Quantcast

Mars Hill Protest Scheduled For December

marshillgray.jpgA website entitled "People Against Fundamentalism" is setting up a direct action against the Seattle megachurch Mars Hill for December 3rd at 11am outside their Ballard campus to protest the preachings of Mars Hill pastor Mark Driscoll. There is a certain...passion to the website's descriptions of Mark and his attitudes towards women, as you can see here:

'Preaching' may be too staid of a term. He [Mark Driscoll] has been relishing in his misogyny, rolling around in it like a feline in catnip. His latest women-bashing came in a blog post about former pastor (and former head of the Christian umbrella organization National Association of Evangelicals) Ted Haggard's marital infidelity. As is typical with misogynists and other abusers, Mark blamed women for the terribly hard time pastors have controlling their sexual urges: "It is not uncommon to meet pastors' wives who really let themselves go..." The post makes for an interesting read; Helen, over at Conversation at the Edge dissected it well, so I won’t rehash it here.

The site goes on to further explain the motivations behind the direct action:

After standing by while Misogynist Mark beats up on women regularly, it is time for us to stand up for the oppressed. People Against Fundamentalism is sickened by the injustice preached from the Mars Hill pulpit. We are done standing by while Mark the Misogynist takes his misguided religion and hollows out the humanity, dignity, and equality of the women in our midst.

Here at Seattlest we hold Ariel Meadow Stalling's post about her Sunday in church to be the gospel on the subject of women's place at Mars Hill. Notice that at no point does she resort to name calling:

This was where it got deeply weird. The pastor read from the bible, and then explained that it didn't mean God-fearing women shouldn't speak — really, the passage only applied to "feminist women with an agenda." He went on for quite some time about how awful feminism is — it's not worth recounting, other than the part where he said "Women say they want to be treated like men, but then when we actually treat them like men they cry." Everyone laughed. It was awful.

Oh, and check out the slick new Mars Hill website. If you look in the Media Library there are a lot of sermons and such to download. Here's a Mother's Day sermon slamming career women.

(Thanks WS Blog)

Contact the author of this article or email tips@seattlest.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Dan in on November 13, 2006 9:35 AM

Comments [rss]

  • Jessi

    People have been trying to decode the bible since it's exsistance. As humans on earth, we are never going to be able to unmask all of what God is trying to say. So because of those imperfections in us, whether you're a preacher or a member, there is going to be error in translation. Protesting? That's a little extreme. If you don't like what you are hearing then there are two adult ways to deal with it. A. Don't go to that church. B.Arrange a meeting with the pastor to talk about what he is saying and how you and others are feeling about it. I just don't see why being a grown up about this is so difficult.

  • g.raf

    im digging the mars hill's responses on the blog. very great example of blind following. hmm, this makes me want to play the smash hit video game Lemmings.

  • I am a member of the United Church of Christ and I am proud that my church does not promote the hatred of sexism and homophobia as the teachings of Christ.

    Go suck on that.

  • kct

    Haha, OK. You guys arguing that he is not teaching correctly about Jesus is really ironic. This is a guy that knows his Bible inside and out. What are you extracting your knowledge from, American culture?

  • Oh on I can get this one.

    A: Because he is a sexist homophobic zealot who is perverting the peaceful teachings of Jesus to promote a hate filled destructive personal worldview.

    I am willing to bet that he has a secret Methdealer/Manwhore.

  • David Smith

    Why would anyone be so silly as to protest Mark for reading the Bible??

  • Well they are free to their own sexist homophobic radical right interpretations of the teaching of Christ and I am free to think that they are perverting my peace full religion of brotherhood and compassion. They have a right to say what they want and we have a right to speak out against human rights abuses and wars done in the name of radical religious factions. Female genital mutilation, Honor rapes, lynching take your pick.

  • Steph

    Mark Driscoll is a typical woman-fearing coward who's found a bit of power by pretending to know what God says. What a douche. I fully expect to read about his body being found in the dumpster out back of the Cuff one day.

  • Seth

    I'm sort of torn about this. Does it make sense to protest other peoples' beliefs? I mean, if Mars Hill showed up at the Stranger and protested their publication of sex ads, wouldn't we think they were a bunch of censors?

blog comments powered by Disqus
Home

send a tip

tips@seattlest.com

all our cities
one convenient app

available on the iPhone AppStore

about

staff / advertising / contact / archive

contribute