Like Church, But With Tattoos And Stuff
Why is it that all the of the really seductive ideas that are flowing out of Seattle right now and gaining currency around the country come from groups that we barely acknowledge the existence of, much less revere as city institutions? First, intelligent design has its fifteen minutes in the sun, and now Mars Hill is taking over the planet, at least according to Salon this week.
Mars Hill is a Ballard Megachurch which practices the kind of cultural imposterism that's been floating around forever and Salon tells us is on the rise. Dress yourself in the wolf's clothing, apparently, and you can make people swallow anything. They're ostensibly against consumerism and corporatism run amok, but, you know, why do anything about it if Kirk Cameron is going to come down from the sky and fuck shit up at any moment? Meanwhile, let's timewarp women back to the Fifties (which the Salon article talks a lot about) and de-gay all the gays (which the Salon article doesn't mention).
She made a great income heading up merchandising on tours, managed it well, enjoyed her freedom, and was confident and outspoken. Now she defines that behavior as prideful, even if she misses it. "Everything was great when my conversion happened. I was making money, I was about to take a trip to Mexico, I was totally in control of my life," she tells me. "My life is much harder, not easier, now that I'm a Christian," she says, clenching her teeth against Asher's droning whine. "We had originally planned not to have kids, but now we have to do our best to repopulate our city with Christians."Abolafya's conversion was a total surprise to her. She was a nonbeliever who accompanied her husband, Ari, to a service at Mars Hill -- he was curious to check out the "tattooed punk-rock church" he had heard about.
Wait, is this a cult?
Abolafya no longer reads secular books or speaks to her old friends, She is now a deacon at Mars Hill and is responsible for planning the weddings held there, which always include a biblical explanation of marriage and gender roles; each year Mars Hill averages about one hundred marriages between couples within the congregation, all of whom must agree with this doctrine. Between her marriage ministry, the women's Bible study she runs, her two small children, and taking care of her husband and her home, Abolafya says she doesn't have time for many relationships anyway, and when she starts to home-school her kids soon, her time will be even tighter. "It's not what I ever imagined," she tells me, "or even what I ever wanted, but it's my duty now, and I have to learn to live with that."
It is a cult!
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