{"id":3482,"date":"2012-04-17T05:00:36","date_gmt":"2012-04-17T11:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=3482"},"modified":"2012-04-16T23:54:59","modified_gmt":"2012-04-17T05:54:59","slug":"driscoll-the-lu-kerfuffle-failure-to-communicate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=3482","title":{"rendered":"Driscoll, the LU Kerfuffle & Failure to Communicate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cWhat we\u2019ve got here is (a) failure to communicate.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/span> These words, first spoken by American character actor Strother Martin\u00a0in the 1967 Paul Newman film, Cool Hand Luke, might best describe the two (or more) sides in the curious case of Ergun\u00a0Caner.<\/em> (Ergun\u00a0Caner Defenders: Failure to Communicate<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Less than two years after I first wrote that post, Liberty University once again finds itself\u00a0as a leading actor\u00a0in another drama. Like the earlier story,\u00a0the current\u00a0show also has a star who always receives top billing: Mark Driscoll, the controversial pastor of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church.<\/p>\n

Funnily enough, this drama also involves a “failure to communicate.” <\/em>It’s amazing how otherwise intelligent people\u00a0seem to lack basic reading comprehension skills, thus causing them to misfire in their written communications.\u00a0Usually these “misfires”<\/em> are unintentional. However, sometimes after reading the communications in question, the only conclusion that one can\u00a0make is that one of the parties appears to be intentionally misfiring.<\/p>\n

From the inept, poorly written response from LU’s General Counsel (here<\/a>)\u00a0to Peter Lumpkins’ initial reporting of a Trustees’ vote (here<\/a>)\u00a0to the Clintonesque public announcement posted on the University’s website (here<\/a>), the misfires keep coming. However, not to be outdone, the star of this drama, Mark Driscoll, has finally weighed in on what he calls “The Kerfuffle.” <\/em>And, after reading\u00a0Pastor Driscoll’s response (here<\/a>), it’s apparent that\u00a0he also\u00a0badly misfires.<\/p>\n

But, to give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he was poorly briefed about “The Kerfuffle”<\/em> by his community relations manager:<\/p>\n

“So, I asked our community relations manager, who gets to enjoy reading blogs about me while eating breakfast every day (it\u2019s amazing he holds anything down), to give me a summary of this kerfuffle.” (An Official Response to The Kerfuffle at Liberty University<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Much like\u00a0fellow megachurch\u00a0pastor Ed Young,\u00a0Jr.’s “Pastor Fashion” website<\/a>, I really do not know if this was meant to be parody or whether, in fact,\u00a0Driscoll\/Mars Hill\u00a0actually employs a community relations manager that\u00a0Mark Driscoll\u00a0(or the church) pays to read blogs about himself and report back his findings. Assuming this is not some sort of joke, then this unnamed community relations manager does not appear to\u00a0have a\u00a0basic grasp of the English language. That, in itself, is problematic, given that this would seem to be a prerequisite for his job.<\/p>\n

Based on\u00a0the “summary of this kerfuffle”<\/em> that the community relations manager gave to Driscoll, the leader of Mars Hill\u00a0made this\u00a0astute observation:<\/p>\n

“The trouble started with a Southern Baptist blogger . . . yes, you should have seen that one coming.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Actually, the trouble started when Liberty University invited Mark Driscoll to speak to their students on campus <\/a>and to hold a\u00a0“Real Marriage”<\/em>\u00a0Conference, but I digress. Beyond that obvious misfire, what does\u00a0Pastor Driscoll mean\u00a0when he\u00a0specifically describes the blogger in question as “a Southern Baptist”<\/em> and then comments, “yes, you should have seen that one coming”<\/em>? Is\u00a0the problem with\u00a0Southern Baptists\u00a0who are bloggers or just bloggers in general? Well, given that he cannot control\u00a0all bloggers, including some formerly associated with Mars Hill<\/a>, I think the answer is self-evident. However, if he was concerned about bloggers in general, then\u00a0I don’t understand\u00a0why he wanted to make sure his readers knew that it was a Southern Baptist<\/strong> blogger\u00a0who was causing all these problems.<\/p>\n

Mark Driscoll’s misfire\u00a0on where the trouble started is rather minor compared to his major misfire\u00a0of misrepresenting the number of sources that Mr. Lumpkins used for his story. For someone who boasts about having\u00a0“a degree from Washington State\u2019s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication and (who) worked professionally as a journalist,” <\/em>I’m not sure that Driscoll got his money’s worth at his alma mater. If he did, then he would be able to read and comprehend\u00a0that Mr. Lumpkins had more than one source for his initial post. As Lumpkins wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“Sources<\/strong><\/span> say trustees took a vote, and the vote was unanimous indicating that Mark Driscoll is not welcome at Liberty University.” (emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t know what\u00a0basic grammar standards are being taught in Seattle, but\u00a0most places understand that “sources”<\/em> is plural, which means that there is more than one source. However, Mark Driscoll, not once, but four times, uses the singular “source”<\/em>\u00a0in an apparently mocking (and\u00a0clearly wrong) way\u00a0to try to discredit Mr. Lumpkins’ reporting:<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now, to be fair, the blogger quoted an anonymous \u201csource.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This particular blogger\u2019s anonymous “source”<\/strong><\/span> says . . .<\/p>\n

The source<\/strong><\/span> said that two motions were presented and voted on.<\/p>\n

Despite the rock-solid credibility of the blogger\u2019s anonymous \u201csource,\u201d<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps Mr. Driscoll was misinformed by his community relations manager. Of course, the buck is supposed to stop at the leader’s desk.\u00a0In any event, the old maxim is clearly in play: “If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.”<\/em>\u00a0In this case, no matter how many times that Mark Driscoll or\u00a0others repeat it, Peter Lumpkins had multiple sources for his reporting, including\u00a0a subsequent source —\u00a0a longtime Trustee —\u00a0who, unsolicited, confirmed the substance of the\u00a0reporting<\/a> that was based on the original\u00a0anonymous sourceS. There\u00a0is indeed a “failure to communicate,”<\/em> but that failure begins and ends in Seattle and Lynchburg!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve got here is (a) failure to communicate.\u201d\u00a0 These words, first spoken by American character actor Strother Martin\u00a0in the 1967 Paul Newman film, Cool Hand Luke, might best describe the two (or more) sides in the curious case of Ergun\u00a0Caner. (Ergun\u00a0Caner Defenders: Failure to Communicate) Less than two years after I first wrote that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,8,1681,35],"tags":[1936,112,1934,1930,3376,1929,1928,1935,606,1903,1911,3404,1855,1840,775,1932,1933,918,1931],"class_list":["post-3482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-christianity","category-mark-driscoll","category-religion","tag-anonymous-sources","tag-baptist-bloggers","tag-bloggers","tag-cool-hand-luke","tag-ergun-caner","tag-failure-to-communicate","tag-kerfuffle","tag-liberty-trustees","tag-liberty-university","tag-lu","tag-lynchburg","tag-mark-driscoll","tag-mars-hill","tag-mars-hill-seattle","tag-peter-lumpkins","tag-real-marriage-conference","tag-seattle","tag-southern-baptist","tag-strother-martin"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-Ua","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3482"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3495,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3482\/revisions\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}