Christian misogyny: Megachurch pastor tells women they must ‘submit’

[ismnotwasm]

(I'm from Seattle, I know about all about this church--the guy's a complete pig, but his rhetoric is a common to all misogynists, secular or religious)

Women are “quarrelsome nags,” and must “submit” to their husbands, according to Mars Hill Church Pastor Mark Driscoll. In a sermon dripping with Christian misogyny, Driscoll told his flock that God wants women to submit to their husbands, and that being married to a woman is like torture, a life sentence.

Driscoll, leader of the Seattle based megachurch, found support for his overt misogyny in the Bible, basing his sermon in part on the text found in Ephesians 5:22-33, which says wives should "submit" to their husbands. Driscoll also used the book of Proverbs to fuel his misogynistic rant.

The following is an excerpt from Driscoll’s sermon:

And some women – you're a nag. You're disrespectful. You're quarrelsome. Being married to you is like a life sentence, and the guy's just scratching on his wall every day, 'One more day. Just one more day.'

Proverbs talks about certain women – they're like a dripping faucet. You ever tried to sleep with a dripping faucet? Plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk. It's what we use to torture people who are prisoners of war. A wife is like that.

Driscoll’s Christian misogyny is yet another reminder that religious superstition is a toxic force for ignorance and bigotry, and that religion poisons everything, even love.

http://www.examiner.com/article/christian-misogyny-megachurch-pastor-tells-women-they-must-submit

[Squinch]

1. I'm sorry. Any woman who sat through that sermon and didn't walk out is mentally ill. Seriously.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

2. I was married to a nag---except it had a penis.

Damn near killed me. Seriously.

[redqueen]

3. It is so stupid to stay with someone you hate

just because some invisible being said to.

[SummerSnow]

4. submit to what? He can kiss my ass

[Suich]

5. I knew who you were talking about before I clicked on the thread!

Driscoll is a piece of work.

[mercuryblues]

6. I can't wait

for his Mother's day sermon.

[ismnotwasm]

7. Oh it gets better

I should dig up the interview about women having an obligation to bear children--Mars Hill Christian children of course. And if I recall correctly there is a sort of dress code for church members. Knees must be covered.

The guys a nut job, and I watched in complete dismay as this church grew ever larger, buying up some pretty expensive real estate in the Seattle area. The members will help each other, providing a sense of security and community, apparently not realizing how cult-like this church is.

[MadrasT]

10. Yeah well fuck that

And fuck his "submission" fantasy

As if

[Shrike47]

8. If he studied Greek and other ancient languages he'd know that some of the material he relies on

In the New Testament was apparently later inserts. (My older son was a Classics major in college and so he informed me when I was commenting rather negatively on St. Paul one day.)

[redqueen]

9. Huh! So the OT was misogynist, and was influenced by Jesus and some of his followers to be less so,

then was later re-misogynized, so to speak?

Interesting.

[Squinch]

11. Let's take bets now on how long it will be till this guy is caught in a scandal doing something

illegal with at least two of the following elements: methamphetamine, oxycontin, a child, a male prostitute, a female prostitute, a married parishioner, a goat, a chandelier.

I say within two years.

[seabeyond]

12. yup. the misogyny is cover for their own failings. nt

[BainsBane]

13. 1 year

Who wants the over/ under?

[ismnotwasm]

14. I don't know it's been around a while

While I'm convinced Driscoll is at least a sociopath, he lets his church do the walking. He's also a homophobe of the first water.

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."

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/church-or-cult/Content?oid=12172001

[Squinch]

15. Sounds just like Warren Jeffs.

[niyad]

16. WHY are there any women left in that "church"? ARE there any women in

that "church"?