Fighting Hate with Grace, Sarcasm & Donuts

Fighting Hate with Grace, Sarcasm & Donuts

June 23, 2011 by

On Sunday the infamous hate group that pickets the funerals of soldiers, Westboro Baptist “Church”, turned their attention to Pastor Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church in Seattle. And how did Driscoll draw Westboro’s hate-mongering?

“They teach the lies that God love (sic) everyone and Jesus died for the sins of all of mankind.”

Well, sure. God forbid a church teach that.

But nobody really cares what Westboro does. What’s more interesting is Driscoll’s response. He posted a blog entry titled, Westboro Baptist Church, This False Prophet and His Blind Lemmings Welcome You to Our Whore House for God’s Grace and Free Donuts. That’s right, the church offered coffee and donuts to the protesters.

“We’ll teach that we don’t respond to hate with hate,” Driscoll told USA Today. “As long as they don’t disrupt the worship, they’re welcome and if they don’t like the sermon, they can throw things at the screen—I’m preaching by video at that location.”

And the sermon topic on Sunday?

“The sermon next Sunday will be from Luke’s Gospel on how God saved a really bad man named Zacchaeus and how the self-righteous, holier-than-thou religious folks who saw Jesus lovingly befriend him stood around complaining and grumbling—or basically picketing the love of God.”

In the end the protest was happily uneventful and the protesters apparently passed on the free donuts, coffee, books and Bibles.

Post By:

Kevin D. Hendricks


When Kevin isn't busy as the editor of Church Marketing Sucks, he runs his own writing and editing company, Monkey Outta Nowhere. Kevin has been blogging since 1998, runs the hyperlocal site West St. Paul Reader, and has published several books, including 137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading, The Stephanies and all of our church communication books.
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5 Responses to “Fighting Hate with Grace, Sarcasm & Donuts”

  • Eric J
    June 23, 2011

    They also didn’t protest the main campus which was quite strange.


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  • Patrick Fore
    July 5, 2011

    There are so many times when I want to throw down with Mark Driscoll and there are other times when I want to shake his hand and say “Thank you”.

    This is one of the times when I wish the later.

    Good post.


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  • Christine
    July 5, 2011

    They _passed_ on free _donuts_?

    *shudder*


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  • Wendy
    July 13, 2011

    Where’s the “Like” button on this that will forward this amazing story to Facebook??


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