McLaren or Driscoll?

The past couple of days I have been reading and listening a lot to Brian McLaren and a little to Mark Driscoll. I always like to keep an open mind and two hear different, sometimes opposing view points. I have to be honest and say that pretty much EVERYTHING about Mark Driscoll turns my stomach. He has been compared to a modern day Jonathan Edwards and I would whole heartedly agree with that comparison. In case you are unfamiliar with who Jonathan Edwards was, he was a staunch Calvinist preacher who penned the famous sermon; “Sinners in the hands of an angry God”. Edwards lived during that ‘enlightened’ period in our country’s history where we burned people at the stake for being witches. He and Mark Driscoll both share the belief that God basically hates humanity. I listened to several of Driscoll’s Youtube rants where he shares his thoughts on women, homosexuality, and his belief that the idea of Jesus as being a loving, forgiving God is incorrect and we need to return to view God as both vengeful and full of wrath. He goes further to call church leaders and the churches that preach this type of Jesus as being “chick-i-fied” and calls the pastors “limp-wristed” and “effeminate”. Those are his words not mine. If you don’t believe me do some research for yourself.

Juxtapose this with the work of Brian McLaren, also an Evangelical Christian, who talks predominately about Jesus’ love for humanity and God’s desire for us to have a personal interdependent relationship with Him. McLaren speaks and writes about our mission as Christians; to the poor; the environment; the disenfranchised; the broken; the hungry; and etc. You know, the same things that Jesus talked about.

Does that mean that Mark Driscoll does not care about the same things that Brian McLaren does? I do not have that answer. I can only go by what they each seem to spend their energies on and based on the fruits of those energies.

I think I will stick with what I know about Jesus and what He asked of us, which is among other things, to love your neighbor and your enemies, to forgive, to turn the other cheek, and to help the poor. In fact the times when we see Jesus getting angry and showing any violence at all is when He throws the money changers out of the temple - why - because they are cheating the poor.

So am I a follower of Driscoll or McLaren? Actually I am a follower of neither. I think I will follow Jesus because when I seek who God is, I see a Jesus who, although God, became human so that He could give His life as the ultimate sacrifice in order to restore and redeem humanity and to give us the ability to have a true dependent relationship on God. I see a God who cares about us all deeply and who through Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, ministered to anyone and everyone, and played with children.