Hopefully praying for money works just as well as praying for rain.

Wow. Where did this cross the line into extortion?

lol. I pray to Santa that this whole thing turns into an epic clusterfuck.

So, how many MH members actually saw the original language? If this was one bullet on one post of one of MH's blogs, sounds like it wasn't really getting a huge amount of press.

Still, highly amusing, and disturbing.

An apple sauce and kool aid dinner will be rewarded to the highest contributers.

So, let me get this straight... which I try to stay clear of.... but because I don't use my talents, give my time, and waste my money on a religion I don't believe in, I'm going to be smited and considered a dark person? Well, that begins my crusade to build a HUGE wall right next to their church... I can justify spending the money, if my wall will cast a huge shadow on their church. Now that's a shadow I can believe in!

"Hey, anybody thirsty around here?"

I’ll admit I was a bit freaked out by the whole Mars Hill Real Estate Pyramid Scheme, especially when they opened a brainwashing gulag and wallet cleanser just down the street from my home.

But then I remembered that I grew up in the South with the Southern Baptists and the Ku Klux Klan—the kind of charming people who are dead serious when they say they want to start a race war and also exterminate all of the gays—and I realized that Mars Hill is barely the pathetic margarine of evil in comparison (“I can’t believe it’s not evil!”). Now I’m all “meh, whatever. Suck it, American Taliban.”

This rhetoric is utterly par for the course for all of Mark "Have You Fucked Me?" Driscoll's MH Jesus missives.

Much of the MH lit flirts with borderline extortion or blackmail of one sort or the other. The rest of it seems primarily concerned seeing how many crimes of historical inaccuracy can be shoved into a single sentence.

"Go Old Testament?" Mark "HYFM?" Driscoll wouldn't know the Torah if it... well, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't do that with a Torah. Suffice it to say Mark "HYFM?" Driscoll needs to learn better the texts and languages he intends to discuss in his MH lit.

The best news of all is that this lit is free for the taking!

The downside is that you have to go in there of a Sunday (or any of the other twelve days a week they hold services) and actually take it yourself. This felt a bit creepy. But they are nice people, and smile a lot, and really really big eyes and they smell like soap and something slightly acrid. You can hardly see the horns. Anyway, you have to ask them for the stuff, and then they just start handing it over! It was like the loaves and freaking fishes. The fundy lit poured forth like ... fish.

The very best pamphlet, and the one that gave Abs her brilliant idea for her Mark "HYFM?" Driscoll campaign, is the one on straight male sexuality, all beautifully illustrated with nude shots of Greek male statues.

This veers a bit, I am afraid, from the original plot of the Slog: Mark "HYFM?" Driscoll's extortion of the flock. But I have a cool $50 sitting right here waiting for anyone to present solid evidence that Mark "HYMF?" Driscoll has been having an extramarital homosexual affair (within or without a relationship of prostitution; hopefully—for the minor's sake—not with a minor; I will entertain proof of an extramarital het affair, but will be disappointed; any drug involvement, however, is a plus), and this seemed as good a place as any to remind folks.

Fundy extortion is a good topic too. But it's not as good as when Mark "HYFM?" Driscoll gets busted for a meth-laced gay dalliance.

And, finally, there’s a call for prayers for one of the family of one of the Mars Hill pastors. His wife is dying of cancer. If you’re the praying kind, pray for ‘em.

Wow, that comes off as disingenuous, smarmy and opportunistic.

Fight fire with fire, huh Dan?

Well, what we need, Susan, is we need money to build an interstellar cruiser, mmkay.

Sincere, Judah. Don't know how to prove it to your satisfaction, but there it is.

Is it your goal to inspire enough Mars Hill hatred that you could incite a Colorado-style church killing spree here, too?

If so, you're doing a good job.

I think maybe Mars Hill may be having some teeny mortgage troubles with some of its real estate empire. Tee hee!

Wishes for the survival of the wife with cancer: best. Wishes for the survival of Mars Hill: not so much.

The Wall Street Journal wrote an interesting article about tithing last month. I was struck by the arrogance in quotes like this:

Steve Sorensen, director of pastoral ministries at Cornerstone, says the church requires its paid and volunteer leaders to tithe, and teaches new members to do so, although it doesn't make them show proof of income. "When you tithe, God makes promises to us, that he ... is not going to let anything bad or destructive come about," says Mr. Sorensen. For those who don't tithe, he says the Lord "is not obligated to do those things for you."

Jesus is magic indeed...and he now takes plastic!

Some Baptist churches are trying to encourage tithing by accepting credit-card payments and automatic deductions from checking accounts. Two years ago, the Rev. Marty Baker, pastor of Stevens Creek Church in Augusta, Ga., created the "giving kiosk" machine that allows congregants to donate at the church from their bank cards. He and his wife launched SecureGive, a for-profit company, which has placed 50 kiosks in churches. He says the machines can help track which families are giving the most.

Has anyone thought to forward a copy of this to the bank that just loaned MH a shit-load of money to purchase the Belltown property?

For some reason, I think they'd be verrrrry interested...

Don't know how to prove it to your satisfaction,

There's a mean joke here somewhere, I just can't quite nail it down.

Oo, Comte, our dear friends at Bank of America seem to have been the suckers here. There's a public doc online, the Oct. 22 Deed of Trust that shows BofA on the hook for a total of $17M fronted to Mars Hill. Notices under the agreement are to go to Steve Maloney, Bank of America Commercial Banking, 800 Fifth Avenue, 36th Floor, Mail Stop WA1-501-36-02.

If someone can find Mr. Maloney's email and send along the news, that would help protect the interests of the bank's depositors and investors. Or find out who Maloney's boss is and send it there.

I demand a city with no Churches, crosses or Judah's.

I demand a city with no Churches, crosses or Judah's.

And I demand a Slog with commenters who know when to use upper case letters and apostrophes. Looks like we're both shit out of luck.

Dan, as someone who lives only two blocks from Mars Hill's new downtown location, I don't mind the new neighbors.

Well, that's because you're eeeeeeevil, Will.

Ugh. Just ugh. These people are Christians in the same way that Osama bin Laden is a Muslim.

God is my co-signor.

Don't get me wrong, Dan. I miss Tabella, what with the muzzle flashes at closing time. THAT'S the part of downtown life I savor.

dan, it's nice to see your sincerity from time to time. thank you.

Did it ever occur to the MH people that all of this is just God's way of telling them that he's pissed at them for all of their bigotry?

You know, SOME churches use their money to help the poor and needy, not to purchase expensive properties in downtown city centers and stage extravagant "look at me" public baptism theatre.

Miscogynist Hill Church and Pastor ("I'm not gay" Driscoll can take a flying fuck, and I hope it happens soon.

And casually dropping in the cancer victim mention to soften the religio-extortionism?

What a fucking tool.

@28,

No, no. You see, when something good happens to Christians, they're being rewarded by God. When something bad happens, it's God's will and has nothing to do with the behavior of said Christians. Note: this does not apply to faceless hurricane, earthquake, or tsunami victims. They all deserved to die.

The other night, I overheard a conversation on the bus that I would have been better off not hearing.

A woman was talking to someone on a cellphone, telling him or her the importance of tithing. The summary of her thesis: if you tithe to the church, God will directly reward you, commensurate to the percentage of your earnings that you give. So, if you hand over your entire paycheck, you'll magically win the lottery or some such shit. (Please note that I'm not exaggerating, she actually used that example.)

For people like that, there is literally no difference between old-style superstition and monotheistic religion, whether she's slaughtering a chicken and pouring its blood over an altar or donating money to a church.

Driscoll doesn’t post the prayer requests and doesn’t give input on the West Seattle church blog. This was a simple attempt at 2 things: 1) letting the church know the financial state of things. 2) keeping the church posted on the needs of a well-loved church family. The argument over the church’s handling of finances is reasonable. Linking that discussion to the cancer post in this blog is not.

Gotta love Google. I couldn't find the Deed of Trust but I did find Mars Hills financial summary showing the figures for their weekly/monthly budgets along with the weekly/monthly amount people "tithe":
PDF's here - http://www.marshillchurch.org/audio/0207_voxpop.pdf

Go to Page 22:

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

@2 It turned into extortion in 1987, when God told Oral Roberts that he would "call [him] home" if Roberts didn't raise $8 million. Fundies have been paying into this protection scheme ever since.

So, um, if God Needs Money (sounds like a bad '50's sci-fi flick) can't he just print up as much as he wants?

So, the "Lord's Prayer," prayed by every Christian on the globe (which, apparently, is about 2 billion people) says, "Deliver us from the evil one." I guess it was just in ignorance that you mocked someone for saying the same thing. Or maybe you meant to mock Jesus. But, hey, I guess that's "cool" too.

You mean the Good Lord may be calling some of the MH pastorprix home if they don't raise enough bucks?

Ooh. I can hardly wait to wave as they go flying off into the ionosphere.