girls and boys (and mark driscoll)

I’ve recently been thinking about the difference between the emerging church and the “fresh expressions” movement – one difference that I’m currently accepting is this , which I interpret as the idea that fresh expressions are a new take on the ways of doing things within an established church and emerging church largely as a group of people coming together with the freedom to push the boundaries and do their own thing a bit more.

However, I was talking to someone about this, and they reminded me that one of the problems with the term “emerging church” was the connection with Mark Driscoll. Even though he now says he has distanced himself from the emerging church his views have still tainted the definition.

Mark Driscoll makes me angry for a number of reasons:

- he preaches that women are unfit for church leadership because “they are more gullible and easier to deceive than men” and frequently jokes about women in leadership

- he stated that women who “let themselves go” physically are partially to blame for their husband’s infidelity (please note, this does not apply to men “letting themselves go” – apparently women don’t understand or experience lust the way men do)

- he does not accept the idea that God could be genderless – or, to quote him, the idea of “God as a chick”

I could go on, and on. And on…

Why does he say these things? He probably believes that he’s just applying biblical principles. This is a pretty old argument - there’s plenty of commentary on the bizarre rules in Leviticus that people choose to ignore, whilst jumping on the statements condemning homosexuality, for example. But I’m still trying to figure out why he’s so misogynistic, bigoted and plain offensive:

- some people say that he’s trying to attract “macho men” to the church, and is doing this by putting down women and gay people to do so.

- Is it because he is fighting against this view: “Some emergent types recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes”. And thinks that women in leadership will just encourage this kind of effeminate, ineffectual person within the church?

- Perhaps he has personal issues with female/gay people and he’s using attack as a form of defence?

Speaking as a psychologist (although, for that matter, anyone with an iota of common sense), it is wrong to assume that people have particular skills/capabilities on the basis of only their gender or sexuality. There are stereotypes, many of which have an element of truth (otherwise they wouldn’t be stereotypes), but there are many, many exceptions to this. I’ve attended churches (albeit briefly) where women are not allowed to lead men and it’s particularly frustrating to listen to a poor presenter/preacher whose (apparent) only justification for leading the session is the possession of a penis.

In addition to this, a number of studies have found that, when reminded of the gender stereotypes related to performance (in this case performance in school subjects), students tend to underestimate their own abilities in this area, to conform with the stereotype. Perhaps the lack of female leaders in Driscoll’s church and his constant chauvinism is reinforcing this belief that women are not capable.

Outside of church, the world is slowly changing. Women are being accepted more into senior roles and both men and women can be openly gay without facing discrimination within many workplaces – although there is still a long way to go before gender/sexuality is no longer an issue. But I find it particularly frustrating that people still use outdated gender/sexuality stereotypes as reasons to limit people in how they can contribute to society and community.

Even in the emerging church (as I know it) there is predominance of men over women in leadership, so - on a practical "money where your mouth is" level are we any better than other organisations? Even if we’re not Mark Driscoll…