main reason is that quieter instrumentation allows the congregation to hear themselves singing, giving the lyrics center stage” (The Deliberate Church, page 122).

5. Does this music help me worship the Lord (Ephesians 5:19) or the performer? Some, not all, concerts are so entertaining that the unbiblical lyrics in the songs are overlooked because we are caught up in the performance. I recently experienced this at a church concert. The singers were so entertaining that the message at times was lost.

Mark Dever gives this advice: “Many of us have been in churches where the music leaders uses flamboyant hand motions, body language, or even facial expression. Vocalists who are intentionally self-effacing serve the congregation well by taking themselves out of the spotlight so that our attention is not directed toward them” (The Deliberate Church, page 122).

All styles of music can violate these principles if performed in the energy of the flesh and not the power of the Spirit. While some styles more easily disobey these Biblical principles more than other styles, no style is exempt. Someone well said, “The singer and the music should draw attention to the words of the song, and the words should draw attention to Christ.”