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1


Did you see that financial statement recently on Slog? Mars Hill is vacuuming up $130K to $150K A WEEK from its members. That could be considered over $6.7 million in gross sales annually even on the low end, and they don't even produce a quantifiable product. That's far better than even a casino, which has greater overhead.

Their wing-nut theology may be repulsive, but you can't fault their business model. It's only foolish if you're the one paying into it, 'cause someone--maybe a few key people--must be making out like bandits.

Posted by Original Andrew | December 17, 2007 2:24 PM
2

Playing the "I was born Catholic" card! Snap!

Posted by Mahtli69 | December 17, 2007 2:25 PM
3

Pyramid scheme.

A pox on all their houses.

Posted by Tlazolteotl | December 17, 2007 2:26 PM
4

@3 - A TAX FREE pyramid scheme, no less.

Posted by Mahtli69 | December 17, 2007 2:27 PM
5

One thing I always cherished from my Catholic school upbringing was the: "All Catholics are christians, but not all christians are Catholics." They start us on superiority complexes early they do.

Posted by kate | December 17, 2007 2:32 PM
6

i think dylan just wants to point out that the reasons you don't like mars hill might not be the same reasons you dislike bethany. but he just wants his readers to know that bethany is no mars hill.

and it is a somewhat valid point. i mean, if all religious people are fools -- even the socially religious -- then a bethany fool is like a catholic fool is like a mars hill fool.

but if there are varying degrees of foolishness. maybe, say, one fool who believes something to themselves and harms no one and maybe does some good, verses maybe say, an other fool who subjects others to beliefs via political means.

Posted by infrequent | December 17, 2007 2:43 PM
7

Thanks for your opinion, dick.

Posted by Greg | December 17, 2007 2:48 PM
8

Dan, I dig at your every chance I get. You should know that. It's because I'm obsessed with you. I mean, why else would I have planted that GPS tracking device in your spleen?

But the point I was trying to make was that you were loaded for bear against Burgess, but he's small fry compared to Driscoll. It's like saying you hate on all things Chicago, then beating up some whiny rich kid from Hinsdale because YOU HATE CHICAGO. If Burgess is the Hinsdale kid, then Driscoll is Wicker Park, or Wacker Towers, or Soldier fkn Field.

You smacked around Burgess because he once was anti-gay and once worked for the onerous and evil CWA, but Driscoll is that right now and more. He's turning into a cult of personality with a growing international following.

Seems like you should be picking him apart with at least the same gusto.

Posted by dw | December 17, 2007 3:11 PM
9

@6 - In other words, some types of foolishness are more annoying/harmful than others? Yeah, I can see that, especially considering how many local churches manage to fly under the radar, whereas Mars Hill has to be IN-YOUR-FACE pushing its misogynistic money-grubbing ways. You don't have to agree with or like any of them, but if they keep it to themselves it's much easier to maintain a passive disdain.

Posted by Hernandez | December 17, 2007 3:13 PM
10

I believe all church leaders should be kept barefoot and pregnant.

Posted by DaiBando | December 17, 2007 3:17 PM
11

Overlake now has the boring old financial scandals as well as the new, improved "straight"-pastor-caught-in-men's-room scandals.

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=overlake13m&date=20071213&query=overlake

Posted by kk | December 17, 2007 3:19 PM
12

We write about Drisoll all the time. And Hutcherson. And we only looked into Burgess' past--a.k.a. his *record*--when he decided to run for office. Casting an eye on the political work he did for a political group, the CWfA, was very much legit, and they're the ones that mixed politics and religion together to begin with.

Posted by Dan Savage | December 17, 2007 3:22 PM
13

@9 i can't tell if you are being condescending or not, but christians like obama are much less annoying than christians like fred phelps, yes.

if you want to call both fools, okay, but at least realize there is a vast difference in thier foolishness even by your standards...

of course, DW, can make his point here far better than i ever could.

and @7... was that to me? huh? okay... nice.

Posted by infrequent | December 17, 2007 3:26 PM
14

what ever happened with moorehead? did he ever admit to it? i know the elders eventually sided against him (sort of).

Posted by infrequent | December 17, 2007 3:39 PM
15

No, that was to Dan "I think you're all fools" Savage.

Posted by Greg | December 17, 2007 3:40 PM
16

Oh, I totally agree that you should have looked at the CWfA work, and everything else they did work for. That's due diligence. That's why we have a Fifth Estate.

But I really felt like here's this guy, he's totally been involved with hardcore conservative stuff, he's been anti-gay before, but now he's repenting of all of this, and all you could do was just dump on him. Granted, he was running for public office, and politicians lie like dogs. But it seemed like you outright refused to give him the benefit of the doubt, or were even willing to say, "OK, but we're watching you -- Feit and Barnett will be riding your ass the next four years."

What comes to mind is Robert Byrd's history with the Klan. No matter how many times he's willing to say he regrets being part of it, there's the GOP machine, waving the bloody hood.

At some point, are *you* willing to forgive people? I mean, what's in it for anti-gay Christians to turn back from that when you're just going to be waiting with a baseball bat to beat them up for what they were?

Posted by dw | December 17, 2007 3:50 PM
17

For those who don't remember or didn't get a chance to see the comment from last week:


CHURCH FINANCIAL INFORMATION/WEEKLY GIVING TRENDS
Date Budget Giving # of Givers Attendance
12/10/2006 $130,000 $159,922 705 4728
12/17/2006 $130,000 $168,925 543 4239
12/24/2006 $130,000 $168,585 584 4073
12/31/2006 $130,000 $336,532 621 3672
1/7/2007 $150,000 $168,248 618 5421
1/14/2007 $150,000 $139,666 513 4704

Posted by apres_moi | December 17, 2007 3:54 PM
18

@11

Wow. I now want to be a megachurch usher!

Posted by Tlazolteotl | December 17, 2007 3:57 PM
19

I tend to think every person has a certain level of superstition. Everyone has certain things they believe that cannot be supported by hard evidence. I mean, look at quantum mechanics.

Hell, Richard Dawkins is singing Christmas carols and calls himself a "cultural Christian."

@14: Moorehead protested his innocence for a while, then there was this whole new stack of allegations. OCC bought out his contract and cut him loose in 1999. I have no idea where he is now.

Posted by dw | December 17, 2007 3:57 PM
20

dw...comparing how the Stranger treats a candidate for public office with how they treat a general pastor of a local church is not a fair comparison.

Methinks you are just protesting because you feel inadequate in the Stranger crowd because of your religion, and that sounds like a personal problem. :-)

Posted by Timothy | December 17, 2007 4:10 PM
21

No, I feel inadequate in the Stranger crowd because Fnarf waves that 12-inch dick of his around all the time.

Posted by dw | December 17, 2007 4:19 PM
22

dw @ 16,

Uh, perhaps you missed the fact that the Strangler hated Tim Burgess so much that they endorsed the fuckah for city council and he won and stuff.

http://new.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=419111

P.S. Just replace "God" and "Jesus" with "Zeus" and/or "Poseidon" and you can see how eye-rolling crazy the religion talk sounds to sane people.

Posted by Original Andrew | December 17, 2007 4:20 PM
23

Not sure if anything read this, but there is an interesting article in last week's New Yorker (may be 2 weeks old) about a megachurch in MA. It provides an interesting view on the history of megachurches. Might be worth checking out if you haven't seen it. If nothing else, it is clear that megachurches are serious business and have changed, and are changing the face of american religious activities.

Posted by Brad | December 17, 2007 4:22 PM
24

yes, religion talk is insane.

like this october 31, 1994, interview hillary clinton had with newsweek:

"Do you believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?" "Yes."

"The atoning death of Jesus?" "Yes."

"The Resurrection of Christ?" "Yes."

Posted by infrequent | December 17, 2007 4:42 PM
25

or from it takes a village:

We talked with God, walked with God, ate, studied, and argued with God. Each night, we knelt by our beds to pray before we went to sleep... ...God was always present to us, a much-esteemed, much-addressed member of the family.

Posted by infrequent | December 17, 2007 4:44 PM
26

Dylan... don't you think our endorsement was, in a sense, our way of "forgiving" Burgess? I believe, actually, that he's come around. I also believe that his evolution on gay issues and women's health issues was suspiciously rapid and we were right to grill him on this stuff.

Do you know how toxic CWfA is? Do you realize what the mailings that Burgess worked on for CWfA said about me, my family, and other gays and lesbians? Probably not. But it wasn't stuff that any gay or lesbian person could easily be expected to shrug off. "Oh, gee... here's a mailer from this Tim Burgess. He's for gay marriage now -- all is forgiven!"

But we endorsed Burgess in the end -- after hammering away at him. And I probably could've prevented that, had I wanted to. Not that a denial of our endorsement would have kept Burgess from winning. Della was awful, Burgess won by a landslide. Still, Dylan, you're revealing yourself to be just another crazy-ass American Christian with a persecution complex if you think the Stranger nailed Tim Burgess to a cross over this. We gave him an entirely appropriate amount of grief -- grief that couldn't come close to the grief his work for CWfA caused gays and lesbians all over the country. And then we endorsed the motherfucker. Sheesh.

Posted by Dan Savage | December 17, 2007 4:49 PM
27

Well Dan, when you tell the story like that, it sounds reasonable enough in retrospect.

At the time, I seem to remember, what you mostly accomplished was to legitimize and give a platform to some fundie anti-Christians. In a sense that was worth while: it is enlightening to see that extremist anti-Christians are not any smarter than extremist Christians. Seems like once you slide into uncompromising fanaticism, your IQ drops fast.

There is a tinge of hubris in the idea that this little paper is in position to offer forgiveness Burgess or anybody else for their transgressions. If he is guilty of causing such grievous harm to gay people across America, it seems all the less likely that an alt weekly should decide when he is forgiven.

Isn't it enough to merely say the Stranger editorial board weighed the pros and cons and, holding their nose, and made a choice among the options at hand?

Posted by elenchos | December 17, 2007 5:27 PM
28

i think the stranger was hard on tim, but in the end, pretty fair.

Posted by infrequent | December 17, 2007 5:27 PM
29

"Hard on Tim" ?!?!?!?

"In the end" ?!?!?!?

Oh, @28, you're just being naughty.

Posted by Jubilation T. Cornball | December 17, 2007 7:37 PM
30

Dan accuses me of having a persecution complex. Somewhere in Canada, Alanis Morrisette is smiling.

I was surprised you endorsed Tim. I was expecting a "no endorsement" in that race, given that Della was the worst council member we've had in a long time.

And of course I know all about the CWfA. I grew up in the Buckle of the Bible Belt, just as much a Catholic kid as you were. I went to school in Colorado and had a lot of friends from the Springs. Promise Keepers. Crusaders. Amendment 2. Married a recovering fundamentalist.

Heck, the one and only time we've met? 1996 King County Republican Convention. Also known as the day I decided I wasn't a Republican anymore.

So, yeah, I know all about Beverley LaHaye and her fear-spewing machine. And also, her husband's tortuously ponderous Left Behind series. And honestly, I apologize that the Christian church continues to turn out this crap. Some of us are trying. We really are. But we're just not loud enough. And, well, people like the loud and cartoonish. It sells ads and helps raise money for causes conservative and liberal. The nice, polite Christians who just want to live and let live? They just don't make good television.

If you really did elide Burgess' past in your endorsement out of grace, then I apologize. Let's hope he can do a better job than Della. Unfortunately, that's an awfully low standard to start from.

Posted by dw | December 17, 2007 8:12 PM

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