An interesting discussion concerning Emerging Church pastor Mark Driscoll shaping up over at Camp On This. Steve Camp begins:

Is there anyone in the emerging, young, reckless, pseudo-reformed camp that finds this kind of thing outrageous and offensive?

DRISCOLL: “Now what happens is some say “Well, we do believe in the book, and we will teach it, but we’re gonna teach it allegorically.” And there’s a literal and an allegorical interpretation. They’ll say, “Well the allegorical interpretation, it’s not between a husband and a wife, Song of Solomon, love and romance and intimacy; what it is, it’s about us and Jesus.” Really? I hope not. [Laughter from crowd] If I get to heaven and this goes down, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I mean it’s gonna be a bad day. Right? I mean seriously. You dudes know what I’m talking about. You’re like, “No, I’m not doing that. You know I’m not doing that. I love Him [Jesus] but not like that.” [Laughter from crowd]” source: (from Driscoll’s first sermon on the SoS series called, “The Peasant Princess” – start at 27:15)

Here is Mark telling us the source of these kinds of jokes: “Most of the jokes, cross references, illustrations etc. are made up on the spot while preaching. In that way I’m pretty Spirit lead. I study a ton going in to fill up, and then get up and preach it out.”

I think it’s important to note that, whether you agree with Driscoll’s rather juvenile conduct in the pulpit or not, above Mark Driscoll is equating the quite inappropriate references to Christ Jesus as “pretty Spirit led.” Well, I find myself in total ageement with the following from Steve Camp when he says:

A friend of mine and I were speaking about this today and she said to me, “I must ask, does the Holy Spirit truly compell a man to refer to Jesus (repeatedly) the way MD does making fun of our Lord in this manner? This is a Christianity I don’t recognize and which is foreign to Scripture.” I fully agree.