I read with shock about the protest outside of the new Mars Hill Church in Southeast Portland this past weekend. Twenty protesters gathered in front of the church, not only carrying banners, but -- more alarmingly -- shouting obscenities as churchgoers left their service. One woman yelled, "Shame on you bigots. You're not welcome here. You're going to burn in hell." Is this what Portland has degraded to? Harassing people leaving their house of worship?
The protesters were dressed in black and some wore handkerchiefs to cover their faces while shouting at adults and children. Their issue is with the new owners of the beautiful church -- fondly known as The Castle -- because of their public stance against homosexuality. Church leaders, including founder Mark Driscoll, have ruffled many feathers with their overt condemnation of homosexuality as a sin.
I understand that such teachings may offend people, but this does not at all justify the protest organized outside the church. Do children leaving this church need to hear such hatred and obscenity, especially by those covering their faces with handkerchiefs? Can such an incident ever have a positive effect on a child's young mind? What happened to civility? What happened to dialogue?
To be clear, as a Muslim, I do not endorse nor represent this church. In fact, Mars Hill founder Pastor Mark Driscoll has made insulting comments towards Muslims, as well. He has argued that Muslims do not worship the same God as Christians and that Christians should not participate in Muslim services. He argued that "to pray with Muslims absolutely dishonors Jesus."
So clearly I do not defend Driscoll or his beliefs, but we must remember the freedom of religion this great nation affords, which includes every religious organization's freedom to preach what it believes to be the truth, as long as it doesn't call for chaos and disorder in society. If all of us protested each theological disagreement we have, there would be hundreds of protests every day. This is not the way to handle disagreements, as it will lead to chaos and societal disturbance.
Religious groups have been speaking either for or against homosexuality for decades, so this protest is rather surprising. Speaking for my faith, Islam views homosexuality as a sin and against the Islamic way of life. This does not, however, mean that we hate the individual. Muslims are expected to behave with dignity and maintain law and order even if we find disagreement with others' behavior, tendencies or beliefs.
The Mars Hill Church's approach to preaching certainly leaves much to be desired. Announcing that its arrival in Portland is meant to save the city's sinners is the very reason that people are turned off by religion. I would advise church leaders to attract people, not to push people away. Seek common ground through love and understanding.
Peace and order of our city are of paramount importance. I ask people from both sides of the issue to seek reasonable, peaceful and civil ways to communicate with one another. Let us keep Portland diverse and keep it peaceful.
Originally published in The Oregonian on October 21, 2011.
Follow Harris Zafar on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Harris_Zafar
Greg Carey: Evangelicals and Masculinity
I believe it was Pauline Phillips, aka "Dear Abby", who originated the quotation "Fighting fire with fire only gets you ashes!".
While I support peaceful - and here I stress the word "peaceful" - protesters to practice their constitutional rights, there are surely better ways to find commonality than shouting obscenities. The anger set forth by this church seemed to have precipitated this action which only returned the anger. This is not a way to solve a problem.
A character from one of my favorite television series of the past ("Joel Fleishman" of Northern Exposure) asserted that America is made up of a "zillion special-interest groups". It seems that, to my dismay, each of those groups these days are becoming polarized against each other and making assertions that America has to be made up of one group of people with one set of beliefs.
Instead, I think our strength should come from the reality that we are an incredibly diverse group of people. When we realize the value in that diversity, perhaps we can realize the fullest potential of "E pluribus unum".
Civility was discarded by Randall Terry in the process of establishing Operation Rescue, an organization dedicated to saving babies through intolerance, hatred, bombings, assault, threats, arson and murder.
Dialogue was thrown away and replaced by 'sidewalk counselors' screaming insults at women's health care providers and women clients.
Being respectful of the innocence of children was abandoned in order to stand outside children's schools with gruesome, bloody pictures of dead fetuses.
Common decency disappeared when religious fanatics offended by homosexuality began screaming vile lies at bereaved people going into funerals, including when children were present.
Civility and dialogue were declared useless by the intolerant, self-righteous religious fanatics like those attending this church, eager to repeal modern life and force everyone into a punitive theocracy again. After 50 years of nastiness, insults, harassment, assaults and murder, NOW you start talking about civility and dialogue because it's just terrible that the people they have been abusing are now using those tactics to fight BACK?
"God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
One is free to believe anything, but once it is said in public, it will attract criticism from all directions. If the protest had turned to physical violence, then they would have my sympathy.
As for "hate the sin, not the sinner," "...cast the first stone," etc., very few people adhere to those, and as a result many have to suffer; which is the very reason for this kind of protests. There is usually a wide gap between theory and practice when it comes to religion; and, look how tired people have become of it.
The apparently reported events comprising the incident and the character of the persons who perpetrated said events appear to be have been construed as horrendous when aimed at other groups. This appears to be reasonably considered to detract somewhat from the integrity of the perspective.
I welcome your thoughts.
Actually, I have determined that sin is a superstitious concept that applies to faithers only. I have opted out and want to be left alone.
You are choosing to opt in by trying to "dictate" what this church is permitted to believe about God and the scriptures.
No, not really.
"Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful —just stupid.)" – Robert A. Heinlein
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Do children need to hear such obscenity and bigotry from their parents and religious teachers? Can such exposure to hate speech and bigotry (for that is what we're talking about with Abrahamic anti-homosexual teaching and preaching) ever have a positive effect on a young child's mind?
We know from science that gender orientation is determined in most if not all children way before adolescence. We also know that somewhere between 5 - 10% of children will be same sex attracted. What will be the effect of exposure to such bigotry on the minds of those young same sex attracted children unfortunate enough to be exposed to this hate speech.
You stand upon America's freedom of religion to peddle your hateful doctrine? Fine. Others stand upon America's freedom of speech to protest what you're doing.
Gays have held civil private parties in Egypt and still got arrestede.
In Iran, gays can be civil and still executed.
In the US, up until the late 1960's, gays were civil and bars still got raided and preachers still pounded their pulpits about us. We were still fired for no cause other than being gay and bashed or cursed. Otherwise we were totally invisible to the religious world.
Until there was one police raid too many. Straight people broke the bottle and now there's no place for the genie to go.
Sorry, but we're not going to be better christians than the christians or better muslims than the muslims. And we're not going to be any more invisible that christians or muslims want to be.
Threats of a divine bully aren't very cibil either.
"The Mars Hill Church's approach to preaching certainly leaves much to be desired. Announcing that its arrival in Portland is meant to save the city's sinners is the very reason that people are turned off by religion. I would advise church leaders to attract people, not to push people away. Seek common ground through love and understanding."
The message of the gospel is repentance and faith in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins. Their message to the "city's sinners" is to everyone. No one is without sin. Of course we should seek common ground but that does not mean that a church needs to change it's message. If we change our message to “attract” people, these people will eventually feel mislead when we present the true message that should have been in the forefront from the start.
There are fundamental differences between Christianity and other religions. We can be ecumenical in projects where we seek to help the community but in cases of worship it is often not possible to merge practices because there are fundamental dichotomies that can‘t be ignored. We can discuss these differences in love and respect but it is not necessary to compromise our beliefs in the name of love and respect. Our first love must be to God exclusively and everything else is a reflection of that love.
Coming into people's neighborhoods and spreading that hate ... then playing the persecuted majority when someone *does* take exception to being denigrated... Doesn't become 'fair' just cause you believe that doing so is so 'righteous'.
Of course people are going to be angry. Probably should watch their language if it really is as this report says (Frankly, they don't tell the truth about LGBT people in the first place, when they seek our oppression, so I'm not in a hurry to believe them now.)
You're always saying 'Don't cast the whole Fundie movement based on what so many of us says,' ...and here you're up in arms if the anger shows *a little* in a peaceful protest.
Frankly, it's hard for *my* religion to have a ceremony anywhere Fundamentalists can find out about without them 'protesting' or doing their 'prayer warfare' stuff, disrupting, harassing, or whatever they happen to feel like. And we're not talking about oppressing or converting *anyone.*
Frankly, right-wing Fundies have been 'protesting' lots of other people far more crudely for far longer.
1. You claim “billions of dollars” are being used to spread hate against gay people in their neighborhood. Well obviously this church does not have “billions” of dollars….and exactly how are they using their money to spread hate? Could you please give any fact to support that they are spending ANY money to spread a message of hate against LGBT in the name of righteousness?
2. How is this church seeking the oppression of LGBT people?
3. I absolutely do not identify myself as fundie and I would venture to guess that neither does anyone at Mars Hill. Probably a better label would be reformation. I’m not sure you understand what the word fundamentalist historically means but that “movement” had some real problems. It is not helpful to use this label when it really doesn’t have a definition in the way you are using it.
4. Is “this” church protesting your ceremonies? I have never heard of them organizing protests….are you sure of this?
I’m not denying that some religious groups do stage these protests. However, you can’t attribute the actions of any religious group into one big “fundie” category and then attribute all of it to “any” church to suit your purpose of argument.
Peace to you!
I agree that we can learn a lot from the gospels and scriptures in how to handle sin issues. The problem is in these forums most often Christians are unfairly perceived as calling out only homosexuals as sinful. That simply is not a fair description of most Christians. In many of these articles the Christian church is most put in a position where they must biblically defend their beliefs from both LGBT advocates and liberal Christians. Because they are on the defensive they have to focus in on the issue of homosexual acts, but I have never been to any conservative Christian church where the focus of a sermon has ever been calling out homosexuals because their sins are somehow higher up on the imaginary hierarchy chart.
A Christian church is full of repentant sinners. If someone thinks they are without sin, the gospel has nothing to offer them. When we approach the world we should be clear that we all are sinners….we do not need to redefine our beliefs to be more “inclusive” because Jesus has already died for all sins. This church has done nothing to single out homosexuals as sinners. They proclaim the gospel to the world for all sins.
I'd also be interested in the statements that you consider "slanderous."