Could someone please show me in the Bible where it says that a woman should not work outside of the home? Or that women are restricted to bearing and rearing children and cleaning their homes, while their husbands "bring home the bacon"? This attempt to put women back into a box is the same as bringing back slavery. Also, as a married woman with no children, I know that my husband and I could not afford to live comfortably solely on his income. With high gas prices, mortgage payments, etc., I don't see how families can live on one income, unless that male breadwinner is earning a whole lot of $$$ or inherited money from wealthy relatives.

I don't begrudge Mars Hill Church its conservative philosophy - just wish it emphasized Jesus' love rather than an old-fashioned, authoritarian, unrealistic and very restrictive view of women's roles.

"I know, I know, many of you are so full of rage and angst and self-whatever that you just can't get around the idea of someone loving God, being a deciple of Jesus and not being a jerk or a clone of Jerry Falwell. But they exist."

No, I think it is usually rage or disillusionment that drives people to accept foolish religions. Go back in history, and just about any subscriber to such crazy beliefs fits the bill.

I'm all about your freedom and willingness to believe in God or gods, more specifically to have a personal relationship with whomsoever you think is your creator. But when you subscribe to moronic, supernatural, irrational fairy tales and attempt to legislate your beliefs into the laws of my country - where freedom of religion is the same as freedom from religion - then I have a problem with you.

So by all means, continue evangelizing to junkies, alcoholics, criminals, et. al if you think that this will help them set their lives straight and respect the rights of others to live in peace. But when you can't resist evangelizing to those of us who know better, and accusing us of being angry and elitist (the great hypocrisy of religionists) you not only render deaf the ears to which you scream your love for god, you also prove yourself to be an irrational human being - one whose decision making ability I would never trust in a position of power.

As stated before: organised religion has proven itself time and time again to be the scourge of humanity, and a sure ticket to power grabs, oppression and warfare - in contradiction to what it preaches.

I’ll let others argue about the denigration of women and the Book of Revelations and letting adults make their own choices. Pastor Driscoll and his congregants seem to be decent fellows who may have a world view I don’t share but otherwise aren’t hurting anyone, at least no more than the Amish or the Hasidim. I’m sure that for many people the experience of Mars Hill is a deeply gratifying one that fills a spiritual and communal need that often goes unaddressed in the modern American consumer society. If they can find a way to be happy with their Jesus and get nose rings and drink beer, more power to them. But to use Mr. Deitz’a phrase, “this is as far as it goes”. They can be conversant in pop culture and get tattoos and believe that ever single word in the Bible is literally true and hell they can breed like rats as well, that’s their business. But here’s where my ears pricked up.

“The way Driscoll sees it, the more babies his conservative Christian congregation can produce in this child-poor city, the more they can redirect local politics, public education, and culture in one of the liberal capitals of the world.”

This is all well and good until they start wanting to change the laws and the textbooks in the schools to reflect their religion, and all of a sudden it does matter what’s on my IPod, because they want to censor it. I have no problem with people of deeply held faith retreating from my secular world; I get nervous when they want to start fixing things.

What seems to escape many evangelical men is that the Apostle Paul's discourse on submission of wives isn't the only biblical teaching on the marital relationship or behavior of women. The Apostle Peter wrote the following on wife battering.

"Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers."

Because there's an implied threat involved--hindering of prayers--Peter's teaching appears to carry more weight than Paul's. And yet, fundamentist doctrine consistently emphasizes teachings on submission of wives, but never on wife battering.

Even Paul, in his letter to Timothy, lamented "weak-willed" women as being vulnerable to heresies. If women were not to be weak willed, then surely Paul intended them to be strong willed. And I can't imagine how anyone could read Proverbs 31 and conclude that a woman's sole function is in the home or that a man should be the sole breadwinner.

With all the egalitarian Christian doctrine available in the New Testament, I find it disturbing that a Christian movement would focus on modifying the behavior of women, while ignoring the behavior of men. Fundamentalists may claim to take the Bible literally, but such patriarchal ideas have their roots in testicle, not testament.

The primary difficulty with the "wives submit to your husbands" wording is that it is RARELY read with the verse that appears directly before it. In the Christian scripture, Ephesians 5.21 says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." Submitting our adult selves to one another out of gratitude/reverence/love is an entirely different beast than "wives, submit to your husbands." (Eph. 5.22.)

Additionally, that chapter (Eph. 5) also includes the command for husbands to love their wives, "just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." To me, this means the husband is actually commanded to give himself up for (submit himself to/die for) the wife. Not if it should become necessary, or if he feels like it, but that it will be done as a part of his devotion to Christ.

Not a popular reading of this chapter, maybe, but one that helps me stay in love with the Christian scripture and continue to truly adore being a woman.