Mark Driscoll vs. Brian McLaren

Interesting. Mark Driscoll (who is considered 'emerging' by some) has just teed off on Brian McLaren over Brian's comments about homosexuality. This actually pertains to my earlier question about 'Where is the EM unashamedly bold?'. And I'm encouraged by Mark's response. Yes some people are in a dither about his tone. But at some point a guy has a right to say 'you guys are full of crap - stop waffling and call a spade a spade' and I think that's what Mark is doing here. And it's kind of a breath of fresh air actually...

Addendums:

• Andrew Jones (aka. Tall Skinny Kiwi) offers some nice insights into both Driscoll and McLaren. You should read what he says.
• There's another long discussion going on over here on Reformissionary.
• Here's a link to Mark Driscoll's blog, as well as a post that sheds light on how he sees himself fitting into the Emerging Movement.
• McLaren's response to Driscoll.
• Driscoll's very short-yet-pointed question back to McLaren.
• And then there's this summary by Tall Skinny Kiwi:
  

  Anyway, the subject is interesting. I have chatted to both guys on email this weekend and I can tell you that they are still good friends and will continue to respect each other. But they are VERY different from each other. They both mirror disparate characteristics of emerging culture, particularly as found in video gaming culture

  Mark Driscoll is the spontaneous, inituitive gamer who jumps guns blazing into a scene that he knows nothing about. But he is pressing all the buttons on his joystick at the same time and, like my son who masters video games in the same intuitive manner, very quickly finds his way around by the response he gets - either negative or positive. Hey - if you don't know how it works, just shoot everything in sight and see where the penalties come from! After a while you figure it out.

  Brian McLaren displays the other positive gamer characteristic which is the capacity to suspend completion of a game and endure mind-boggling lengths of time before arriving at the end. Some gamers have been working on Myst and Riven for nearly ten years and are still enjoying the discovery of the journey. They don't want to CHEAT and arrive early in case they miss essential things on the way. Brian could easily cancel the tension by coming out with his own statements of what he believes, but he doesn't want to rob people of the rich discovery process or the need for people to wrestle with deeper issues and arrive at a place themselves. Take his books - we still don't know where he is going to end up.

• To wrap this post up, there's a nice post-fight analysis by Jollyblogger that is worth reading.
• And last but not least, there's Driscoll's apology.