Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Sex Sells: Driscolls on "The View" with Barbara Waters Re: Mark's New Book "Real Marriage"

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/03/08/the-driscolls-share-their-views-on-sex-in-marriage-on-the-view/


The Driscolls Share Their Views on SEX in Marriage on “The View”


Thu, Mar 08 2012
By
"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8 (NIV)

 


In case you haven't noticed, Mark and Grace Driscoll are taking their Sex Gospel to the ends of the earth as they wander around peddling their HOT off the press book – REAL MARRIAGE: THE TRUTH ABOUT SEX, FRIENDSHIP & LIFE TOGETHER. It is this blogger's staunch opinion that their efforts are not being inspired by the Holy Spirit. Yesterday the Driscolls pitched their provocative sex manual on The View.

Barbara Walters begins the interview with this introduction:

"It is a gospel you probably never thought you'd hear from a man of the church, but the Lord wants married couples to have great sex to have it often and even experiment in the bedroom, and that's what the pastor of Seattle's Mars Hill megachurch Mark Driscoll and his wife Grace claim in a book that's being called the most provocative work ever written by an evangelical. It is called Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friends and so forth, and you may, if you have young kids, you may want them to go into the other room now, we'll give you a second or two. Bye kids!"

Barbara, your opening statement is exactly right, and we call it the Sex Gospel, not to be confused with the "Gender Gospel". Tragically, both are twisted views of Scripture.

By divine providence my younger daughter (who turns 20 this summer) is on Spring Break, and we watched The View together. I am so honored that she wants to spend her free time chillin' at home this week with her mom and dad. After the short interview concluded, we had an interesting conversation about the Driscolls. My daughter was NOT impressed! While I plan to keep the details of our discussion private, I will tell you that her take away from the interview was this – there is just ONE REASON why guys would be motivated to get hitched. If she's right that this is the message guys in her generation are getting from Real Marriage, then expect tremendous problems down the road with some of these young couples who are buying the Driscoll phony boloney hook, line, and sinker.



Now let's take a closer look at the interview…

Barbara Walters shares with the audience (both in the studio and on television) that the Driscolls have been married for twenty years and that according to their book they had sexual problems and learned how to correct them. She inquires about those problems and how the Driscolls fixed them.


Grace Driscoll explains: "Well, we started out with a lot of things wrong in our marriage, and so we needed to discuss more honestly the things from our past, and I had suffered from sexual assault and various issues in my past and because we weren't aware of those in our marriage it made it very difficult to have an honest marriage."


Did you catch what Grace said? "We weren't aware of those in our marriage…" Who wasn't aware of those issues? Who is "we"? Does anyone else find that statement extremely odd?


Barbara then asks: "Did you agree about sex?"


Mark jumps in and quickly answers her question by saying: "Yeah, we did when we got married, and I think we started as close friends and then as the work and the duties of life come in, the friendship started to wane and I think that affects all levels of intimacy."


Barbara then responds: "But I read the book and one of the things you say is that you thought of sex as god, and Grace you thought of sex as gross."


Mark deflects from Barbara's analysis by stating: "Yeah, we talk in the book that some people see sex as god – it's way too important to them, almost obsessive. For those that are overly religious or perhaps come from an abusive background, they tend to see it as very gross. Our view is that it's a gift. It's a gift that God gives us to enjoy and to steward well, and so it took some time for us to come to mutual agreement on that and to work that out."
Here's my question. Why does Mark believe he's qualified to coach others about sexual obsessions? Talk about someone being sex-obsessed!


When Joy Behar chimes in and asks what Mark has against homosexuals having fun, he retorts: 


"Yeah, well we are Bible-believing Christians and so we do hold to the teaching of scripture and that is that sex is reserved for a married couple, a heterosexual married couple, so even when we were dating and we were sexually active, we were wrong. And so we don't want to say that we're better or holier than anyone, but we were wrong as well and had to make some changes." 

 

What a feeble attempt at sharing the Gospel message with those who were watching. That's why I don't believe the Holy Spirit is empowering Mark Driscoll. As a pastor, he should have used the opportunity to talk about salvation, not sex – marital or not!


Next, Raven-Simone, who was filling in for Elisabeth Hasselbeck, timidly asks: "What does the Bible say about sex?"


Mark answers: "Yeah, the first half of the book is really about friendship, and we think that friendship is the foundation to marriage, and then the second half of the book is about sex in the context of a loving friendship. And the Bible does have quite a bit to say about sex, especially a whole book called the Song of Songs, and so I'm a Bible teacher, but it's in there. Most people haven't read it or they missed that part."


Now Mark Driscoll is onto the Bible topic that inspires him the most. David Kupelian of World Net Daily just wrote an article – The Church of Sex – that includes an excerpt from Driscoll's 2007 sermon called Sex, a Study of the Good Bits from Song of Solomon which drew the ire of John MacArthur and others. The way Driscoll suggested that a wife win her husband to Christ is so graphic that we decided not to include it here; however, Kupelian reveals Driscoll's suggested technique.


Sherri Shepard keeps Mark Driscoll on topic with her remark: "Well, let's get to the sex O.K. because I just got married." She brings up the most controversial chapter in the Real Marriage book, which is "Can We _______?" By this point, Mark is salivating as he addresses whether certain sex practices are biblical or not.


"We talk about the things that couples may do but not things they must do," Mark says. He likens this part of Real Marriage to a menu from which you can decide what suits your taste. I wouldn't be surprised if Mark has devised his own sex menu. Maybe he has a __ beside each items so he can check his preference(s). Since Mark "sees things", I can see him placing his instructions on Grace's pillow so she will know what he has ordered for their next romp in the sack. If Mark's list is alphabetized, we all know what tops the list, followed by a "job" that rhymes with snow. I'm sorry – but this is all just too much! My husband would appropriately label it TMI (too much information)!


As the interview comes to a close, Barbara Walters says: "O.K. pornography, which you also deal with. You say that pornography is sometimes in women's romance novels, even mainstream women's magazines, and they're sinful." Whoopi Goldberg adds: "Does that go for television as well?"
Grace responds: "Any form of lust that is not toward your affection toward your married marital spouse is a sin."


In the Brierley interview (which lasted the better part of an hour), Grace was only "allowed" to speak ONCE. On The View, she actually got to speak TWICE over the course of five minutes, so things are definitely improving…


For another review of the Driscolls' interview, we recommend The Christian Post.


After appearing on The View, Mark Driscoll posted this comment on his Facebook account:


"Grace and I really enjoyed being on The View and sharing God’s truth about sex & relationships and how God forgives and helps us in this area that we all deal with every day. If you want to learn more, we will be live in these cities talking more about marriage and relationships: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Anderson, SC (sold out), Lynchburg, VA and St. Louis, MO. Sign up now…"

As you might imagine, the affirming responses poured in from Driscoll sycophants. However one negative response got through on Facebook which received these prompt responses:
Abraham Robledo "Hey Amber, chill out!!"
Justin Mohney ‎@Amber Womack-Kitavi, "if your statment above is implying that you in fact do know "about" God's love (or more than Mark and Grace) – you have a very ironic and oxymoronic way of stating such…interesting 'comment'…"
Jake Lynch "Hey how about instead of tearing into Amber for her remarks, we just allow her to have an opinion & pray for her?"

Here's the dilemma – I can't find Amber's comment
ANYWHERE! It was obviously deleted. I saved the three comments listed above, and just before publishing this post, I have scrolled through the comments one more time, and the three cited above are GONE! Isn't it incredible that someone is scrubbing Mark Driscoll's Facebook account? Why in the world would you trust someone who deletes any and all negative reactions?


Driscoll obviously believes his own press because only affirming commentary gets through; however, Driscoll and his Fan Boys have no control over the reviews posted on the Amazon website. In an effort to provide a public service announcement regarding what Mark Driscoll advocates, here is an important One Star comment left under the Driscoll's book Real Marriage.


Anal Sex, Cancer and You. A Guide for the Hipster Christian Community, January 26, 2012
"According to Mayo Clinic (and hundreds of other medical sites), anal sex dramatically increases the risk for anal cancer. Just because the bible doesn't spell out for the reader "Hey McFly, don't do that" doesn't mean the behavior is wise or permissible. No, you will not go to hell just because you have anal sex with your spouse. But you might get cancer. Oh, but wait! Silly me….I failed to take into account the porn-saturated culture we live in. And since that is the case, I guess I should just let the porn industry dictate my sex practices, right? Because after all, I reaalllyyz wanna be a cool christian. Never mind the fact that we're talking about a practice that might involve poo."
travel lover added a comment under this one-star review which states: ( Feb 2, 2012 4:31:16 PM PST)
"In addition to expressing my whole hearted agreement to your comments I would only like to add that there is apparently growing concerns that oral sex can contribute to a type of throat cancer. As for anal sex, what part of the verses condemning those who have abandoned the "natural" use of the woman does Driscoll and the MHC leadership not get?! Are we to believe that God only applies this standard to homosexual sex? I think not! Such practices are not only unnatural and questionably safe and sanitary but they are demonstratably demeaning to women. God help the young wives out there who now hope that their husbands also get Driscoll's admonition that such things are permissible if consensual and when they say "no" it is the end of discussion!"


Driscoll is escalating, and incredibly his buddies are just sitting by tight-lipped watching it happen… What will Mark Driscoll do for an encore? We cringe at the thought…


In the meantime, we believe countless young people (who are around the ages of our own children) are being hurt by Driscoll's cavalier attitude toward sex. Please, for the sake of your own health, listen to us! We have nothing to gain because we're not selling anything. The same cannot be said of the Driscolls. They know sex sells, and they are laughing all the way to the bank!

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