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Those big pieces of paper destroy forests. The magic marker ink is toxic and will pollute our water. When will these losers wake up to... hello?...technology?? I always carry a TV sized iPad when I demonstrate at a protest.

@ 3. Thanks. Got that.

These poor ex-church members are like people protesting the Nigerian millionaire scam. Their posters should read "Obvious scam is a SCAM!!!" I'm not happy Driscoll abused their donations and emotional investment, and perhaps there some kids coming out of rough lives who can't really be blamed for not seeing what should be obvious. But any adult gullible enough to hook up with Driscoll's outfit is probably going to just fall in with another con man, if not him. Maybe Benny Hinn can heal their problems.

Hey now. You sheep can criticize your shepherd without vilifying those of us who don't play that game, aye?

"This past Sunday outside our building about 60 **professing** Christians led a protest, left a bit of trash, and slandered good men."

Why add the word 'professing'? For non believers: no church on earth decides who is or who is not a Christen no matter what their behavior.

Ephesians 1:4, 1: http://biblehub.com/ephesians/1-4.htm

Peter 1:20: http://biblehub.com/1_peter/1-20.htm

I want to have sympathy for the protesters but let's face some reality: they were willing participants in Mark Driscoll's misogynistic hate ridden bullshit from the pulpit. So what were they expecting from this cult leader?

We expected honesty, meaning, truth and beauty...hard line Biblical truth and respect for women. We expected our pastor to never abuse his power and not lie to us telling us people were "in sin" and to be shunned because they disagreed with them that he shouldn't have ultimate authority over all our lives. It wasn't obvious in the beginning because we wanted a church without white walls like a dentist office, where hymns could be radical and not mundane and where people could use their God given talents to bring others to worship Christ. We wanted history, context and culture taught with the text and we wanted someone who wouldn't mince words. In the beginning Mark had friends who were gay and they would debate from the Bible together over their differences and give EACH OTHER flack in the spirit of love. Walk a mile in our shoes and understand our betrayal. Men were talked to who were harsh to their wives. Now women are silenced and afraid to say anything. We wanted to prove that churh disn't have to be boring or a self help sermon by someone who got their message off the internet. We stayed praying for change and hoping leadership would steer the ship to safety. The prevailing thought when members are tossed overboard now, is "I'm glad it wasn't me."

@11 so you wanted a cult where the leader is nicer. If you're looking for sympathy I think you're in the wrong place. Try living your own life, those who profess to speak for magic sky man have no answers for you.

@12 Hahahaha. Word.

Referring to Mars Hill as a cult is a lazy and unproductive critique. It reveals nothing about why many people have left, why many people have stayed, and why many in both camps still feel a great deal of ambivalence about Mars Hill (and Christianity in general.) The situation is more about ethics than it is about the rationality of specific beliefs or some cognitive weakness in participants. Christianity's overwhelming ethical impulse is to believe that any thing and any person can be reformed. There's a lot of good things to say about that impulse, along with some spectacular examples of its limits and failures.

Referring to Mars Hill as a cult is accurate. Sorry that makes you uncomfortable.

Whether or not it's accurate doesn't change that it's lazy and unproductive (and boring.) Accuracy is a minimum standard for commentary, not the end of it.

Mars Hill will go down in flames - soon. It's starting to happen and it's way past time. This CULT is starting to become exposed and Driscoll is going to go down like rat bigot he is. He needs to be humiliated as well as dragged through the gutter. He needs to be shit on and ruined. His time is coming - it's nearer than he knows. Mars Hill is a cult full of bigots and they will ROT.

@16 No. It is neither "lazy" nor "unproductive" to call something what it is. It wasn't "lazy" for example when Time Magazine called Scientology the "Cult of Greed and Power," because that is exactly what Scientology has been and remains today. Nor was it "unproductive" for them to call Scientology a cult, because that label has helped untold others avoid it! Both Scientology and Mars Hill exemplify numerous characteristics of cults (authoritarian, cult speak, group think, suppression of dissent, use of guilt to manipulate members, and many, many more). Calling an organization which exhibits numerous signs of being a cult exactly what it is, is the right thing to do for everyone, whether you like it or not.

When 1 member say something not right than you might discount it but when there's a insider people should listen.For me there no man greater than God not even the POPE you know why they die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If it doesn't lead to additional inquiry, new information, or new angles for analysis, it's not productive.

The reasoning behind calling it a 'cult' is that the label is rhetorically powerful--that it's persuasive, in other words. My concern is that your rhetoric replaces substantive accusations and claims. When your rhetoric remains empty, you're either employing the tactics that you criticize here, or you aren't accomplishing what is supposed to be the basis for your actions. Who do you think you're persuading, in other words?

@21 Calling a duck a duck may not lead to "additional inquiry, new information, or new angles for analysis" but it is "productive" — because what the hell else would you call it?! Perhaps interestingly, in the case of Mars Hill, calling this cult a "cult" DOES lead to these things simply because people like yourself so far just can't bring themselves to admit this unpleasant but obvious and blatant fact. Once you do, you'll have plenty of "additional inquiry, new information, or new angles for analysis," believe me.

The duck isn't helping your case. If you cook a duck, do you fry it with the feathers on? Do you drain the blood? A duck's a duck, so throw the whole thing in, right? If I'm eating a duck, it makes a difference how long the duck has been dead for. Is the meat rancid? Did it die of disease? Calling a duck a duck dodges those important questions. If you're a biologist, you call a duck a duck at the expense of understanding it in its environment, the way it differs from other ducks, the structure and functions of its body, and on and on. If it's obvious that it's a duck, treat it as something obvious and move on to understanding it both systematically and specifically.

I've been critical of and followed the controversies of Mars Hill for the better part of a decade. You think you're exposing something by calling it a cult. You're not. You're concealing its unique pathology by shutting down further inquiry.

@23 You wrote, "You think you're exposing something by calling it a cult."

No, if I'd thought I were "exposing something" by calling Mars Hill a "cult," I wouldn't have used words like "obvious" and "blatant" when alluding to Mars Hill's cultish attributes. It is not necessary to "expose" that which can be clearly seen, but it is necessary to name things for what they obviously are.

You're right that Mars Hill has a "unique pathology" — each authoritarian, manipulative cult (and its swaggering leader) does. And you are free to "further inquire" about the "unique pathology" belonging to Mars Hill all you want. No one is stopping you.

Meanwhile, while you're mincing words in the course of your decade-long "inquiry," numerous others are more interested in naming Mars Hill for what it is — a dangerous cult that people would do well to steer clear of.

Driscoll and his codependent followers seem to possess all the typical traits of destructive narcissists.

Four dimensions of narcissism as a personality variable have been delineated: leadership/authority, superiority/arrogance, self-absorption/self-admiration, and exploitativeness/entitlement.[6]

Power-hungry narcissists typically display most, and sometimes all, of the following traits:

An obvious self-focus in interpersonal exchanges
Problems in sustaining satisfying relationships
A lack of psychological awareness (see insight in psychology and psychiatry, egosyntonic)
Difficulty with empathy
Problems distinguishing the self from others (see narcissism and boundaries)
Hypersensitivity to any insults or imagined insults (see criticism and narcissists, narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury)
Vulnerability to shame rather than guilt
Haughty body language
Flattery towards people who admire and affirm them (narcissistic supply)
Detesting those who do not admire them (narcissistic abuse)
Using other people without considering the cost of doing so
Pretending to be more important than they really are
Bragging (subtly but persistently) and exaggerating their achievements
Claiming to be an "expert" at many things
Inability to view the world from the perspective of other people
Denial of remorse and gratitude
Hotchkiss' seven deadly sins of narcissism
Hotchkiss identified what she called the seven deadly sins of narcissism:[8]

Shamelessness:
Shame is the feeling that lurks beneath all unhealthy narcissism, and the inability to process shame in healthy ways.

Magical thinking:
Narcissists see themselves as perfect, using distortion and illusion known as magical thinking. They also use projection to dump shame onto others.
Arrogance: A narcissist who is feeling deflated may reinflate by diminishing, debasing, or degrading somebody else.

Envy:
A narcissist may secure a sense of superiority in the face of another person's ability by using contempt to minimize the other person.

Entitlement:
Narcissists hold unreasonable expectations of particularly favorable treatment and automatic compliance because they consider themselves special. Failure to comply is considered an attack on their superiority, and the perpetrator is considered an "awkward" or "difficult" person. Defiance of their will is a narcissistic injury that can trigger narcissistic rage.

Exploitation:
Can take many forms but always involves the exploitation of others without regard for their feelings or interests. Often the other is in a subservient position where resistance would be difficult or even impossible. Sometimes the subservience is not so much real as assumed.

Bad boundaries:
Narcissists do not recognize that they have boundaries and that others are separate and are not extensions of themselves. Others either exist to meet their needs or may as well not exist at all. Those who provide narcissistic supply to the narcissist are treated as if they are part of the narcissist and are expected to live up to those expectations. In the mind of a narcissist there is no boundary between self and other.

The term "Cult" comes from the world "Culture." So you can only call a church a "Cult" if there is a culture of abuse, and there certainly is. You can listen to Mark's sermons, see his behavior, and conclude that those in leadership are supporting him. Look at "odd behaviors" and see that the church leaders support him no matter what he does, that is a cult. It will progress into more of a cult as Mark continues to do crazy things and the church allows it to happen. It is progressive and dangerous.