The Pornification of the Pulpit « One Pilgrim’s Progress

The Pornification of the Pulpit

March 7, 2009 by Chris Poe

The Pyromaniac himself, Phil Johnson, lived up to his name yesterday at the Shepherd’s Conference in a message that extracts the teeth from the Mark Driscoll apologists and others who defend vulgarity in the name of contextualization. Click here for the message. (The link to the message is in the last paragraph. It will be available on the Shepherd’s Fellowship website as well to those who are registered members.)

Posted in Mark Driscoll, Phil Johnson, contextualization | Tagged Shepherd's Conference | 10 Comments

10 Responses

on March 7, 2009 at 1:00 AM Phil Johnson on the Pornification of the Pulpit

[...] Johnson on the Pornification of the Pulpit The Pornification of the Pulpit One Pilgrim’s Progress __________________ Chris Poe Member, Grace Community Baptist Church, Mandeville, LA [...]
on March 7, 2009 at 10:31 AM scott shaffer

It can never be said that Phil pulls punches. There is no doubt where he stands on this issue. I happen to agree 100% with him.
on March 7, 2009 at 2:35 PM Kelvin

Phil presented his case with accuracy, honesty, and clarity. He was bang on — using the world’s “packaging” (ie. the sensual/pornified vernacular) to contextualize the truth, while attempting to make it more attractive/palatable/acceptable/popular is offensive and unbiblical.
Now lets be equally consistent in applying the same principles to contextualizing our worship by “packaging” God’s truth in the sensual/pornified/rebellious musical styles (vernacular) of the world.
on March 7, 2009 at 10:59 PM willeymac

Being someone who has on occasion listened to Mark Driscoll, I can understand your reservations. Yes, Mark Driscoll is too frank about sex and embracing that sort of emphasis on sexual pleasure from a purely secular/worldly interest is indeed disturbing.

I also read you earlier blog about being concerned with handing over the SBC to the younger people. I am 24, a student at the University of Mobile and I am a Theology/Humanities major. I know what is being taught to some of the young ministers who have yet to enter seminary and I can tell you at least from the UM perspective it is good stuff. However, I am not sure that we are all not too overeager to embrace whose doctrine is clean but whose mouth and maybe mind is filthy. That is a danger even at UM where a majority of our ministry students listen to Driscoll.

No, there is no biblical mentioning of retirement but even you must agree that some pastors hold on long after they should let go and they destroy their churches in the process. I agree though we cannot defeat the world with its own weapons and mindset, we must embrace the clear teaching of Scripture. We must allow God to be the one who is at the center of everything we do, at center of our very lives. The world does not buy our gimmicks anymore than they buy their own. It is time that we start preaching the whole Gospel.

Also, if you want the younger ministers to listen to you, then you need to at least listen to what they say and give them opportunities to serve in the church. The greatest loss of young people to world occurs because churches do not care to get them involved. People who are called to preach need to be able to preach at some point; people who are called to lead must be carefully, discerningly given the reins of leadership so that they can learn. The culture is different and in our day we do not want to become doctrinal suits, we want to become biblical pastors.

Thanks Chris. Btw, I love New Orleans and go out there often with a group from UM called TNOP- The New Orleans Project; we do all sorts of ministry out there. Many blessings to you.
on March 8, 2009 at 4:41 PM Chris Poe

willeymac,

Thanks for dropping in. I appreciate your thoughts. I’m interested in learning more about TNOP as I have friends in the ministry who are working in NO as well as on the MS coast with rebuilding and other efforts.

I’ll note that I’m 35. I hope that still qualifies as “young.” :)

My comments about retirement, etc. were in the context of older men who are still faithful to their calling. Those who “hang on too long” and sometimes destroy their churches as well as sometimes destroying their own reputation in the process do not meet that definition.

As I noted in my “Summary” post, if a man is truly called to preach, there will be no lack of opportunity to preach, whether that’s in “his” church or elsewhere. Did William Carey let the naysayers hold him back?

I have been listening to what some of the “younger men” (some of whom are older than me) have been saying, and the post to which you refer was my response to some of them, specifically some posts on Between the Times and Baptist21.

I will continue to post on this issue as it arises from time to time and Lord willing will continue posting on topics of interest in general as I focus more on blogging and less on other forms of online interaction. However, I think my days of immersing myself in SBC politics the way I did with this series of posts are over. I will be posting an explanation soon as to why I feel that way.
on March 8, 2009 at 8:49 PM debese

“Driscoll apologists” lol…I don’t even think Driscoll is one of those. Phil’s message was right on, yet I believe the Driscoll “dislikers” are in danger of missing the point whilst ungraciously seeking to destroy an obvious brother in Christ. There are plenty of obvious false teachers out there, yet we wish to skewer our own.

For to many the verdict is already in on Driscoll and nothing he ever does or says will be able to change their minds. Its a good thing Mark falls on the grace of God because he sure doesn’t get it from many brothers!

That being said, Phil’s point, especially when dealing with the likes of XXX church and Ed Young, and the call to speak with dignity in the pulpit is very good! I might add that we might wish to keep our undignified personal vendettas out of the pulpit too.
on March 9, 2009 at 6:56 AM Chris Poe

debese,

Thanks for commenting.

Are you including Phil Johnson and John MacArthur among the ranks of Driscoll “dislikers?” I ask because I’m not saying anything different than they are on this issue. Or do you have someone or something else entirely in mind?

If anything, my comments have been milder than Johnson’s (and certainly milder than some others) and have primarily been aimed at those in the blogosphere who have defended Driscoll’s actions or who have dismissed concerns about even his most extreme behavior. This lowly blogger wouldn’t presume to have any influence with Driscoll himself. :)

I certainly agree that “undignified personal vendettas” should be kept out of the pulpit. Do you have anyone specifically in mind who is guilty of this or examples you wish to cite? (I’m sure we’ve all seen or heard of examples of this, with preachers either railing against certain individuals or “preaching to” particular members of the congregation.) IMO Driscoll’s invective against “fundamentalists” would qualify at times, since in some instances at least it seems to be defined as anyone who would be critical of him from a religious standpoint as opposed to his left wing secular critics. In a recent message, it was done with such a broad brush that it wasn’t unreasonable to come away with the impression that these “fundamentalists” souls are in danger. No distinction was made between those with the views of John MacArthur and Phil Johnson and truly legalistic fundamentalists that don’t preach justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. (In the latter case, they aren’t “fundamental” enough!) Perhaps the failure to make a distinction here was merely an oversight on his part.

In response to your comment about obvious false teachers being out there– The problem Phil addressed is growing and isn’t so obvious to many people today, hence the need to address it with those who would see the obvious errors with the Word-Faith movement and other errors and heresies that could be named. In this regard it is similar to the controversy over N.T. Wright’s views on justification and the New Perspective. Defenders of Wright complain that the criticism is misplaced when we are facing so many other threats today.
on March 9, 2009 at 7:42 AM Chris Poe

For those who will dismiss Johnson’s message out of the assumption that he didn’t try to contact Driscoll and address this with him privately, see this post in which Johnson states that he contacted MD weeks prior and got what apparently was an impertinent response: http://tinyurl.com/au2w26
on March 9, 2009 at 9:26 AM debese

Thanks for posting that link. It would be nice for these guys to get together and find out where they agree and where they need to hash some things out. Apparently Mark answered Phil’s letter the same way that Phil responded to Mark’s message at the DG conference…with questions (or a question).

To reply to your response of my comment:

My comment was intentionally vague and directed more at a genre of responses I see, usually comments at various blogs, that give the impression (to me at least) that Driscoll has finally been vanquished in the field of battle and all that’s left to do now is desecrate the body. However, I do not personally know these commentors, their backgrounds, or their beliefs so I refrain from making final judgments or encouraging others to do so.

I substituted “dislikers” for “haters” trying to soften the tone. I don’t believe MacArthur or Johnson hate Driscoll, but from the tone of blogs and comments there appear to be people who come close to hatred. (Not this blog, and kudos to team Pyro for attempting to keep such comments out of their site as well).

Alas, I feel the actual point of Phil’s message might get lost amid the Driscoll distraction. I was talking to my brother who could not attend and was following the conference from various blogs. He asked me about the message and said that apparently it was some big slam against Driscoll. Point missed.
on March 9, 2009 at 1:09 PM Aaron Sauer

Sadly, it seems that Mark Driscoll considers Phil Johnson to be a fool as he posted this soon after Phil gave his message http://twitter.com/PastorMark/statuses/1290139675

Could it have been a coincidence that Driscoll posted that soon after Phil’s message?…doubtful. Twitter was abuzz about Phil’s message and so were Driscoll’s defenders. Mark is active on twitter and knew what was going on. He posted that right around the time that the message was given. That’s the only time that I have ever seen Driscoll make a comment about him meditating on Prov 26:4.