Coptic Church Ordains Popular Protestant Pastor Brick Driscoll to the Priesthood: ‘The Youth Love Him… We Want to Get Kids Hyped Up for Church’
The critically acclaimed author of The 7 Ways to Achieve a Goal-Oriented Life and Protestant pastor Brick Driscoll recently announced his conversion to Coptic Orthodoxy. Within a week, the bishops had agreed to ordain him as a priest following the exclamations of a large number of parents.
“‘The youth love him!” said Tante Battoota, a doctor who has two teenagers. “We want to get kids hyped up for church.”
“He only teaches the Bible,” said Kiromina Girgis, also a doctor whose oldest daughter had gone to Protestant churches during her time in college. “And now my daughter is coming back to the Coptic Church because her favorite pastor has become a Coptic Orthodox priest.”
When the hegumen of the parish was asked by The Bateekha why the community did not decide on another eligible candidate who was a recent graduate of an Orthodox seminary, he responded "those graduates are not spiritual, all they care about is philosophizing and making things complicated, and they end up becoming heretics because they know too much. Pastor Brick teaches Christianity in a simple way which is more appealing to our youth. The youth don't need to hear about prayer, meditation and other traditional topics: they need pragmatic steps on how to balance the various aspects of their life and how to be happy."
Other members of the community are not so sure about this decision.
“Abouna has already gotten three people who have degrees in Orthodox Christian theology excommunicated,” said a graduate of the seminary who asked not to be named for fear of excommunication. “But they’re ordaining this loser who has written the book The 7 Ways to Achieve a Goal-Oriented Life.”
He continued, “His sermons are nothing but self-help motivational talks about how to achieve goals. He doesn’t teach about meditative prayer, or the vision of the Church as to how to see the world, ourselves, and each other. It is the type of talk fit for professionals who are struggling to balance their professional and personal lives.”
Another person challenged this seminarian asking, “What is not Orthodox in his sermons?” To which the seminarian replied, “Can you tell me what is?” to which the challenger could not answer.