Doctrine by Mark Driscoll

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mhilbelink02's picture
Just wondering if anyone has gotten a chance to read Mark Driscoll's take on doctrine according to a Reformed perspective: "Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe". If you haven't had a look, take one here: http://amzn.to/9AK9L3 Is he the next great Reformed theologian?
Jason Postma's picture

No.

Definitely not.

Driscoll is a fundamentalist neo-Puritan bully who runs with a pack of rabid dogmaticians who are obsessed with hunting heretics.  The not so subtle subtitle of "Doctrine" is clear on this - "What Every Christian Should Believe".

mhilbelink02's picture

I definitely agree that Driscoll is sometimes not the most benificent Reformed leader, but I'm not sure I'd go quite as far as you did.  Even though I may disagree with him on some issues and the way he presents his arguments, I think this book is actually fairly well written.

I love the focus on God as the source - each chapter is "God Is" or "God Speaks" or some other action of God.  I also loved some his choices of themes throughout the book - particularly some of his insights on our idolatry of sexuality.

I think sometimes what our theology books get wrong is that they're trying to solve problems rather than affirming the solution.  In many ways, this is a book written for postmoderns, and though I may not agree with all of it, is fairly on point, in my opinion.

Have you read it?

atabbal's picture

Why would you describe a man who devoted his life to Christ as bully!? 

I love Pastor Driscoll, how humble he is, and how clear and deep his message is.

I haven’t read the man’s book, but it seems to me that not enough people out there are concerned with proper biblically and scripturally correct doctrine these days.  Many want to introduce leaven like Molinism and deride those that want to keep the leaven out as divisive or bullies.   The Pharisees Sadducees, and Scribes called Jesus and the apostles divisive because they spoke out rather vigorously against men that had allowed leaven in.  Like Molinism, these Pharisees introduced manmade, scripturally unsound, non-biblical ideas into the church and as part of God’s word; trying to intermingle their ideas (philosophies) with His word in ways that couldn’t be found in scripture.  Many an intelligent learned man has made the serious mistake of allowing leaven in by giving equal consideration into a debate on doctrine when one side hadn’t any biblical basis and should have been treated as such from the outset.  In the case of Molinism many scholars flat out ignore the historical background under which it was invented by three Jesuit priests at the request of and for the Catholic Church during the anti-Reformation and was later used to help persecute Reformed Christians as part of an official practice, that was the sanctioned persecution of Reformed Christians.  Hitler, in a similar manner and for similar motivations commissioned highly intelligent learned men to create studies that showed Jews to be inferior to Arians and was undoubtedly used to help bolster their persecution.  When an enemy who hates you creates something from outside of God’s word as weapon to harm you, you must automatically reject it because its source is evil and no good fruit can be produced from evil.  When this rather simple and fundamental fact is kept in its proper prospective, people won’t waste debating manmade philosophical ideas contained in doctrine like Molinism and thereby allow leaven into the church and as part of doctrine.

I don’t remember Jesus acting in a humble manner when dealing with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes so I don’t think it is scriptural to describe someone that ardently defends the faith as a bully.  That is exactly the kind of attitude Jesus faced.  But, we know who was ultimately behind these human emotions.   We must be careful not to replace agape love with human emotion because they are as far apart as the east is from the west. 

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