Porn addiction

One of the topics that comes up with incredible regularity in discussions of Christian marital sexual issues is "porn-addiction". You frequently hear people argue back and fourth whether various teaching lead to porn addiction or properly address porn addiction; which presents a problem since it is like asking whether certain teachings increase or decrease the likelihood of being attacked by leprechauns. Of course making a case that porn-addiction, or anything else doesn't exist is rather difficult. In this case it is really bad. People have heard a lot about it. They can point to dozens of websites which address porn-addiction, and while it is rarely mentioned there is a very official sounding "Society for the advancement of Sexual Health" which has conducted a study showing that 3-5% of the American population have a sex addiction. There are even books on treating porn addiction.

So am I some flat earther denying the obvious? With this crisis continues to spread why am I writing a blog post that there is no crisis? Well let me first point out I'm not alone in this opinion. There are some who agree like the: American Psychiatric Association (Diagnostic Service Manual), The National institute of Health, the World Health Organization (the International Classification of Diseases), National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. In fact there are a total of exactly zero reputable health organizations that believe that pornography addiction exists.

OK but that is just an appeal to stodgy secular authority. Obviously they are behind the times and they never heard of this widespread disorder. Well actually no, its come up in the literature the best arguments were made and the mental health community found them lacking. In 1985 then Attorney General Meese held a commission on pornography and produced a report on the addictive effects. Not one reputable group would endorse the report or the existence of this addiction. The National Institute of Health wanted to distance itself from the "science" in this report and released an official report (Byrne and Kelley 1986, available online) which indicated that there was no evidence of any correlation between pornography usage and long term changes in sexual preferences of behavior ever documented in over 100 years of study. And not only that what evidence that did exist tended to show correlations the opposite of what the Attorney General had claimed.

At the same time Weston did a study of pornography users and found 3 reasons they used pornography:

1. to aid masturbation,
2. to see their fantasies acted out,
3. to avoid intimacy in a relationship,

#2 is the reason people use most forms of video entertainment. There was evidence that people who had feelings of shame associated with masturbation associated this with pornography but the underlying desires were no more common in heavy pornography users than light or non users. In other words it tested out like a masturbatory aid not a cause of "sex addiction", people wanted to masturbate just as much and those who felt shame about masturbation blamed it on the porn. For most of the conservative this is likely to be where they are getting their view from. Ideologically they or their husbands may believe because of their saved condition their desire to masturbate would be lower than that of the unsaved, and statistically there is simply no difference. Since the reason they still have these urges couldn't be that their religious view of sexuality is wrong the obvious culprit is pornography even though has been demonstrated to have no effect.

#3 is interesting, essentially it involves people that have sexual desires they themselves disapprove of and/or don't want to share with their partner. From a Christian perspective these could be seen as a way of diminishing the potency of temptations. In general experiments show that this usage is pornography as a coping mechanism, the alternative to pornography for those sorts of desires is to stroke them in other ways. Examples of what this would look like would be a man who considers himself heterosexual, using gay porn; if he were liberal he's just consider himself bi-curious but since he is conservative he might associate the desire with porn since it couldn't be coming from inside him. Another example might be a woman attracted to sex scenes involving anonymous sex / blindfolded sex who morally strongly believes in monogamy.

At the core of the mental health community rejection has been the distinction between a compulsion and a desire, and an unwillingness to see pornograhy as a paraphilia. In particular for something to be a compulsion and not a desire fulfillment shouldn't bring pleasure, which is simply not the case with masturbation. A desire given into gives pleasure: for example eating chocolate on a diet is innately pleasurable or laying around in bed and not doing chores is innately pleasurable. In both cases the person doing these things may feel guilty, but the activities themselves are intrinsically pleasurable. A compulsion conversely the activity itself is not intrinsically pleasurable, but not doing it causes psychological distress. For example someone compelled to open and shut every door three times.

In terms of paraphilias the definition used is “recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors generally involving (1) nonhuman objects, (2) the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one’s partner, or (3) children or other nonconsenting persons. That is to say non-normative stimulation, since most pornography is stimulating to most people it is by definition normative.

The most definitive academic article on this topic is Martin Levine and Richard Troiden's The Myth of Sexual Compulsivity in the Journal of Sex Research (v25, n3, p347-63). They had 8 major findings:

1. The original belief in sexual compulsions comes from the patient's belief that they should be able to stop masturbating or having a variety of sexual partners. That is the diagnosis arouse from patients not from the medical community. Essentially there is an assumption that frequent non relational sex is uniformly abnormal.
2. They demonstrated that feelings of being out of control were generated by sexual behavior outside cultural norms, that is violators took cues from their culture as to what is normative sex. The prevalence of behaviors however is only loosely correlated with culture, however. They examined debates contrasting the 70s with its sex positive attitudes to the 80s and determined that even with very slight shifts in values certain types of diagnosis became much more common. Carnes (1983) one of the first researchers to use the term "sex addict" confirmed that his coining of the term was cultural.
3. Typical withdrawal symptoms involving physiological distress (example: diarrhea, delirium, convulsion and death) are not present.
4. Sex addict councilors do not recommend abstinence as the desired outcome, which is atypical for addictions counseling. The patient is "cured" when they only engage in relational sex, which in the authors opinion is essentially medicalizing morality.
5. They cite the debate and research done into "hyperactive sexual desire disorder" (1980) and the complete lack of any evidence that this exists. "Sex addict" seemed to be coming from the A.A. culture and just a rephrase of a disease whose existence had already been refuted.
6. Quadland did behavioral analysis of "sex addicts" vs. a control group and found that the only distinction they had was that the control group experienced sensations of relation and love/affinity when engaged in the same acts. In other words "sex addicts" are not acting differently than the normal population they just feel very guilty about doing the same things.
7. The Carne model (common model from the 1980's of identifying sexual addiction, similar to models in use today) tests for sexual addiction label couples who see themselves as engaging fully consensually as sex addicts. In particular partners who engage in non-procreative sex practices they themselves don't enjoy but consider to be important to maintaining the relationship.
8. They do acknowledge the existence of sex as an emotional coping mechanism. It seems to operate in a similar fashion to: excess work, prayer, parenting and intimate friendships.

What Levine and Troiden deomonstrated was the purpose of the campaign to create this diagnosis is not medical but rather to "use psychologists as a billy club for driving the erotically unconventionally into the traditional sexual fold".

In Flanigan's Enterprises, Inc. v. Fulton County, Georgia the evidence regarding pornography addiction was examined by a court. They examined ten studies which claimed to show a connection between pornography and criminal behavior. In nine of the ten studies which were presented to confirm secondary effects there was no statistical methodology at all, nothing but case studies and claims. In one of the ten studies the methodology was so flawed the court excluded the findings and concluded that there was not a single piece of evidence for the claimed secondary effects (see Kernes article below for details).

Hecker,L.L.; Wetchler,J.L.; & Fontaine,K.L. (1995) found that the religiosity of the therapist was the single biggest determining factor in whether a male patient was diagnosed as sexually addicted. That is to say religious therapists saw normal male behavior as outside the norm. The same year Sexual compulsivity among heterosexual college students examined the causes of risky sexual behavior (unprotected sex with multiple sexual partners). Of interest to this article is that frequency of masturbatory behavior correlated strongly with sexual desire and not with much else.

The next 13 years of research are the same. People cheat on their diets even though "they really don't want to". I waste far too much time on internet religion discussion, even though I really don't want to. And by exactly the same mechanism people use porn who wish they didn't. Food is not intrinsically addictive, nor is blogging nor is porn.

People respond to porn the same way they do to any other class of entertainment. Most people have seen kid style entertainment documentaries that like you would see on animal planet. Some people really like those and move onto the harder stuff on the history channel or discovery channel and if they get really out of hand they start reading books by the people in those documentaries intended for a general audience. At this point the kid level documentaries are completely unsatisfying. In children this cycle can lead to them becoming scientists or historians, and in adults can lead to adults taking community college courses or rigorous self education. If we had an ideology that Genesis 2:17 should be applied liberally then there would be Christian anti-documentary sites by those book buyers about having suffered the long term effects, how animal planet and PBS are gateways trapping hundreds of thousands each year into this cycle of destruction. And there would be debates about which preachers were addressing this in the most biblical way.

__________

See Also:

• The Science Behind Pornography Addiction, Dan Lintz (before US Senate)
• The Myth Of Secondary Effects, Mark Kernes Free Speech coalition
• Why There's No Such Thing as Sexual Addiction -- And Why It Really Matters Marty Klein (psychologist, coauthor of Treating Sexual Disorders).
• Does Sex Addiction Have Any Basis in Science Cristian Bodo (neuroscientist), American Sexuality Magazine.
• Porn Prohibitionists Miss Point, Wired magazine
• Wikipedia article, also Sexual addiction
• The Porn myth, a famous Naomi Wolf article arguing that porn diminishes sexual appetite in men
• Review of Sexual Addiction: An Integrated Approach, by Aviel Goodman. This argues that the word "addiction" applied outside of drugs just really means compulsive like behaviors related to emotional dissatisfaction.
• List of no article from CSUN
• Christian Nymphos A sex positive information and discussion site for Christians

Voice Translation

The Voice translation is a new translation by Chris Seay and co. The group's goal in the project was to produce a “holistic,” “beautiful,” “sensitive” and “balanced” New Testament that present-day readers could identify with. In short their goal was to produce a modern liturgical version, designed to be read out-loud or at the chapter level. To be excellent for quick reading or public reading the bible needs to avoid complex vocal constructions, which generally means short sentences or clauses and connection of ideas. Also obviously contemporary language. Such a bible would not designed for line by line study.

In addition to the use of modern language and aggressive punctuation; The way The Voice creates a verbal flow is by using a a play-like format with italicized in-text explanations. There is also occasional commentary to pull the structure together dramatically. Each book in the New Testament is preceded by a brief introduction explaining its background and significance. You can see this in the free online version of the Voice's John.

What is interesting about this new translation is that “writers rather than the scholars were tasked with producing the first draft.” Then, scholars, “working from the Greek or Hebrew, adjusted the translation to capture the nuances of the original.” That is typically a bible is written by translators and then edited. This bible was written and then translational issues were corrected. The puts the focus is on flow not on detailed accuracy. I think the accuracy is fine I recommend this bible for its intended uses. In particular:

1. This is a great choice for a first read of the bible. The text notes assume unfamiliarity which is rare in most study bibles. It reads as almost as easily as The Message and keeps the focus on the text itself unlike any study bibles.
2. This is one of the very few bibles I know that work well for informal out-loud reading. There are huge differences between what is retained vocally vs. visually. For preaching through a large section of a chapter or any other reading outloud.
3. This out-loud readability makes it a good choice for an informal liturgy.

So I fully concur with Thomas Nelson's press release:

And we have a significant change in the liturgy of many churches that excludes that appointed time allotted for the specific reading aloud of the Sacred Text (sometimes in concert with a Lexionary and sometimes just as a focus where the whole congregation stands for the reading of the Word). Both of these changes have been made at the sacrifice of the oral experience of the Bible....The Nelson team created The Voice translation with this perspective in mind. Specifically, the screen-play format, the linguistic and historical information included in italics, and the contextualization that is present in the commentary makes The Voice ideal for public reading and understanding. (Thomas Nelson press release)

This focus on flow and readability however does come at a cost. Since, there aren't many reviews of the The Voice I hope my regular readers will forgive me if I'm a I'll be a bit more pedantic than normal and assume some readers not familiar with translation philosophies might be reading this review. In translation the closer you stay to the text the more accurately you capture the original structure but the less you can accurately capture the meaning. As you move away from the original structure you are able to better capture meaning. As you move even further away from the original structure you in effect rephrase the ideas of the text in your own language. It ceases to be translation and instead becomes a paraphrase. The graphic below shows the major translations as they move from the most literal, interlinears which preserve Greek word order to formal translations which preserve the positions of phrases with a sentence, to dynamic which preserver the order sentences to paraphrase which preserve the order of ideas.

I personally put translation into 9 groups with the voice in the 8th group (loose dynamic):

1. Hebrew/Greek, Diglot or Hebrew/Greek Reader (NA27, Majority /Byzantine Text, Textus Receptus, MT-Heb)
2. Interlinear translation (Brown & Comfort, Marshall, McReynolds, Concordant interlinear)
3. Highly literal (AMP, NASB, YLT, Mounce, Concordant)
4. Formal (ESV, KJV, ASV, NKJV, NRSV, RSV)
   
5. Balanced (TNIV, NET, NIV, HCSB, Price)
6. Tight Dynamic (REB, NAB)
7. Dynamic (NEB, NJB, CEV, NLTse, Gaus)
8. Loose dynamic (NLT1ed, GNB, Voice)
9. Paraphase (MSG, TLB, TAB, JBP)

I've bolded The Voice as a recommend loose dynamic translation preferring it to either of the two others that I'm familiar with, the Good News Bible or the 1st edition of the New Living Translation (note: the 2nd edition is what is generally available that appears under item 7 and is bolded). Loose dynamic translations like The Voice are very good at getting across "the main idea" but not so good at getting across secondary ideas in the text. So they are really not suitable for anything where verse by verse reading matters in particular this is a poor choice for expository preaching or bible study. As I mentioned above this was written than corrected so the translation philosophy is highly inconsistent. Finally, it goes without saying that the informal liturgical style is the exact opposite of what would be desired for formal liturgical church or function.

While I think the formatting works very well in all aspects except one. The Voice footnotes aren't numbered in the text, instead a generic asterisk is used and the verse referred to in the note. You can see an example of this in the John chapter on page 161 (John 1:23-8). I think this format is difficult, it can be unclear which phrase the note is applying to. But even in the best case this requires looking backwards through the text for the verse number, looking down to find the associated note and then on a few pages having to looking up to find the chapter number. Given the demographics of The Voice I'd assume most people are comfortable with standard footnoting conventions, this seems like a mistake. Footnotes are used for translation commentary, glossary and cross reference so they aren't rare though not overwhelming either.

In terms of the internet, this is an emerging church product so basically conservative reformed Christians bash it. No one has really written a decent reply so, I guess I will. The most detailed and accurate review is a hostile one by Chris Rosebrough of Extreme Theology (review part1 part2). He's an ESV guy so not unexpectedly he hates the theology of the The Voice. A good example (using one from the free sample in case you want to check context) is John 1:13:

• Brown & Comfort (literal): The ones not of bloods nor of [the] will of flesh nor of [the] will of a husband but of God were born.
• ESV (formal): who were born, not of blood, nor the of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
• NET (mediating): children not born by human parents or by human desire or a husband’s decision, but by God.
• NLT (dynamic): They were reborn -- not of a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.
• Voice (12-13)(loose dynamic): He bestows this birthright not by human power or initiative but by God's will. Because we are born of this world, we can only be reborn to God by accepting his call.

If I were translating I personally would mix dynamic and formal here. I wouldn't want to lose John's clausal structure but I think the "bloods"to "blood" translation is far too literal, and men rather than husband is just plain wrong. The reference to bloods here is critical, but it relies on the Greek idiom that the fetus grows on blood which is not an American English idiom. You could translate it keeping blood with a technical term, something like "not from fetoplacental circulation" but that shifts the tone too much. The key is to retain the spirit vs. flesh theme from John while changing idioms i.e. being dynamic to be made more explicit. Anne Nyland's The Source Bible does a great job for this verse "children not born from a woman nor from the purposes of the natural realm nor from the purposes of a man, but born from God"

Incidentally I use the ESV here for the formal because Mr. Rosebrough does. The NRSV is similar, "who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh of man, but of God." I think it is interesting he picks this verse to defend formal because in my opinion it show the relative merits of both. The ESV's use of "man" over husband here, especially because they use man for so many other Greek words, and then being literal with blood desexualizes and thus loses the connection between the man and the birth. I also don't like the tense changes, the ESV is far too free with tenses for a formal translation.The NET and the NLT IMHO do a much better job in capturing the key connection lost by the ESV. On the other hand the NET/NLT is completely artless, this is a poem loaded with the height of imagery in Christianity and while they capture the meaning better their text is flat.

So what about The Voice? You get the gospel message without any of John's flavor. Those who accept the divine voice of God are reborn as children of God not children of flesh. Mr. Rosebrough in his critique blows a gasket because this is the Arminian gospel and not the Calvinist gospel. The ESV drops the sexual metaphor to emphasize unconditional election and irresistible grace, "not by the will of man", The Voice drops it to emphasize decision theology. From my perspective, both are equally bad. Flesh vs. spirit is one of the five main themes of John, I don't want either Arminius or Calvin to pollute John. But I think this sort of simplification is acceptable in The Voice, this sort of theological commentary in the text is much worse in a bible whose stock and trade is its "essentially literal accuracy" than in a bible whose stock and trade is "first time readers will get it, and it sounds good when read out-loud". By the time someone is ready to discuss limited vs. unlimited atonement I hope that they wouldn't use The Voice, and I believe Chris Seay would agree with me. So with Rosebrough (and again I picked his review because he did the best job in a hostile critique) by seeing what this looks like from the other side might appreciate "turnabout is fair play" and perhaps appreciate why the English Standard Version raises such strong objections.

In short while I've read the hostile reviews, I don't think they address the core function of The Voice. Blow through at normal reading speed John 1:1-14 out-loud with a reader unfamiliar with the them from the ESV and see what someone is actually retains. Or if you want an actually accurate translation the same thing would happen with the NRSV. Then try it with The Voice, I think they would get a lot. This bible is designed for verbal retention from unfamiliar readers, the critiques aren't analyzing assuming the intent it was designed for.

Pieces of The Voice are available separately:

• The Voice, amazon link to main book
• The Voice of Romans: The Gospel According to Paul by Chris Seay
• The Voice of Hebrews: The Mystery of Melchizedek Greg Garrett
• The Voice of Mark: Let Them Listen Greg Garrett
• The Voice of Luke: Not Even Sandals by Brian D. McLaren
• The Last Eyewitness: The Final Week (John 13-21) Chris Seay et al, illustrated
• The Voice Revealed: The True Story of the Last Eyewitness by Chris Seay
• The Voice of Acts: The Dust Off Their Feet: Lessons from the First Church by Chris Seay
• The Voice from on High: God Announces His Son as Israel's Liberating King by Lauren Winner
• Son of the Most High: The Christmas Story Retold in the Voice

As a closing note Thomas Nelson also published The Truth War which is essentially an anti-Emerging church hate piece by MacArthur, as well as the MacArthur Study Bible. I'll give them a lot of credit for being open minded, but I wouldn't want to be around when they have author's Christmas party.

See Also:

• Apologetics Index on the Voice, hostile
• Subversive Influence, friendly review and recommendation as a replacement for The Message.
• The voice of unreason hostile review.
• IndyWatchmen, a "I haven't read it but it is going to suck" warning before it came out.

Calvin's 500th birthday

Well I wasn't ready for a big post on Calvinism today. I probably should have been. Calvin is going to have a very good 500th birthday. 20 years ago Arminianism was still the rage and Calvinism quite out of fashion, the fashion has completely shifted. As we have approached the 500th Calvin and TULIP have made a come back. Individually I've never been able to get over the basic problem that I can't believe myself to be morally responsible for anything I have no control over. So:

If I am born in a state of Total depravity my rejection of God is not an immoral act. If election is Unconditional then God is the one doing the choosing not man. The morality of choosing or not choosing sits entirely with him not the creation. If atonement is Limited then by preselection then the actual sacrifice is of no meaning to those outside the circle of the eternally elected. It has nothing to do with me anymore than Polish law. If grace is Irresistible then even those saved have no merit. Finally with Perseverance of the saints we remove any merit to the saved for even keeping with the program.

The whole system turns salvation into a lottery. Whether you are saved or not becomes as moral an issue as whether you have brown or blue eyes: something you had no control over, predetermined at birth that you can't change or alter. I don't and shouldn't consider brown or blue eyes a moral issue. While there is fairly good biblical support for these doctrines the net effect of going to this extreme is to rob God's redemption of any sort of morality at all. From a human perspective you are either damned or saved completely at random, like winning at craps. The answer to faith vs. lordship in this system turns out to be neither.

Calvin himself built a nightmare police state (see Calvin the totalitarian) that collapsed because of his petty jealousy, intolerance and inability to address the human condition as it really exists and not as he theorized it should exist (see Anne Le Fert (Questionable Excommunication part 2)).

His current followers have created the most dishonest translation of the bible in a generation to back their views. I've celebrating 21 years on the internet, and when I compare the religious dialogue today to what existed on places like soc.religion.bible, or talk.misc.christian 21 years ago there is no question that a culture of intolerance exists today that did not exist then. Virtually every bible blogger has been banned from one board or another, there is a casual culture of "I don't like that view so I won't allow it to be expressed" that the moderators 2 decades ago (equivalent of blog owners) would have seen as outright anti-American. In society at large the new Calvinism hasn't had a chance to have much impact. But the traditional arminian baptists were firmly in the camp of Roger Williams (founder of Rhode Island) and believed that religion in America (at the time the colonies) should be always consensual. Today ideas like Christian reconstructionism, which argue that the state should enforce religious codes get their legitimacy among Protestants from Calvinism (though the Catholic Church suffers from a similar confusion). The fact that I'm having to write posts like Why not to keep going on with discipline after a member leaves is a direct reflection of a general rejection of Williams core idea that religion is something freely entered into between a person and their god. The very defense that Machen presented at his trial involved Christian liberty from Church taxes (see Excommunication of Gresham Machen for details) and would be rejected by the very churches he has founded today.

The mechanism by which this casual intolerance has spread is the the idea and ideology of presuppositional apologetics, and this has led to this breakdown in communication that existed 2 decades ago. While presuppositional apologetics are fully consistent with TULIP, they create a situation in which one of the parties believes the other is simply not worth discoursing with. The "unelected" are in an permanent irreparable state of delusion. Refutations of Reformed popular ideas don't need to be considered because they are true by presupposition. Counter arguments are satanic, because they contradict these presuppositions. Counter evidence is dismissed because it challenges the sufficiency of scripture. And on and on and on. Under this model dialogue becomes impossible.

It is from the reformed camp that the Patriarchy and complementarian movements are arising, creating a biblical mandate for the causal sexism of the 19th century (see defense against patriarchy part 6).

So on his 500th birthday I'd like to congratulate Calvin on making fashionable once again the absolutely worst aspects of European religion. There is no question that Calvin is one of the great theologians and biblical thinkers of all time. It is unfortunate that his short comings and not his strengths are what we are today confronted with.

ESV-onlyism on the blog sphere

Nice series of posts going on right now on ESVonlyism. What is wonderful is that quite a few of them are conservative reformed Christians who are willing to address the fact that this movement is fundamentally dishonest, trying to advance sectarian interests by misrepresenting the bible. It started with the article on Aberration blog where A.Admin indicated he was so offended by a sermon of Sproul's misrepresenting the translation debate that he is walking away from him. Here is a current list, I'll update freely as I find more and please feel free to comment if I've missed any.

Aberration blog Bye bye Ligonier Ministries
The Church of Jesus Christ: Are Calvinists turning into ESV-Onlies?, The Rising ESV-Onlyism and Gender-Inclusive Language
Onward, Forward, Toward Are Reformers Becoming ESV Only?
Suzanne's Bookshelf: ESV onlyism and Sproul, ESVonlyism and Packer, Grudem and ESV onlyism, Why ESV onlyism, Reflections on ESV onlyism

For those interested in countering this:
Why the English Standard Version (ESV) should not become the Standard English Version by Mark Strauss

And of course this has been one of my hobby horses for a long time (I helped invent the phrase "ESV-onlyism") Is the ESV "essentially literal"?, Mark 1:41 and the ESV, Censorship and dishonesty in evangelical Christianity, Why be an ESV hater?.

Michael Bell on inflows and outflows

Somehow I managed to miss one of the best post in May written by Michael Bell, Looking at the Pew Forum’s “Changes in Religious Affiliation” Data. You can Pew Report for the source data. This is a statistical analysis of inflows and outflows from major religions to one another tracking people longitudinally not as groups/percentages of the population. This graphic is from the article and shows how the major groups flow into one another. Because this is a longitudinal study you get interesting results. For example, Catholicism in the graph is shrinking because US catholics convert out in high numbers but other convert in in low numbers. On the other hand there has been strong Hispanic (Catholic) immigration which why their percentage of the population has remained steady if you don't look longitudinally.

It is also worth noting these are self identification numbers, which are much much higher than measures that use attendance. Bell followed this up with a follow up strategy post and then a post on non religious retention rates ( Its a lot easier to be non religious).

Main points:

• My comments above about Catholic retention.
• None (no affiliation): This group has terrible retention (about 50%) but fantastic evangelism. The growth of this group and a new form of Christianity targeted to them has generally been what has led to revivals. Yet more evidence that the Emerging Church is correct in their assessments.
• Evangelical Christianity is facing a falling retention rate and this is creating a demographic problem similar to the one that the mainline churches faced over the last 2 generations. It is not growing and is aging rapidly, which could cause a drop in retention ....
• Mainline churches aren't losing members and have break even retention. They were suffering from a low birth rate and they just swap members with evangelical churches.
• Explicitly and exclusively black protestant church are currently pulling people in from other groups and demonstrating the best retention. It appears Sunday morning going to be more segregated moving forward and black protestantism is going to continue to be a very important part of the religious landscape.

• People who are going to change 79% of the time do it by 23 and about 3.5% after 36. The age change numbers are essentially the same for all groups. Basically if you are interested in evangelism, late high school and college age is essentially the only opportunity to do this in large numbers (again consistent with emerging church views).
• Non religious retention (that is not just not affiliated but rather atheist, agnostic...) has skyrocketed. This is what the graph on the left shows.

See also:

• Pew US Religious landscape survey

A defense of Driscoll to the left

This is an unusual post for me. Normally this blog attacks Patriarchy and Complementarianism. My opinion hasn't shifted on that. This blog has ended up being very critical of Conservative Reformed Christianity, and my opinion on that has shifted in the last 2 years in a very negative direction. When I started I thought the problems were much less frequent and much less deep than I do today.

So why write a defense of Mark Driscoll? Well because a great many of the problems in conservative reformed Christianity are countered by Driscoll. He separates off the bible from a whole range of political and social conservative positions and presents a new vision for what evangelical Christianity could look like. In other words he achieves the goal of the emerging church movement even though he no longer associates himself with it. It is the missional core which I think puts him in a totally different category than the Josh Harris, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul.... clan.

Quite simply the core idea of the neo-evangelical movement founded by Harold Ockenga was to separate Christian theology from Christian culture as a matter of working principle. A good example which is less controversial today was Moody's belief that there was no need to change the dietary habits of Eastern European converts, "The great commission is not a command to convert the world to Anglo-Saxonism". If one considers neo-evangelicalism to be a legitimate endeavor, that is disagrees with fundamentalism and liberalism that such a separation is impossible then it is hard to see what Driscoll is doing as being inconsistent with the absolute core goal of the neo-evangelical movement.

Without directly implicating MacArthur, Driscoll distinguishes between missionaries who study culture and fundamentalists who try to avoid culture.

"Fundamentalism is really losing the war, and I think it is in part responsible for the rise of what we know as the more liberal end of the emerging church," Driscoll says. "Because a lot of what is fueling the left end of the emerging church is fatigue with hardcore fundamentalism that throws rocks at culture. But culture is the house that people live in, and it just seems really mean to keep throwing rocks at somebody's house." (Christianity today article on Driscoll)

Driscoll built his ministry on 4 points.

1. The Church is primarily middle aged and female. In particular men 22-25 are the least likely to go to church. This is very bad.
2. Thus the church needs an outreach to young men.
3. However, the reason young men are not attracted to the church is a systematic problem with the way church is usually conducted. So churches that want to break from this mold need to "do church" with a very different flavor.
4. In particular what is needed is a to build churches that are theologically orthodox but culturally young and masculine.

One can watch the video the Church needs dudes to hear Driscoll reconstruct this argument in his own words. And if you look at the Acts29 churches I think his objective has been achieved. The core defense of Driscoll from within a neo-evangelical framework is whether people agree with these 4 points or not.

The first question is, is it bad that church is primarily female? Do we need an outreach to young men, and is acceptable to change the character of churches so that they become young men friendly; that is "affirming" of their gender and their identity?

I'd assume most neo-evangelicals would answer this question that yes it is bad. Christianity seeks converts of both sexes and if churches are some way systematically failing to reach you men that should be addressed. Driscoll himself makes an interesting argument that not only is it bad from an evangelical standpoint but leads to lack of aggression and creativity.

As he puts it "the church is run by nice soft 'chickified' church boys". Church attire in his opinion is very effeminate for example men's clothing in pastels. In his opinion the decor in most churches is effeminate and the music is emotionally charged and effeminate. This sort of environment is hostile to to aggressive young men. That is exactly the sorts of young men who are likely to be entrepreneurs. That is a marketing strategy targeted at women in their 40s will be unsuccessful with men in their 20s. So all of these aspects need to change in a church targeting young (20s) single men who are college educated and innovative (aggressive). All those aspects changed, further Driscoll developed a preaching style that he modeled on Chris Rock, a communicator who is able to effectively communicate with young men.

In terms of longer term goals, Driscoll believes that if that aggressive men are involved when young then they will marry and bring in their families so that this style of outreach is not self limiting. Moreover he sees this failure as being why evangelical Christianity is shrinking. In Driscoll's view Church planting is primarily a matter of natural talent followed by training. Most churches choose men who lack the correct natural talent and then apply an aggressive training program. The reason they do this is that most churches can't handle young entrepreneurial men. These men are the ones who are likely to question leadership, are thus seen as "trouble makers" and driven away. But in Driscoll's view, if you want innovative churches you need this sort of man.

Finally, Driscoll believes that the church environment is unbiblical. He cites David, Paul, John the Baptist, as being the sort of man he has trouble picturing "wearing sweater vests singing long songs to Jesus".

I'd also conclude by addressing the issue of Driscoll on sex. In my opinion where Driscoll has been most often attacked is for saying uncomfortable truths about male sexuality. His comments on things like middle aged weight gain, lack of oral sex or lack of frequent sex as being causes of adultery are politically incorrect and true. The question for the left wing critics is can a preacher honestly address women on the issue of male sexuality or do we need to keep pretending that sexual boredom and adultery are uncorrelated events?

See also:

• Freedom4captives A pro women's blog that contains the sort of arguments addressed in this post
• MacArthur v. Driscoll addresses the right wing criticism.

MacArthur v. Driscoll

I had figured this issue was going to die down but it seems that's its going into the fifth round or so. Essentially the question here is whether it is acceptable for a preacher to speak naturally on sexual topics or not. In other words can you as a Christian minister discuss sex the same way you would discuss auto repair or is hemming and hawing and being vague a requirement.

Since this charge is being led by MacArthur I think it makes sense to start by quoting him. All of the quotes come from a series of 4 sermons that MacArthur gave on Driscoll entitled "The Rape of Solomon's Song" (Part1 Part2 Part3 Part4)

[Y]ou can[not] make a biblical case for Christians to embrace worldly fads—especially when those fads are diametrically at odds with the wholesome speech, pure mind, and chaste behavior that God calls us to display. At its core, this is about ideology. No matter how culture changes, the truth never does. But the more the church accommodates the baser elements of the culture, the more she will inevitably compromise her message. We must not betray our words through our actions; we must be in the world but not of it. . . . . It's vital that you not send one message about the importance of sound doctrine and a totally different message about the importance of sound speech and irreproachable pure-mindedness.

Mark Driscoll’s response to that admonition and the things he has said since have only magnified my concern.

Mark did indeed express regret a few years ago over the reputation his tongue has earned him. Yet no substantive change is observable.

The first misconception some have regarding this debate is that this is new for MacArthur based on a particular television appearance. So I'd just counter this by noting that MacArthur has been arguing this case against Driscoll for years. For example he attacked Driscoll "vulgarity" in his "Grunge Christianity" article. And I have heard claims this is personal, and I don't think it is personal. Over the years MacArthur has attacked so many different people on some many different ideological grounds with these sorts of campaigns there is no reason to believe that this is merely a cover. His followers have broadly attacked Missional Christianity as per the image to the left.

What I really see though as the base underlying cause is not vulgarity, but rather postmodernism. In The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception MacArthur also attacked Driscoll as the cursing pastor. But the big issue in this book is epistemological. Driscoll is philosophically postmodernist while completely orthodox in his theology. Driscoll argues that Christian have a responsibility to engage the last 200 years of epistemology in an effective way. MacArthur in a book on epistemology displays a shocking ignorance of the topic. That is in many ways a replay of the classic question of Galileo, "Does the bible teach what moves the heavens or how the heavens move" just applied to another sphere of human inquiry.

With that preface lets hit the 4 issues in this debate

1. Legitimacy of cursing, or vulgarity.
2. Legitimacy of expositional preaching on poetry.
3. Legitimacy of expositional preachong on the Song of Songs in particular.
4. General attack on postmodernism.

First with respect to the first charge I'm not sure Driscoll is actually guilty a sin here. Here is the latest joke that everyone is in a tizzy about. What I should mention though is you'll rarely see the actual joke. Where I come from a statement of charges should be specific, not vague. If Driscoll is to be disciplined for "jokes" the specific jokes should be listed with citations of where they came from. OK here goes:

Question: What does the bible say about masturbation

Answer: Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might (Ecc 9:10)

OK, were you shocked? Not did you feel like you are supposed to be shocked; were you actually shocked? My guess is no, that joke is tame. The sort of joke that anyone who understands it isn't going to be shocked by. I can't even imagine anyone being aroused by it, which is core to the definition of obscenity, so I'd immediately dismiss any claims about this joke being obscene. Now I think the reason the joke isn't repeated is because it is so borderline, far better to say "I can't repeat the obscene joke on my site...." and convict Driscoll without even a complete statement of the charges. The fact is that this joke is so far from obscene that television censors had no problem with it during daytime. If MacArthur (who preaches in Hollywood) thinks that is an obscene joke there are about 5 of the country's top comedy clubs within 10 miles of his church, where he can find out how off base he is.

Now "corse jesting" is prohibited by Eph 5:4, as is "silly talk". Even if I were to grant that MacArthur has gone a lifetime without making a course joke, I'd say he's the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to this verse given the mountain of sillyness that comes out of him. So the question is do we want to remove pastors from office for Eph 5:4 violations and if so which ones would remain standing at the end?

So having dismissed obscenity lets move on to the second charge Driscoll's interpretation of the Song of Songs. First off, Driscoll has a dedicated site on Song of Songs, Peasant princess, where you can see for yourself he does a good job doing a very standard poetical deconstruction of a love poem. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary you wouldn't hear in any high school literature class taking apart a poem with lots of metaphor and allegory. The interpretation itself is not particularly unusual either, it is standard fare that you would find in most good commentaries. Adele Reinhartz opens his analysis with “The Song of Songs is the bible’s only extensive discourse on human, erotic love.” The idea that this erotic treatment is some innovation of Driscoll's is nonsense. Driscoll presents the material well but in a very direct way.

So now lets get to the charge, we have notes on Driscoll's sermon with "objectionable" parts highlighted. Now there is no question this is on the level of a 7th grade sex ed class in a sermon only given to people over 18 while discussing a love poem. Is this over the line? Is deconstruction of a biblical poem a legitimate activity. Tim Challis as well as MacArthur answered this question in the negative. I think this point can be immediately dispatched by noting that the Book of Hebrews is an exposition of the poetry of Psalm 103. God cannot forbid what is commanded.

So then we have to turn to a more specific question if there is something unique about Song of Songs that prohibits it. And in general the answer comes back to sex. That is the MacArthur position is that a preacher can discuss politics, law, history, theology, the news, sports, movies.... from the pulpit without hemming and hawing but you can't say things like "when woman are sexually aroused blood flows to the inner and outer labia". To prove this is sexually specific would anyone object to the equally explicit, "when a person is having a heart attack they often feel stabbing or shooting pain down the arms". Was the heart attack comment obscene? I'd say no, it was good medical advice. And that is precisely my opinion about the first comment as well.

But this is a tricky point. And it gets to the very core with the debate regarding missional Christianity. Missional Christianity rejects Churchianity and the standards of Churchianity when it comes to behavior whether in dress, attitudes towards body modification, in speech, in layout of the church. It says that it is going to walk away from some aspects of Churchianity to be able to actually reach people who would otherwise not be reachable. The bible never commands this sort of bashfulness, it is rather part of the "Christian culture". Paul lived in a culture vastly more explicit and open regarding sexuality than our own and never prohibited living in the culture, rather he demanded the opposite outreach.

What Driscoll did speak openly about a sex act he did so the the same way one would speak about grocery shopping or driving. And I think this is what people are reacting to, it was not the sexual content of anything Driscoll said but rather his lack trepidation in discussing it. Driscoll is not embarrassed to speak openly and sex that I think that not the content is MacArthur really found distressing. I had a similar experience on this board when trying to have an adult discussion of Christian Domestic Discipline. What I found then as well as every time this topic comes up, was that Churchianity's insistence on in treating sex differently than driving on adult boards is to impose upon sex the very obscenity that people like MacArthur are supposedly objecting to.

And this finally brings us to MacArthur's general attack on postmodernism. For MacArthur postmodernism is a chance to relive his hero's battle (see Spurgeon and the Down-Grade Controversy), (and Fed Up by Johnson). For Driscoll it is an opportunity for the church to reform its literature and make itself relevant to a culture which is altering its opinion on core issues about the connection between mind and world. The ideological struggle between Driscoll and MacArthur, deserves its own post and further should be broadened . Driscoll himself asserts that the primary division he has with MacArthur is over the contextualization of gospel.

MacArthur is Reformed, were he Arminian we could ask for a clear number like, how many souls should be lost due to an unwillingness to be missional: five, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, five hundred thousand...? How many would would just be "collateral damage" and not induce a policy change and how many would make outreach worth it. Since the answer is most likely in the millions, today I think this is a worthwhile question. MacArthur cannot reach the people that the missional Christian movement meets and reaches out too. So were he and his followers successful in delegitimizing it the number who would leave or never join the faith would hopefully only be in the tens of millions over the next century. But MacArthur is reformed so essentially he can be as ineffectual as he wants in outreach, since his works have no part in people being saved. So I close with question to readers who disagree with me, what your number?

See also:

• A defense of Driscoll to the left addresses the left wing critique
• iMonk vs. centuri0n debate: Frank1, iMonk1, Frank2, iMonk2
• A discussion by Tom Ascol, Chris Poe, Phil Johnson on this topic.
• A video by John Piper about Driscoll's style
• Preaching Dirty by Phil Johnson (one of MacArthur's employees)
• Freedom 4 captives (an anti-Driscoll website) this one is to the left of Driscoll. (See post which specifically addresses the Song of Songs issues)
• A direct video response of Marc Driscoll to Phil Johnson
• An excellent summary by theological persiflage
• A similar attack by Cathy Mickels
• Relit -- books by Driscoll
  

Suzanne's index

Suzanne McCarthy of Suzanne's bookshelf has put together a wonderful index of her posts on language. While it is far from a complete list it is a terrific resource for those looking for quick counter arguments on many of the common woman bashing themes that show up on bible blogs. Definitely a resource worth checking out.

I figure I'm also going to use this post as a running place holder for various related topics so expect the list below to be live and growing:

• Wayne Grudem and Heresy is an argument for how many of the complementarian trinitarian positions are explicitly rejected by the creeds.
• You can find a terrific debate between Sandy Grant and Suzanne on 1Tim 2:12 here on Theologica. I had an earlier post on this discussion.
• Grudem's open letter to egalitarians and Suzanne's responses: part1 part2

Wow I just got promoted

So I just got paid a pretty high complement a few minutes ago. Yesterday I posted a link to the Bayly blog (thread) to the Why be an ESV hater article. Basically the article is about the fact that the ESV is a political translation, and Bayly was both agreeing with me and posting some pretty clear evidence. As is my policy I contact anyone I link to every time I link if I can. I think that is basic politeness, gives them a chance to respond. Anyway, the Bayly's actually know who I am. Not only that David Bayly paid me high praise indeed, "Thanks for dealing with this individual [CD-Host] I've not found another commenter on this blog as filled with darkness, including the atheists who recently visited the site. They are deceived. This individual is a deceiver". Talking about yours truly! Wow and here I thought I was just a run of the mill bible blogger. Hah, I just made #1 force of darkness on the whole history of their blog (which actually goes back quite a ways). I'm feeling great. I've had a lousy week and that post definitely made my day. I'm on the internet so I get insulted regularly, but that was the coolest of all time.

OK so other than CD's ego tripping is there any content coming from this? First off I'd like answer a few questions.

There was a request for a link to my debate with Frank Turk (centuri0n). This is in reverse order (start at the bottom) but it is available here. There was a request for more insight on discipline and I was recommending the walk throughs list. Eric, had linked to my Rules for due process.

So what set them off? Heck, if I know. I haven't talked to those guys in over 2 years:

• I'm hoping it was the Defense against Patriarchy series. This series the Bayly's actually deserve some credit. Of course, Doug Phillips was the main target, but the Baylys also had a blog full of their claims about their views having been the norm through Church history were a leading inspiration. I ended up writing over 100 pages proving that to be a cock-and-bull story.
• Another possibility was our first encounter Tim Bayly on homosexuality and feminism where Bayly calls for excommunication based on opinion (not teaching or actions). I asked him to confirm this was really his opinion. He sort of did, then rejecting my characterization then refused my offer to let him rephrase as he saw fit.
• One of the other articles about women's issues.
• There are about another 1/2 dozen scattered references to him over the years.

But this just doesn't seem to rise to the level of prince of darkness, ok maybe defense does. I'm pretty proud of that. So while I feel great pride in David's complement there is this sense of undeserved praise. What to do, what to do? I should mention that Tim's comment wasn't bad either:

CD-Host, I owe our readers no link to your lies and heresies. Contradicting the Word of God is no small thing, and it's my sworn duty to silence it when it occurs. Often, it's helpful to our readers to hear questions and arguments. But in your case, the anonymity and toxicity of your heresies rises to a level I must not permit. So I'm pulling all links to your web site.

So in other words my stuff is well above the average in terms of lies and heresies. And you know what, I also got a permanent link on Planet Atheism today. Tim in recent threads had mentioned there were some problems recently with atheists (I couldn't find the threads on his blog unfortunately). But I suspect there is a connection, and this new link is their doing. So to get to the point, I'll take this opportunity to warmly thank both Tim and David for their endorsement.

I've noticed in the last 2 years a sharp drop off in claims that complementarianism and patriarchy were the universally held view up until: a generation ago, the 70s, the last hundred years.... and I can only hope that I had something to do with this and my modesty is misplaced.

Ken Brown's 5 books

Ken Brown posted a challenge:

Name the five books (or scholars) that had the most immediate and lasting influence on how you read the Bible. Note that these need not be your five favorite books, or even the five with which you most strongly agree. Instead, I want to know what five books have permanently changed the way you think.

Here are my 5:

1. NIV Study Bible Walked me through the bible and got me to read it.
2. Back to the sources, by Barry Holtz. Along with other Jewish writings, taught me to read what the OT text actually says not what people tell you it says.
3. Jesus the Magician, by Morton Smith. Presented the first plausible answer to "lord, liar, lunatic" and taught me higher criticism.
4. Fragments of a Faith Forgotten (online free) by G.R.S. Mead. Taught me that the bible was a Greek book written by Greeks about Greek topics and that I would really understand it until I learned to think Greek. Opened my eyes wide.
5. The Jesus Puzzle (associated website), by Earl Doherty. Well in all fairness the earlier versions of the website before the book came out. Taught me the mythicist case, which got me to understand how Christianity came from Hellenistic Judaism. That is it put me on the road to the New School.

I really should have 7.

If I could add a 6th it would be Bauer's Orthodoxy and Heresy. This book founded a whole school called the "new school" which includes Pagels, Pearson, John Turner.... This is where I currently identify.

And number 7 deserves an honorable mention. Bultmann's The Gospel of John, which taught me lower criticism.

See also:

List of other people's responses