A couple lines stands out.  The first was this: “To young evangelicals, our secular world is devoid of the type of love they seek, not parental love or fraternal love or even erotic love, but an even bigger love—a love called agape. When Christians describe God’s love for his children this is the word they invoke, a love so powerful one is moved to proclaim it on car bumpers and coffee mugs.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of agape love… got the tattoo and everything… but the bumper sticker and coffee mug thing made me laugh.
Second line that stood out to me was this: “When Driscoll invokes his Lord, he describes an uncompromising disciplinarian who demands utter obedience from his followers in exchange for rescue from an eternity in hell.”
Now, I don’t know about you guys, but as far as I’m concerned, salvation is primarily salvation from sin.  That is, the Spirit works in us to free us from our various bondages to the ‘pattern of this world’.  You can say that that has ‘eternal ramifications’, but I don’t think it’s fair to reduce Christ’s saving work to fire-insurance. 
Driscoll sounds like a great guy.  I just wish he would see that you can be radically sold out, missional, without being a 5-point calvinist and a complementarian.  The assumed understandings of Genesis and Revelation are also problematic.  But regardless of what I think, there’s no question that Mars Hill is becoming a force to be contended with in evangelicalism.

This article left me with an uneasy feeling.  I have never heard Mark Driscoll teach, or read anything authored by him.  And as stated above, the writer of the article may very well have skewed his position on many things.  But I’m concerned with what appears to be the very narrow roles allowed married Christian women in the Mars Hill community.  The article left with the impression that regardless of what gifts and passions God has given you, the only life available to you is that of homemaker and stay-at-home mom.

I put this in the same category as when there is something written about Rick Warren. Public figures of influence always draw criticism. They do not always think the way others believe they ought to, or they are taking stands others object to. That should not be a big surprise. But if he is making a positive impact for the Kingdom, I say go for it. Do I like al things Driscoll? Nope, but then I do not like all things kent.

Salon has an editorial viewpoint that it is going to present. I seriously doubt that we got the whole picutre, even with this impressively long article. Every journal, newpaper or magazine has the same thing - they have a bias they will present.

If Driscoll’s view on the role of women offends you, okay, wander away. Or make your point. Present your case. But there is a whole truck load of people paying close attention to what he is saying.

I have been listening to Driscoll’s sermon podcasts for the last couple of months and I am becoming increasing influenced by him. I think he is a wonderful model of what the missional church, should be. Driscoll is forcefully orthodox. (I agree with the previous posts that he tends to go overboard on the subordination of women. Our paths diverge on that point.) And he also passionately contextual. This is at the heart of the missional church model—being good missionaries in the area where you are. Driscoll has gone so far as introducing the words “chicks” and “dudes” into my preaching vocabularly.

For an insightful and humorous example of Driscoll’s use of the terms “chicks” and “dudes” check out this video on John Piper’s webpage at http://www.desiringgod.org/media/video/2006_National/national2006_driscoll_interview10.mov

This video clip underscores Driscoll’s tendancy to villainize anything that is effeminate. I really do disagree with Driscoll on this, but I found his use of “dudes” and “chicks” humorous. For fun, count the number of times he says dudes or chicks in this video.

It was kind of Salon to insert their liberal bias so clearly in the beginning of the article.  The article was actually quite complementary when it was clearly being written by somebody who disagrees with many of the positions of the church.

For any of you who are not exposed to Driscoll’s teaching yet, he does offer all of his sermons for free on the Mars Hill website.  He is preaching on 1 Cor right now, so gender issues and the like are at the forefront right now.  The “Under Authority Like Christ” is particularly relevant to the gender roles.
While I don’t agree with him 100%, I can’t get enough of his preaching, mainly because he is well balanced.  While he most commonly attached to the Calvinist label, he belongs to a lot of other labels as well.

Wow, as a woman, IF the Salon article represent Driscoll’s views correctly, then I’m out.  It’s always interesting to me that those who are big into the marital submission issues almost never answer the questions of what are single Christian women supposed to be doing, and what happens to the infertile married woman?  Are single Christian women really supposed to use their gifts to the utmost only until they get married, and then be occupied solely with homemaking and baby raising?  I’ve got a newsflash here: in the same way that not everybody is called to marry, not everybody is called to be a parent either.  There are plenty of Christian parents that I’ve seen who should have just said no to reproduction.  Women reflect the image of God, just as men do, and that image is not solely reflected through domestic activities.  If you’re a man and you hear Driscoll’s message, it’s pretty easy to say, well, I don’t agree with the whole gender role thing, but I like the rest—because it doesn’t apply to you.  But if you’re a woman, it’s much harder to make that distinction.

You probably had to be there, for two reasons.  1) He was telling a story about his mother, so it would help to know more about her.  2) You’d have to really hear what he was saying and how he was saying it.  I’m sure the goal was to get a laugh and engage his audience.  Diff’rent strokes....

P.S.  I’ve been wondering where you’ve been today, Bernie!

Todd said:
“ The remark about her not having kids was rude (but I bet he didn’t really tell her that part). “

That remark reveals a certain mindset.  It’s not Christ-like or loving.  It’s sad that a minister of God would display it, and even more sad that the audience would “hoot and holler” in appreciation of it.  I learned many years ago not to participate in negative jokes.

It is contrary to displaying the “fruit of the spirit.”

Galatians 5:22-23
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

His appeal was to the flesh.

Just my opinion… for what it’s worth…

He who has ears to hear ...

...Bernie

Exactly Nora . . . the entrepreneurial leader who is a man becomes a Christ follower, and (in the right setting) he is able to shift all that entrepreneurial/leadership energy, which was hard-wired into him by God, to kingdom building activities, giving his life more meaning and fulfillment than he’d ever experienced before Christ.  It’s easy for him to say “I don’t agree with everything Driscoll says, but oh well.”

The entrepreneurial leader who is a woman becomes a Christ follower, and (at Mars Hill, Bethlehem Baptist and other complimentarian churches like them), she can’t use any of the entrepreneurial/leadership gifts that have been hard-wired into her by God for ministry.  As a result she must do one of two things; 1) continue doing what she’s good at in some kind of secular setting (which obviously wouldn’t fly for Driscoll’s female congregants), or 2) completely stop doing the things that come naturally and feel good and right and which she is good at doing.  Those who choose #2 respond like Judy from the article:

“It’s not what I ever imagined,” she tells me, “or even what I ever wanted, but it’s my duty now, and I have to learn to live with that.”

Really??? Does that sound like a woman with a purposeful, effective, fulfilling, joy-producing, awe-inspiring, sold-out ministry partnership with Jesus?

I wonder how Driscoll would counsel someone like . . . say . . . Condalisa Rice, or Margret Thatcher, or Mother Theresa, or . . . or . . . or, if she should show up at Mars Hill, sold out for Jesus and ready to use their gifts, passions, skills and life experiences in ministry.

Wendi

There is always a group of people who cannot think for themselves and who need someone to tell them what to think and how to live.  Fundamentalism fits perfectly with these people and ministers who preach and teach this way will always have a following.  Look at the Mormons.

“Mars Hill’s views on gender roles is based on literal scripture"--Josh, no offense, but that seems to me like begging the question.  Are more egalitarian churches’ views on gender roles based on nonliteral scripture?  ... ... No.  Rather, I think they’d say the same thing.  It just depends on whether you’re taking Galatians 3:28 or Ephesians 5:22 ‘literally’ (to simplify a debate waaay beyond what it deserves).
I do by and large agree with you on the whole humor thing… I don’t think Driscoll was out of line with this.

I guess my point is this....  Don’t take Salon.com as a relable source as to what the church teaches.  Listen to the Sermons, and preferably talk to some of the women and see what they have to say about it.

Most stay at home moms have some regrets or second thoughts.  That doesn’t mean that they where co-erced or bullied into making that desision.  It also doesn’t mean that they made the wrong desision.  I am sure that the salon reporter was asking this lady about those second guessing questions, and she answered honest.y.  The article also indicated She also had a wedding ministry within the 20somthing populated church, so it is not too likely that her talents where wasting away.  Can we honestly arugue her talents would be better utilized selling rock and roll T-shirts than facilitating weddings?
I don’t think you can seriosly study the bible and not at least consider “home ministry” as an option.  I would bet most churches have a higher porportion homemakers than the average population.  Dedicated Christians just have different priorities than the culture. My wife stays at home, and It certainly isn’t because our church (Or I) forced her to..  She works where her heart calls her to work.  In Seattle homemakers are weird and newsworthy.  Elsewhere, not so much.
Mark Driscoll apparently does grocery shopping for his family, so perhaps he isn’t too big of a tyrant…

Oh, one other thing…
Sandler has made it clear in her article (book) that she has an agenda.  She’s adamant about being a secular feminist and her take on me & Sarah Dietz reflects her uneasiness that we were once like her, but have chosen to “give it all up” to stay home & raise kids.  What she doesn’t report is that we spent about two hours talking about my entire spiritual journey.  Granted, I confessed that raising kids is hard work & by far the least glamourous of any job I’ve ever had...but I love it (she left that part out).  I truly enjoy my ministry work (she left that out, too) and I love Jesus with all my heart (the big E on the eye chart that is missing from her story).  None of us knew that she intended to do this kind of story on us.  I saved the original correspondence and I’ve reread it, trying to find some sign that this was going to happen, and it’s just not there.  This is a hack job, plain & simple.  Please listen to the sermons on the Mars Hill website (not just the “contraversial topics") to get a real idea of the message that’s preached.