Oh wow - just keeps getting worse

That Ballard location would be great as a music venue. Or weed store.

@1 - Worse?

This celebration of asininity is just getting good. Hope I don't run out of popcorn.

So hey where's all that Jesus Fest money, anyway?

@3

Exactly. Go get a new popcorn machine. Talking about Mars Hill is the best possible thing I can think of. Playing on a swingset? Nah, talking about Driscoll is better. Taking a ferry ride? No way, talking about this shitty cult is really good for my health. Let's hope The Stranger continues making it a topic for another 3? 5? 10 years? Awesome Possum!

The 'heading to California' guess isn't a bad one. I could totally see him starting over in Riverside or Irvine—hell, maybe even a Poway or Escondido if he's made off with enough of their cash.

I feel for the people that feel duped or victimized by him, but even my lifelong Catholic parents would switch churches when a priest pissed them off. Perhaps the demographic for such churches like Mars Hill define themselves less as a congregation, and more as "patients"—leaning a bit more toward subjects.

I'm not sorry for one solitary one of those dingle-berries. They have the sadz because they were ostracized and pushed around by a tyrannical narcissist? They signed their own dumb asses up for it. Anyone who didn't smell Mark Driscoll's stench the first time they saw him is a fucking idiot.

Apparently all his bad behavior was all fine with until they were on the wrong end of it. Christianity in general and these creepy evangelical cults in particular seem to be about creating cliques, in groups and out groups, and allowing people to feel superior to others. Reap what you sow, fuckers!

Yes, I see the irony of my feeling superior to them.

Uh, if some of the people have realized how bullshit Christianity is, they won...

...we all won.

Laugh @7. Still, you have a point.

Being a Christian, Henderson worries that Mars Hill members will feel so burned by this experience that they'll walk away from Christianity altogether.

Horrors.

@ 11, I laughed.

My experience in drudgery is that upper level management seldom leaves with admitting their mistakes. I would imagine Mark has some sort of severance package even, yes even though he "resigned." The backroom deal to get him to leave involved allowing him to not confess anything. This gives him a clean slate to move to California and set up shop again. Where I work this is called being "reassigned to a special project for the CEO" which I guess is God. It's not a firing, certainly. *ahem*

Let Mars Hill burn, baby, burn. Popcorn, hot dogs, and S'mores, anybody?
Weenie roast!!

the more i think about it, the more it seems mark got away with it. he admits to no wrongdoing, mars hill didn't find any wrongdoing, he doesn't go down with the ship, he can start over (with little oversight and no baggage), presumably he's got a bunch of money out of this. he may even "repent" on his own terms -- not as a pastor so he can't disciplined, removed, tarnished, or forced to take any particular actions -- and re-"emerge" in cali with a few adjustments. mars hillers are suckers for letting him get away with it and get out of dodge. maybe there are hoping they will avoid further scrutiny, but they will most likely flail and remain only as a small congregation whether they learned from this mistake or not. and that body will look nothing like the original group of people that started the church in the late 90s.

"we" get a bit of a win in that driscoll and mars hill went down. we don't get the satisfaction of the truth (yet), of watching mark going down with the ship, of mars hill changing and not being a cancer (if that were even ), or anything of the like. but at least there is no longer a mega-church attracting or creating misogynistic peeps in our community (for now), and at least there is no longer a church actively hurting members of it's and our community (for now, i hope).

mark is leaving because he realized can't get any more water out of this stone, beat as he may.

@11,12 - Ahh Driscoll, doing ACTUAL God's work by driving people away from idolatrous, false versions of "Christianity".

That is some sweet theatrical irony right there.

@2, I thought it *was* a music venue before MH took over the property--the Paradox? Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know my Seattle history very well, haven't been here very long . . .

@19: The Paradox was an all-ages club; but it was founded by MH back in 1999. They took over the space for the church, kicking out the secular staff, in 2006. Be cool to make it a club again since it's already set up as a music venue.

But I'd still prefer a weed store.