Jesus Fucking Christ.

I don't like anyone trying to CONVERT me, be they Muslim, Buddhist, Rasta, or Flannel Burka wearing Hate filled little proto taliban motherfuckers.

Look. Jesus was cool. I get it. But these people are dangerous.

If you can point me towards a religious group in the history of the human race, who combined a misguided messaniac zeal with the persecution complex that these pierced lunatics have; and that has not turned into:

A) a standoff where law enforcement officers are killed

B) a standoff where crazed members of said cult are killed

C) a situation lending itself to ritualistic abuse or arranged marriage

I think you get the point.

You realize the only thing seperating these assholes from the radical Mormons is time???

I am not anti religion, I am not anti anything really, EXCEPT anti people who are anti things.

I don't expect that to have made sense to you, but if these Mars Hill Morons take over, we better hope to be able to get the fuck outta here.

It's gonna be "The Handmaid's Tale" in living color.

I turned off the computer, and went to bed, but then I got up to write this:

Pastor Driscoll and his Real Estate Guy Vice-Pastor may try to use this attention in an evil way. This article, with all our negative comments, is proof that Mars Hill is, at best, a questionable enterprise. Pastor Driscoll may try to use it as proof that the world wants to persecute Mars Hill.

Christianist bozos often welcome this sort of publicity. They try to use it to draw their people closer, and to increase their own influence, and to decrease the level of rational thought in their flocks. I particularly worry that Mars Hill members who were quoted or misquoted here might suffer. One of the best ways to snug up the herd is to single out and cull a "traitor."

Somebody out there, somebody in Seattle, will you please go to the Mars Hill service this Sunday, and see what the Reverend Mister Driscoll says about this in his sermon? And then, please somehow report back to Salon?

I went to that church after reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. Thinking I'd finally found a church where I could be a liberal and a Christian. I heard of the wonders of lesbians holding hands in church and people feeling welcome. What a wonderful thing, I thought. A church where no one is going to judge me because of the TV I watch, the music I listen to or the company I keep. But the problem is I scratched beneath the surface and I didn't like what I saw. I contacted one of the associate pastors at Imago Dei, to ask what the church actually believed. Because I was confused at the message I heard when I talked to some of the members, versus the marketing and the window-dressing. This is what he said.

"Just briefly, we do view homosexuality as a sin. So if that means you won't join our church...so be it. We just can't read Scripture and come away with another understanding. Rick preached a series on gender roles and sexuality issues last spring. You can download these sermons from our website. Go to "info" then "sermons." The dates for them are:

May 9th, 16th, and 30th, and June 6th (this one is out of order for some reason, b/t december sermons. It is on marriage: sacred vs. civil...I'm sure people left our church after this sermon).

These should give you a good idea of where we stand. I don't view this as a political deal. We are absolutely not about being political. We are about being Biblical. So we address sin. It's probably pointless to go on much further via email. Let me know if you'd like to get together and chat. I'd love to connect with you."

So that's that. The church welcomes homosexuals openly, actually courts them to some extent. The church welcomes all who may come and then beats them over the head with the same sin, damnation, fire an brimstone that other churches do. Just maybe in more subtle ways. In small groups. In Bible study. But make no mistake that the same fundamentalist theology is there.

The most striking thing about this exchange. Once I explain my concern with what I saw his answer was "if that means you won't join our church...so be it". Absolutely stunning. Don't believe exactly like we believe, go away. But you're allowed to be yourself here. Just so long as you all think the same way.

This movement freaks me out. At least megachurches aren't hypocritical and mask their message.

Do any of the men in this "church" do any housework, help with the kids, actually get their hands dirty with the real stuff of life? I left a church because of its sexism and narrowmindness. And I can help noticing that this fundamentalist Christian types almost always say that the woman's place is to submit, and have kids and please the Lord and her husband..... Yet the men never seem to help with the kids, wash up or iron. They are too busy doing God's work.

Why not volunteer? Go talk to your neighbor? Join a book club?

Why are people are so needy for community anyway? It feels like a dangerous, narcissistic impulse to me. "I want to belong to a huge group of people who have the same values, who live like I do, raise their children like I do, and who won't challenge me to grow and change as a person (unless some authoritative figure tells us god said so or we will burn in hell?)". I don't get it.

I understand loneliness, but aren't people better off with actual friends? Isn't this just another quick fix that actually makes things worse?

I bet these radical churches are full of people who have trouble finding and maintaining satisfying relationships with others (hence the need for this artificial community), who have a shaky sense of themselves (easily manipulated to radically change their belief system), and who, for whatever reason (depression, drugs, mental illness?), can't logically think of a way to solve their problems without submitting to some patriarchal answer god.

If so then they will surely implode soon enough.

Still, it begs the question, when will we evolve past this?

Shannon KH