To become a “member” at Mars Hill Church requires more than attending church. Becoming a full-fledged member—a process highly encouraged, and sometimes thunderously demanded, in Pastor Mark Driscoll’s sermons—requires months of classes and a careful study of Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe, Driscoll’s 463-page Mars Hill textbook. To seal the deal, the prospective member must formally agree to submit to the “authority” of the Mars Hill leadership.
Driscoll, the church’s cofounder and public face, has made a name for himself with his strutting, macho interpretation of Christianity, one in which men are unquestioned heads of their households and “chick-ified church boys,” as he calls them, need not apply. He rails against mainstream Christians who imagine a “Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ… a neutered and limp-wristed popular Sky Fairy.” Instead, he has molded a doctrine based on manliness, sexual purity, and submission to authority: wives to husbands, husbands to pastors, and everyone to God.
Lance, a soft-spoken ex-military guy whose real name is not Lance, started attending Mars Hill Church in early 2008, became a full member before the year was out, and by October of 2010 was deeply and happily immersed in the life of the church. It was, he says, “like a second family.” Around that time, Lance says he “did something I shouldn’t have done.” (I told Lance I wouldn’t divulge his “sins,” but they were amorous indiscretions that anyone who isn’t a fundamentalist Christian, Jew, or Muslim would find extremely minor.) Lance said he “felt like a hypocrite,” so he voluntarily confessed and submitted to six months of counseling and spiritual probation.
In August 2011, a few months after his full restoration to the church, Lance was enjoying life in a Mars Hill house, living with other men and paying his rent in volunteer labor. But that autumn, he had a disagreement with one of his pastors over a building-safety issue during a church party. As Lance tells it, the pastor said Lance was being overcautious, Lance disagreed, and the disagreement metastasized into a weeks-long debate—not about the safety issue, per se, but about whether Lance was being “insubordinate” and refusing to properly “submit.”
“I began to question their authority,” Lance says, “and their ability to make good decisions.”
In the midst of this, Lance had begun a long-distance relationship with a young woman in Colorado. Lance says that his pastor instructed him to end the relationship, even though their relationship was not yet physical and nothing improper had happened. Lance balked, but his pastor insisted: “I’m the authority over you,” the pastor said, according to Lance. “You agreed when you became a member that I am your authority, and you have to obey us.” Lance was torn—on one hand, he had signed that membership contract.
On the other hand, this was ridiculous.
In a final, tense meeting, Lance got fed up with the leadership’s harping about submission and authority. “How is this not a Jim Jones theology?” Lance remembers asking. “We don’t even think you were a Christian to begin with,” the pastor retorted, according to Lance, and left the room. The church told him to move out and, if he wouldn’t submit to church demands, to cut off any communication with members of Mars Hill.
Lance quit the church.
But the church didn’t quit him. Not only was he barred from speaking with his now-former friends at the church, Lance says his pastor threatened to contact any future church that he might attend. And then Lance’s pastor took the extra step of calling the father of Lance’s girlfriend in Colorado. “They were warning him how dangerous I was,” Lance says. “That I was on a path of destruction that could result in the death of his daughter.”
That father, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Hanyok, is a retired marine and evangelical Christian who says the Mars Hill leadership overstepped its authority. “There is church leadership to guide and provide order,” he says, “but not lordship over the congregation.” Hanyok spent 21 years in the US Marines and says, “Poor leadership is one of my pet peeves… the church isn’t to come in and tell me how to manage my family.” Hanyok says he used to watch Driscoll’s sermons online, but doesn’t anymore.
Lance calls the church culture “manipulative” and says, “I don’t want this to happen to other people… It’s how people wound up drinking Kool-Aid.” He adds, “I still love Jesus. But I can continue my spiritual walk just fine at a different church… Mars Hill seems crazy to me now.”
Last week, a similar story from a former Mars Hill member named Andrew erupted into an online firestorm that left some church critics, including longtime members who’ve since departed, wondering aloud whether Mars Hill is crossing the line from church to cult.
On January 23, Andrew released some internal church disciplinary documents to the blog Matthewpaulturner.net. Andrew had sinned by kissing a woman who wasn’t his fiancée and then confessed the sin to his community-group leader. In Mars Hill parlance, “community groups” are breakout sessions that happen throughout the week. Everyone attends a weekend service at one of the 11 Mars Hill campuses to watch a live broadcast of Driscoll preaching from his Ballard church, and then attends various community groups—often in people’s homes—to discuss the week’s lesson.
After Andrew confessed his sinful kissing to his community-group leader, he says he was asked to step down from church responsibilities, forced to attend lots of meetings and confessions over the course of a month about his sinful action, and asked to agree to a “discipline” plan, which included the following acts of repentance and submission: “Andrew will not pursue or date any woman inside or outside MH; Andrew will write out in detail his sexual and emotional attachment history with women and share it with [redacted]; Andrew will write out in detail the chronology of events and sexual/emotional sin with [redacted] and share it with [redacted] and Pastor [redacted]…”
After thinking it over, Andrew refused and quit the church—but just like with Lance, the church didn’t quit him. In a letter Andrew says is from Mars Hill, one pastor told members to shun Andrew because he refused to “submit to his church leaders” and to not discuss anything with him besides repentance. It even offered a few helpful lines for awkward encounters: “Andrew, I would enjoy time with you, but I can’t because you’re under church discipline. You can join me if we can talk about your refusal to listen to God and the church.”
Once Andrew leaked the documents, the Christian blogosphere exploded with indignation. People were furious about the church’s invasive demands: to stop dating until told otherwise, to write “in detail his sexual and emotional attachment history with women,” to cut off ties with his friends at Mars Hill. It seemed less about getting right with God than public humiliation and congregation control.
Blog posts appeared with titles like “Never Mind Andrew’s Sin, What About Mars Hill’s Sin?” And “Spiritual Abuse Must Stop.” And “Mark Driscoll: Worst Pastor Ever?” The blog Marshillrefuge.blogspot.com was launched, full of stories similar to Lance’s and Andrew’s. “This,” the blog’s preamble says, “is meant to be a safe haven for those who have been wounded by their experience with Mars Hill Church.”
The woman who runs the blog is an on-fire-for-the-Lord type who tried, with her husband, to join one of Mars Hill’s new spin-off churches. They were frustrated by what they saw as demagoguery and poor leadership by the young, inexperienced men running the community groups: “EVERYTHING,” she writes, “always comes back to DOCTRINE, not JESUS.” Eventually, the couple left. Even though they had not become full-blown members, their community-group leader demanded an explanation from the husband anyway. When the husband said, in essence, it’s none of your business, he says the group leader questioned his faith in Jesus and ability to lead his family, and accused the couple of stirring up division (a common charge from Mars Hill). “We have never again heard from any of our friends from that group,” his wife writes.
Mars Hill pastor Jeff Bettger responded to queries from The Stranger about these stories with a long, heartfelt e-mail. He confirmed some of the stories, did not deny the rest, and wrote:
I personally have never known anybody at Mars Hill who would harass, blackmail, verbally abuse, or belittle ex-members. I would actually say that over the last few years Mars Hill has increasingly become more loving, kind, generous, and humble. I have been seeing this over and over from leadership at Mars Hill, and from members. We know we are not perfect, but we believe in an active God who loves us… The way God is growing this Church, I don’t believe anybody would even have the time, let alone the interest, to follow ex-members around. We have a difficult enough time maintaining all the work that needs to get done from week to week as well as meeting with all the people who want counsel and are hurting.
The Stranger attempted to contact several current members of Mars Hill, but none of them responded to requests for comment.
The music critic Chris Estey, who used to attend Mars Hill in the early days, remembers the moment he started drifting away from the church. He was walking out of one especially long-winded service by Driscoll and joking to a friend: “Hey, that guy needs an editor!” He says he was “accosted” by other churchgoers: “They were saying, ‘How dare you! He has vision and you have no idea!’ I kinda started separating then. That was the first time I’d had that culty feeling.”
Mars Hill began in the late 1990s, bouncing between apartments, parks, and spare rooms. It appealed to young people who felt out of place in other churches. By 2008, it was the 23rd-fastest-growing church in the United States, with a 38 percent bump in attendance in a single year, according to Outreach magazine. New campuses opened across the city. The Acts 29 Network, founded by Mars Hill and led by Driscoll, “planted” dozens and dozens of new churches across North America, creating a dense network of churches that are not tied to a denomination, but to Mars Hill. In 2006, Mars Hill claimed $31,110,000 in assets. (According to a church-generated report—since it’s a church, Mars Hill is not required to publicly disclose its tax returns.)
As the church grew, Driscoll became more visible, landing high-profile gigs (like an appearance on Loveline with Dr. Drew) where he drew more criticism. Also in 2006, he infamously commented on Ted Haggard’s meth-and-prostitute scandal by casting aspersions on Haggard’s wife: “A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him either.”
Around the same time, one of Mars Hill’s three cofounders suddenly left the church with little explanation and started a pizza restaurant in Redmond. Two prominent and well-liked pastors (Paul Petry and Bent Meyer) were fired during a debate over how to restructure the church—one for “displaying an unhealthy distrust in the senior leadership,” and the other for “disregarding the accepted elder protocol for the bylaw deliberation period” and “verbally attacking the lead pastor.” In other words, for not being submissive. (When contacted for this story, Petry simply said: “I don’t really have anything to add at this time.”)
The congregation was in an uproar. “That was a wild time,” says Dusty Wisniew, who has since left the church but says he still respects it. “There were tons of people asking a bunch of questions.” Driscoll answered questioners in a sermon: “Some adults are just always questioning… these are people with critical spirits. These are people that if you answer their question, they’ve got 25 more questions, and they’ll have questions forever. And it’s not that they have questions, it’s that they’re sinning through questioning. The heart is not good.”
All church memberships were suspended, Wisniew says, and people were encouraged to reapply under the new organizational structure, with new requirements—or quietly leave. One day during that period, Wisniew delivered some money from the Wedgwood campus to the Ballard campus. “All over the place, there was this poster that said ‘membership = discipleship.'” He decided not to renew his membership. He’s still close to many at Mars Hill and still admires Driscoll. But, he says, “I believe that what unites us isn’t a piece of paper. It’s the blood of Jesus.”
Last Sunday morning, a few hundred people filled the downtown branch of Mars Hill Church to hear Pastor Mark Driscoll deliver a sermon titled “Men and Marriage.” It was the third in an 11-week series based on his new book ($12.49 at Amazon.com) and DVD curriculum ($24.99 at Christianbook.com), cowritten with his wife, Grace, called Real Marriage. I attended to see if Driscoll was going address the recent storm of criticism online.
After the band played two indie-rock hymns, Pastor Driscoll appeared on a live video feed from his Ballard church. His “Men and Marriage” sermon was relatively tame: A husband should be the firm and responsible head of his household, the leader of a “little flock called home and family.” He should think of his wife as “a garden” and himself as “the gardener.” If you look at your garden and don’t like how it looks, Driscoll preaches, just remember: “You are the gardener.”
He said he knows his views are unpopular—that he’s even been called a misogynist. “And I don’t even know how to give a massage,” he joked, his eyes twinkling roguishly toward the camera that was beaming his image to 11 screens in 11 churches across the city, as well as churches in Oregon, New Mexico, and California.
The thing his sermon didn’t address—the thing I came hoping to hear about—was when submission to human authority goes too far.
Whatever the controversies, Driscoll shows nothing but confidence in himself and in the future of Mars Hill, including a plan for the next generation called “Mars Hill Kids.” “I want to start preparing our children for ministry at age 2,” he said in a video last summer. He has proposed building a “Nickelodeon-type studio” to broadcast kids’ shows and indoor play structures at every Mars Hill property to attract kids, “especially the boys, the kinesthetic learners, so they can get a little activity.” (Imagine being the gay kid—or the kid everyone thinks is gay—at that playground.)
There would be special child worship time conducted by adults and handpicked child apprentices. That cadre of children would grow up through the ranks, studying a children’s version of Doctrine, along with DVD classes and Doctrine-related homework to ensure, Driscoll says, “an integration between church and home.” Driscoll has also said he wants to commission a new illustrated children’s Bible. “Kinda cool, dark, a lot of the bloody Old Testament stories so the boys’ll like it, too,” he said on one video, winking. “We’re gonna do it Mars Hill–style.”
The point of Mars Hill Kids, Driscoll says, is continuity:
So that when the kids grow up, they don’t do like most kids and just leave after high school, but they realize: “Well, I’m ready for the Doctrine class. I can become a member. I’ve been doing this curriculum since I was 2! Of course I’m going to join a community group: I’ve been in one since I’ve been in a diaper. And I know how to sing songs, and I’m okay with video because that’s what I’ve been doing for a really long time—so I’m an old-school, 18-year-old veteran.”
What does it mean that Driscoll imagines keeping people, who’ve been studying his Doctrine from the age of 2, in Mars Hill after high school? Does he want to keep kids from growing up and moving away from Seattle to go to college, start jobs, and begin their own lives? Or does he imagine that, in 20 years, Mars Hill churches will be everywhere?
Either way, Driscoll imagines his flock—the membership model, the community groups, the Doctrine—as permanent. Womb to tomb. Just as long as you don’t ask too many questions. 
This article has been updated since its original publication.
The LDS (Mormon) faith starts indoctrinating their youth at 4 years old. They call them Sunbeams. They wrote a song about Sunbeams and then you sing it in your Sunbeam class over and over. That is the beautiful beginning of a life filled with manipulation, fear, and guilt. It always starts off beautiful and innocent and turns into control. The LDS doctrine also states that the man is the head of the household and the woman is subject to him. The LDS faith also makes anyone over 8 years old (age 8 because that is when you are baptised and you now know right from wrong…) commit to and wear a CTR ring (Choose The Right) The LDS faith also envisions God as a manly, violent, jealous God. This all strikes me as very similar to the doctrine of Mars Hill. Watch out folks. The very minute your church asks you to sign a contract, do any “holy work” on any other day than a Sunday or gives you a “calling” It’s time to leave. Any church that gets in between you and your wife, lover, relative or friend is no church at all. Hitler also had a plan for the youth.
Do some searches on the International Churches of Christ (ICOC) and Kip McKean. Exact same methodology, demand for unquestioning obedience, and “discipleship”. It started in the late 70’s (by a pastor later disbarred for homosexual acts with young congregants), and yet is still alive and kicking. Including here in Seattle.
Same Shit, Different Day.
Kudos to #7. I vote Church. Brenden Kiley is trying too hard to make this into a story. Can we please stop using rhetoric like this? This is on the same plane as calling someone a socialist.
I grew up in an evangelical church much like this one. There’s a reason I left. The Pastor and the leadership of the church are obviously taking it too far, but they aren’t anywhere close to asking anyone to drink the koolaid.
People like that can’t control you if you don’t let them.
There should be a standard of excellence, with limits. I’ve known a few would be ministers that are so two faced, I wonder if the people around them see it too. But balance would be nice, and no creepy stalking like calling the gf’s parents! It’s not a cult but I still would not want any of my friends to go there.
#41, I suspect The Stranger is “so obsessed with Mars Hill” because it’s an authoritarian, cultic institution that preaches a sexist, homophobic doctrine and tries to intimidate its members into signing discipline contracts. Of course, what do I know – I’m a hateful non-believer.
@53 – and if you haven’t developed the emotional skills necessary to resist the control of people like Driscoll, what then? If you grow up in an abusive environment, quite often you don’t learn to resist the siren song, and you end up at controlling places like Mars Hill.
I know not everyone who was abused as a kid grows up to repeat their childhoods. Some see through it and break free relatively early. But for those of us who don’t, and who are still struggling, it’s not as easy as it sounds.
Religion is a cult, it’s just a matter if it is a benevolent one or a malevolent one.
Can’t wait to hear from Driscoll’s call-boy.
This is a distorted and one sided article. Mars Hill church does not control or manipulate its members. I have attended this church for over 5 years and have been encouraged to follow Jesus and live a life that reflects scripture. The young
Man named Andrew did far more then just “kiss a girl” he was involved in repetive sexual sin with several young women in our church. He preyed upon them by pretending to be someone other then he really is and then he would take advantage of them. He was dishonest about who he is just like he was with the information given to the author of this news piece.
I’m freaked out by the entire thing, but this idea of gearing things to entertain little boys specifically is just soooooo creepy. It’s like young male children are being fetishized by this church, while the girls are just cast off to the side until needed for procreation (or “gardening”?). At least that’s the vibe I’m getting.
it’s funny that from another, unrelated Mars Hill somewhere in the country, there was this pastor (who recently quit however)…
http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/6223…
…who seems to be the polar opposite of Driscoll.
sure I’m not Christian, but when I read things like “He rails against mainstream Christians who imagine a ‘Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ… a neutered and limp-wristed popular Sky Fairy.’ Instead, he has molded a doctrine based on manliness, sexual purity, and submission to authority…” I wonder what kind of a person would want to be under those terms? was Jesus’ purpose really to brutalize gays, force the submission of women and ensure the meek inherited the Earth VIA CHRIST’S AMAZING BICEPS???
once the initial message is lost in transmission by a narcissist like Mark Driscoll, it doesn’t matter how many time his followers say “God is love”, they’re not following God any longer.
@58 That doesn’t excuse the misogynism that is displayed. That doesn’t excuse excluding other people constantly. That doesn’t excuse talking about indoctrinating 2 year olds. Is this religion that fragile that it can’t handle people making their decision on religion when they are old enough to actually understand it? I went to church myself until I was old enough to read and understand the bible and I decided it wasn’t for me. I decided that I didn’t agree with the bible. A 2 year old can’t make that decision.
I can’t fucking wait until Mark Driscoll gets caught doing blow of the chest of someone he found on rentboy.
Thank you for this article. You will never know how much. Sitting here crying. Have felt like killing myself because of the pain of past mistakes that have been dredged up since going here. I am a child of God that doesn’t want to judge, not my place to. Going to Mars Hill these last few years, can’t tell you how damaging, how ‘second guessing’….
Since there seem to be a lot of Christians posting, I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of something. Jesus isn’t real. Seriously guys, it’s a fairy tale. Please read a book about this not written by a Christian.
And the faithful wonder why so many consider it imperative that the US maintain a separation of church and state…
This article starts with a one-sided story from a disgruntled former member (keyword “according to Lance).”
Then the main point of the article is that there’s something wrong with this: “A doctrine based on manliness, sexual purity, and submission to authority: wives to husbands, husbands to pastors, and everyone to God.”
First of all, everything there is totally biblical. Even so, it’s not what the doctrine’s based on. While Biblical submission, manliness, and purity are extremely important, they are only part of the doctrine, not the basis, as that’s the Bible.
The writer of this article is more concerned with twisting the truth to make Mars Hill sound like a cult than taking a concerned analysis of a potential problem.
Case in point, the end of the article gives this quote (out of context), “When the kids grow up, they don’t do like most kids and just leave after high school, but they realize: “Well, I’m ready for the Doctrine class. I can become a member. I’ve been doing this curriculum since I was 2!”
The author responds by saying, “Does he want to keep kids from growing up and moving away from Seattle to go to college, start jobs, and begin their own lives?” That’s obviously a complete, almost funny perversion of the quote given, which is really just saying that people should stay active in a church all of their lives, not specifically or only Mars Hill.
So this article is basically just an attempt to paint Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll in the most negative light possible by distorting the truth. Even so, it doesn’t make many compelling arguments not based in testimonies from disgruntled former members, and falls apart when one looks even slightly below the surface.
So the article starts with a one-sided story from a disgruntled former member (keyword “according to Lance).”
Then the main point of the article is that there’s something wrong with this: “A doctrine based on manliness, sexual purity, and submission to authority: wives to husbands, husbands to pastors, and everyone to God.”
First of all, everything there is totally biblical. Even so, it’s not what the doctrine’s based on. While Biblical submission, manliness, and purity are extremely important, they are only part of the doctrine, not the basis, as that’s the Bible.
The writer of this article is more concerned with twisting the truth to make Mars Hill sound like a cult than taking a concerned analysis of a potential problem.
Case in point, the end of the article gives this quote (out of context), “When the kids grow up, they don’t do like most kids and just leave after high school, but they realize: “Well, I’m ready for the Doctrine class. I can become a member. I’ve been doing this curriculum since I was 2!”
The author responds by saying, “Does he want to keep kids from growing up and moving away from Seattle to go to college, start jobs, and begin their own lives?” That’s obviously a complete, almost funny perversion of the quote given, which is really just saying that people should stay active in a church all of their lives, not specifically or only Mars Hill.
So this article is basically just an attempt to paint Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll in the most negative light possible by distorting the truth. Even so, it doesn’t make many compelling arguments not based in testimonies from disgruntled former members, and falls apart when one looks even slightly below the surface.
The leaders of this “church” buys lots of bling from my friend in a downtown Seattle fine jewelry store ( I won’t name it to protect my friend).
THEY’RE RICH!!!
i am having flashbacks to the eyes of tammy faye.
Also, I find it amusing how many profiles have been created on SLOG today for the sole purpose of defending this church here in the comments thread. An email alert must have been sent out from Mars Hill.
“An email alert must have been sent out from Mars Hill.” Knat, they probably did that or posted a memo on The City, which is where I suspect a lot of MHers got their info about Andrew being a “predator.”
For the record, I created a profile here simply so I could refute this cult. Church. No, cult.
Thanks for the informative article. I will say, though, that I think the tone of this write-up is a little skewed towards “fear-mongering”. In my opinion 😛
But still, it’s not often you get to hear about the harsher, stricter side of Mars Hill so I am appreciative to be able to hear a bit more about it.
Thanks for the informative article. I will say, though, that I think the tone of this write-up is a little skewed towards “fear-mongering”. In my opinion 😛
But still, it’s not often you get to hear about the harsher, stricter side of Mars Hill so I am appreciative to be able to hear a bit more about it.
i feel like i’m reading the tabloids right now. exaggeration much?
Lots of MH goons, my goodness. Don’t you think it’s a bit messed up to try and act as God under God’s witness? Dudes on power trips who prey on suffering people? Looks like a wolf in sheep’s clothing to me.
Why do you need someone to tell you how to live? What makes you happy that doesn’t inflict harm on others? What the machismo in that scene takes away is empathy. It takes away life’s natural balance.
First off, the “andrew” issue is not telling the whole story and really lieing about what happened. He was dating and sleeping with her, he also was cheating on her with another member of the church, and then kissed another girl on top of that.
Mars Hill has helped a lot of people, myself included. There is a huge problem at the church with people not questioning authority (pastors) and not thinking for themselves.
All you can do is keep your faith in Jesus Christ. If it isn’t biblical then don’t even think about it. Membership or not, please make up your own mind and don’t become a puppet.
Before writing an artical like this, GET ALL THE FACTS STRAIGHT!
Not very balanced article but hey what do you expect?
@58, I’d like to know your source regarding Andrew being a “predator.” If it’s the letter posted to “The City” then you’ve confirmed all of our suspicions of brainwashing and manipulation as you apparently get all of your information from church leadership. If you personally knew him or the people he “preyed” upon then you might have a valid argument.
@56 Your comment wins. If anyone else needs a religion, you can follow mine. It’s the church of “The First Law of Thermodynamics”…
BAHHHHHH H H H BAHHHH H H
@squints, the source is from the guy himself.
This article did not present a very balanced view of Mars Hill. Readers keep in mind that it is possible to take a few incidences out of the past of any entity no matter how wonderful, and make it look like the worst thing to hit the face of the earth. There is a reason the church has grown as fast as it has and its because its presenting the age old Gospel in a fresh way. Now we might not agree with everything Driscoll preaches and everything that is written in the bible, but trust me do not make a judgement of the church based on this article alone.
bloopbloop … so Andrew told you he’d slept with more than one member of Mars Hill? That would be more than he admitted to in the pair of blog posts that touched off the latest kerfuffle. Why did Andrew tell the whole world one thing and then tell you something different?
Cults never last. Most likely, in another twenty years, Driscoll and Mars Hill will be history. God has a way of getting rid of those who abuse His flock. It would be better if a mill stone were tide around their necks and they be thrown into the sea. Vengeance is the Lord’s, He will repay.
Victory Outreach of Seattle has the same MO..( ex-member of V.O. mens home rehab staff in ballard ) I,m what you call a Disgruntled Christian…Emerging Churches of today are sooo far gone and control is this main method for fame and $$$ ect…keeping the machine oiled and twist and disect the word of God . Also I may add that a Local Christian Collage may start trouble for honest working Americans go to http://spusucks.blogspot.com Thanks for the article and exsposed idiots that make Jesus look bad…, there day is coming !
I was telling people Mark was screwed up years ago. One of my best friends goes to his church and at that time he was telling his men to carry naked pictures of there wives with them so that they could masturbate to the. LOL What kind of pastors says this to there men? My mom screamed when I told her this she said” my Lord that is horrible, what if your dad lost his wallet” lol
It’s all a cult anyway.
Doesn’t take a genius to realize the origin myths of one’s own culture are no different than the Greeks, the Zoroastrians, the Hopi, or the Aztecs.
A bit of light reading makes it abundantly clear that there’s no archaeological evidence for Jewish enslavement in Egypt, among the other huge number of historical inaccuracies that come with fallible men from thousands of years ago authoring morality tales.
It’s absolutely stunning that people in cults or organized religion, no matter how moderate crazy, cannot make these simple leaps in logic, particularly in an era of unprecedented access to information.
I don’t know what’s more scary: Mark Driscoll or all the people who are defending this guy in the comments section. I always thought Seattle was more progressive and intelligent than this. Are you really so lost and insecure that you need to follow a fictional “church” lead by a sexist misogynist who’s only concern is to get more power, more control and more money? Mega churches frighten me more than almost anything else today.
The entire Acts29 Network has pastors that are exactly like this. Driscoll’s influence is permeating churches across the nation. Case in point: Darrin Patrick, The Journey, St. Louis, Missouri. Multi-site, lots of press about the pastor’s books, lots of press about the great things the pastor does, no questioning of the pastors or you are being “divisive”, lots of secret church discipline, lots of mandatory “church counseling” (they even opened their own counseling center), and of course the letters to new churches if you leave.
As a pagan I object to their use of the name Mars in their title – trying to appropriate one of our sky gods is totally uncool! You’ve got your own whiny little deity, stick with him.
I wonder about people who need a megachurch or cult of personality to keep their religious faith. Is this an American phenomenon? You do know there are churches that have pastors and reverends who don’t go on about delineating gender roles, right?
@85, Christian collages are pretty menacing indeed. So many bright colors 🙁
Barf Shart on Mars Hill
Amazing similarities to the origins of the Third Reich. Hitler Youth, blind obedience, macho violence, etc.
As to the claim cults don’t last; true for Hitler. His only lasted around 13 years and 70 million or so dead afterwards.
I think we need to understand that this article is pretentious and one sided. Like ANY church, it’s flawed and is lead by an imperfect man. With that said, MANY people have met Christ because of this church. Many people who go to this church love Jesus, are kind, respectful and friendly. Last time I checked, people are flawed and messy and Mars Hill DOES recognize that they also fall short just like everyone else. SO many people have been going to Mars Hill recently, can we celebrate that it’s bringing people together instead of causing division within our city.
I think we need to understand that this article is pretentious and one sided. Like ANY church, it’s flawed and is lead by an imperfect man. With that said, MANY people have met Christ because of this church. Many people who go to this church love Jesus, are kind, respectful and friendly. Last time I checked, people are flawed and messy and Mars Hill DOES recognize that they also fall short just like everyone else. SO many people have been going to Mars Hill recently, can we celebrate that it’s bringing people together instead of causing division within our city.
…and this article has sparked me to read these stories. if this article sparked some anger and/or sadness, you should read these as well.
http://pastormark.tv/2012/01/31/10-refle…
http://marshill.com/2011/04/27/amanda-go…
http://marshill.com/2009/10/01/seattle-a…
The Stranger always makes an interesting filter – and never fails to give the same spin on things. Typically it inspires me to look into the issue myself than taking this author’s word for it. Definitely the case again – especially after hearing his own first hand experience. But maybe after the Superbowl.
Not including this comment, there are exactly…. 99 comments, and Mark Driscoll’s ain’t one.
Thank God I’m an atheist.