Found this:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbjT8UKxC_8&w=560&h=315]
When I watched it, my first thought was, “I’m not sure what’s wrong with this.”
I’ve experienced every one of the problems he mentions (sadly, sometimes on the giving end). Gossip disguised as “prayer requests” is one of my pet peeves. And I don’t doubt the truth of our thoughts permeating our actions toward others, or that kids imitate the adults around them.
That’s when it struck me.
What’s wrong with this is that Driscoll has reduced it to a problem for wives and mothers. Backstabbing through “prayer,” badmouthing a spouse to friends, and reaming out a spouse in front of the kids is not a women’s problem. It’s a human problem.
Driscoll delivered a message we all need to hear (and did it with surprisingly more reserve than he usually uses). But he limited the exhortation to married women with children, as though this is a female problem. He effectively ignores unmarried women. He misses the fact that prayer gossip is as much a problem in friendship (both male and female) as in couplehood. He seems unaware that kids imitate fathers, too, and a man who verbally abuses his wife in front of them risks raising children who do the same.
Maybe I’m not angry enough about this message. It doesn’t give me the same creepy feeling that most of Driscoll’s crap does. It certainly doesn’t alarm me as much as the way he’s collected groupies across the country. But I do wish that anyone tuning in to hear what he has to say would listen to what’s underlying his sermons.
