On my web stats there was a site that was bringing in a few visitors, so I decided to check it out. The post was from November 2007 (which I don’t know why that happened), but I read it and, suffice it to say, was quite upset.
Before going into what upset me (and the reason for this post), this website reminds me so much of a version of Christianity that is killing Christianity. The author wrote one post about how he loved a “parking ticket” tract that worked great. Think about that – a person comes out from her office building, sees what looks to be a parking ticket, gets extremely upset because it means a fine is coming, then realizes that it’s a tract asking her to believe in Jesus (not to mention tracts are impersonal and horrible ideas to begin with, this one takes the cake). This tends to be the nature of the site.
However, the post and comments in question deals with the nature of Jesus’ humanity. Mark Driscoll, back in 2007 when trying to promote his book Vintage Jesus (which is a great read) put out a series of mints that asked, “Did Jesus have bad breath?” The purpose, of course, was to get people to reflect on the humanity of Jesus.
The author writes that such a question is blasphemy (though he never explains why) and should never be asked about God. One commenter says, “Jesus didn’t have bad breath, He had the breath of the Holy Spirit!” Another comes out and says that it’s blasphemy to suggest that Jesus was inhibited by any fallen human traits. Yet another says we shouldn’t talk about such traits (such as if Jesus had a bowel movement while on earth) because it’s rude and embarrassing. Others argue that Jesus wasn’t poor at all and Driscoll’s description of Jesus is heretical. What is Driscoll’s view? Driscoll describes the entire situation as:
”Roughly two thousand years ago, Jesus was born in a dumpy, rural, hick town, not unlike those today where guys change their own oil, think pro wrestling is real, find women who chew tobacco sexy, and eat a lot of Hot Pockets with their uncle-daddy. Jesus’ mom was a poor, unwed teenage girl who was often mocked for claiming she conceived via the Holy Spirit. Most people thought she concocted the crazy story to cover the fact she was knocking boots with some guy in the backseat of a car at the prom. Jesus was adopted by a simple carpenter named Joseph and spent the first thirty years of his life in obscurity, swinging a hammer with his dad.”
My own concerns for the character of Mark Driscoll (I see some inconsistencies with how he acts and the pastoral requirements of 1 Timothy – but every pastor will struggle with this), his theology and concerns about Christ are dead on accurate. He states in his book Vintage Jesus that many American Christians, both liberal and conservative, have forgotten who Jesus was (and is). On the liberal side, His humanity is often emphasized, to the point that people forget that He was Holy and was God. On the conservative side, however, His humanity is neglected, often to the point that people forget that He was human just like us, with the same frailties. The purpose of Vintage Jesus is to show that Jesus was both completely God and completely man – thus his question on the mints – though a cheesy marketing ploy – is a very valid question to ask many people today. Read the rest of this entry »
