Like Church, But With Tattoos And Stuff

There was a post a couple of days ago on the (occasionally drama-ridden) Seattle Livejournal Community, Putting the Fun in Seattle Fundamentalism. It spawned some mostly good discussion, including some oddball dissent from church members.

There's also a post directly following it from a person who described herself as the manager of the Paradox, in which she declares that the Church has zero impact or presence (aside from the obvious juxtaposition) in the club. Dunno about that.

I think the main question isn't whether it's a cult, but whether it's a fundamentalist church – and if it is, what to do about it. Former president Jimmy Carter has a great definition of Fundamentalism in his book, Our Endangered Values:

<ul><li>Almost invariably, fundamentalist movements are led by authoritarian males who consider themselves to be superior to others and, within religious groups, have an overwhelming commitment to subjugate women and to dominate their fellow believers.</li><li>Although fundamentalists usually believe that the past is better than the present, they retain certain self-beneficial aspects of both their historic religious beliefs and of the modern world.</li><li>Fundamentalists draw clear distinctions between themselves, as true believers, and others, convinced that they are right and that anyone who contradicts them is ignorant and possibly evil.</li><li>Fundamentalists are militant in fighting against any challenge to their beliefs. They are often angry and sometimes resort to verbal or even physical abuse against those who interfere with the implementation of their agenda.</li><li>Fundamentalists tend to make their self-definition increasingly narrow and restricted, to isolate themselves, to demagogue emotional issues, and to view change, cooperation, negotiation, and other efforts to resolve differences as signs of weakness.</li></ul>To summarize, there are three words that characterize this brand of fundamentalism: rigidity, domination, and exclusion.

Church sucks.

From the Salon article: "'We are in a city with less children per capita than any city but San Francisco,' he declares, 'and we consider it our personal mission to turn that around.'"

How can anyone who has sat in traffic on a Friday evening, or paid any attention to the massive Artic icecaps breaking free and the increase in hurricanes look around and say that what the world needs is more people?

Interested observers may wish to note that MH is NOT just a "Ballard" megachurch. It's expanding, with a Shoreline location and a soon-to-open (as we've been following on WS Blog) West Seattle location.

The whole part about "we have to do our best to repopulate our city with Christians" is pretty scary. Hopefully those kids will do what kids do best ... rebel against their parents and question their world rather than accept it wholeheartedly like a robot.

I was pretty suspicious of the Salon article; it smacked of sensationalism. But based on the comments above, perhaps it's not far from the truth. I dunno, I guess you just expect a church pressuring its members like that to exist somewhere in West Texas, not Ballard.

Yeah, I've been to service at Mars Hill. I went a few times and then it started getting weird. The person I went with stopped talking to me when I stopped going. I am very wary about that church.

This is from one of wikipedia's many definitions of "cult":

"A cult is a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g. isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgement, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of [consequences of] leaving it, etc) designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community."

And the way the Salon.com portrays Mars Hill in this article seems reminiscient of that, particularly with regards to the isolation of the faithfull from the non.

Consumerism and corporatism indeed: you have to click on an Acura advert just to read the damn Salon article. Mars Hill, sign me up! (just kidding)

Seriously though, I fail to see how Christians having tatoos and the like equate with "cultural imposterism." People from all walks of life have been drawn to organized religion; this is nothing new.

Perhaps you were being tongue-in-cheek, but it's also unfair to pigeonhole a whole church as a cult because of one attendee's life choices (that whole non-secular book thing is pretty creepy). If Mars Hill wouldn't let the lady leave the church, that would be a cult.

Oooh--I went on a date with a girl who was in this thing. She said it was a cult and they tried to get you to stop talking to your friends. Weird!

Oh, yeah. That sounds like a recipe for long-term success. Unfortunately, it probably won't be until she pops out the third or fourth kid in five or six years time that she really starts getting in touch with that niggling little voice in the back of her head that keeps telling her maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.