Bernard
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11:26:48 pm on April 11, 2008 | # |
Is Jesus the Only God?
While Mark Driscoll doesn’t necessarily set out to create an apologetics text, he quickly finds himself having to deal with that issue. This first chapter does a good job of making us understand how Jesus would fit into today’s culture, and I’m not surprised by that, as Driscoll is so sensitive to culture.
He spends a lot of time discussing the various appearances of Jesus in pop culture, and to be honest I’m not sure what he was trying to accomplish. It makes for interesting reading. I am hoping to download some of the sermons from his Vintage jesus series; I’m curious as to how much transcription there was. I suspect that not only did he use his sermon material for the book, but some of the actual wording is a direct takeoff. Reading the book, I can so easily picture and hear Mark Driscoll as he preaches. The very style of his verbal delivery comes through in his writing, too.
This first chapter is a loose look at virtually everything that might be “thought” about Jesus, even offering a brief discussion of the demons thoughts about Jesus.
There’s a lot to discuss about this chapter, but for “book club” purposes, I want to grab onto a section from pages 21-23… “Jesus said He is God.” This is a bold statement of sorts, even though I personally agree. Driscoll’s first sentence in that section is this - “Jesus clearly, emphatically, and repeatedly said he is God.”
I suspect that Mark Driscoll is one of the most widely read and well read preachers I have personally listened to. This means that I am sure he has been exposed to multiple claims that “Jesus never said he was God.” I’ve heard it time and time again in discussions with atheists, agnostics, and even liberal Christians. He obviously knows that the Jehovah’s Witnesses use this line.
In my opinion, any time we say “Jesus clearly said He is God”, we need to be able to clearly back up our claim. I’m not sure Driscoll does a good job of that here. It is clear that the Jewish leaders were understanding Christ to claim to be God, and the use of “I am” is definitely a claim to being God. However, I’m still, personally, at a great loss as to convincing rebuttal to this claim.
To answer a naysayer with “Yes, He did,” but not have my “gun” fully loaded is frustrating to me. Make no mistake, I fully believe that Jesus was fully God. However, I’m not astute enough to have a verse in the Bible that I know right off the top of my head. If nothing else, Driscoll is encouraging me to “get my junk in a bag” and know what I’m talking about - at least know the Scriptures that drive my personal belief system. At least one Scripture.
Driscoll is the master of 10, 15, or more points in a sermon. In a way, I really like his approach to preaching. He doesn’t want to tease us, he wants to truly educate us as his listeners or readers. There have been thousands of sermons preached, thousands of books written, and thousands of songs sang about Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, and Christianity in general. Yet, it’s still amazing that there are continually new ways being found to express our thoughts about this wonder that we call Life in Christ.
LanzFranco 11:41 pm on April 11, 2008 | #
Wouldn’t it be great if we could just point to the Bible and say, John 4:13, or some such. Jesus said He was God. He said that He would come back to life. He said that if we believed in Him we would be given eternal life. And then He told us the meaning of everything which is printed right here in this book and if you read it, you don’t really need any faith cause its all spelled out for you.
I suspect that if we did have such a line from Jesus, the agnostics, etc… would just say that it was made up by one of his followers. The point of faith is that it separates us from those who don’t have it. Either you believe that Jesus is God, in which case His words clearly spell out what He said, or you don’t, in which case NO WORDS will spell it out.
Not having read Driscoll at length before, I found the first chapter to be really compelling - even if it did seem like a bit of a review for me. Some of the pop culture references I didn’t know. I’m learning more and more each day. So to that extent, I think the first chapter did its job if the whole point of the book is to introduce us to a Jesus we thought we already knew.
This might also be an interesting introduction in that its sort of like saying, “Okay, here’s what Jesus isn’t.” And he’s showing it by the words of others contrasted with the words of Christ. Very interesting.
Matt_Andrews 12:43 am on April 12, 2008 | #
One thing I’ve always enjoyed about Driscoll is that he is doctrinally orthodox with a flaming passion to make the Gospel accessible to those that couldn’t care less. And that seems to be the goal with this book, and with the whole series actually - making Jesus relevant to a culture that didn’t grow up in Church. I think if we come into this book as Christians with a good theological and spiritual background, we are already not his intended audience.
That being said, there were a lot of things I liked about chapter one that set the tone for the rest of the book. Driscoll starts out by meeting his audience in the thicket of popular culture and begins examining the way that the world views Jesus. It makes for an entertaining and enticing start, and it’s a nice transition into the views held by various other religions, historical figures and celebrities, and then finally into what Jesus says about himself. I really liked this pattern that serves as the model for most of the chapters. It provides a smooth transition for the reader who knows about Jesus only from South Park and not the Bible.
My favorite part, however, is the Q&A at the end. It’s obvious that questions will come up for someone experiencing Jesus for the first time, and the Q&A is a great way to continue the dialogue without making the text weighty and complex.
Theologically I didn’t find myself disagreeing with anything. Most of it is pretty basic stuff, but being as it’s intended for an unchurched audience, that makes sense.
The only issue I take is with his use of humor. Not that I don’t think he’s funny, or that I have a conservative sense of humor, because neither is true. Here’s the issue: he’s a very funny speaker, and I usually end up laughing out load at least once during every one of his sermons, but not everyone who is funny audibly is funny it writing, if that makes any sense. Sometimes when the words are on paper, it lingers more and seems to be a tad out of place. Exhibit A:
“Jesus was born in a dumpy, rural, hick town, not unlike those today where people change their own oil, think pro wrestling is real, find women who chew tobacco sexy, and eat a lot of Hot Pockets with their uncle-daddy.” (11)
Not only is this just way too long of a list to be funny, but it seems an inappropriate way to start out a book on Jesus. I know the goal is to probably makes non-Christians think “Hey, this guy’s a Christian and he can still make redneck jokes, so maybe they’re not all prudes. I think I’ll keep reading,” but it just seemed so tacky to me. I guess that’s the real problem - what I think is funny in a sermon is tacky on paper. Kind of like reading a Jeff Foxworthy book. There’s a reason they have to put illustrations in those things.
Did anyone else take issue with this, or do you all think I’m making too much out of it?
One last thing: enough with the endnotes. I wish everyone would use footnotes instead. I understand that footnotes make the book seem more academic and so that’s probably why he abandoned them, but it’s a pain having to turn back and forth!
Andy 6:47 am on April 12, 2008 | #
Having read Driscoll before (Confessions of a Reformission Rev), I rather knew what to expect with regard to tone - and his irreverent tone appears on cue, as both Matt and Bernard pointed out.
I would concur that the strength of the first chapter lies with how Jesus is defined by our world, whether pop culture, other faiths, cults, etc. As noted previously, I too was unaware of some of these assumptions about Jesus - so that was new to me as well.
Where I take issue with Driscoll is the same as Bernard’s. To quote Bernard:
In my opinion, any time we say “Jesus clearly said He is God”, we need to be able to clearly back up our claim. I’m not sure Driscoll does a good job of that here. It is clear that the Jewish leaders were understanding Christ to claim to be God, and the use of “I am” is definitely a claim to being God. However, I’m still, personally, at a great loss as to convincing rebuttal to this claim.
For me, this is a pretty large problem if this is to be a book given to folks who are not Christians. If non-Christians already have issues with the Bible and Jesus’ claims about Himself, then why would they agree with the claim “because Jesus said so in the Bible”?
This is where some rudimentary apologetics about New Testament history would have been useful - information about when the Gospels were written (during a time when folks who KNEW Jesus or knew of Jesus would have still been alive to be able to confirm or deny the historical accuracy of the written records). A reference to works by Lee Strobel or his sources could have been helpful, if only to show such confirmation. To say Jesus is God because He says so in the Bible does not help convince a non-believer that Jesus is God, and frankly destroys the validity of the subsequent points in his argument.
Don’t get me wrong - I agree with his points, being a Christian - but it is imperative that he set up reasons why the New Testament record is legitimate in the first place before he can claim the validity of Jesus’ claims, and Driscoll fails to do that in this first chapter.
Perhaps this book needed an Introduction after the Preface just to set up that argument as to why the Bible (particularly the New Testament) is valid, before Chapter 1 begins.
I agree with Matt, though - it would have been nice if the footnotes were in the chapter…or even at the end of the first chapter.
AJ 2:02 am on April 14, 2008 | #
Thanks for kicking things off, Bernard. I’m going to have to wade into the first chapter again to see what I make of your question re: Did Jesus say he was God? My impression is that Driscoll aims to set up a general apologetic framework with that chapter rather than to make an airtight case.
On Driscoll’s bombastic humor, I think it does work better as stand-up comedy. Some of his paragraph-long one-liners don’t translate to the written page so well. (I’ve heard about four different version of his “Jesus wasn’t a hippie wearing a prom dress” schtick, so I was just waiting to see which cut would make the book.
That said…I like the humor/cultural references, and I’m relieved that Driscoll didn’t try to write a “straight” theology text with this book. He’s aiming to reach a new and different audience.
IMO, the question is how well he manages to integrate serious theology with his wise-cracking comedic interludes. One of the book’s few weak points (I guess I just showed my hand), I think, is that the tone/content is kind of choppy. Almost as if theologian-Driscoll is playing tag team with Chris Rock-Driscoll…
Just my two cents.
Ryan Imel 3:06 am on April 14, 2008 | #
Driscroll’s strength in this chapter is, as mentioned above, his walk through Jesus as seen in culture. If nothing else, it is interesting to read different thoughts and phrases about Christ throughout history. Obviously it was tilted so as to paint a negative picture of Christ in culture, but the goal was to show that culture is wrong, so I suppose that’s understandable.
I don’t have any experience with Driscoll prior to this book (aside from hearing his name) so I walked up to the book with a fairly open mind. As mentioned, his humor so far in this book comes across pretty crass and turned me off pretty quick. But, humor is humor, and I’m willing to look past it to see what else he has to say.
The first time Driscroll really lost me was the second paragraph of page 14. He says:
Being one of those liberals which he refers to as Christian only in quotes, this was a bit out of line. I recognize he is generalizing here, but to not only wave off a large group of Christians as denying the divinity of Christ and then looping them into the same category as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormonism (which he discusses in the same paragraph) but subtly deny them as brothers in Christ is shameful.
There were a number of other times when Driscroll threw in little qualifiers similar to that set of double quotes that seem to say something negative about his subject without him coming out and actually saying it. For example:
This sort of subtle discrimination is something that only Christians could read over and not be offended by, and if this is really geared toward those turned off to Church, I believe they would find this offensive. I found it offensive.
AJ mentioned in his other post about the C.S. Lewis connection and, I’m glad, that the “trilemma” is in fact a false dilemma. Appeals to C.S. Lewis are a bit tired in apologetics, but I get why they are so common. Also, the answers at the end of the chapter were pretty short and, I would argue, a bit too short to make including them very worthwhile. A list of books and resources may have been better there than a two or three paragraph answer that, honestly, oversimplified the issue to deliver a punchy answer.
Overall, I’m a bit disappointed that this whole thing is ending up as an apologetics pursuit instead of something which is asking very challenging questions. Some of the questions breezed over and tossed in this first chapter would, I think, be good to ask. Such as: If Jesus was here, would he be a Muslim? These are the sorts of questions that develop into interesting discussion, and can push Christians into new and uncomfortable territory.
We’ll see how this goes, and hopefully my thoughts here don’t distance myself too far from the rest of you guys. Here’s to the next chapter.
Matt_Andrews 5:36 am on April 14, 2008 | #
The “double quotes” are another thing that really bother me about Driscoll. He does an excellent job of defending his view, but if you disagree with him, he would rather ridicule you, making a caricature out of your views.
Ryan, I do agree that some of the answers, as well as the way he refutes some counterpoints, are vague and unconvincing. I too would have preferred there to be a list of other references that go into more detail about certain subjects.
But of course we have to remember that this book is the first in a series, so anytime where I notice issues that are only slightly touched on, they may be explored for fully in the later books.
Bernard 12:16 pm on April 14, 2008 | #
Ryan - One thing that I think is universally recognized about Driscoll is his “bent” toward subtly making fun of those with whom he disagrees strongly. It’s almost an oxymoron in that he is very culturally liberal, and is basically the founder of an organization of church planters which has been ejected from the Missouri Baptist Convention for not being opposed to alcohol consumption, yet he has little to no tolerance for those whose theological framework doesn’t fit inside of his particular viewpoint. At least, these are my impressions based on reasonable exposure but limited (very limited) research.
I suspect that your offense with his approach will continue, simply because I think a LOT of the content in this book was transcribed from his sermon series by the same name. It only makes sense that it would be, or else the sermon series was developed from the book material, and he has a certain character to his preaching that doesn’t seem to vary.
As to your liberal stance distancing you from us; I can only speak for myself, but while I am intensely conservative in theological belief, I welcome your insight and interaction. I will very intentionally refrain from endless argument with you about the root causes of “liberal vs. conservative” (and I’m talking theological, not political) and focus any discussion that we have on the different viewpoints. I would caution, just in case there’s a misunderstanding, that I’m convinced Driscoll is referring to theological liberals, rather than political or social liberals as our American language tends to err toward. I see a tremendous difference in the two, although one often leads to the other.
AJ 4:11 pm on April 14, 2008 | #
I would caution, just in case there’s a misunderstanding, that I’m convinced Driscoll is referring to theological liberals, rather than political or social liberals as our American language tends to err toward. I see a tremendous difference in the two, although one often leads to the other.
Good clarification, Bernard. I would also characterize myself as very conservative theologically, but that won’t stop me from kicking ideas around. I’m interested in hearing more about where you’re coming from, Ryan.
Lanz Franco 4:45 pm on April 14, 2008 | #
I concur on that last point. I think there is a lot of wiggle room on being a liberal that some conservatives don’t tend to give, but the biggest problem with being a liberal is knowing where to draw the line. You can start off by saying that you don’t want to offend your female parishioners by constantly referring to God as He, and end up at some point where you will only refer to God as the Big Heavenly Source of Goodness (or some such liberal insanity). So being of a heart liberal and of a mind conservative which plants me right smack in the middle of this countries political and social spectrum, I wasn’t offended by Driscoll’s “statement” on the basis that I assumed he was going after the Big Heavenly Source of Goodness Christians, who are just as off-putting as Mormons or Witnesses.