My weekend started with a follow suggestion for Mark Driscoll.
I was as shocked as you.
For people in and around churches in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Driscoll was a thing. He was part of the young, restless and Reformed crowd. He started a huge multi-site church called Mars Hill up in Washington state.
Things came crashing down for him a few years back. If you haven’t listened to “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” podcast, you should. It describes a hurricane of authoritarianism, toxic masculinity and Christian fundamentalism wrapped in tattoos and everyday blue-collar aesthetics.
Justin Cox
Driscoll went away for a while but slowly started popping up at conferences again. Now he’s back at full throttle, with 3.9 million followers on social media.
His new message isn’t surprising. He’s still the same old Driscoll, with an extra-heavy dash of Christian nationalism.
Still, the best old tropes never die. Driscoll can’t help himself.
His Facebook post read, “Christians cannot attend a same-sex wedding.”
And because his marketing team paid good money to fall into my algorithm, I felt the need to respond.
“Attend one? Hell, I’ve officiated one!” I wrote.
How many words does it take to stir the pot? Six. Six will do it.
As of this evening, those six words have generated 700 reactions and 300 comments.
“How many words does it take to stir the pot? Six. Six will do it.”
The notifications keep coming. Strangers keep tagging me to share their thoughts and opinions.
And I ain’t read a damn one of them.
I don’t need to read what they wrote. I’ve got a pretty good idea already. I’ve been having this argument for years. I know how it goes.
I know they’re going to use words like “orthodoxy.” They’re going to cite particular passages of Scripture. I know some will use expressions like, “The Bible is clear!” when I know it ain’t. They are going to tell me, in so many words, why they know God’s will and I sinfully don’t.
So I told them as much in a follow-up post.
I acknowledged that what they had to share was nothing more than an interpretation of Scripture shaped by a particular hermeneutic, a theological tradition and a school of thought. That they, like everyone, have a bias.
I then told them how I developed my own.
How I studied religion and philosophy at an accredited university. That I went to seminary, earned a master of divinity degree and kept going until I earned a doctorate. I said I understood the schools I attended probably weren’t the same ones they or their pastors attended, and that was OK. We don’t all have to learn in the same places to take faith seriously.
“Folks like Mark Driscoll don’t have a monopoly on God, Jesus or interpreting Scripture.”
I wound it down by letting them know that they and folks like Mark Driscoll don’t have a monopoly on God, Jesus or interpreting Scripture. And they have every right not to go to a same-sex wedding if it violates their convictions. Fair enough.
But I wanted them to know I studied the same book. I’ve wrestled with those same Scriptures. I’ve prayed, read, questioned and done the work. I came away thinking differently.
“Different” doesn’t mean ignorant. It doesn’t automatically mean unfaithful either. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean I haven’t read my Bible.
Finally, I added, if and when I get invited to a same-sex wedding of somebody I care about, I’m going to go and I’m going to celebrate.
I say that with assurance, because I’ve done it. Thanks to a fella named Bill.
I met him when I visited a tiny New England village in Vermont. I was playing the candidate to a church, hoping to become their next senior pastor. I preached, they voted, and I was given a week to accept the call.
It took my spouse and I two days to call them back and tell them we were coming.
The first 24 hours after we arrived were a whirlwind. Lots of new faces. We discovered the parsonage didn’t have central AC. A broken bookshelf. A smashed mirror. Two adults and a baby, only a little banged up, rounded out the day.
When the sun crept down that evening, it started to rain. Our back porch light was on, but I didn’t see the hooded figure approaching.
I heard a knock at the door. Peeking out, I saw the frame of a well-built man.
It was Bill.
Pulling his hood down, he smiled. It was a warm smile. A contrast to everything I heard about New Englanders being frigid.
He bade me welcome to his town. He asked how our trip was and how we were holding up after the move. Then, like a magician, he pulled a 6-pack of beer out of thin air and thrust it into my hands.
As a Baptist preacher, I’m here to tell you, hospitality like this doesn’t happen enough.
I would spend time with Bill over the next few years. He was at every Church Council meeting, every town meeting, acting as the de facto mayor. I would visit his home, meet his partner Glen, and hear about their life together.
On one of those visits, I sat at his dining room table. He and Glen asked if I would marry them. I might have joked that my honorarium was free bread for life from Glen’s kitchen. I performed the holy matrimony not long after inside our church in the presence of two dozen or so villagers.
“We’ve never held hands in public before.”
When I asked them to face each other and hold hands for their vows, Glen said, “We’ve never held hands in public before.”
I almost cried then when I heard it, and I almost cry now writing those words.
As a minister, it’s one of the closest times I’ve ever come to really sensing something sacred. I’ve got Bill and Glen to thank for that.
I think about Bill and Glen often, especially whenever somebody tells me what kind of Christian I can or cannot be. I think about their wedding, and I remember what it felt like to stand before them in that sanctuary.
And because of them, I know with blessed assurance that I don’t need a stranger on Facebook to tell me that moment wasn’t sacred.
I was there. I know what I witnessed.
And I won’t let somebody else’s notion of righteous certainty rewrite that story.
I don’t have time for those types of comments.
I’ve got better things to do.
Justin Cox received his theological education from Campbell University and Wake Forest University School of Divinity and McAfee School of Theology, where he received his doctor of ministry. He is an ordained minister holding standing in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and American Baptist Churches USA. When not spending time with his spouse and daughters, he can be found writing and baking late into the night. His thoughts and reflections are his own.