Valerie Tarico parses Mark Driscoll on Haiti relief

I don't typically read the Huffington Post, but this article showed up in one of my Google Alerts a couple of weeks ago. Valerie Tarico presents herself as a former fundamentalist Christian; I don't know of what stripe or stream, apart from the fact that she attended Wheaton, partly because she considers Mark Driscoll a fundamentalist:

To my dismay, they were once again channeling the compassionate impulse into what is best described as self-promotion: promotion of the church, its pastor, Mark Driscoll, and the viral fundamentalist ideology that both serve.

Driscoll is a lot of things, but he isn't a Fundamentalist. He's Reformed.

That being said, and despite the tone of the article, I have to agree that Tarico is right to be critical of Driscoll:

By filtering and selecting Bible verses, Driscoll makes the case that God never meant for Christians to take care of poor, suffering people but rather poor suffering Christian people (and potential converts). " I challenge all thoughtful, biblically-minded Christians to find a single instance of the New Testament church filling the plates of the 'general population' poor." Cofounder of the site, James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel penned these words: "Children are crouching in shivering fear as people stand stunned and staring in disbelief at the remains of what they once called their home. The world is racing to help these people in unimaginable crisis, but who will help the church?"

When reading this article it's important to remember that Tarico wrote a book (published 2006) about this general topic. And also, that the question of whether the Church should feed the poor is (sadly) a topic about which reasonable people disagree. As best I can tell the whole question comes down to whether one believes Jesus called the poor His brethren in Matthew 25:40, or whether He is referring to His audience as His brethren. Personally I think it says a lot about a person that they'll strain at a comma to avoid feeding the poor.

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