by our love?

It is no secret among my friends that I do not like, agree with, or sometimes even want to claim the same religion as Mars Hill Church and their senior pastor Mark Driscoll.
I know that I am not the most informed person on this church, but the sermons I have listened to, the interviews with Mr. Driscoll that I have heard, the stories of people from the church that I have read, and the discussions about church I have had all have led me to believe as a whole Mars Hill has damaging views on women, gender, money, men, giving, discipline… life. But there are many many people on the internet who are far more informed than I that have written on all of those things. And this isn’t really about that.

So recently I was reading a blog and noticed there were some posts about Mars Hill and “Pastor Mark.” As I read through them and continued to follow the links to other blogs my heart hurt. My Christian soul mourned. My inner feminist raged. And if I wasn’t reading them at work expletives would have most likely left my mouth.

My first thought was no. no. no! NO!

This is not the Jesus that I follow. The god that these people claim is not mine. These people. That “church.”

Then one of the quotes from Mr. Driscoll came to mind. He was talking about some people who left his church due to theological differences and said they “basically decided to not be Christian”
Some theological difference so they are no longer Christians? Really?

But is this what I am doing? I don’t agree with their views so we don’t follow the same God?
I don’t want the identity of  “Christian” to apply to both myself and Mark Driscoll.

But this isn’t fair. We do follow the same God (albeit in very very very very very very different ways).

Do I really have to embrace Mars Hill with the same love that I so willing embrace my youth girls with? My family? My friends?
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love?

Do I really have to love this man, whom I have never met, who would place less or no value on the preaching of one of my very best friends, who I know more than anything is called to be a pastor, because she is a women?
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love?

I believe, more than anything, as a Christian I am called to love everybody. Why is it so easy for me to love those on the outside, but when it comes to loving Christians that I disagree with on pretty much every single level,  love is hard to find and forced at the very best?
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

What do you think?
How are we suppose to respond to churches who we may disagree with so drastically?
How can we show love without appearing to agree with or support a theology we find damaging?