chad hall takes on driscoll and jones

This is a direct cut and paste from one of my fave blogs from the editors of Christianity Today….Its a stimulating and challenging discussion, but the polemics is set to continue…

Forces beyond our universe have abducted Mark Driscoll. The leader at Mars Hill Church in Seattle may look like the testosterone-spraying Calvinist pastor with a penchant for shock-jock rhetoric, but he has been replaced by a humble alien from a parallel dimension where everything is backwards. He is Bizarro Driscoll.

This week Chad Hall posted a comparison of Tony Jones’ new book, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier, and Mark Driscoll’s latest work, Vintage Jesus: Timeless Answers to Timely Questions. Hall’s review was surprising for two reasons. First, he was highly critical of Jones’ book and the Emergent movement it represents—a movement Hall once considered himself a part of. The other shocker, which plenty of Ur-banites have been reacting to, is Hall’s characterization of Driscoll as “humble.”

In Mark Driscoll’s response to Hall’s review he writes: “The accusation that I am humble is scandalous. I have said some things over the years that I regret. Meditating on the fact that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble, God shook me deeply. Today I am, as a friend says, a proud man pursuing humility by the grace of God.”

Read Mark (Bizzaro) Driscoll’s full response here. You can also read Tony Jones’ defense of his book here.

July 21, 2008 | Filed Under bizarre, reviews |  

Comments

4 Responses to “chad hall takes on driscoll and jones”

  1. Chad Hall on July 21st, 2008 6:57 am

    Hey Alan,
    I appreciate your hilariously sarcastic comment on Ur. I think I came across a bit too critical in the review(s), focusing on what I didn’t like instead of what I did. I also think my point about Driscoll being humble got lost. I should have said something like “he has a humble epistemology” or something of the kind. I was as surprised as anybody with his response. -with Tony’s, too, but for different reasons.
    BTW, I’m using Forgotten Ways for a seminary course I’m teaching as well as referencing in an upcoming journal article. You actually DO write well!
    -Chad Hall

  2. alan hirsch on July 22nd, 2008 5:17 am

    Actually Chad, I meant it. It is not sarcastic at all. You are a great writer!!

  3. Matt Stone on July 28th, 2008 12:58 am

    Fascinating review and responses.

  4. Steve Mac on July 29th, 2008 10:54 pm

    Hey Alan

    Thanks for this - it’s been informative. The watershed of epistemology has led to two very different rivers heading to different oceans methinks.

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