Team Pyro on Driscoll: "Why does Driscoll have such a fixation with obscene subject matter, ribald stories, and racy talk?"

We also need to be discerning about Mr. Johnson’s ministry. He makes accusations that require substantiation. Telling the truth is essential. He accused an evangelical pastor of “pornographic divination”. If he had labelled it “Sexually Explicit “Visions”” then that would be much laden with inflammatory meanings (although some would insist that Driscoll really is not explicit here, there is no precise description of sex acts or nude bodies as one would find in true pornography or sexually explicit material.) But he chose words that have specific meanings which Johnson needs to support, especially in their Christian context.

First, “pornography” is media whose intent it is to incite lust. Therefore, for something to be “pornographic”, it has to be geared for that purpose. It is not simply anything that is about sex, or else certain passages of the Bible would be “pornographic” (but we know that’s not true). To assert that simply because something involves sex that it is “pornographic” betrays an unBiblical assumption about the nature of sexuality.

Second, the accusations that a reported “vision” is “divination” goes far beyond simply believing it wasn’t Holy Spirit inspired. Here, he clearly not using the term in a morally neutral way. It is a direct accusation of involvement in some kind of witchcraft or spiritualism. Therefore, to make such an accusations, especially publicly, he will need to cite the evidence that he has that the person was “divining” (i.e. summoning demons). If he can’t do that, then he needs to retract his accusations. He can say that he doesn’t believe it is of God, but to state that it is “divination” he needs evidence of involvement in some sort of spiritualism. Otherwise, the origin could simply be psychological or fictional. To accuse someone of divination is to accuse them of a crime that brought the death penalty under the old covenant.

If he can’t prove that the media was intended on eliciting lust or that acts of divination were involved, then he will need to do the Biblical thing: retract his accusation, apologize to the specific person he accused, and perhaps get some kind of spiritual help as to why he would make such an accusation. That’s true repentance.

JCarpenter,

Prior to your post, the last post on this thread was almost a year ago (Aug 22).

After reading your posts on the other thread I must conclude that you have an agenda here: to criticize Phil Johnson apparently because he took on Driscoll, with whom you have something to do.

I expect you will be here for a short time and then will disappear, like so many others we have seen in the years that SI has existed. I am 1 of the 2 (or maybe there’s more than that) Baptists that are reformed in our soteriology who hangs around here. I am disappointed in the approach you are taking here in what can best be described as an assault on Johnson, and I will be glad when you disappear. You have yet to add anything to the threads you have posted in that contributes any value to the discussion.

I must be number two John Brian.

There’s more than that.

Several more, I think.

Although, I think Mr. Carpenter’s point is worth considering in a general sense at least. The inflammatory headline or term brings readers and commenters to a blog. But when brothers deal with those who profess brotherhood, is that the best way to proceed?

I enjoy PJ immensely, and am no Driscoll fan. But precision of terms is something we Christian bloggers should demand from ourselves when calling out another Christian.

Let’s talk about what Driscoll actually says:

I’m not a guru. I’m not a freak. I don’t talk about this. If I did talk about it everybody’d want to meet with me and I’d end up like one of those guys on TV. But some of you have this visual ability to see things.

Um, uh, there was one women I dealt with. She never told her husband that she had committed adultery on him early in the relationship. I said, “You know—” (she’s sitting there with her husband). I said, “You know I think the root of all this—I think Satan has a foothold in your life because you’ve never told your husband about that really tall blonde guy that you met at the bar. And then you went back to the hotel. And you laid on your back. And you undressed yourself. And he climbed on top of you. And you had sex with him. And snuggled up with him for a while. And deep down in your heart, even though you had just met him, you desired him because secretly he is the fantasy body type.” I said, “You remember that place it was that cheap hotel with that certain-colored bedspread. You did it—you had sex with the light on because you weren’t ashamed and you wanted him to see you. And you wanted to see him.”

She was just looking at me like—

I said,”You know, it was about ten years ago.

“I see everything.”

She says—she looks at her husband. He says, “Is that true?”

She says, “Yeah.”

“He was 6’2”, blonde hair, blue eyes?”

“Yeah.”

Or:

It’s the supernatural. It’s, it’s, it’s the whole other realm. It’s like the Matrix. You can take the blue pill, you take the red pill. You go into this whole other world. And, and, and that’s the way it works.

So I say—tell me everything you hear, tell me everything you see. And sometimes I see things too. I see things too. I’ve seen women raped. I’ve seen children molested. I’ve seen people abused. I’ve seen people beaten. I’ve seen horrible things done. Horrible things done. I’ve seen children dedicated in occultic groups and demons come upon them as an infant by invitation. And I wasn’t present for any of it, but I’ve seen it visibly.

Upon occasion when I get up to preach I’ll see—just like a screen in front of me—I’ll see somebody get raped or abused and then I’ll track ‘em down and say, “Look I had this vision. Let me tell you about it.” All true.

How is this even remotely the work of the Holy Spirit? God ‘makes’ Driscoll watch these acts of abuse and adultery - all the way down to the color of the bedspread in the hotel (via his special gift of being able to see things) - and this is even remotely aligned with I Timothy 3?

I can think of at least three things that Driscoll fails in I Timothy 3 on based on what he’s quoted as saying above:

3 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7 Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.

What Driscoll says is, in my opinion, indefensibly innappropriate for more than one reason. However, his description, also imo, would fall into a category of innappropriateness that falls between what is appropriate and what is truly pornographic. Whether the “vision” was pornographic is a different issue.

I don’t defend him at all, and I think the discussion of general precision of terminology is not off topic.

David,

If those “visions” aren’t pornographic, please tell me what is.

Furthermore, assuming Driscoll isn’t pulling some elaborate con, if those “visions” didn’t come from God, then where did they originate?

Hi Chip. I expressly left the visions out of my characterization. I was actually charactarizing Driscoll’s comments (Johnson’s article adressed both vision and comments).

Chip,

I think that some have said that since Driscoll didn’t get into even more graphic detail (for which we all thank God), it’s not really pornography. I (and you) would beg to differ.

[JCarpenter] Telling the truth is essential. He accused an evangelical pastor of “pornographic divination”.

I’m no Phil Johnson fan. But this is silly season.

Johnson gave the video. He didn’t lie. He gave the transcript. It’s all there. He didn’t “accuse” Driscoll of anything — he reported in exact detail and in context what Driscoll said.

He gave his opinion as to how it should be characterised. You have a different opinion. Fine. You’re welcome to it. I wouldn’t probably use his words, either. I’m not bothered. I don’t feel deceived. He gave us the exact detail. He didn’t expect people to rely on his characterisation. No one has the right to say, “Oh, I feel betrayed by Phil. He said it was something and it wasn’t.” He gave the exact words in context.

You are characterising him as not telling the truth, of making false accusations. You’ve explained why. You haven’t lied, either. Your characterisation of what Johnson did is deeply flawed, but it’s just a mischaracterisation in a context where everyone knows what’s going on. Nobody is lying here.

If you want to claim that Johnson was uncharitable, you might have a hearing. Driscoll is so uncharitable so frequently that I’m not going to weep for him, but I would see your point. There was no need to call it “pornographic divination”. Since I don’t even have confidence that Driscoll saw anything, I certainly wouldn’t say he was using divination. I’d just say he was talking trash, but Driscoll talks trash all the time.

I don’t so much fault the “pornographic” description. He’s talking about visual portrayal of extramarital sexual activity. But I wouldn’t have used the word “divination.” You are right about the implications of the word, IMO. I don’t think it was charitable to use it.

If I want to claim that you also are being uncharitable, I should have a hearing, too. You’ve used an extreme characterisation of what Johnson did. It’s not charitable of you. You are disputing about words to no profit to try to prove something that is manifestly not true — that Phil Johnson was dishonest. You’ll never prove it, on this count at least.

I just defended Phil Johnson. I might have to go wash my hands, or something. :)

From the other thread, and the comment is likely to be deleted since you keep going off topic. So I postedi it here just so everyone can see exactly what kind of stuff you are doing:

[JCarpenter] I wonder, has Johnson taken a stand against racism?

I wonder how long you’ll be permitted to keep posting malicious stuff? That’s an implied accusation.

Can you provide a single, anywhere, isolated bit of evidence for even hinting that Phil might not be opposed to racism? Pot meet kettle, you’re blacker than Phil.

[Jay] I think that some have said that since Driscoll didn’t get into even more graphic detail (for which we all thank God), it’s not really pornography. I (and you) would beg to differ.

I think it will clarify to some folk that my category for pornography (written, verbal, or visual) only includes things I would not quote or post here or elsewhere. As I said, I have categories for innappropriate speech that fall short of pornography. Some I might quote, some I might not.

Let me step back for a minute here.

I was the one who posted this filing back in August. When I did post it, I specifically did not want to link to the description that Driscoll provides in his message, but I did think that Johnson’s question “Why does Driscoll have such a fixation with obscene subject matter, ribald stories, and racy talk” merited discussion.

The other aspect of this story is that I felt that it was in SI’s interest to post the story since it is an article of interest to Fundamentalists, who are aware of Driscoll’s ministry, and at the same time, present it in such a way that those who are reading this site with a history of exposure to pornography would not be caused to stumble as a result of reading the story. Essentially, I wanted to keep this a ‘family-friendly’ thread.

That changed this morning (well, yesterday morning) when the contents of what Driscoll said began to be discussed. I do wish that it was possible to talk about the contents without posting the actual comments, but that doesn’t appear to be an option anymore.

I’m really not interested in defending Johnson’s victim. However, it’s obviously false to say (as someone above does) that Johnson “didn’t “accuse” Driscoll of anything”. He headlined the entire discussion “pornographic divination” which is a startling, inflammatory accusation. Here we have the issue of Johnson’s selection of terms. I think I’ve dealt with the misuse of the “divination” accusation sufficiently at the other thread and the lack of substantiation of the “scripted” accusation (he made about the Elephant Room) should now be self-evident.

As for “pornographic”, that is defined by the dictionary of Johnson’s choice as “in a manner intended to stimulate erotic … feelings”. I don’t believe anyone could seriously make the case that Driscoll was speaking “in a manner intended to stimulate erotic … feelings” (i.e. lust), even if we did believe it was foolish or even demonic. We can make a case against Driscoll’s account without having to resort to Johnson’s rhetoric and tactics.

Further, “pornographic” cannot be confused with “sexually explicit.” The Bible is “sexually explicit” in a few points, such as Genesis 38:9, “But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So whenever he went in to his brother’s wife he would waste the semen on the ground, so as not to give offspring to his brother.” (Did we really need to know the “nitty-gritty” of how he took practiced birth control? Apparently we did.) We have to ask ourselves, if we were there when Moses first delivered the book of Genesis, by Johnson’s standards, would we have accused him of being “pornographic”?

So does that make three of us? Although I haven’t posted too much of late, I try to check in and read occasionally and have found the discussion quite beneficial for the most part. In my opinion, this is one of the better forums on the internet.

I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments when you wrote: “I am disappointed in the approach you are taking here in what can best be described as an assault on Johnson, and I will be glad when you disappear. You have yet to add anything to the threads you have posted in that contributes any value to the discussion.”

By the way, thanks to the creators and moderators of this blog for making Reformed Baptist pastors like me so welcome here. I surely do appreciate it!