Updated 5/25/09
Excerpts from the notorious Spiritual Warfare Series are below (these offer a glance into Driscoll’s views on women), along with comments regarding them and my site from equalitycentral.com . But first…
Here is an amazon.com link to the table of contents to a book entitled
10 Lies the Church Tells Women,
by J. Lee Grady
Just about all of the chapters have titles which accurately describe the kind of “Complementarianism” Driscoll and MH seem to be pumping out. For example:
Lie #1: God created women as inferior beings, destined to serve their husbands
[Now I realize MHers would say, "No, not inferior, just different." Mhm... I would challenge that with: Please show me three examples of the "differences" which do not place the woman in an inferior position.]
Lie #6: Women who exhibit strong leadership qualities pose a serious danger to the church
[In Mark's own words, these women are "satanic" and men should "run!" from them. See Spiritual Warfare Series]
Lie #7: Women are more easily deceived than men
[Mark says this straight out in, guess where, yes, the Spiritual Warfare Series]
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While on this topic of books about Gender Issues in the Christian community, Equality Depot has many helpful book recommendations:
http://www.equalitydepot.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=200&Page=1
Some of their listings include:
Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry – Stanley J. Grenz; Paperback
10 Lies the Church Tells Women – J. Lee Grady; Paperback
What Paul Really Said About Women: The Apostle’s Liberating Views on Equality in Marriage, Leadership, and Love – John T. Bristow; Paperback
Good News for Women: A Biblical Picture of Gender Equality – Rebecca Merrill Groothuis; Paperback
The Home Page for the depot is Christians for Biblical Equality:
http://www.cbeinternational.org/
They have a wonderful, succinct description of the Egalitarian view I have tended to express on this blog, called Men, Women and Biblical Equality. When/If granted permission, I will post that.
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Now, let us proceed… Is it just me, or does anyone else out there think this is just a little bit misogynistic? Perhaps that’s too strong a word… chauvinistic? oppressive? abusive? (sorry, another strong word, I know).
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Notes and Quotes From Driscoll’s Spiritual Warfare Series, Pt 2
and Peasant Princess, Pt 2
(Taken from my post, Christian Taliban & Wearing Berkas)
Two minutes into his teaching on Spiritual Warfare, part 2: Driscoll begins what I consider to be women-bashing. In his “Demonic Counseling,” he claims to counsel more women than men [implication: more women are demonized than men?]. He quotes Scripture, “women are the weaker vessel,” and states this is evidence that they are the more easily deceived. [Ah ha!]
Nine minutes: Driscoll discusses what he terms, “the ordinary demonic.” Of course the first thing he talks about is that lack of frequent sex among married Christians is demonic [Great for him: “Uh, baby doll, if you don’t have sex with me as much as I desire, that is ‘frequently,’ you are demonic.”].
Eleven minutes: He states that in most of the marriage ‘counseling’ he does, there is almost always the problem of one not wanting sex as often as the other. He says this is like having “Satan in bed between the two of you.” [What? What if it’s about sexual abuse in either of their pasts? What if it’s about emotional/physical abuse in the marriage? What if it’s about lack of emotional intimacy?, etc…]
Fifty minutes: Driscoll asserts that Satan loves gossip and busy-bodying, “Ladies, this one is for you.” Driscoll spends FIFTEEN MINUTES castigating “women who gossip, or busybody.” He fails to mention anything about men who gossip or busybody. He even warns women not to rely on or trust in older women [contrary to Scripture] because they are likely to be busybodies and gossips, unless they are especially spiritual and very submissive.
Fifty three minutes: Driscoll describes how he protects his wife from other women who want to go have coffee with her and get to know her, because, guess what, “that is Satanic,” and he says he knows what they’re really up to. [Pray tell?]
Fifty four minutes: “Female manipulation.” Women use emotion to manipulate others, especially into gossiping and being busy-bodies. He says, are you ready, “That’s Satanic.” [The only safe place to keep these frighteningly dangerous and sinful women is in their homes, busy with their kids, serving their husbands, having sex on demand, and Bible reading. Apparently, women getting together with other women (unsupervised by the correct authority) is too dangerous an activity for Mars Hillians.]
Fifty six minutes: “Sometimes women’s ministry is the cesspool that this kind of activity flourishes in. Some people ask, ‘Why don’t we have women’s ministry?’ We do, but you have to be very careful. It’s like juggling knives.” [The message seems to be that even when women are allowed this little bit of autonomy and power, they are so sinful and unstable they create a “cesspool.” ]He states that women meeting together end up secretly ripping on their husbands, “It happens all the time.”
Fifty seven minutes: The women who want to be in leadership and who want to lead women’s groups are “the wrong kind of women.” That is Satanic. When you meet a woman who tells you she wants to marry a pastor, Mark exclaims, “Run! That is Satanic!” These are controlling and busy-bodies. They are the “gossip mamas and drama queens.” Then he goes on to describe the sweet, submissive, quiet women who are fit to lead.
The following are some comments about the above post and about my blog in general, found on another site, Equality Central, at http://equalitycentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=936.0
E.
Thank you for listening to and making an excellent summary of Driscoll’s message. I have to say as one who does ministry in deliverance from your notes I believe Pastor Driscoll is in need of deliverance from the unclean spirit of “the hatred of women”. His actions he expressed concerning his wife and how he sees women are certainly operations I’ve come to know as coming from the influence of this unclean spirit.
BTW – in deliverance ministry my husband and I have NOT found that we deal with “mostly” women – it is definitely 50/50. I will also add the hardest person we’ve every had to deal with was a man who saw himself as the “head and priest” of his family. He wanted to control every issue concerning prayer for his family. He would “demand” we take authority over the unclean spirits he had decided they needed deliverance from — and would get terribly upset when we refused because we did not discern that these were the issue with his family members.
If Pastor Driscoll ever came for deliverance counseling with my husband and myself I do believe from what you summarized, Lin, that we would be addressing the unclean spirit of “hatred of women”.
F.
I took the excerpts of his teaching from the blog linked to in the first comment. However, I did listen to the peasant princess when it first came out. I could hardly get through it. It made me sick.
I agree with [you] that he has a deep seated hatred of women. But I think this is because Mark has to have an enemy. Probably always has as that is the only way he could make a living. I am starting to believe that emergent was not profitable enough for him in terms of influence. Too much competition. But not a lot of competition for a counterculture reformed guy.
Women are the perfect target as enemies because he can mask it as ‘doctrine’ and it is acceptable. For example: Why do so few people get offended when he alludes that all women are gossips? How can the men and women in that audience not see through such comments from him? Because he has made this primary salvic doctrine and turned it all into a work of salvation. I think men like this are worse than Rome for works salvation. They deny it but it is right there!
He markets his schitk as ‘counterculture’. All he does is slap a tatoo on a fish add works that are feminine and masculine and call it Christianity. It is a business. And he gets paid a lot for his speaking gigs.
H.
Where is the outspoken concern for his behavior from other well known pastors? A few do but not many.
I.
I also wonder if any one else from among us who suffered spousal abuse had their teeth set on edge as they recognized the pattern of cutting the victim off from all sources of help in his disguise “I do this for her protection”. I know from my own past and counseling that this is a common action of abusers with control issues. This IS NOT Godly counsel coming from his mouth. It is a form of abuse.
It makes me so angry to hear him present this form of abuse as Godly counsel. (I find it to be much the same abuse done in the name of God that the women of the “no longer quiverful” blog are addressing.)
It makes me so very sad to know that many in the church have become so deceived they have become unable to discern the abuse of women in his message.
I am also left wondering who God sent in to be a help to his wife and was cut off by him in the name of “protection”. My heart breaks for her and cries out for her liberty and freedom. I pray she breaks out of her cage as Clay and many other women have done and walk in her God given freedom as a woman of God.
Hi. wow. Thanks for the detailed breakdown of some of his comments. so shocking and I feel for his wife who probably thinks this is ok and normal. Having begun my Christian life in a church which is heavily influenced by MH (and am still licking my wounds!). Im pleased to have discovered your blog and look fw to reading it
Hi Spirituallychallenged (aren’t we all?
)
Please see my recent post #47 for my general response to all the recent and not so recent comments.
Hope you are well!
Freedom!