I have been pretty annoyed with the Blogshere's reaction to Mark Driscoll's comments after Ted Haggard's downfall. Many blogs and alternative newspapers are taking one of his comments totally out of context and assigning it a headline like "Blaming Gayle Haggard"
Mark begins his post by recapping the news of that day -- Ted Haggard's fall. He uses that as a reminder to the pastors who he leads that they need to be on their guard. "As every pastor knows, we are always at risk from the sin in us and the sinful temptations around us." From this point on, he has clearly transitioned away from the Haggard topic to more general advice for young pastors on how to avoid temptation. His advice is not about avoiding male prostitutes and methamphetemines. It is geared towards protecting against the less sensational run-of-the-mill heterosexual temptation that all men are exposed to.
He gives 12 bullet points. Most of them are very sound advice. They are all worth reading, and heeding. It is important to note that 11 of these points are geared toward men. By and large, men have a problem with sexual temptation. He offered 11 specific things that men can do to manage their temptations.
The firestorm was set off when Mark mentioned 1 thing that women can do to help. I am going to dissect his comment a bit.
Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives.
I think this is a fair assessment. I would guess that the general population has a sexual inhibition problem. I don't think the pastorate is likely much different. As a matter of fact, I think some conservative Christians take issue with Driscoll for advocating sex within the marriage as aggressively as he does.
At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this.
He saw the storm coming and he decided to say what he had to say anyway.
It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness.
Pastor Mark likely knows a ton of pastors, and a lot of pastors wives. I bet he knows quite a few of them very well. Does this happen? I bet it does. Looking at the general population, after marriage, it is very common that people put on weight once they have their mate locked in. As a matter of fact, Here is a scientific study showing that people gain weight after marriage, and lose weight after divorce. I would guess that the amount of time spent in sweat pants has a similar correlation. The fact of the matter is that pursuing our mate is hard work, and once we don't have to, we get lazy about it.
A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him either.
Most bloggers ignored the part about the wife not being responsible for her husband's sin. They ignored the other 11 points in the article, that squarely put the responsibility on the man. They insert Haggard into the context, when Driscoll had totally changed the subject.
But what is more important is to analyze this teaching against scripture. Compare this statement to 1 Corinthians 7:2-5:
But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
It seems to me, that Paul is making pretty much the same point that Driscoll was making. If we do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with our wives then Satan will tempt us because of our lack of self-control. If Driscoll wants to lead people away from Satan's traps, wouldn't it be a pretty big oversight to not mention this truth? The context of the bullet points has already established the men have a lot of work to do. Since a healthy marriage requires effort by both the husband and the wife, it seems reasonable that he would encourage wives to be aggressively intimate. I wish Pastor Mark had cited 1 Corinthians 7 so that this argument was framed around scripture, rather than Mark Driscoll.
While Driscoll calls women to aspire to a physical intimacy with their husbands, he also in a later point calls men to an emotional intimacy with their wives. "Pastors must speak freely and frankly with their wives about their temptations. Without this there really can be no walking in the light and sin always grows in darkness."
Usually, I do not think that men have difficulty being physically intimate, and women do not have trouble being emotionally intimate. So he does hit both genders with advice on how to improve the intimacy in their marriage.
Anyway, this type teaching is what I really like about Pastor Mark. He calls us obey parts of the bible that would be widely ignored by the more cowardly preacher. He doesn't avoid the tough topics. He calls it as he sees it, and doesn't apologize for our culture's offense at God's Word.