Driscoll's Portland Church Met By Protesters

By Steve Beaven
Religion News Service

PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) Black-clad demonstrators gathered outside the Portland satellite branch of a Seattle megachurch on Sunday (Oct. 16) to protest the church's stance on homosexuality.

About 20 protesters lined up outside Mars Hill Church during the congregation's first Sunday morning services, carrying banners and shouting obscenities as churchgoers left when the service ended.

"Shame on you bigots," one woman yelled at worshippers as they left. "Shame on you homophobes. You're not welcome here. You're going to burn in hell."

The Portland church is an offshoot of Seattle's Mars Hill Church, led by senior pastor Mark Driscoll. Driscoll, whose church spans
multiple campuses, preaches against homosexuality and once told his followers that yoga is "demonic."

Brad Salyers came to Mars Hill for the first time on Sunday with his wife and two young children. Salyers said the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin, but everyone is a sinner.

"We love homosexuals," Salyers said. "We love pot smokers. We love liars and thieves."

News of the church's arrival in Portland drew some opposition. Tim Smith, the lead pastor at Mars Hill, said Sunday that he had expected some sort of demonstration.

The protesters, some of whom wore kerchiefs to cover their faces, shouted profanities at adults and children. "That's not how we would go about it," Smith said afterward. "But they have the right to say what they want to say."

(Steve Beaven writes for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore.)

Comments

[kanamartin]

05:43 AM on 10/29/2011

How did pot smokers get in the same catagory as liars and thieves? There is NO sin against smoking pot. Pot grows from the ground from seed, I believe the bible says that it is good. America is so hypocritical when it comes to drug use. Beer and wine are drugs too, and I don't hear anyone calling partakers of those things sinners....

[LMPE]

08:50 PM on 10/20/2011

Yeah! THAT'S my city!

[Nikola Perkovic]

02:52 PM on 10/20/2011

Christians go and protest in front of LGBT buoldings and yell insults at them too,equality is a b***h huh? Heterofobia at work!

[LMPE]

08:51 PM on 10/20/2011

Heterophobia means hating someone for being heterosexual. This church hates people for being LGBT.

[gracealone]

12:09 PM on 10/25/2011

Mars Hill is going out to protest LGBT centers? Sorry I don't think so. Don’t confuse the actions of some groups as being all “Christianity”.

These protesters are welcome to protest and say whatever they want….but I think they cross the line when obscenities are being yelled at adults AND children. If they don't like this churches theology they are welcome to chose any other church.....it is a free country. That is the beauty of equality ya' know.

[Margaret Bengtson]

11:42 AM on 10/20/2011

Congregations like this are not churches but political organizations. They hide behind the guise of religion to foster a social agenda of hate and promote violence against LBGT people. Essentially, they are an arm of the extreme right wing. So demonstrations against them are perfectly proper and should be encouraged. Religious groups like these should be declassified as "religions" and regulated or investigated accordingly for hate crimes.

[gracealone]

12:23 PM on 10/25/2011

They promote hate and violence.....could you please refer to any source that you can support this assertion? Identifying something as sinful does not mean that they are hating people and cetainly it does not mean that they are promoting violence towards anyone who is LGBT! This church could be classified as "neo-reformation" and they clearly identify all of us as sinners....they don't just single out one sin. They point out all sins and point us to our Saviour.

[Margaret Bengtson]

11:30 AM on 10/26/2011

This isn't even a controversial issue. The demonization of LBGT people by the church and it's political proxies such as the Focus on the Family, Family Research Council and others is well documented. Sermons that preach that not only is sexuality a choice, it is sinful and demonic to be gay create the basis for homophobia and in an mistakenly related byproduct, transphobia. This gives license to congregants or their family members to commit violence or condone it. Examples are to oppose efforts to stop bullying to the point of suicide.

[LintLass]

10:54 PM on 10/26/2011

Err, how about this article where they're quoted as equating LGBT people (and pot smokers) to 'liars and theives?'

[Grada3784]

02:33 PM on 10/19/2011

We love liars and thieves and christians too.

[onnozol]

12:49 PM on 10/19/2011

First off, smoking pot is a sin? I must of really missed that part of the Bible. I could be wrong, I just don't remember anything about marijuana.

Second, standing outside and shouting obscenities with children present isn't the best way to get your point across. It is in bad taste, at the very least. Try to be more civil than the people you admonish. And from what I have heard from my many Portland friend's, Driscoll's sermons and rhetoric is quite offensive and inflammatory. Yoga is "demonic"? It is exercise, silly. I do not think now is the time to be stirring the pot. Things are already explosive.

[Grada3784]

02:20 PM on 10/19/2011

Anything that makes you happy is a sin to some.

[gracealone]

12:28 PM on 10/25/2011

Regarding Yoga....here's the actual "context" of that statement...it's not the exercise....it's the spiritual roots of the practice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhcoBLdM8CQ

[onnozol]

01:48 PM on 10/25/2011

Yes, but in the US most people do not practice in this manner. In fact, unless the yogi has been trained overseas, I have never seen a yoga instructor do more than show you how to breathe and do the poses.

The more I see of Driscoll, the more I see an egomaniac who wants his congregation to be under his thumb. I am sorry but if you are that worried about "pagan" practices and demonic origins I think your soul has more pressing issues. Half your life, literally dozens of daily small actions, are "pagan" in origin. Why not audit yourself and stop doing them all? If you cannot be intelligent enough to know whether you are simply being quiet and exercising or communing with demons, I am surprised you have lived this long "demon free". He is building an empire and they are his silly subjects.

*Collective you, not you you.

[sdsf]

12:37 PM on 10/19/2011

HuffPo - you put a picture of a quaint little church on an article about a MEGA church. This is clearly the wrong image to go with the story.

[el sistema]

03:17 PM on 10/19/2011

It's probably the only stock photo they had permission to use.

[tup2]

03:52 PM on 10/20/2011

That is the church. It used to be a neighborhood Baptist church and was purchased by Driscoll's mega church. I guess it could be called a branch. I run by it all the time. It is just a guess, but I bet most of the parish members are not from the neighborhood. This is a fairly progressive, liberal leaning neighborhood.

[eddy joe]

07:29 AM on 10/19/2011

While the bible clearly says homosexuality is a sin, we are to urge people to give up their sin, and repent of them, and to not return to them. Then you become a practicing christian. We are not to treat them badly, but with love, and compassion.

[el sistema]

10:52 AM on 10/19/2011

Cherry picking bible passages.

[hennyis1]

12:38 PM on 10/19/2011

Do you even know what it means to cherry pick? I don't think you do so you're kinda doing it wrong. :/

[eddy joe]

12:40 PM on 10/19/2011

Quoting it. I don't have room for all of it.

[sdsf]

12:29 PM on 10/19/2011

the Bible never says homosexuality is a sin. Homosexuality is never addressed in the Bible, and the very concept of homosexuality did not exist when the Bible was written.

[rockysparks]

04:35 AM on 10/19/2011

Protesting a church like this is sort of like saying "Don't drink the Kool-aid" after discovering the Kool-aid's already been drunk ...

[Inannawhimsey]

01:35 AM on 10/19/2011

Just a typical day in the city of Parades, Protests & Parties :3

[onnozol]

12:50 PM on 10/19/2011

The parties are so fun, though. And the donuts at Voodoo. Maple and bacon? Yes and please.

[tygr49]

01:05 AM on 10/21/2011

I'm actually jewish, so those maple bacon bars are totally sacrilicious.

[Abnormal Wrench]

10:08 PM on 10/18/2011

The article is very ambiguous. Is "bigot" and "homophobe" the "profanities" being yelled by the protestors? If so, that isn't a profanity, that is an accurate description of Mars Hill church.

[hennyis1]

12:36 PM on 10/19/2011

The only bigots I see are the rude and obnoxious protestors.

I find it funny the pot calling the kettle black.

[Abnormal Wrench]

08:54 PM on 10/19/2011

Calling bigots bigots is bigotry?

My irony meter just pegged.

[ANGEL53545]

09:28 PM on 10/18/2011

SOUNDS LIKE A CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATION.

[xhawk2]

08:01 AM on 10/19/2011

True. Imagine if these gay fascists had done the same thing to Muslims.

[onnozol]

12:51 PM on 10/19/2011

I have a feeling you would be shouting with them.

[onnozol]

12:54 PM on 10/19/2011

Protesting is not civil rights violation. As long as they were not physically harmed, the protesters can do just that. If protesting was a civil rights violation, don't you think the WBC would have been charged by now several times over?

[gibraltar]

09:10 PM on 10/18/2011

Cheney lives thus there is no God!

[eddy joe]

07:30 AM on 10/19/2011

Satan lives, therefore there must be a God.

[jsalspach]

09:11 AM on 10/19/2011

address please?

[onnozol]

12:55 PM on 10/19/2011

Well, that is a fallacy. We can verify the existence of Cheney. Although, I think he is an evil cyborg myself.

[Cold in Michigan]

04:28 PM on 10/18/2011

Of course anyone with an ounce, or half an ounce, of compassion and brains would know that churches that preach against gays are wrong, but protesting in front of their church when a service is being held, and in front of the children is wrong. Just because the church members may do the same thing to others, does not make it right.

Take out news paper ads, put up bill boards, picket the other 6 days a week...but don't sink to the level of the false religious.

[Albert Ray DOrazio]

04:36 PM on 10/18/2011

But wait. Sometimes they need a taste of their own medicine and see how they like it. I am Christian myself and gay as well, and support what they did. I had many Christians yell, curse and even spit in my face.

[Cold in Michigan]

09:45 PM on 10/18/2011

I understand that. I also don't know a group as patient as the gays have been over the years and years they have fought for simple freedoms that everyone else enjoys. I just don't get it.

But I also believe in Freedom of Religion, the fact that there is a right and a wrong way of doing things, and that two wrongs don't make a right. I don't think yelling out as they were exiting church was the correct thing to do. By doing that, you sort of give them licence to keep up thier tactics. In my opion it would be better to be above them and take the protest to a higher...and more vocal...level.

Giving them a tatse of thier own medicine isn't going to change their minds, and that is not really the idea behind the protest. The idea is to draw attention to what the church is saying and hope that the community sees it as the bigoted tripe it is. The only thing a scene outside of the church does is give them proof that all gays are what they said they are.

[Pale Writer]

02:40 AM on 10/19/2011

You are a Christian and you support what they did? Do you honestly think Jesus would cover His face and shout obscenities at ladies and children? What was His response when He was spat upon? Did He tell His disciples to "give them a taste of their own medicine?" If you're going to call yourself a Christian, you should be willing to behave like one...otherwise, what's the point?

[Syllogizer]

04:37 PM on 10/18/2011

No, people with real compassion and brains warn people away from actions as self-destructive as homosexual actions. Or are you going to insist that even Dante had neither compassion nor brains?

[Cold in Michigan]

06:28 PM on 10/18/2011

Oh get real. Do you think one person has ever read Dante and changed their ways? What a hoot.

I don't see churches picketing out side of McDonalds about the sin of gulltony or out side of banks against greed. If you believe in Dante you should look to the 4th Bolgia of the 8th circle and find yourself.

[onnozol]

12:58 PM on 10/19/2011

Dante work is fiction. Pure fiction. So now you base your religion on the works of an author from the 1300's not in the Bible? When did it become acceptable to add whatever stories you feel to holy books?

[hartman83]

04:08 PM on 10/18/2011

I am still looking for a christian, jew, or muslim to prove a god they believe in exists. There is still no evidence. I have yet to see anyone walk on water, turn water into wine, ive barely seen christians act christ like (at least evangelical congresspersons and mega church leaders (closet gays?)). Anyhow, find me a speaking burning bush from within the last 100 years and not from 5k years ago, and we can talk turkey.

[Syllogizer]

04:38 PM on 10/18/2011

One can tell even from your list of proposed evidences that you are artificially setting the bar too high.

[Joseph Schaefer]

05:04 PM on 10/18/2011

How is that set too high? Doubting Thomas was shown physical evidence, Moses got a burning bush. The fact that no one gets proof modern day only shows that the Bible is fiction.

[Katie125]

04:54 PM on 10/18/2011

You can't prove God through science, because God is not of the material world.

Even Christians/Muslims/Jews who believe in God do not expect to see any of the miracles you listed. (Which you listed miracles that Jesus performed, and Jesus is no longer on Earth.)

I'm pretty sure that if you *did* see someone walk on water, you'd come up with a good scientific explanation for it anyway. You're going to discount anything you see straight out of hand, because you already have in your head that religion is wrong. Which is fine. You can believe in what you want, and so can the Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. It's the beauty of living in America.

Stay away from anyone who tries to "prove" God to you anyway. The lessons of Christ (for the Christians) are to spread love to the world, not to go around trying to prove His existence. God can handle His own affairs just fine.