Mars Hill Protest Organizers Respond!

Court, I see where you're headed, but I think there's a big difference between speech and action. The civil rights movement wasn't about protesting people's viewpoints, it was about protesting truly appalling violations of people's constitutional rights. Driscoll isn't violating anyone's rights, he's simply exercising his own, and [cue John Cougar Mellencamp] I'm glad I live in a country where people are free to express their viewpoints, no matter how "dangerous" they are perceived to be. It's not a far jump from "protesting" Driscoll to actually banning Driscoll, and then hey presto we're living in Iran.

Howdy Paul:

Me and a buddy just filmed you at Mars Hill, after you called off the demonstration, 12-03-06. You were definitely a mild mannered person, but definitely holding back on how you felt about the issues. I was the radical, and you didn't bite, so good on ya for that. But you and me both know that Mars Hill will be the subject of some sort of neighborhood retribution, at least that's the word on the street. I am merely reporting this, not advocating anything.

Since I am a journalist, I talk to all the segments of Ballard society, and there are most assuredly some pissed off people out there. I am the publisher of Ballard's only newsletter, titled "Ballard Bullshit," and I will take all the heat from Hell, if it takes that, to expose this affront to my neighborhood. And if any of your blog readers would like to contact me, feel free, @ www.ballardbullshit.blogspot.c..., and I will publish the appropriate responses. Thanks tiger for the activism. (By the way, do you know who owns the red Mercedes, plate number LW3 467, who followed us to my apartment, and took photos? I just want to invite them in and listen to their poison. Thanks.)

Courtney et al.

There is a difference between "public campaigning" and the personally-held beliefs of a religious group. The difference is everything in this debate. Whether a preacherman says something outrageous like that men should supply their families' financial needs so that thier wives can work, but aren't required to, or something else outrageous like that the faithful shouldn't eat shimp, or mussels, or cheeseburgers, (Jews), or something else outrageous like that drinking the blood of a Gallelian will get you to heaven, no one has the right to be offended but the adherents of that religion. See?

Jews don’t eat cheeseburgers. Ever. Or, they’re not supposed to anyway, though I’m sure some of them must. Neither are they allowed ham (even on Easter!) or bacon even though they must be among God’s greatest gifts to mankind. This seems crazy to me for two reasons. 1) Dicks’ cheeseburgers are awesome; and 2) If God cares about anything--and he may care about many things ( politics, aesthetics, dress, behavior, theology, who knows?)-- surely dairy intake isn’t one of them. I mean, spirituality can be demonstrated in many ways, but cheese? Come on.

But that’s their belief and so I think, well, if I ever become a Jew I suppose I’ll have to give up cheeseburgers. Damn. Apparently, if you get good at being Jewish, you have to do something with your sideburns and something else with aluminum foil in your cupboards. Strange.

This is one metaphor which has helped me to think about my own responses to feminism and Christianity which was provoked by wholesale damnation of conservative theology. I mean to say that the beliefs decried in this forum are not exemplars of either hate or “right-wing evangelicalism,” but rather an inherited set of codes to which some of us have voluntarily subscribed.



Here’s another example: a new anthology of poetry was recently published called “Legitimate Dangers.” Next to the selections of poems are the usual short bios and photographs of the authors. One photo stands out though, in that it is of the back of a man’s head. Since he’s wearing a dark suit and hat, and since he’s not playing a prank (every other photo in the collection is serious and professional), I assume he’s a Mennonite, or some such thing. This will be important later.

My point in relating the above is that religions are engaged in some strange practices. Weird shit. Stuff that looks from the outside like madness. And yet.

I’m just tired of getting labeled a bigot every few weeks when someone from the outside of my tradition and belief system misreads it. The interpretation of Pastors Driscoll on issues of female priesthood and homosexuality sound, through some reporting, like sexism and intolerance, a lack of “relevance to the dominant culture of their city,” but they’re not as radical as that.

They are traditional, as in, preservers of the tradition. How is it that when Catholics, Muslims, Hassidics, et al. outline rules for entering the priesthood they’re seen as keepers of a beautiful history and when a Protestant (like Mark Driscoll) maintains a position that Protestant churches have held more or less since Martin Luther, he’s a chauvinist?

At the UW, both of my professors are women, as is the chair of my department, as is the dean of my graduate program, and the dean above her. I respect (most of) them immensely. So too with, our senators and of course, our governor, and with any luck our next president. That said, I won’t attend a church with a woman pastor. This is not because I don’t respect women; it’s because I think of the church as something received, which isn’t ours to mess with. If the Bible, together with the theologians I respect, and together with around 1900 years of tradition said that only redheads could pastor the church I’d be fine with that, too. Again, the rules are arcane (that’s part of the point) and may even be arbitrary (the Dhali Lama was chosen by being the first toddler to point at a particular pair of false teeth) but they are ours and it doesn’t mean that we hate you because we respect them.

(even this lengthy response is reductionist; it has to be. There are obviously many ways of doing Christianity, and this is just one representative)

I take the position to be something like this: “You guys do what you want; we’ll love you anyways, but we (Christians) are not going to be gay together (nor ordain women, much as we love and respect them) and if you want to join, you shouldn’t either because that’s part of our religion. No bacon for Jews. No school-pictures for Mennonites. No “boy-on-boy sex” (or women pastors) for traditional Christians. It doesn’t follow from this belief that Christians hate gays anymore than it would that Jews hate dairy farmers-- it’s just something disallowed by their religious system.

To fight them (us?) there, on an inherited set of codes doesn’t make any more sense and is as callous as it would be to go to a Mennonite community, break thier plows, and snap a bunch of photos of them shouting “Wake up! You’re in the 21st century!” See? Of course it looks weird to you. It is. Those Jewish sideburns, or the Muslim burkhas, look funny to me, but part of living in a real city is learning to get past it, learning not to insist on a hegemony of belief that says all groups, religious or otherwise, must eat, live, believe, date, work, and worship the same way you do.

OK Seth, that's fair and in principal I agree with you. However, tell me an organization you "tolerate" that publicly campaigns that you're inferior simply for being who you are. I'm trying to avoid flaming feminist "well it's easy to feel that way as a well-educated, white man" baiting, but I do hope you see my point. There have been "certain societal viewpoints" over this country's history that we've decided aren't so hot, like say Separate But Equal, and those viewpoints were eventually overturned only after they became the subject of heated protests. No, I'm not directly equating a Mars Hill protest with the Civil Rights movement, but on a small scale the analogy is there.

Where does tolerating intolerant people get us in the long run? Still, I don't think protesting in this case is the right way to go.

I'm not a fan of this approach because it suggests that if you don't hew to a certain societal viewpoint, you are going to get protested. I don't want to live in a place like that.

I think they should call it what it really is, a Mark Driscoll protest. They seem to be more after the man than the church (though I'm sure many will aruge that man IS the Mars Hill church). I'm not really a fan of this approach more because it fans their fire, see "intentionally scandalous" and "part of a cosmic struggle" above.

Ignore them. Yes, Mark Driscoll is a sexist idiot. And so yes, you are giving him the publicity he wants and feeds of off, to further rage against from his pulpit. Because those who oppose him, oppose God, you see. And in the end, that's the viewpoint he'll get across to the people not willing or interested in hearing the details buried beneath the vitriol.

I'm with haterhater. What happened to religious tolerance?

Can someone please explain to me how this protest is anything more than good, old-fashioned RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION, without using a string of invectives, if possible? They believe something that we find stange/backward, and so we're going to disrupt their right to peaceable worship? Have I got that right? And the following Sunday we'll protest at the orthodox Jewish synagogue, yes? (they don't ordain women either). And then?

Oh Courtney, in describing fundamentalism, you described the cult of Slog commenters.

I mean, honestly, those rules are so vague that any group with a we're-right-you're-wrong segment is fundamentalists. IOW, most of the Internet.

And the point about Swaggart ISN'T the bad PR. Swaggart is a Pentecostal. MH is Reformed. Oil. Water.

But think of it this way: Swaggart spent most of the 80s railing against the EEVL popular culture and DEVIL records. Driscoll rails against the EEVL popular culture and DEVIL mainline churches.

I know how easy it is to just shove anyone willing to admit they're not religious into the same EEVL FUNDAMENTALIST box, but Mars Hill is not fundamentalist.

It's a cult.

I'm no longer a member.

Being a of Mars Hill and attending about 2 years I can't say the main "serious" thing I notice is the 'feminist issues'. It did rub me the wrong way when I first attended if you listen just once or twice but when you get the full text of what he meant to say, it's really not the issue .. he's talking about the nature of women and how God design it to be ideally and giving grace to women to be themselves.

To know the real issues at hand I think you'd have to be a member for some time. I think the church in general has good intentions but things get a little out of hand and become cult like behaviors. I'm not saying the doctrine is cult like but the actions they portray.

Examples; unwritten rules of dating that are highly suggested to follow and getting extreme isolation if you don't, over possesses elders in several areas to monitor you and inappropriate questions during church discipline, idolizing the Pastor, shallow relationships among peers, men seriously thinking if you drink it makes you a man because the Pastor talks about it a lot, pressures couples to marry quickly in about 3 months of 'courting' (and that topic goes on and on), poor leadership ratio to those extremely in need and depressed with thoughts of suicide (on a several occasion of people I know of personally who tried reaching out to leadership), excessive drinking at most gatherings, "being one of US" treatment and exclusion of those who are not members or disagree, controlling or stopping your freedom of speech about concerns on member blogging forms, letting predators of women be ushers and teachers, friends will shun you if you don't follow the 'rules' and worship although very trendy the only time I experienced real worship (where you felt Gods presence ) was at a pastors conference they held.

Andy, it is true, I only quoted Wikipedia, but there's plenty of other sources I could quote that refute essentially the same conclusion: Fundamentalism in general hinges on an emphasis on doctrinal conformity. (Tim O seems to add weight to that conclusion, that Mark Driscoll speaks "the honest words of the very Holy Bible" and "the bold truth...of God Almighty.") Fundamentalism is a rejection of modern thinking and morals that have gone amiss, and includes "a proclamation of reclaimed authority over a sacred tradition which is to be reinstated as an antidote for a society that has strayed from its cultural moorings." (Jeffrey K. Hadden and Anson Shupe). When you look at it this way, Mars Hill aligns with that approach (and even more interestingly, with other non-Western "fundamental" religions that we Americans seem to revile so thoroughly.) If you'd like something perhaps more scholarly than Wikipedia, I suggest checking out the American Academy of Arts and Sciences "Fundamentalist Project" which yielded a series of books on the topic. That project identified a set of identifying similarities (or "family resemblances") amongst Fundamentalist organizations worldwide:

1. religious idealism as basis for personal and communal identity;

2. fundamentalists understand truth to be revealed and unified;

3. it is intentionally scandalous;

4. fundamentalists envision themselves as part of a cosmic struggle;

5. they seize on historical moments and reinterpret them in light of this cosmic struggle;

6. they demonize their opposition and are reactionary;

7. fundamentalists are selective in what parts of their tradition and heritage they stress;

8. they are led by males;

9. they envy modernist cultural hegemony and try to overturn the distribution of power.

1. an elect or chosen membership;

2. sharp group boundaries;

3. charismatic authoritarian leaders; and

4. mandated behavioral requirements.

Lastly, just because women might attend Mars Hill does not in any way mean that the church isn't deeply sexist. The mormon church has a distinct history of clearly putting women in a subjugated position, but its elegant methods keep the women coming back every week and believing what they are told.

As someone who has gone to Mars Hill for a couple years, I can say without reservation that what Pastor Mark Driscoll teaches from the pulpit are the honest words of the very Holy Bible.

Probably the people who think they have a problem with Mark really should look to the Bible and see that they have a problem with God's 66 books in the Holy Bible. Don't shoot the messenger: he's right on and fair. Just so you'll know, he appropriately holds men, as I am, to a very high level of responsibility and to love their spouses as Christ loved the church.

I would say that the real issues be taken up with God, not man. Learn what God says.

Throughout history anyone (Jesus, Paul, John the Babtist, Isaiah, etc., etc.) who spoke the bold truth (as Mark Driscoll does) of God Almighty will force people to decide which side of God they are on. Mark speaks bold, honest, Biblical truth; therefore, those who oppose him are most likely not in harmony with God.

Res ipsa loquiter.

I am amazed that someone is using Wikipedia as the sole source for an arguement. You don't even know who has edited or made that article or what their agenda is, you need to a wide source, whatever happened to reading books! (I do sound old). I think refer to someone as a fundamentalist is sensational because of the associations with terrorism. Fundamental religion has now become a bad phrase but you wouldn't say that of someone who is fundamental footballer, that would mean someone who is good at the basics, sticks to what they know, this is just a thought I have had recently.

I am not going to say whether Driscoll is right or wrong but please lets deal with the issue seriously, using broad sources of information, if people have been hurt by this ministry then something clearly needs to be looked at. If 5,000 people go to the church there must be some women who agree with it. It would be interesting to hear their view, though I am sure some would acuse them of being brainwashed.

I just wanted to let you know about a group I started on MySpace which has a very similar theme. It is called People of Faith Against Mars Hill. Check it out here... http://groups.myspace.com/peopleoffaithagainstmarshillchurch And if you have a MySpace, join the group!

Actually, Courtney, you're both right and wrong. You're using the classical definition of Christian fundamentalism (aka the Five Fundamentals), but that definition is from 1910. And while Mars Hill may fit with classical fundamentalism, it doesn't fit with modern fundamentalism because the church's roots are in Reformed theology, which shuns both the dispensationalism of modern fundamentalism and the anti-intellectual nature of populist fundamentalism.

The classical definition of fundamentalism includes a pretty broad range of people, some of whom wouldn't be considered fundamentalists today (Billy Graham, e.g., or even some of the early founders of fundamentalism). For that matter, a vast majority of the American Protestant church holds to four of the five classical fundamentals (only rejecting the "inerrancy" of Scripture).

So, yes, they're fundamentalists. But they're not fundamentalists in the Jimmy Swaggart. Mars Hill is part of a growing neo-Reformed movement. They wouldn't be caught dead in the same room as a Pentecostal like Swaggart.

I continue to be perplexed by how people in this town can't explain the difference between evangelical, fundamentalist, and Reformed, or the differences between any two religions for that matter. You need to understand where Mars Hill is coming from before you can attempt to deconstruct them.

I'm having a hard time understanding how Mars Hill cannot be described as a Fundamentalist church. Just because they may be savvy enough not to market the church and its leadership as such doesn't mean they don't align with the general belief structure of other fundamentalists.

To wit, from Wikipedia:

It is important to distinguish between the "literalist" and Fundamentalist groups within the Christian community. Literalists, as the name indicates, hold that the Bible should be taken literally in every part. English language Bibles are themselves usually translations and therefore not a literal word-for-word rendering of the original texts; the King James Version is a notable exception, which while poetic, uses arcane language. Literalism can also encompass only believing one translation of the Bible, usually the KJV, is valid for use.

Many Christian Fundamentalists, on the other hand, are for the most part content to hold that the Bible should be taken literally only where there is no indication to the contrary. As William Jennings Bryan put it, in response to Clarence Darrow's questioning during the Scopes Trial (1925):

"I believe that everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there; some of the Bible is given illustratively. For instance: 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' I would not insist that man was actually salt, or that he had flesh of salt, but it is used in the sense of salt as saving God's people."

Nevertheless, they typically believe that it is the church's obligation to understand the Scriptures, so far as that is possible, to believe what they say, and to act accordingly.

And then directly from the Mars Hill website, in their "What We Believe" section:

the scriptures

We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the verbally inspired word of God, the final authority for faith and life, inerrant in the original writings, infallible and God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16, 17; 2 Peter 1:20,21; Matthew 5:18; John 16:12,13).

If you're still not convinced, here's a section from Wikipedia's entry on evangelicalism, cross-referencing Fundamentalism:

The Fundamentalist Movement was a conservative Protestant response in the USA to liberal trends in their churches. It was a movement to preserve what they saw as being a minimum orthodoxy, a fundamental Christianity, over against the liberals' abandonment of such basic features of a traditional understanding of the faith as, the inerrancy of the Bible, the virgin birth of Christ, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the authenticity of his miracles, and the belief that his death on the cross takes away sins. This defense of fundamental Christian tradition was called Fundamentalism, though in fact it was little more than orthodoxy as found in the official statements of faith of Protestant denominations.

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God became man without ceasing to be God, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary, in order that He might reveal God and redeem sinful man (John 1:1,2,14; Luke 1:35). We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished our redemption through His death on the cross as a representative, vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice; and that our justification is made sure by His literal, physical resurrection from the dead (Romans 3:24; 1 Peter 2:24; Ephesians 1:7; 1 Peter 1:3-5).

Say what you will, but I think calling him a fundamentalist is a little overboard. Yes he strongly states his opinion on women and their place in the church and house, but this is not fundamentalism.

If you want to see Christian fundamentalism and how much scarier that is than this you should watch the documentry "Jesus Camp" Now that's scary and shows what can happen when any religion is taken to a fundamentalist viewpoint.

Mars Hill is not fundamentalism, that's my only point.

Get 'em PAF!!!