Month: August 2016

Mark Driscoll: Worship God with Your Wallet to Put Content on My Website

Yesterday, Mark Driscoll continued his Jonah sermon series at The Trinity Church in Scottsdale AZ. The series is interesting and has provides some additional tidbits of information for those interested in the implosion of Mars Hill Church. I will get to that in future posts. For now, I want to point out a new innovation for The Trinity Church, or at least it seems different than how Mars Hill did it.
Yesterday, Driscoll exhorted his new flock to “worship God with our wallet, we’ll give unto the Lord so that the message of Jesus goes forth.” Watch:

Now what is interesting is how that Jesus message is going forth. When you go to The Trinity Church’s website to watch the message, and click the “Watch” tab, one is taken to MarkDriscoll.org. And of course if you want to give anything, you can give to Mark Driscoll Ministries, a separate non-profit. As it is right now, The Trinity Church website is a feeder for Mark Driscoll’s personal ministry. Watch:

At Mars Hill Church, Driscoll crafted a policy which gave him the rights to all of his sermons with the church allowed to stream them. At the new church, all of the sermon content will be available through Markdriscoll.org.

Each Sunday that I am in the pulpit, we will live-stream the sermon portion of the service at markdriscoll.org. Our services start at 9 AM and 10:45 AM, and the sermon starts roughly fifteen minutes into the sermon.

He adds that sermons will be posted to his personal ministry website starting in November (link to sign up).  He says that many, but not all, sermons will be given away.
Time will tell how much Driscoll will monetize his sermons and work as pastor of The Trinity Church. For now, the church appears to be providing a suitable platform for his personal rebranding.

The American Independent Party of George Wallace Fame Nominates Trump/Pence for President

Of course, this means almost nothing in the great scheme of things but it does illustrate to whom Trump appeals.


The AIP supported segregationist George Wallace in 1968 and former League of the South board member Michael Peroutka in 2004. The League gave their support to Peroutka as well. In fairness, it is also true that the party supported Alan Keyes in 2008.
According to Robinson, the AIP will be on the ballot along with Republican.


One can read the Christian Reconstructionist sounding platform of the AIP at their website.

Donald Trump Replicates and Extends Russia's Views of the U.S., Obama and ISIS (SARCASTIC UPDATE)

UPDATE (8/12/16) Now Trump is saying he was being sarcastic in his labeling of Obama and Clinton as the “co-founders” of ISIS.


I get it now. All that talk of building a wall, deporting 11 million people, saying Merry Christmas and naming conservative Supreme Court justices, all sarcasm.
Read his remarks to Hugh Hewitt below. Hewitt tried to help Trump out, but Trump insisted he meant it. More sarcasm I suppose.
………………….
Donald Trump today doubled down on his contention that President Obama founded ISIS. Watch this CNN report.
Talk show host Hugh Hewitt tried to get Trump to make the more nuanced argument that U.S. policies (which Trump largely agreed with at the time) help set conditions favorable for ISIS to develop. Trump disagreed.

HH: I’ve got two more questions. Last night, you said the President was the founder of ISIS. I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.
DT: No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.
HH: But he’s not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He’s trying to kill them.
DT: I don’t care. He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?
HH: Well, that, you know, I have a saying, Donald Trump, the pneumonic device I use is Every Liberal Really Seems So, So Sad. E is for Egypt, L is for Libya, S is for Syria, R is for Russia reset. They screwed everything up. You don’t get any argument from me. But by using the term founder, they’re hitting with you on this again. Mistake?
DT: No, it’s no mistake. Everyone’s liking it. I think they’re liking it. I give him the most valuable player award. And I give it to him, and I give it to, I gave the co-founder to Hillary. I don’t know if you heard that.
HH: I did. I did. I played it.
DT: I gave her the co-founder.
HH: I know what you’re arguing…
DT: You’re not, and let me ask you, do you not like that?
HH: I don’t. I think I would say they created, they lost the peace. They created the Libyan vacuum, they created the vacuum into which ISIS came, but they didn’t create ISIS. That’s what I would say.
DT: Well, I disagree.
HH: All right, that’s okay.
DT: I mean, with his bad policies, that’s why ISIS came about.
HH: That’s…
DT: If he would have done things properly, you wouldn’t have had ISIS.
HH: That’s true.
DT: Therefore, he was the founder of ISIS.

In November 2015, Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev told Sputnik News:

The strengthening of the Islamic State became possible partially due to irresponsible policies of the United States. Instead of concentrating joint efforts on fighting terrorism, the United States and its allies decided to fight against the lawfully elected president of Syria Bashar Assad.

Trump is going farther and insisting that Obama is the founder of ISIS. While it is obvious that he is being provocative, I suspect that his conspiracy theory minded followers will take him literally. Just another reason Trump is unfit to be president.
While there is a consensus that U.S. policies going back to the Iraq War had a role to play, calling Obama and Clinton the co-founders is silly. Words have no meaning if somehow Trump’s followers go along with his word games. Just saying, as Hewitt does, that Trump means something else, is insulting to the public and potentially dangerous in practice. What if our allies and enemies don’t get the joke? I suspect many of Trump’s Obama/Clinton hating fans don’t get it either.

The Gospel Coalition Removes “When God Sends Your White Daughter a Black Husband”

Responding to a backlash against the controversial article “When God Sends Your White Daughter a Black Husband”, the Gospel Coalition removed the article at the author’s request. TGC also posted an audio discussion about the article involving three African-American writers (TGC editor, Jason Cook, Isaac Adams, and Jamar Tisby). Listen to the discussion at TGC’s website.  About the situation, TGC posted:

In this recorded conversation, Jason Cook (editor at The Gospel Coalition), Jemar Tisby (president of Reformed African American Network), and Isaac Adams (editor at The Front Porch) respond to the article “When God Sends Your White Daughter a Black Husband” and the ensuing backlash, as well as broader issues including handling discussions about race and the dignity of black life.

The article has been removed from TGC’s website at the request of the author, who regrets hurting many readers. An article intended to celebrate God’s work in this family’s life also became an occasion for hurt and pain. Understandable frustration and constructive concern was not the only response. Sadly, white supremacists have threatened the author and her family.
We invite you to listen to the conversation to understand TGC’s editorial process, what we could have done better, what we can learn going forward, and more.

The article (archived here) had generated hundreds of comments on the TGC website in addition to a tweetstorm of discussion both supporting and criticizing the article. In particular, the format of the article’s title indicated to some critics that a black husband was less than optimal. However, in this discussion, the participants talk about what can be learned from the situation.
The discussants took a firm stance on the language of the article and lamented the problems in evangelical circles. One said:

This is an issue where our discipleship has a gaping hole.

I recommend you listen to the conversation.
From my point of view, I appreciate TGC’s recognition that the article was hurtful to many. I think it illustrated just how far the church needs to go in order to address subtle as well as overt racism.

David Barton: If You Don't Vote for Trump You Will Have to Answer to God

Barton Metaxas picSince the Bible doesn’t reveal who we are to vote for, I am not worried about it. I think people who vote for Trump are wrong but I am not ready to speak for God on the subject. My conscience is clear.
But never fear, David Barton knows what God thinks and he is dealing the fire and brimstone.
Right Wing Watch has the audio.
A questioner asks Barton how to explain to her anti-Trump friends that we can’t have the perfect candidate. She says people are getting stuck on little things.  I don’t have time to do a transcript of the whole mess but I linked to RWW which has the audio. Essentially, Barton’s advice boils down to God wants you to vote for Trump and you better do it or else.

I will account to God and I have to vote because He put that ballot in my hand and I’m going to have to account to Him for what I did with it. And I can’t use the false standard of I have to have somebody perfect because there is nobody perfect except for Jesus and, by the way, when He was on earth, they didn’t think He was perfect; we only think He’s perfect now. Back then, they called him a winebibber and a glutton; he had all sorts of campaign ads run against him. So nobody is going to fit the criteria, so let’s get God’s mind on this thing instead of finding excuses.

As I pointed out in a recent post and Jonathan Merritt wrote today at The Atlantic, all these Trumpvangelicals need to apologize to Bill Clinton.  At one point, he asked forgiveness and many evangelicals just banged on about how much character matters. Now, Trump gets forgiveness he doesn’t even ask for.