News More Mars Hill Demagoguery
posted by on November 6 at 12:30 PM
Dan broke the news last Friday that Mark Driscoll, pastor of the far-right urban-hipster hotbed Mars Hill Church, blamed Ted Haggard’s wife for his drug-fueled liaisons with a gay hooker. However, since I’ve covered Driscoll in the past (favorite quote: “There is no occasion where women led a society and were its heads and the men complied and followed. … It’s a matter of Biblical creation”); and since I’m outraged and bemused by the popularity of a woman-hating demagogue like Driscoll among young urban women (seriously: I got stuck in the Christian traffic vortex around Mars Hill last night, and more than half the people pouring out of the church were with-it-looking twentysomething women) I’m going to weigh in.
For the record, here’s what Driscoll said:
Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives. At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. 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.
Let’s be clear about what Driscoll means by “sexual liberties”: Any time a man wants sex, it’s his wife’s obligation to give it to him. (After all, besides cooking, parenting, and generally serving as the household domestic, what are wives for?) And never mind that Pastor Driscoll has arguably “let himself go”; after all, he’s not the one with an obligation to look good and provide a sexual outlet. To dissect Driscoll’s claim further: If Haggard’s wife had stuck to Atkins, not “let herself go,” and spread her legs whenever he wanted it (with the knowledge that the purpose of sex is makin’ babies, of course—no birth control for her!) he might not have been tempted to get naked “massages” from a gay hooker.
But Driscoll doesn’t just blame Haggard’s fat, lazy, prude of a wife; he spreads the blame to women in the church:
Churches should consider returning to heterosexual male assistants who are like Timothy and Titus to serve alongside pastors. Too often the pastor’s assistant is a woman who, if not sexually involved, becomes too emotionally involved with the pastor as a sort of emotional and practical second wife. I have been blessed with a trustworthy heterosexual male assistant who can travel with me, meet with me, etc., without the fear of any temptations or even false allegations since we have beautiful wives and eight children between us.
And:
Pastors must not travel alone; the anonymity and fatigue of the road is too great a temptation for many men. A pastor should take his wife, an older child, an assistant, or fellow leader with him. If this cannot be afforded then travel should not be undertaken.
So, according to Driscoll, when women are allowed to serve in the church or work outside the home, men are tempted… to sleep with other men? Sorry, Pastor, but that doesn’t track. Haggard’s issue wasn’t his desire to fuck women. Keeping women at home and on their backs won’t change the fact that gay men want to sleep with other men. Which only demonstrates that Driscoll’s real problem isn’t with straying pastors; it’s with bitches who don’t know their place.
Amazing how these people maintain their power by proclaiming how weak and pathetic they are.
I'm stuck on the line "lean over the plate and take one for the team."
You may be angry thinking, why would any woman put up with this crap? For two years, I worked with a woman who ended up joining Mars Hill. My assessment of her was that she was on the dumb side and it was very obvious to those that worked with her that she very desperately wanted to get married, wanted to have kids, and wanted to be a stay at home mom. This I felt before she ever showed interest in this church.
Sometimes, I think of her and I feel bad that she got such a crummy end of the deal. I mean is it worth it to marry someone you don't love (she married into the church) just because you're worried about whether or not you'll ever get married? While I thought her dumb, I doubt she's unconsious of the downsides of the situation she's put herself in. Lately though, I don't feel sorry for. In fact, I think she's kinda in her own way sticking it to them. I mean this guy she married, this pastor, and the whole Mars Hill Gang are thinking yeah this woman believes in what we represent and it's not just men that feel this way, see women want this too. But in reality, it's not the case at all. This is how she wanted to live her life and she's merely using them to do it. Only they're such idiots, so full of their crap interpretation for their own laziness, that they don't see it.
I love that he actually cites examples of women coming onto him on his blog, as well. How difficult it is to avoid the temptation. He is terrifying, not to mention ugly. I can't imagine anyone including his wife wanting a piece of him. I love a country where someone with a communications degree can become one of the most regarded pastors in the country. Go America!
“There is no occasion where women led a society and were its heads and the men complied and followed. It’s a matter of Biblical creation”
This is one of my fave Driscoll quotes. Guess he forgot about England and at least a dozen other countries, as well as several US States. Oh well, people don't become religious fundamentalists because they're smart.
What a moron.
Man I was walking by mars hill last night on my way to fred meyer and got swarmed by a bunch of "hip" twentysometings trying to get me to come inside. Devilish
MARS HILL CHURCH: KNOW YOUR PLACE, BITCH!
NOW WITH 2 NEW LOCATIONS TO SERVE YOU (OR IN YOUR CASE, SERVE THE LORD)!
I mean is it worth it to marry someone you don't love (she married into the church) just because you're worried about whether or not you'll ever get married?
Sadly, there are too many women in this city who place the lion's share of their sense of self-worth on whether or not they get married.
Christians always have to come up with some dumb ass concept to explain why things happen to their pastors from Swaggart to Haggard.
These people are typical of Many Christians, they are liars and wanting to justify all their shit by blaming others for their problems (like women).
Bottom line is Haggard is gay and if not gay then bisexual and should have come to terms with that earlier and been honest about it instead of hiding behind Christian concepts of sexuality that are hurting this country. If he had been honest about who he is from the beginning then many people would not be getting hurt now.
Also, he is not the only gay or bisexual christian man out there that is hiding from christian backlash regarding their sexuality. There are many that are shaking in their boots right now and they should not be it should all be ok that they are bi or gay.
They are stupid men in positions of power that will find any excuse to blame someone else so they can come out still in a position of power.
So let me get this straight (HA, I crack myself up)
I've CHOSEN to be gay, I wasn't born this way. No. I one day saw a dude and thought, "you know, I think I'll be gay." It was all me. Evil satan worshiping me.
But poor pastors with fat wives... they've been left no choice. Apparently one day Ted just thought, "DAMN my wife is a cow... hmmm... I think I'll do some meth and take it up the ass."
If the Stranger wants to organize an Mars Hill intervention, I'd be there.
Maybe an 'intervention' can come in a condo developer offering Mars Hill an insane amount of cash for their properties to convert said properties into condos.
Monkey: even if you did "choose" to be gay, what's the problem? These kooks weren't BORN evangelical; they chose that path. And yet their rights are constitutionally protected.
what a dick
Monkey,
Thank you.
The “gay is a choice” argument is one of the sheer stupidest. I’d like to ask the fools that spout this line that if sexuality is a choice, then could they tell us the year and day that they chose to be straight?
And is Driscoll really saying that Evangelical ministers are so horny and prone to give in to temptation that they shouldn’t travel alone or even answer their own e-mail?
The whole odd thing about Mark Driscoll's argument is that Ted Haggard's wife (while not my type as I'm a confirmed homosexualist) isn't exactly a dog:
http://alumniweb.oru.edu/oru%20alumni/images/right137-3.JPG
Maybe she just didn't think it was in her Christian, wifely duty to fuck her husband in the ass with a strap on while high on meth.
yeah, chris, i was just about to say that. she's a handsome, put-together middle aged woman. if i were her husband i'd feel proud and lucky.
so if we accept for a minute that ugly wives cause homosexuality (at least among pastors), then mrs. haggard is definitely not at fault.
By this logic, if it does indeed go both ways, we can safely assume Mrs. Driscoll has been a rug muncher for years.
Dammit -- there are two Monkeys on this forum..
Oh, Monkey, there are a lot more than just two.
Yeah, unfortunately, I thought of that after hitting the post button. A pity my wit can't keep up with my mouse.
Now I'll have to think of a new slog moniker, which will sorely tax my poor monkey brain.
Hoo boy--counting down the time until the Mars Hill sex scandal erupts.
I think, fundamentally, the real trouble you all have with what he said comes from a different mind-set of what homosexuality is. He wants to be able to deal with it in the way he would deal with any other "sin", be that masturbation, pornography, alcoholism or adultery. Thus, at the the Mars Hill website (http://beta.marshillchurch.org/content/PastoralCare) they have "Support Groups" for anything from "Same Sex Attraction" to "Men's Purity". They have a 10th Anniversary video online too, in which one Mars Hill member talks about...well...dealing with same sex attraction. And now he's married.
I'm sure some of y'all don't really believe it's possible, or he must not really have been gay. I'm sure many of you feel sorry for all these people the church tries to convince to, y'know, not to sleep with people of the same gender, but hey, if they're going to tell young men not to look at pornography or even masturbate (they explain their position in a little booklet called "Reforming Male Sexuality") then by golly, you might as well pity them too.
Now, that said, I don't see how the comment about Pastor's wives letting themselves go has anything to do with a guy struggling with same-sex attraction. If someone's ability to maintain biblical sexuality, so to speak, depends on sexual satisfaction in marriage, us single guys are screwed. Anyways, I think what he said was probably unrelated to the Haggard. Actually, I think most of his blog was unrelated to Haggard, but more of a scandal-prevention strategy.
Which explains his comment about female assistants. If a "Mars Hill Sex Scandal" erupts, it won't be one of the Pastor's banging his secretary. Unless they both struggle with "Same Sex Attraction."
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