'Explicit' Fundie Sex Manual Outrages Fundies

[onager]

The book's author, Mark Driscoll, is a Seattle megachurch preacher and sounds like a real piece of work:

Mark Driscoll’s Sex Manual ‘Real Marriage’ Scandalizes Evangelicals
Jan 13, 2012 4:45 AM EST

(Driscoll is)...a testosterone-oozing Calvinist bruiser who shouts down his congregation, swears from the pulpit and sometimes seems to think that if you’re not cut out for the locker room, you’re not cut out for heaven. If you’re a woman, you’d better make sure you keep your husband fed and serviced.

A quick review of Driscoll’s greatest hits: Stay-at-home dads are “worse than unbelievers.” James Cameron’s Avatar is “the most demonic, satanic film” he’s ever seen. A wife should keep herself “sexually available” to her husband and, if she believes the Bible, better be giving him frequent blowjobs.

“Effeminate” church musicians should be mocked on Facebook. Abstaining from alcohol can be a “sin.” The church has turned Jesus into a “a Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ,” when he’s actually a “prize fighter” who is “coming back looking for blood.” The Bible says women can’t have leadership positions in church because they’re “more gullible and easier to deceive than men.” Male masturbation is a “form of homosexuality” if there’s not a woman present.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/13/mark-driscoll-s-sex-manual-real-marriage-scandalizes-evangelicals.html

[Blue_In_AK]

1. I'm rather outraged,

and I'm agnostic. This person has some serious issues and needs to get himself to a psychiatrist post haste. People actually believe this BS??

[mindwalker_i]

2. Wow, what a wanker!

Maybe Jesus was really Mr. Buzzcut from Beavis and Butthead.

[Fridays Child]

3. I bet he thought all this crap up during...

...weekly hot oil massages from his meth dealer boyfriend.

[DCKit]

4. More RW projection. Suprise!!!!

I'm trying really hard not to think about what this guy's sex life is actually like.

[kestrel91316]

5. (double facepalm)

[Lint Head]

6. Gahlee! We have some weird assholes in the world.

[provis99]

7. I wonder if Poe's Law is in effect here?

This Driscoll sounds like a parody character.

[Scootaloo]

8. Well, by Poe's Law, we'll probably never know

Unlss he breaks character, I suppose.

[deacon_sephiroth]

9. I wondered that myself

because he would be a HILARIOUS charactature if he isn't real. The whole time I was thining how funny it was in an (omg there's people that really practice and preach this heinous shit) kinda way.

[onager]

10. If it's a Poe, they sure pranked Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Real-Marriage-Truth-Friendship-Together/dp/140020383X

With 257 customer reviews!

[LeftyMom]

18. He has an enormous multi-site chain of churches in Seattle.

He's for real.

[jeepnstein]

11. I know someone who bought this book as a gift...

for a colleague who is soon to be married. They're both preachers. And yes, it was a gag gift. No way is that guy going to take that book home, keep it in his study, or quote it from the pulpit. They laughed quite a bit over it and then tossed it in the trash because neither of them wanted to be caught by their mates with it in their possession. That whole submissive wife thing is really taken out of context by people who use it to justify their own agendas.

[Heddi]

12. a good friend of mine goes to this church (we live in Seattle)

She knows that Mr. Hed & I are atheignostic whatever, and doesn't talk religion at all, unless he or I bring it up (which we have on occasion). We've asked her to go to church with her, and she's extended an open invitation. But I cannot go after reading this. what a bunch of shit. The friend is a younger gal, very naive in many ways (especially religiously), and I'm sure she buys this nonsense hook line and sinker.

Sad.

[ButterflyBlood]

13. Not surprising, this guy's style actually is quite appealing to young people

He's a nutjob no doubt, but his church does style VERY well. The music is very modern (and not that awful Christian rock crap, very indie rock, pretty good actually based on YouTube videos I've seen), he usually preaches in jeans, the congregation is always casually dressed, very high tech presentation and his preaching style is a lot like a stand up comic or late night comedian. It's not surprising that younger folks would be more interested in a church like this rather than one with an organ playing centuries old hymns and some guy in a white robe droning on to a bunch of people in ancient pews wearing their "Sunday's best".

I wish the more liberal mainline churches would start to be more like this instead of stubbornly clinging into tradition. Because of that they are losing members to churches led by guys like this. I actually go to a similar church in style, but FAR more liberal and not led by someone mentally unbalanced. Still an evangelical church though.

[Heddi]

14. style over substance?

I think it's pretty sad that someone would get mesmerized by the Hot Topic-ization of Church and ignore the messages being pushed. ooh, the pastor wears jeans, that's like punk rock! He has an earring (not on the gay ear, though, I bet!!) !! They have an electric guitar!! kewl!!! (note, this is not directed at you, but to anyone who bases their religious choices on the clothing & music style of the pastor than the message being preached)

[ButterflyBlood]

15. I agree but it's not surprising when you think about it

I know people my age are quite likely to "seek" and yet won't find a traditional church setting appealing. It's a pretty common story, someone grew up in a traditional church, found it boring and likely too conservative as well, quit going, went through the trials of youth, thought about going to church again and that it might give their life some more meaning, and gets in one of these. There's another one of these type of churches in my very youthful urban neighborhood (uptown Minneapolis) that sends me fliers all the time, if you check out their website and dig really deep into their "statement of faith" you'll find that they are a really conservative evangelical church but they ignore most of that in what they focus on and instead just have things about how they play modern music and don't expect anyone to dress up, so with this neighborhood they're no doubt bringing in people who do support marriage equality and many that probably are using pot on a fairly regular basis. All the fliers they send me talk about young adult-geared sermon serieses, they even had one case in the one about getting out of debt where they offered to pay next month's rent for one randomly selected first-time visitor at the next service, which actually is a pretty clever way of getting people in. At least their pastors aren't as unhinged as this guy though.

What does kind of bug me is that the more liberal non-evangelical churches haven't realized this despite their losing members often due to people raised in them being bored and the evangelicals growing. How else does this guy have much success in Seattle and my neighborhood end up full of conservative evangelical churches?

[Heddi]

16. No, it's not surprising

It's the iphoneification of church. (i'm an iphone owner, for the record)--wrap a turd in attractive packaging, give it a funky and catching catch phrase, and voila! Suddenly it's not a turd, it's a COOL THING.

Offering to pay someone's rent as a gimick to get people to come to church. It's clever, but is that what you want to use to get people to come to church? Shouldn't they be there for other reasons---spiritual growth, questions answered, whatever? But free rent? HOLY SHIT I"M THERE!!!

Reminds me of what my hair stylist said about Groupons, when I asked him if he ever used them to get clients: Hell. NO. You'll never get return business. People just use them for the discount, and since they're so discounted and after Groupon gets its cut, the stylist is actually losing money on the services they provided. And the people using them aren't going to come back...they never do. They just salon hop from Groupon deal to Groupon deal.

As I'm typing this, though, I realize that Mars Hill Church *doesn't* have this problem. because there are 4 or 5 "branches" here in Seattle that I'm aware of. They're popping up like mushrooms.

So the people who are going there
1) like the message that's being told (which is odd considering how liberal, and open, and welcoming seattle is to people of all stripes)

2) the people going aren't HEARING the real message (make fun of gays, men will cheat if you dont' give blow jobs, masturbation is adultery, etc) because they're so enthralled with the glitz and electric guitars and the guy break-dancing on the stage, which is something you alluded to as well in your reply.

One of the Mars Hill franchises is located behind the Trader Joe's we used to go to in Ballard. A few observations:
1) the visitors of that church park like shit, and can't parallel park without hitting your car.

2) the visitors of that church drive very large vehicles

3) People dress like they're going to a hookers and pimps party. I saw a guy walking into church wearing a fedora, a purple and white pinstriped suit with large pocket-watch chain hanging down to his ankles, purple and white spats, carrying a walking cane, and his date/friend/person who was holding his hand was wearing a mini skirt an 6 inch stilletos. Now I'm not going to be all "get off my lawn", because these folks looked to be in their 30's, I'm 36, and I really don't ever have an issue with what people wear (holy shit, it's Seattle. Today on the way to the Dr's office a guy was sitting in Subway dressed like King Tut. No big deal, that's how he dresses). But to church? They weren't the only ones, either. Many mini skirts (MINI!), knee boots, boobies hanging out of shirts...It seemed a bit TOO forced. Too "hey anything goes". I'm no church-goer, but when I was, my ass would be TARNISHED if I went in anything other than a proper skirt/dress, proper shoes, and a nice blouse. I thought a one-way ticket to hell was wearing PANTS IN CHURCH...and jeans...oh I'd rather blashpme on the alter than wear JEANS TO CHURCH!!!11!!

[ButterflyBlood]

17. I think the idea is more just getting people who normally wouldn't come to show up

And there's tons in my neighborhood. Get them in the door with the possibility of free rent, the sermon series is about debt, not fire and brimstone stuff so they might stick around. And play cool music, have the people be friendly, who knows they might stay for people who aren't the church type.

I don't think that place is bad really, they don't seem too involved in politics unlike most evangelical churches and perfectly aware most of their congregation are quite liberal, and show some concern for social justice and do good work in addition rehab (we all know what drug abuse is like amongst young urbanites from middle class backgrounds.) I'm sure the pastors are nice guys personally too, and wouldn't preach things like telling women that their husbands leave them if they don't give good enough blowjobs. I just find it a little ironic that places like that in neighborhoods like this tend to still be quite biblically literalist and all, when the more theologically liberal churches around here tend to have a far older congregation and be very traditional and all. And they won't call you a heathen for wearing jeans either, but it doesn't happen as often.

Actually though that's a great example of the type of thinking that's driving people to places like this, the thought process becomes "oh if this place doesn't care if I wear jeans then they can't be all bad or conservative" ignoring that it's just as possible to preach a fundie message in jeans as in a suit or alb robe. It might be silly and superficial but if you grew up being told you were a hellbound heathen for wanting to wear jeans you can kind of see why it becomes more appealing. I mean honestly that's part of the reason I go to an evangelical charismatic church instead of a mainline one, most mainline ones have an attitude now of "wear whatever you want, we're just glad you're here", but I'd still feel a little out of place. People don't dress like you described there though, it's mostly just what like you'd see at coffeeshops or clubs around here. Basically just wearing what they like and normally do. With how weird the teachings at Mars Hill are it doesn't surprise me the people going are a big weird in dress too...

On a side note though I've found it kind of funny it's not uncommon to find non-church people who are still upset about that type of stuff, awhile back I was talking with some guy who mentioned that he doesn't even believe in God but for some reason still finds its distasteful and gets upset when he sees or hears about people wearing jeans to church or synagogue (as he was raised Jewish), and how he'd never ever do that if he was going back to synagogue even though he thinks just about everything preached there is utter bunk. Odd thinking.

[onager]

19. Nothing new about this, though...

Thanks for the comments, Heddi and BB. I enjoyed reading them.

I just want to add that Driscoll is simply following a template established way back in 1968 by Pastor Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel in Orange County, CA.

I heard a lot about CC because they were right in my back yard, in Southern California. Many years ago, I even had a magazine article published about them (it pissed them off). By that time, CC was a pretty typical Fundie megachurch, complete with a gift shop crammed full of tacky Jesus-Junk.

Today, the CC franchise...er, "fellowship" claims to include about 1,000 churches worldwide

CC pioneered the "come as you are" approach to church-going. Though I guess you could say the real pioneer of that approach was Bob Schuller and his Orange County drive-in church - later the Crystal Cathedral. No need to wear a suit or nice dress if you weren't getting out of the car.

CC welcomed...er, lured in the SoCal hippies by doing stuff like baptisms in the Pacific Ocean and guitar-based church singings.

In fact, according to Wikipedia...

Much of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) has it roots in Calvary Chapel worship music.

Well, there's another reason to hate those bastards!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Smith_(pastor)