Jesus the biker on the road to Armageddon...and there's no pet tiger here!

Hey, is it the AXE or does this Dickhead, Pastor Mark Driscoll, look like Roger Clemmens trying to be spiritual?  You see, man, there's this righteous dude  in Seattle named Mark who decided to marry a preacher's daughter named Grace and start a church...an evangelical Church based on the teachings of John Calvin. You know, or maybe not, Calvin -- the French dude who took over Geneva and preached a gospel of predestination. Basically, you're either going off to paradise, or you're going to hell. No middle ground. Nothing you can do about it. But, you better live as righteously as you can because if you don't, Jesus will fuck you up. And he's already made up his mind. And he's probably going to fuck you up eventually. But, to be safe, do it my way...

For some reason, this nonsense is really taking off in the Shire of Ectopia.

Marianne Esterly, a women’s counselor at Mars Hill, says she tries to help women resist the desperation that can come with forgetting that man’s chief end is to glorify God, not to obsess over earthly problems.( AXE Comment and Snark: Krishna, Krishna, Hare Krishna...) “They worship the trauma, or the anorexia, and that’s not what they’re designed to worship,” she says. “Christian self-help doesn’t work. We can’t do anything. It’s all the work of Christ.”

Calvinism is a theology predicated on paradox: God has predestined every human being’s actions, yet we are still to blame for our sins; we are totally depraved, yet held to the impossible standard of divine law. These teachings do not jibe with Enlightenment ideas about human capacity, yet they have appealed to a wide range of modern intellectuals, especially those who stressed the dangers of human hubris in the wake of World War I. (AXE Comment: Yeah. There is that tendency on the part of those who want to blame something other than themselves for bad things to make someone else responsible. Jesus decided to fuck us all up, and that's all there is to it. Hell was lonesome, and heaven needed some more tenors and basses, so God so loved the world that he killed millions in senseless slaughter, depredation and horror. The Holy Ghost inspired the creation of barbed wire and poison gas...It's not my fault! It's not my fault!)

Driscoll found his way into this tradition largely on his own. He recently earned a master’s degree through an independent-study program he arranged at a seminary in Portland, Ore. Years ago, paperback reprints of old Puritan treatises in the corner of a local bookstore piqued his interest in Reformation theology. He came to admire Martin Luther, the vulgar, beer-swilling theological rebel who sparked the Reformation. “I found him to be something of a mentor,” Driscoll says. “I didn’t have all the baggage he did. But you can see him with a quill in one hand and a drink in the other. He married a brewer and renegade nun. His story is kind of indie rock.” ( Luther supposedly felt that Calvin was out to lunch on most things. Luther felt that doing good works meant nothing without faith, but you still needed to do the works; he felt that the Catholicism he opposed didn't care about faith or good works; you used good works to bribe God, and therefore the works were of no merit. Calvin's theory of predestination seemed to deny the importance of faith and of works and could easily result in either total chaos or total control. Luther was not an anarchist; he was all for order if he was the guy saying what the order was supposed to be. However, he enjoyed beer, sex after marriage and was pretty colorful in a lot of ways. He'd have found a Calvinist city on the hill, be it Boston or Geneva a boring and obnoxious place indeed. Luther turned to God to overcome fear, anger and deep spiritual pain. If Calvinism is correct, turning to God doesn't help if you're not among the "chosen" and the Luther seen as the first existentialist would not accept that vision.

("Faith's tribulation is the greatest and sharpest torment, for faith must overcome all other tribulations; so that if faith be foiled, all other tribulations must needs fall upon human creatures; but if faith hold up her head, and be sound and in health, all other tribulations and vexations must grow sick, weak, and decrease. This tribulation of faith was that thorn which St Paul felt, and which pierced through flesh and spirit, through soul and body. Such tribulations was David possessed with, when he made this psalm: "Lord, rebuke me not in thy anger." No doubt he would rather have been slain with a sword, than have suffered such wrath and indignation from God. -- Martin Luther, Tabletalk, 

(And this...

(Job had many tribulations; he was also plagued of his friends, who fiercely assaulted him. The text says, that his friends fell upon him, and were full of wrath against him; they tormented him thoroughly, but he held his peace, suffered them to talk their talk, as if he should say, you know not what you prate about. Job is an example of God's goodness and mercy; for how upright and holy soever he was, yet he sorely fell into temptation; but he was not forsaken, he was again delivered and redeemed through God's grace and mercy. --Martin Luther, Tabletalk )

Driscoll disdains the prohibitions of traditional evangelical Christianity. Taboos on alcohol, smoking, swearing and violent movies have done much to shape American Protestant culture — a culture that he has called the domain of “chicks and some chickified dudes with limp wrists.”

I feel for Driscoll and for his community. They're trying to make sense of the world and of the their lives. The Defeatist Theology that there is only the singularity we'll never figure out that we choose to call Tiffany because we can, a singularity that appears arbitrary, confused and vindictive because if you try to make it human it IS and MUST BE confused and arbitrary and vindictive. If this is all there is, life sucks. Well, yes, Prudence, it does. Get over it. Deal with it. Well, that gets lonely...at the Calvinist end, you get this, eventually...

Driscoll told the congregation that he asked advice on how to handle stubborn subordinates from a “mixed martial artist and Ultimate Fighter, good guy” who attends Mars Hill. “His answer was brilliant,” Driscoll reported. “He said, ‘I break their nose.’ ” When one of the renegade elders refused to repent, the church leadership ordered members to shun him. One member complained on an online message board and instantly found his membership privileges suspended. “They are sinning through questioning,” Driscoll preached. (AXE Comment and Snark and possibly profound insight...Arbeit macht frei!) John Calvin couldn’t have said it better himself. Most members, however, didn’t join Mars Hill in order to ask questions. (AXE Comment: Nobody joins a cult to ask questions. )

Jerry Garcia - Hell in a Bucket | Music Videos | SPIKE.com

The Defeatists in general have problems with Christianity. Hell, we have problems with everything. But, given a choice between a version that preaches mercy and forgiveness and hope versus this sort of Nazi-Ideologicallly similar cant --Ultimately You're probably fucked and you have no way to overcome it says so in Apocalypse so you better get with the program because God loves you, you degenerate bastard -- AXE would opt for the mercy, forgiveness and hope.

Our approach, the true Tiffany-ist approach is pretty simple. This is all there is. Deal with it. Make it work for yourself and for others. Don't unnecessarily be a prick. If there's something else, cool. But, don't expect it...

Comments

[bk]

Said this over at Ioz, but I envision a thumping, punk-rockified version of Village People's Macho Man. Maybe a scourging or two.

[Crusader AXE]

Nah...Teen spirit. Or, something by Peal Jam. He's going for a butch Eddie Vedder look...

[Rick98C]

If John Calvin had gotten into another line of work the Western World would have been a much happier place.

[Crusader AXE]

John Calvin -- Drycleaners? Nah...John Calvin, Male Hooker. That would be perfect...