Bit of controversy around Mark Driscoll’s new book Vintage Jesus.

Tim Challies reviewed the book, which Craig blogged about, saying:

[Challies’] review is mixed. He feels there is lots of solid biblical material in there, and some real insights but (once again) he feels that some of Driscoll’s humour is too vulgar.

(FWIW, Challies followed up the review with this post about Driscoll.)

I took issue with what I saw as the tut-tutting of Driscoll’s “crassness”, saying in Craig’s comments:

… I still do take issue with some of the assumptions about Driscoll and “good taste”, and the barriers it creates to non-Christians.

I really don’t like it when it appears Christianity is put in a cultural straight-jacket and sent on a one-way trip to Blandistan.

I do take the point that within our own circles we should look after the weaker brother/sister, but there’s a big difference between looking out for them, and making being Christian contingent on accepting a very particular culture.

It seems especially ironic given the accusations that were levelled against Jesus of being a drunk and glutton by the Pharisees. I realise Driscoll certainly ain’t Jesus, and his critics generally aren’t modern-day Pharisee’s (and Tim obviously isn’t!), but still it does seem we should be more careful about defending our Lord’s honour when he himself was quite happy to slum it with the “scum” of his society!

Seriously - how do you think Jesus managed to relate to the tax collectors and “sinners”, hanging out and eating with them, and anger the Pharisees so much?

Do we honestly believe it was by being quiet and reserved in a corner, casting stern, disapproving looks at anything that someone, somewhere might find mildly offensive? Do we honestly believe he never had a laugh with these guys?

Yet we want to put the boot into anyone who defies our personal definition of “good taste” in an effort to reach out to the millions of people who aren’t even the sinners or tax collectors of the day, they’re just the ordinary folk!

It makes me sad.

So, I thought an interesting (albeit somewhat perennial) question would be: just how much did Jesus slum it when dining with the tax collectors and “sinners”?

How dero did he appear such that the Pharisees accused him of being a drunk and a glutton?

How do we reconcile Jesus’ sinlessness with the fact he hung out with, and, one imagines, related to and enjoyed the company of the “scum” of his society?

Have we become so socially conservative that, in the name of Jesus, we’re even more conservative than he was, even though he was without sin?

Let’s face it, Sydney Anglican churches are socially pretty darn conservative, but have we taken it so far we are in fact sinning by acting above people Jesus happily dined with, related to, and otherwise hung out with?

OK, it might be more constructive to ask this in theological terms..

What was Jesus on about in the Beatitudes (sermon on the mount) with his ‘blessed’ are the ‘meek’ and ‘peacemakers’.

Was he particularly speaking into a context where people were being killed and otherwise harshly oppressed by the Romans, that we don’t really ‘get’ it in our context where being ‘persecuted’ means being the brunt of a bit of ribbing (if that).

I don’t follow at all?

Luke Stevens - 21 February 2008 06:24 PM

I don’t follow at all?

Neither do I. I think you’re asking where Jesus would “fit in” if his incarnation was today rather than 2000 yrs ago?

If so then I think Jesus would have most likely mixed it with the “blue-collar” worker, chatting with people on the street and having a light ale in the local pub (and copping flack from the fundi’s for “drinking"). He wouldn’t be renting a pad but would most likely be bunking in on the spare couch. Definitely no tertiary education and too lower middle class to be listened to by “established” religion. However, while not a “dero”, he’d definitely know how to stop and listen and show compassion to those who’ve fallen on hard times - the drunks, the druggies and those who are chronically mentally ill - and offer them hope (and cure many of them too). I’m not really sure what he’d make of our churches. I suspect he’d be pretty unhappy with the myopia of most of us who appear to think “being faithful” is mostly about turning up on Sunday and at the Bible study mid-week while still being pretty clueless (self included) about what LOVE really means in practice.

sorry for being obtuse. End of hard working day.

I was kinda objecting to the thread title.

What I’m driving at is this: Driscoll has a go at some of the ‘meek’ stereotypes of Jesus.. his examples reminded me of the image on a 1930s Anglican church stainglass I know of Jesus cuddling a little lamb.

Now these images aren’t pulled out of nowhere… indeed they are meant to reflect the teachings of Jesus himself… good shephard etc and I also think people have the beatitudes particularly in mind, loving your enemies etc.

Now in our middle-class largely Anglo-Saxon culture ‘being meek’ and ‘being a peacemaker’ gets interpreted as being quiteist and polite.. and it is this that Luke seems to be objecting to. I agree he has a point.

However it doesn’t over-ride the fact that the NT clearly teaches that you need to treat those you disagree with with love, patience, gentleness and respect.

Does this mean mockery & edgy humour designed to offend those you disagree with etc is ruled out even if its common parlance in the wider community.

Luke, you are using a word we used in the 60s. I take it you weren’t even born then. Haven’t heard anyone called a dero in years.

Mark Driscoll addresses his use of mockery in one of his recent talks entitled “Does God Have a Sense of Humour?” It is available in the Mars Hill podcast, and also from the Media library at www.marshillchurch.org

I can’t find an easy way of posting a direct link.

How we use humour, and what is ‘appropriate’ is something that I have thought about often. I have always believed that God has a sense of humour. I’ve listened to that podcast, and thought that it was quite good. He makes an interesting point about Jesus using mockery as a form of rebuke.

Anyway, in terms of Jesus being a dero, I don’t know that he would simply be ‘slumming it’. The gospels certainly show him spending much of his time with those who were dispised by the religious elite, but he also attends the temple, and speaks with wealthy Jews as well. Not to mention that he can provide for 12 disciples to follow him around (though with Jesus, one loaf would go a long way).

I think he would have lived simply, but IMHO that doesn’t necessarily mean that he lived as a dero.

Oh, and we were still using the term ‘dero’ at school in the late 90’s.