This post was chosen as newsworthy at Sensus Divinitatis News….

I don’t know how I feel about a “global watchdog” but, I know for me, I am going to try and do everything I can be above reproach. Will I be perfect? Not a chance. But it is still worth trying. I think it is a very immature point to make that no one cares about what church superstars are doing and saying. You are always a light on a hill. Your words are always a mouth piece. The bigger the platform, the bigger the responsibility. Sure, there will always be stuffy evangelicals who will rip anyone apart behind the veil of a computer screen.

But raising light on these subjects is important, not needless.

[B] Yes, sin must be repented of.

[C] An elder must be blameless. This charge tells the duties of those who put him in charge. That is on the leadership of Mars Hill to deal with. Or any future church that would call him.

[D] The public accountability was necessary in these instances [Jesus with Pharisees, Stephen with elders, Paul at Galatia] because the stakes were very high. It was the entire Gospel at stake in the given location. If what Driscoll did was this grave, that needs to be argued carefully. If the perceived gravity comes from Ephesians 5:3, some careful exegesis is in order.

[E] Yes, public teachers should be able to hold other teachers accountable. If you invite Driscoll into your church and he teaches falsely, by all means rebuke him. But the examples raise some interesting speculations. Had it been the Internet Age, do you imagine St. Paul would have confronted the Super Apostles in a blog post? I rather doubt it. Generally, even the letters were instructions for local leaders to handle things, or threatening a reckoning when Paul arrived on scene. I think this provides an applicable model for using the internet. We may use it as a tool, but it should be used to facilitate work done in person.

Well, whilst we all know that daily life is, indeed, fraught with sin, there IS no separation between spirit and flesh; pure and impure. We are holistically formed folk. We cannot keep our minds lofty and untouched whilst taking things like sex, gluttony, and football and placing them in these little boxes…only to be opened in the dark, in private, away from Church and Life.

One of the biggest problems in the Church, IMNSHO, is that She DOESN’T discuss sex…at all. Or that when a rare Pastor has the intestinal fortitude to do so, it is all dressed up in euphemisms and disclaimers as to be no talk about sex at all. So we have whole generations who have either learnt about sex from the worst possible sources (their peers, the movies, school and/or the farmyard) and without benefit of fitting it within God’s POV. We learn what sex is NOT to be, rather than what it is; we learn about what sexual activity is forbidden, rather than what sexual activity is celebrated. Sad, really.

St Augustine was familiar with this Manichean approach. Too bad some millenia later it is still with us, as strong as ever, as we continue to espouse this neo-gnosticism: life lived in our heads is better than life lived fully engaged with dirt under our fingernails (from gardening, perhaps?) and sweat on our brows (draw your own conclusions!).

Hold on there! Let’s just take the “Oh, so offensive” interview that has Frank in knots. This interview lasted 7:28 or 448 seconds. Take out the 45 seconds DL spent on lead in and you’ve got 403 seconds. How long was Mark’s “highly offensive” joke? 13 seconds. So that’s 3.2% of the total interview and so clearly it exceeds Frank’s tolerance threshold.

I dont’ see where anyone’s use of crudeness of speach would automatically put them in partnership with those who habitually use crude speech for the usual reasons. I’m as sick of our sex drenched culture as anyone, but I’m not prepared to throw MD under that bus because

1)he wants to see the lost delivered from that culture, and seems to be doing a pretty good job of helping them out of it (maybe not to Frank’s taste, but WAHH)

2)I’ll allow him some CONTEXT and INTENT to properly understant the joke and what he wanted to do with it. Not everyone’s teaching style, too graphic for the polyester golf pants set, but I dont’ see where he’s fallen afoul of the LORD”s commands here, cetainly not in a way that to warrant public censure.

As to Frank’s question about masturbation jokes, my answer is NOT NECESSARILY. this isn’t a yes/no question, and wanting that kind of answer is FRANK’s problem.

That is a typical frank exit, usually preceded by several clownings and bannings, after which he closes the thread by threatining the next commenter with a ban of a month. You know frank was DYING to do that here. He must be terribly frustrated by it all.

Of course I wonder if he will apply that ban on commenting to himself as he then commented on the thread … goose, gander and all that….

He compares what MD did to Micheal Vick, and the response of the NFL

Of course, Vick has a contractual, work arrangement, which gives the NFL the right to impose requirments and restrictions.

Just like Mars Hill has with MD…..

Per your model ministry off of 2% of the Bible you again jump to the assumption that Driscoll is simply standing up and making masturbation jokes as a regular part of his preaching. Without this assumption your entire argument falls apart like a leper on a treadmill.

How many minutes worth of sermon has Driscoll preached, and how many minutes worth of teaching has Driscoll taught? How many times has he offended your delicate sensibilities? Round up to 10 minutes for each item. Does it approach 2%? I doubt it.