WASHINGTON
Salon
JENNY KUTNER
The Washington-based evangelical megachurch Mars Hill is shutting (some of) its doors. Following controversy over founder Mark Driscoll’s well-documented homophobic and sexist remarks, church officials announced over the weekend that they would be closing several of Mars Hills 15 Pacific Northwest branches, citing financial difficulties caused by “negative media attention.” Several staff and clergy members have also been laid off. At the end of last month, Driscoll himself announced that he would be taking a six-week-long leave of absence.
According to Pastor Mark Dunford, who was recently laid off from Mars Hill’s Portland branch, his dismissal comes in the wake of calls for Driscoll’s resignation, as well as Dunford’s denouncement of the founder for instilling a “lack of transparency” and “culture of fear” within the church ranks. A recent New York Times profile of Driscoll also reports accusations of “plagiarizing, of inappropriately using church funds and of consolidating power to such a degree that it has become difficult for anyone to challenge or even question him.”
The tide has been turning against Driscoll for some time, who has made a spectacle of himself over the years with his anti-LGBT, anti-woman remarks, many of which he has espoused as key elements of his theology. Preaching theological “complementarianism,” in which women are considered men’s followers and subordinates, Driscoll has expressed a belief that women should always be submissive. According to one report, the pastor once instructed a female congregant to get on her knees and apologize to her husband for failing to bend to his will, then give him a blow job.
The advice fits in with Driscoll’s long-apparent, disturbing view of women, examples of which feminist blogger Libby Anne unearthed and posted on Monday. In a 2001 blog post under the pen name William Wallace II, Driscoll blatantly asserts his patriarchal understanding of women’s role in the world, essentially calling them “penis homes”:
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