Listen to Mark Driscoll

You should listen to Mark Driscoll, if you don't already.

Here's three reasons why:

First, he probably takes the Bible more seriously than you do.

Second, he's willing to engage the culture in a way few pastors and theologians are.

Third, he represents the way Calvinism gets preached and taught in the church when it is embraced wholeheartedly. And Wesleyans need to hear it to understand it.

If you're asking yourself, "Who is Mark Driscoll and why should I care," then let me explain.

Driscoll is the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle who stands at the forefront of an evangelical resurgence in Reformed theology. Driscoll is a "5-point Calvinist" (a term he embraces) and is causing shockwaves throughout the evangelical world with his unabashed Calvinist preaching, teaching, and writing.

For the purpose of context, you've got to realize that evangelicals (and here I do not mean Wesleyan evangelicals) have long held a theology that is basically a Calvinist and Arminian mishmash. If you don't know what I mean by that, just think for a minute about the incoherence these two statements: "Choose Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior" and "Once saved, always saved." Driscoll, on the other hand, comes across like someone plucked out of 17th century New England and set down in 21st century Seattle. He's a Puritan, only a Puritan who wears retro t-shirts and sports a constant five o'clock shadow.

Driscoll has become enough of a phenomenon that the New York Times ran a feature story on him in the NY Times Magazine back in January. The story was - not surprisingly - both snarky and condescending. But the very fact that it was written speaks volumes about the impact he's having on American culture and religion.

I started listening to podcasts of Driscoll's sermons a few months ago after hearing someone remark about his boundary-pushing preaching style. Since then, I've probably listened to a dozen or more of his sermons (which typically run longer than an hour apiece). Here are my thoughts:

First, Driscoll reads the Bible with an intensity that few Protestants - from liberal to evangelical - are willing to do. He has a sense of the authority of Scripture that is right on. Taking the Bible as seriously as he does is deeply needed in the United Methodist Church. And in that sense, he's more Wesleyan than me or just about any Methodist preacher I know. (For the pastors out there, note the way Driscoll engages in what is often called "pre-critical exegesis." He doesn't always do it consistently, but he does have a sense of the way that historical criticism has overreached and made claims that are no more grounded, and sometimes much less so, than the church's traditional claims about Scripture.)

Second, Driscoll looks out at the wider culture around him and recognizes how out-of-step it is with the way of discipleship presented in the New Testament. Again, for context you've got realize that Protestant liberalism is in its death throes. Its tendency is either to devolve into a muddy spirituality that cannot cope with historic and catholic Christian affirmations or to see Christian discipleship as civic participation in a liberal democratic society with a little Jesus thrown in. Either way, it will (and in some cases has) eventually morph into something that isn't recognizably Christian anymore.

Driscoll sees the thinness of mainline Christianity's presentation of the Christian life, and here's what makes his critique so important: he knows that liberal Christians are liberals, but he also understands that most evangelical Christians are liberals, too. (If you don't know what I mean by that, then just note the two distinct ways I'm using "liberal" in this post.) Theologically, Driscoll's kind of where New England Puritanism was in the 1740s and 50s. Liberalism in American culture had its birth there, as those who embraced Enlightenment rationalism began to move steadily away from the "city on a hill" vision of their forebears. Driscoll sees that and throws his lot in with the federal theology of Calvinist orthodoxy. It makes for a vision of the Christian life with a great deal of internal consistency.

Don't get me wrong: I don't agree with a lot of what Driscoll offers in place of the surrounding cultural alternative. But the fact that he's unwilling to allow the politically correct climate of American society to silence him is impressive. And we can learn something from it.

The problem with Driscoll is that his theology's all wrong. His doctrine of God, his soteriology, his ecclesiology: they're out of step with the gospel given to us by Jesus Christ. And - this is important - he advances his Calvinism by invoking a caricatured version of Arminianism. This comes up from time to time in his preaching, as it did in a sermon on the gospel of Luke that I listened to while raking leaves yesterday. That NY Times Magazine article represented Arminian soteriology (though not by name) with an absurd statement that, interestingly enough, could have come from Driscoll himself: "Since the early 19th century, most evangelicals have preferred a theology that stresses the believer's free decision to accept God's grace. To be born again is a choice God wants you to make; if you so choose, Jesus will be your personal friend." In the sermon I heard yesterday, Driscoll mocks the Arminian understanding of humans' role in accepting God's grace while conveniently leaving out such matters as the universal atonement and prevenient grace.

If you are a Methodist, all this has some implications. First, stop worrying about the mind numbingly mundane "church programming" approach to to Christian discipleship and start getting serious about salvation. Read the Bible (everyday) and pick up a collection of Wesley's sermons (here's a good one). Realize that the culture has infected the church to a degree that we need an exorcism. But realize, also, that Driscoll's Calvinism isn't the answer. The horrible decree of double predestination makes God into a monster. But just the same, God is also not the sentimentalized warm fuzzy "presence" that we've allowed him to become.

It's high time that Wesleyans got serious about the gospel God raised us up to preach. We've been playing at dolls far too long.