Alternatives to Mark Driscoll’s Pornogrification of the Song of Songs

Maybe this is why…. "He (Driscoll) claims to have prepared his sermon in 2 hours! Not only that, he noted that he did so while watching a Mariners Game on television!"(TWW)

 

Closeup of the sun's surface-NASA

 

Today, with permission of both Wenatchee the Hatchet as well as the blog, From Bitter Waters To Sweet, here,we present,  the Introduction, and Parts1-3, of WTH's analysis of Mark Driscoll's controversial Song of Songs sermon. We will post the rest of the series on Wednesday. We have been impressed with the demeanor of Wenatchee, who is quick to point out positives in the ministry of Driscoll wherever possible.

For new readers, here is a transcript of Mark Driscoll's sermon which has caused never-ending controversy. Warning: this is a highly explicit, graphic sermon which was preached in Scotland during a Sunday service. The church removed this from their website, a decision, as you will see, we believe was warranted (an understatement if ever there was one)!

 


 

"Mark Driscoll has been a polarizing figure for years and if the sound bites associated with him any given year are any indication he plans to be a lightning rod in American Christianity for as long as he can. Though there are number of topics about which he has chosen to say controversial things that he says are simply statements in the Bible, he has become most famous for his remarks on sex and gender.

I intend to summarize a few observations about what Driscoll has said about Song of Songs. Though Driscoll presents himself as just preaching what is in the Bible Christians have questioned the viability and propriety of Driscoll's handling of Song of Songs. In the last few years there have been two objections. The first is that Driscoll's approach to Song of Songs is so explicit as to turn Song of Songs into a kind of Christian porn. The most famous exponent of this first objection is John MacArthur who, in "The Rape of Solomon's Song" accuses Driscoll of transforming a biblical text into Christian pornography. The second objection is that by being deliberately cavalier about allegorical typological interpretations of Song of Songs Driscoll is choosing to ignore a venerable interpretive tradition within the Christian faith.

Here I intend to demonstrate that while both objections have their merits there is a third objection to make to Driscoll's handling of Song of Songs. The problem in Driscoll's handling of Song of Songs does not reside in his emphasis on marital love; it also does not reside, strictly speaking, in his refusal to concede a metaphor in Song of Songs for God loving His people. The problem resides in Driscoll's hermeneutic of erotic at the expense of both the perspicuity of scripture and of Jesus' own words about His fulfillment of Scripture. This can be broken down into four issues:

1. Driscoll's rejection of Christ typology in Song of Songs forces him to reject the words of Christ about scripture regarding Himself.

2. This rejection also compels him to reject the Bridegroom/Bride metaphor only for Song of Songs while affirming it in every other genre.

3. This rejection of Christ typology in Song of Songs transforms the book into a type of Christian porn that has no teaching value for the unmarried, for the widow, or for a child. In Driscoll's hands Song of Songs is no longer a gift given by the Holy Spirit for the building up of the whole church and instead becomes a sex manual of special value to the married.

4. This rejection of Christ typology in Song of Songs of necessity rejects the one place in the Scripture besides the eschatological Wedding Feast of the Lamb in which the marriage between God and His people could be presented in a positive light.

ISSUE ONE: MARK DRISCOLL VS THE WORDS OF CHRIST ABOUT SCRIPTURE

The first and most difficult issue is that if the Song of Songs cannot in any way refer to Christ then Driscoll must account for Jesus' words in John 5:39-47. Jesus declared that the scriptures pointed to Him. In Luke 24:25-27 Jesus is described as explaining the things concerning Himself in Moses and all the prophets and in all the Scriptures. Now if Luke and John testify that Christ said the Scriptures pointed to Him before His death and explained to disciples after resurrection how the Scriptures pointed to Him, then the only way Song of Songs could be omitted from these two statements by Christ about Himself and the Scriptures is if Song of Songs ISN'T SCRIPTURE.

Driscoll can't resort to such a claim because he affirms Song of Songs is canonical. After all, he wouldn't preach the book if it weren't in the Bible. He even mentions in his preaching about the book that Song of Songs has been read at Passover so one could make the case that the association of Song of Songs with Passover even predates Christ Himself. Driscoll, generally, has been eager to say that all Scripture properly understood points to Jesus. As Driscoll is so fond of saying, "It's all about Jesus!"

Except for Song of Songs, which has to be about wifely stripteases and holy blowjobs and date nights. In fact Driscoll has joked that if the Groom in Song of Songs is actually Jesus then Jesus is doing things to him (Driscoll) that make him feel uncomfortable. Driscoll has so sexualized the content of Song of Songs in his personal handling of the text he actually CAN'T let himself see the book as a testament to Christ. If this is so then Driscoll testifies against himself about whether or not he believes all Scripture is ultimately all about Jesus.

 

ISSUE TWO: DRISCOLL VS THE PERSPECUITY OF SCRIPTURE AND CANONICAL METAPHOR

Driscoll notes in his first sermon in the Peasant Princess series that Song of Songs is traditionally read during Passover, and that excerpts of the Song of Songs are sung in public settings. This, he would have us believe, shows that Jews are not as squeamish about sex as many Christians historically have been. Driscoll grants that there are some spots where there can kinda sorta be some typological things about Jesus and the Church in Song of Songs but that this is not primarily what the text is about.

But if the Song of Songs isn't about God's love for His people why on earth has it been read as part of Passover celebration? The whole point of Passover is to celebrate and remember how Yahweh delivered Israel out of bondage in Egypt through His servant Moses, and the Passover is the highest feast day in the Mosaic covenantal community. Does Driscoll just expect all Christians everywhere to NEVER connect the dots here? Throughout the prophetic literature Israel is described as a bride who has become wayward. Driscoll can accept that metaphor because it's in the Bible. If the Bible says God views Himself as a husband and His people as His wife that's in the Bible. We better stick with it.

All right then, when, exactly, did this courtship and betrothal of Yahweh to Israel happen? The whole of the Prophets and the Wisdom literature (i.e. Psalms, Job, Proverb, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs) seem to suggest that the beginning of God's relationship to the nation of Israel had to begin with the Exodus and the time in the wilderness. In other words, the exodus and the encounter with Yahweh through which the covenant was given constitute the beginning of the marriage. If Song of Songs were merely a celebration of married life it would have no plausible role in the corporate worship of Israel, still less as part of its most sacred celebration. It makes far more sense to understand Song of Songs as a poetic reflection not merely on a generic marriage or a specific human marriage but also as a reflection on the marriage of Yahweh and Israel as His people. If that's NOT why it is integrated into Passover than Driscoll has to assure us that all the rabbis and all the people who observed Passover even before the coming of Christ were just horndogs who took time off from revering Yahweh to consider wifely stripteases.

Curiously (or not!) the Puritans had no problem affirming the allegorical element of Song of Songs. They had no trouble at all affirming the book as describing the love of God for His people. Jonathan Edwards, Richard Sibbes, William Gurnall and other Puritans (whom Driscoll claims to admire) happily affirmed the value of Song of Songs as a meditation on God's love for His people. Now, to be sure, there are allegorical interpretations of Song of Songs that have peculiarities. To suggest that the woman's breasts represent Moses and Aaron is stretching things quite a bit. But if allegorical interpretations err in transforming the breasts of the woman into Moses and Aaron, Driscoll errs in his resolve to insist that Song of Songs 2:3 has to refer to oral sex."

 

Lydia's Corner: Ezra 4:24-6:22 1 Corinthians 3:5-23 Psalm 29:1-11 Proverbs 20:26-27

Comments

Alternatives to Mark Driscoll’s Pornogrification of the Song of Songs — 20 Comments

  1. Rumor had it that the Jewish male was not supposed to read Song of Solomon until he was 30. I cannot attest to the veracity of that rumor but always thought it was an interesting one.

  2. That rumor is basically true. Some of the rabbis held that any man who wasn’t married by the age of 30 was going to be sinning all the time by coveting sex in marriage and the comforts of married life. The book wasn’t to be read to unmarried males under the age of about 35.

    It’s not difficult to learn through even a little research that the reason the Song of Songs was even canonized was due to typological and allegorical readings that Driscoll (and, for that matter, John MacArthur) reject. Considering the name of Yahweh is nowhere in SoS (or in Esther) there was some discussion as to whether these books merited canonization.

    Now not all Scripture will point to Christ in the same way but if a book makes no reference of Yahweh and can’t be said to touch on Christ Christians have to ask what that book is doing in a Christian Bible. There’s celebration of married sex in Proverbs 5 and a “plain” reading of SoS can’t get around Solomoon’s polygamy and harem even within the text itself. In the ancient world polygamy wasn’t considered sinful. Jesus’ teaching on divorce “could” be taken as a rebuke of polygamy

    The second section will touch on Driscoll’s speculation that Solomon’s first love was Abishag and I’ll get into how this is a fantasy in light of what we can read in Kings. If MacArthur wanted to provide a substantive rebuttal to Driscoll he needed to take the fifteen minutes needed to cross reference Driscoll’s Abishag fantasy to Kings and demonstrate that Driscoll has not just made a hash of Song of Songs but has made a hash of Kings in order to do so. Scholarly work done by contributors to the ESV study Bible, no less, provide the evidence for this but I’ve saved that for the next installment.

  3. Pingback: Understanding Song of Songs | Civil Commotion

  4. None of this matters. Plenty of well-known “men-of-God” have pointed out this stuff in the past ( http://prayingheart.wordpress.com/category/mark-driscoll ). It doesn’t matter. The celebrity-driven star-maker machinery rolls on. Fame is the name of the game, so any publicity is good publicity. The tithes and offerings just keep rolling in. Everyone wants to be a F.O.M. Marginal churches are giving their assets and real estate to the empire and the video-venue campuses are expanding. It is what the masses want. And the fact that the preacher’s interpretation of SOS makes oral sex a sanctified requirement – all the better! They say “Sex sells,” and that seems to be a formula that has worked for the Lead Preaching Pastor of “The fastest growing church in the most unchurched city in Amerika.” Has it all been by design?

    “I assumed the students and singles were all pretty horny, so I went out on a limb and preached through the Song of Songs…Each week I extolled the virtues of marriage, foreplay, oral sex, sacred stripping, and sex outdoors, just as the book teaches…This helped us a lot because apparently a pastor using words like ‘penis’ and ‘oral sex’ is unusual, and before you could say ‘aluminum pole in the bedroom,’ attendance began to climb steadily to more than two hundred people a week.” (Mark Driscoll in “Confessions of a Reformission Rev” p. 96; see: http://books.google.com/books?id=ivS1oNco0cIC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA96#v=onepage&q&f=false )

    “Some of the sermons on sex were R-rated, and we gave warnings to parents and sometimes saw whole visiting youth groups walk out blushing halfway through the sermon. On other occasions, people walked out during the sermon and flipped me off on their way out, a trend that has continued.” (Driscoll in “Confessions of a Reformission Rev” p.134)

    “And to top it all off, God comes to earth. He has a mom whom everyone thinks is a slut, a dad whom they think has the brilliance of a five-watt bulb for believing the ‘virgin birth’ line, and brothers who likely pummel him frequently, because even God would have to get at least one wedgie from his brothers if he were to be fully human.” (Driscoll in “Radical Reformission” p.29)

    “Jesus’ mom was a poor, unwed teenage girl who was mocked for claiming she conceived via the Holy Spirit. Most people thought she concocted a crazy story to cover the ‘fact’ she was knocking boots with some guy in the backseat of a car at the prom.” (Driscoll in “Vintage Jesus” p.11)

  5. Ted
    Have you read our post called Mark Driscoll Did He Stutter. We amassed a collection of his “sayings” onto one page. IThanks for including some of my “favorites”

  6. No one should have any illusions about how “well known” the people at Praying Heart are, TedS. They’re nobodies and all they really wrote about were the by-laws and the firings from 2007. No one has any reason to care about that unless they were part of Mars Hill.

    Over the last ten years a lot of Christians who are conservative in their politics or doctrine have habitually chosen to circle the wagons around Driscoll and Mars Hill? They don’t “all” do it but many have. Why? Well, let’s take MacArthur’s not doing it as a counterexample. Any guy who can publish a study Bible named after himself has his own empire and nothing to gain by backing Driscoll. As Michael Spenser once put it, the Baptists are realizing that Driscoll probably represents who is going to get the young people who would otherwise have stayed Baptist. If they don’t co-opt Driscoll now the Baptists lose their own to Driscoll, who is in most respects still basically a Calvinist Baptist with a loud mouth.

    And what about the folks at Mars Hill who theoretically could have said or done something over the last ten years and didn’t? Simple, they circled the wagons when criticisms came because those criticisms tended to come from the on-line magazine Salon. Or criticism came from People Against Fundamentalism. Or from Dan Savage at The Stranger. Or from Molly Worthern or Rachel Evans. Or from Scott Bailey or Robert Cargill. In other words, if the criticisms were coming from egalitarians, Democrats, liberals, people favoring homosexual marriage and other liberal causes then these criticisms had to be ignored and Driscoll had to be defended no matter how embarrassed one might be of him privately. Why? Because these were guys who, whether they will admit it now or not, were hoping to get a fiefdom in Driscoll’s empire. They were ultimately willing to be on the same page as Driscoll because when he said he was more Republican than the Republican party they basically chose to agree because these were basically Republican guys who saw in Driscoll and Mars Hill a chance to have a legacy. Maybe one guy was happy being the expert on courtship and could leverage Mars Hill’s growth as a way to launch ventures. Maybe a woman could use the meteoric growth of Mars Hill and its obsession with marriage as a way to launch a wedding planning career. Maybe another man wanted to set up a bunch of connections in the gaming industry through Mars Hill connections. Maybe another man thought that the church was really going to make a difference in a liberal and godless city that he wanted to be part of. These are not all inherently selfish ideals but they can all be stained with self-interest and an interest in personal glory,, a quest for personal glory that, whether they realized it or not they invested in Mars Hill.

    I can’t say my motives were unmixed. My social life was completely sunk into Mars Hill so when the 2007 firings happened it was a miserable time for me. I had a lot of friends who used to talk to each other all the time refusing to talk to each other and trying to drag me into a decision of loyalty. I just kept telling them all it looked like a clusterfuck of mutual paranoia and sin. Some of the angriest ex-Martians I know have been people who lost their fiefs or didn’t get what they thought they would out of Mars Hill. One man remarked to me that for all the years he invested in Mars Hill he felt like he should have gotten something out of it. That “gotten something out of it” was a hot wife and he was never going to get that because of problems he has that Mars Hill didn’t cause.

    But people like him (and me) circled the wagons around Driscoll when criticism came at just the times when we could have said, “You know what? I don’t have to be as liberal as this or that person to see that they have some legitimate points.” Ideologically loyalty to conservative politics (often even more than to conservative doctrine) and to one’s social investments in the community trumped taking seriously criticism of Driscoll’s irresponsible approach to biblical texts. By 2007 things were too late anyway. For years Mars Hill rolled along without any by-laws at all so a mere change in by-laws was not going to change Driscoll’s leadership style. It also would not have changed the willingness of hundreds and thousands of men (like me, for instance) either not knowing or not minding that things may have been a bit off as long as things didn’t hit us where we lived. And things DID hit us where we lived.

    So a blog about by-laws from 2007 isn’t going to have an impact. Why would it? That blog was too much too late and about something that doesn’t matter. How could a person even know that the new by-laws are being followed anyway even as a member of the church? Many members don’t even know what the by-laws say. My point is that was and is a waste of time if we’re going to discuss what’s actually wrong with Driscoll as a pastor.

    If a Christian discusses problems in how Driscoll handles Scripture that is something christians can discuss. Speaking about Driscoll’s mishandling of biblical texts is ultimately more important than speaking about by-laws or firings because the Scriptures are more important for Christians to discuss. Every time Driscoll says “I’m just preaching what’s in the Bible.” we can open the Bible and ask, “Is this really so?” Now a Martian can care about a bungled capital campaign for a 1.5 million dollar building but any Christian can care about whether or not Driscoll responsibly handled a text from Nehemiah.

    Too many people who have problems with Driscoll have lived in the ghetto of their own political and cultural concerns and their own lives rather than looking at how Driscoll handles Scripture itself. MacArthur falls short because he only focused on Driscoll and Song of Songs and not on how Driscoll sews up a fantasy about Abishag from Kings. There’s no discussion AT ALL about how Driscoll handled Nehemiah. If you only focus on Driscoll’s take on Song of Songs and don’t branch out into his handling of Nehemiah, the Targum Neofiti, and other subjects then you’re still just responding to style and not substance where biblical texts are concerned. How a preacher uses the Word is going to be indicative of how he deals with people and whether he uses them or serves them.

    A lot of men and women who could have stepped back and considered Driscoll’s shortcomings didn’t and circled their wagons around him instead. I’m willing to be a firebrand on this and say they were more committed to Republican politics, culture war concerns, and preserving their fiefs within Mars Hill at that time than in taking the objections of “liberals” seriously enough to ask whether Driscoll and the elders were actually responsibly handling biblical texts. I don’t say that to be an asshole, I had the same problem and my whole social life was tied up in that church for years and several family members were there. Even when I considered the courtship fad to be stupid hypocritical legalism I would object to it but I stuck around because all my friends were there and some of those friends were the biggest champions of the courtship fad. I just kept disagreeing about that and occasionally got flamed for being “disrespectful” while continuing to say there was no biblical basis for the kind of legalism I was seeing. But I’m a pretty introverted guy with a disability so just pulling up stakes isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do.

    I’m disappointed that more ex-Mars Hill members have not been willing to admit that they have been part of the spiritual problem instead of just ranting about Driscoll. It’s easy for people to post under pseudonyms and while I have a pen-name I’ve left so many clues as to who I am it would take an illiterate Luddite to not eventually figure out who I am. Driscoll couldn’t have gotten to where he is now if I and thousands of other people had not witlessly or pragmatically put him there and chose to overlook things that, in hindsight, we shouldn’t have. I was so blinkered by the even lower intellectual standards of Pentecostalism and house churches where people dreaded UN helicopters conquering America that, for me, Driscoll honestly seemed like a step in the right direction compared to what I’d seen earlier.

  7. I feel a satirical rant coming on.  All this Song of Songs stuff is sooo OLd Testament. Now we’ve got the better marriage manual, for having a gospel bedroom. Warning! The single, widowed, and children should not listen. As second class Christians, they  may think Ephesians 5:22ff applies metaphorically to them as the bride of Christ. They might  think this passage points to Christ’s sacrificial love for the church.  But it’s irrelevant, just like the SOS. Really, like many other scriptures, it’s all about POSITION. btw, notice that shepherds, unless they be hobbits, have a Higher POSITION off the ground an’ away from worm-ness than the ol’ sheep. An’ what else is higher? Why, heaven, o’ course. Sorry, got distracted.   All these folks arguing whether headship is source or leader, but the head is POSITIONed above the body. I have to let you use imagination in case the young uns or them single folks disregarded my warning an’ are still readin’. (Why don’t they jist find somebody, any body to marry, anyways… Then they could git all the biblical good stuff fer free an’ be REAL witnesses fer the savior…without all that there temptation to sinnin … Sorry off topic). Anyways, submission is the tother part. Sub means under.  Mission is what MISSIONARIES go on. So the gospel marriage bed sticks to the way the MISSIONARIES does things, not all that Old Law stuff, like MD an’ CJ promotes.
    Signed, the right rev Horatio Hogswallow          

  8. Wenatchee The Hatchet,

    Thanks so much for your detailed information. It has really helped me understand how Mark Driscoll operates. I do feel sorry for those who have invested so much at Mars Hill and now feel disenfranchised.

  9. WH: “How a preacher uses the Word is going to be indicative of how he deals with people and whether he uses them or serves them.”

    Hi, this is Mara who asked WH for that guest blog post at Bitter Waters to Sweet. I encouraged WH to go ahead and have Dee and Deb post it here as well because TWW has a much bigger audiance than my humble blog. And I firmly believe that what WH has to say is very much needed and more people need to read/hear it.

    I asked him to write the guest post because I could see by his comments here that he had an ability and a position to see clearly what is going on and to cut through the politics and emotions involved and to get to the core of the issue of Mark Driscoll.

    What I have quoted from his long but good explanation comment at 9:28 is profound and I don’t want anyone to miss it because they skimmed.

    My initial shock and horror at MD’s handling of SoS was at how he USED SoS to promote his agenda, build his church, pad his bank account, and make sure that he and every married man got enough sex. Though I could not put it into these words at that time, that is what floored me. MD’s blatant misUSE of scripture. Scripture is not to be USED. Nor are people.

    Women are not to be coached on how to be their husband’s personal porn star. And men are not to be manipulated and brought into church with (false)biblical promises of getting a hot nymphomaniac wife.

    MD is building his church on sand and using ‘strange’ fire rather than the fire of the Holy Spirit.
    He is using and misusing scripture and people.

    This is the main thing. And this is what WH addresses so well. Heed his words. They are as balanced, reasonable, and unbiased as is humanly possible considering the storm that rages around the issue of Driscoll.

  10. Mara
    Thank you for allowing us to post this here. And there is no such thing as a humble blog. We all have the potential to change the thinking of people. Remember, the two of us are just middle-aged homemakers who are sharing our thoughts. God has been so gracious to give all of us access to the marketplace of ideas. TWW and you are the true Mars Hill of the Scripture, contending in the public square-be it large or small.

  11. Mara,

    It doesn’t matter IN THE LEAST to me what men think about what we discuss here at TWW. Dee and I are writing for an audience of one — Almighty God!

  12. You may not care. But I think it’s funny.
    These men really think they can shame women out of the public arena, away from “Mars Hill” and contending in the public square.

    I think it’s a sign that they are realizing that they cannot rely on the strength of their arguments. Because their arguments are weak and shoddy. They have to turn to shaming and name-calling.

    My sister once had a button she wore that said, “I used to get disgusted. Now I’m just amused.”
    Okay, really, I still get disgusted. But sometimes I get amused at the antics of these men.

  13. Maybe this is why…. “He (Driscoll) claims to have prepared his sermon in 2 hours! Not only that, he noted that he did so while watching a Mariners Game on television!”(TWW)

    The same way Jerry “Buck” Jenkins wrote Left Behind!

  14. My initial shock and horror at MD’s handling of SoS was at how he USED SoS to promote his agenda, build his church, pad his bank account, and make sure that he and every married man got enough sex. Though I could not put it into these words at that time, that is what floored me. MD’s blatant misUSE of scripture. Scripture is not to be USED. Nor are people. — Mara

    Well, my old D&D Dungeonmaster used to say “The reason behind most cults is so the cult leader can (1) get rich, (2) get laid, or (3) both.”

    Women are not to be coached on how to be their husband’s personal porn star. And men are not to be manipulated and brought into church with (false)biblical promises of getting a hot nymphomaniac wife. — Mara

    If you DID get a “hawt nympho wife”, what makes you think she’d stay with you instead of sleeping around with every stud? (Wait a minute… that explains the Burqa, the locked harem, and rampant Honor Killings…)

    What’s always been more important to me is the long-term COMPANIONSHIP, not the Dynamite Orgasm. (I can get that without the need of anyone other than myself.)

    Using a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic example, what I dream of is not a “hawt nympho”, but someone with the brains of a Twilight Sparkle, the class and grace of a Rarity, and the gentleness of a Fluttershy. (Yes, the present generation of “colorful cartoon horsies” make a better presentation of Virtue than a lot of preachers. And would make better wife material than these Perfect Christianese Women.)

  15. “Jesus’ mom was a poor, unwed teenage girl who was mocked for claiming she conceived via the Holy Spirit. Most people thought she concocted a crazy story to cover the ‘fact’ she was knocking boots with some guy in the backseat of a car at the prom.” (Driscoll in “Vintage Jesus” p.11)

    This guy’s got an obsession. Like he’s kinky-nympho himself but won’t admit to it. (And I’ve seen a LOT of sexual obsessions over 20 years in Furry Fandom.)

    Continuing on the MLP:FiM imagery, if Driscoll were a Pony, he’d be preaching entirely about “Princess Molestia”, the Rule 34 fan-porn version of the series’ actual benevolent, approachable, and even playful god-figure Princess Celestia.

  16. While it’s true that “Mary’s son” indicated some people thought Jesus was a bastard Driscoll’s way of making that point does highlight his obsessions.

    HUG, still haven’t caught the My Little Pony revamp yet. Eye surgery and job hunting and preparing a score for publication have been higher priorities. But the presence of Lauren Faust and Tara Strong on a production are both reasons I plan to eventually watch the Pony revamp.

    I think some people would imagine Driscoll as a xenomorph My Little Pony

    http://eruna.deviantart.com/art/My-Little-Xenomorph-Dark-Star-66290104

  17. I’m getting the distinct impression that all this My Little Pony talk is about something other than my daughter’s happy meal toys.

    …Now back to momworld.

  18. Continuing with the creeping Ponyfication, “Ah will c

    When Lauren Faust rebooted My LIttle Pony into its present generation, she made the “Mane Six” characters archetypes of six different ways To Be Female: Blunt and take-charge (Applejack), eccentric happy free-spirit (Pinkie Pie), competitive tomboy (Rainbow Dash), shy gentle and nurturing (Fluttershy), stylish and classy artist (Rarity), and studious egghead (Twilight Sparkle).

    While Mark Driscoll (who claims to speak for God Almighty) can come up with only one way To Be Male: “I CAN BEAT YOU UP! I CAN BEAT YOU UP! I CAN BEAT YOU UP!” (Mark Driscoll)

    Either Lauren Faust is more creative than God or Driscoll’s full of shit.