How to Reject Your Daughter's Date for Her and Then Take Her Out

Things I don't do that Pastor Mark Driscoll of Seattle's Mars Hill Church likes to do and tells men they need to do:

• Give all my money to my church
• Give all my money to his church
• Go huntin'
• Watch sports, in a manly fashion (well, I used to. But lately, not so thrilled at the prospect of cheering on multimillionaires in tights. Unless that multimillionaire is Batman)
• Be really into MMA
• Be at all into MMA
• Put my women in their rightful place: the kitchen.
• Tell women that they better keep their shape up or I may have to have a homosexual affair
• Bully
• Openly tease anybody that I see as less-than-ideal manly and then covering myself up by saying I was only joking. Har har.
• Be as homophobic as possible without dragging gay men through town behind my pickup
• Spiritually abuse
• Control my family and our fun time
• Tell third world countries that they aren't as blessed by God because God's got other plans for them or some such horrible idea that's really a very weak cover for White Supremacy and American Nationalism
• Make documentaries about my leadership in my church and then talk about how it was really God who built my church, all the while emphasizing my exceptional leadership skills.

So, I was pretty excited when I found there was something I could have in common with this bro-in-Christ, right? I mean, in some way we gotta be connected. The opportunity arose, I thought, with the pop-Christian-cultural arrival of the #DaddyDaughterDate. You know, stuff that real men do with their real daughters (if they have one or more, as I do) all the time.

The idea of fathers separating and devoting special time for their children, let alone their daughters is something that I have long noticed was lacking, of course, especially in pastoral homes (there are several reasons for this. But it seems to be a fundamental problem of priorities and leadership in the way that churches run business. Too much involvement from too few...). Especially of the brand of Christianity that Driscoll more-or-less represents.

It's nothing new, of course. My four year old and I do it all the time. There's nothing that could be construed as misogynistic, paternalistic, or Freudalistically creepy in this right?

But then...

@adam_bishopAdam Bishop

RT @PastorMark: Dear fathers, if your daughter is dating a loser, feel free to dump him for her and take her out yourself/ great advice.

21 Dec via Twitter for iPhone

Seriously???

Gross.