Mark Driscoll on pre-teen girl fiction
This is actually quite funny. Driscoll is preaching on the importance of exercising discernment in our entertainment, and he uses as an example a list from Amazon on the best pre-teen girl fiction for the summer reading. (He has a 13 year-old daughter.) Needless to say, he is not pleased (especially not with the Twilight series).
Posted on August 11, 2010, in Culture and tagged Culture, discernment, entertainment, Mark Driscoll, media, Twilight. Bookmark the permalink. 11 Comments.
scientia et sapientia 
Surprise, surprise. Driscoll is not pleased with something! 🙂
Funniest moment = Mark’s definition for “a spell.”
“A spell is when a witch puts a spell on you.”
Second funniest moment = Mark just learned about Twilight this week. I can’t wait until he reads the books.
I just loved watching his reactions to each one. Good stuff.
My wife and I were just talking about this clip. What is the difference between Twilight and Harry Potter? Or Twilight and the Lord of the Rings? Granted, Tolkien was a professing believer and Meyers is a Mormon. I have heard JK Rowling has claimed that her books have a Christian undertone and Harry is an archetype for Jesus. I agree we should be discerning in what our kids read, but we don’t see the distinction because they all have an element of sorcery. Thoughts?
I’m a big fan of LotR and fantasy in general, so I’m decidedly less concerned about the mere fact that a book deals with sorcery, wizardry, or other forms of magic. I’m much more interested in what it does with those elements and all of the other motifs in the book. My concerns with these books usually lies in other areas entirely. In the Harry Potter books, for example, I hate the way that they portray relationships between kids and adults. The kids are always getting themselves into trouble by not trusting the adults in their lives, but the books don’t make this obvious enough for many kids to catch. Instead, they see kids acting independently and having adventures (i.e. being stupid and causing unnecessary problems). If I were to go off on the Twilight books, which I won’t, it would be on how they portray teen relationships and what “love” is all about. I think those more “everyday” elements are far more influential and problematic than whether the book’s got vampires and werewolves.
I don’t have a problem with the books. I’ll even confess (go ahead Brian, take your shots) that MY WIFE and I own all the books in the Harry Potter and Twilight series……and the movies……and I liked them. I do agree, however, that all reading must be done with discernment. I”m with Marc on this. It’s not that the movies use magic or fantasy, but the worldview that they are trying to frame that is significant. By the way, I also own Braveheart and Gladiator.
My teenage students read these kinds of books. I think I’m going to try his reactions on them…
Yea Billy also told me he reads a teeny romance section of twilight before he goes to bed at night. I have seen the first twilight movie once. Guess who made me watch it… Billy Cash. My thing is I felt like Driscoll made a blanket statement about books with sorcery in them and if that is the criteria, then don’t LOTR and Narnia fit into that? Granted, I only saw the 10 min clip and he may have gone into more detail. Regardless, I thought the video was funny because I don’t like any of those books and Driscoll makes me laugh.
Billy, we are all saddened by your admission that you own and enjoy the Twilight books (putting “MY WIFE” in all caps is not enough to distract us from this fact). And, owning Braveheart and Gladiator isn’t enough to rectify the situation. Though we will not kick you out of the ThM program for this, you must now where a brown paper bag over your head at all ThM gatherings. Sorry, those are the rules.
Nathan, that’s a great idea. Let us know what kind of
response you get.
Daniel, I’m not sure what Mark would say to that. If he’s going to be consistent, he should at least put the Harry Potter books in the same category. I’ve heard some people try to argue that Tolkien and Lewis are different, but I tend to think that’s just bias. If you’re going to nix books with magic, be consistent and nix them all.
Mark has such an amazing view on being and living a Christ filled life. Yea he can go a little crazy sometime but we need that.
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