Pastor Mark Driscoll: “Stupid people say _______”
Stupid people say, “I don’t want to tell their children what to believe. I don’t want to impose my religion on them. I want them to find their own way.” This is the equivalent to driving into the middle of America, kicking the child out of the car, and wishing the best that they find their way. A child will never find their way. That’s why God gives them a father to lead the way. So, our God, we want Him to not just to have dominion over our life, but over all the generations of our family. If you raise your children, starting with your sons, to live under dominion of our God, God will be faithful to them as He has been faithful to you. God is the same God of every generation. His dominion never ends.
Pastor Mark Driscoll, “Stupid people say _______” (2023)
1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
2 The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord.
5 There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous.
6 Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge.
7 Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.
Psalm 14:1–7 (King James Version)
Pastor Mark Driscoll in this particular clip is, in fact, being faithful to a direct reading of the scriptures with Psalms. Where, unbelievers are deemed to be fools, corrupt, abominable in works, unable to do good, filthy, and such.
Now, take the other view in which individuals who have been characterized this way in the literature of a community, and the interpretation — more importantly — of a leader of the community is straight from the page, it’d be deemed prejudiced, bigoted, or, at a minimum, hostile to the group. Thi version of Christian call this loving.
The Convention of the Right of the Child (1990) is an important UN document. It clearly states some important aspects of the right of the child. As we’re seeing with the inconvenient of universalist laws for the parochial minded, there is a pushback.
Parents should provide a space for healthy development of mind and opinion for the child. Both the UN and religious institutions believe the individual is important and the family is the fundamental group unit of society. How those families are comprised or formed, they differ.
However, the family is the fundamental group unit of society. That seems to be a cultural, institutional, and relatively religious universal. Driscoll, as per usual, resorts to extreme and colourful images: If you do this, you’re simply abandoning your child in the Middle of Nowhere, America.
The problem isn’t the idea of children being raised; the problem for Driscoll is the child deviating or developing an independence of mind apart from Christian doctrine and fundamentalism.
“God is the same God of every generation. His dominion never ends.” Whole empires have crumbled under the might of time and more timely ethics, ethos, and governance systems. God’s differ. God abandons people at inopportune times. Proverbially speaking, God abandoned Driscoll at his most crucial time of need when Mars Hill collapsed.
If He can abandon him — Driscoll, and if it’s wrong to abandon a child of God in Middle of Nowhere, America, and if God is the Goood, then, maybe, Driscoll is worshipping a false God allowing the Bad to happen to a man deeming himself the Good following the Good God.
