The Problem with Piper
Evangelicals who are somewhat interested in theology but don't want to engage in all of the unpleasantness of joining an actual Reformed congregation are avid readers of John Piper.
The problem with Piper is that he's not anchored to any specific Reformed tradition, confession, or denomination, so he's free to make things up as he goes along, even if that means embracing serious errors.
Piper is essentially a non-confessional Baptist, as is the rest of evangelicalism. What does that mean? Well, the Reformed would not say that Baptist congregations are true churches:
“An overwhelming majority of modern evangelicals hold Baptist convictions of one sort or another. If it is the case that rejecting infant baptism is sufficient to unchurch a congregation, i.e. to deprive them of the status of being a “church” then there are very few actual churches in North America, to pick but one global region. To many such a thought is impossible. It was quite difficult for me to reach this conclusion but I didn’t reach it carelessly or quickly. For most of my life in the Reformed world since 1980 I shared the assumption that, though I disagreed with my evangelical brothers and sisters over the question of baptism, their congregations were still churches. It’s only been in the last few years that the other shoe has dropped . . . This principle of radical discontinuity, this denial of the fundamental unity of the covenant of grace as symbolized in the administration of the sign and seal of the covenant of grace to covenant children, is serious enough to warrant saying that any congregation that will not practice infant initiation (baptism) into the administration of the covenant of grace is not a church.”
This becomes more and more obvious as time goes on and you hear what comes out of these sorts of places.
PRCalDude
12 Comments
Reader Comments (12)
Baptists fall way short on the discipline area, I know, I are one. I have however seen discipline degenerate into a Pharisaical 'witchhunt' of holier-than-thou excess. Sacraments we do, but not on an every Sunday basis. Doctrine is lacking (the doctrine of grace being particularly repugnant to most run of the mill Southern Baptists after being brought slowly to a halt beginning with Finney in the early 1900's, even though it was in the writings of Sou.Baps until the '50s) and like discipline brings howls from the average congregation. If the ave. Baptist church sought to discipline the ave. S. Baptist member for say, shacking-up, they would probably get sued by that member. Want to see how well you can defend the doctrine of grace? Try teaching it in a Sou.Bap. Sunday School w/o getting Biblically stoned.
Despite the shared agreement concerning essentials of the Christian faith between Piper and R. Scott Clark.......
....I was disappointed in Piper's comments in the article.
I found R.Scott Clark's comments to be very informative.
I must admit, though, that John Piper does a great job at hitting home runs out of the park. See this video and try to answer the question raised by Piper:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDWLFhHwtMY&feature=related
I especially loved his comment at 1:30. Very profound Calvinist convictions shining through!!
I was going to us the word 'heterodoxy' in lieu of 'non-confessional', but a pastor I highly respect reminded me that there are really only two kinds of churches. There are "Law" churches and there are "Gospel" churches.
It is critical in knowing the difference because within any given denomination we can find both types of congregations.
Reformed and or confessional congregations are often tempted to pursue 'right-wing' Law. While the more liberla and/or heterosox tend to go 'left-wing' Law. Righ-wing law is more of a problem in my denomination, while left-wing law is a bigger problem in PRC's denomination.
Right leaning Law is rigid, and we can often see it clearly.
Left leaning Law is a little more subtle in that it paints fuzzy rules that are often hard to interpret clearly, or are purposely misleading. Most American protestant denominations of today are leaning in a left-wing Law direction. (Secularism is a form of left-leaning Law in this context, also).
If one doesn't really understand the Gospel they can't distinguish between these two types of Law, and can get sucked into one or the other quite easily. (This includes pastors.)
and I see I am spelling challenged today.
What about "Law and Gospel" churches? Don't you need both? Didn't Martin Luther preach both?
The Law points you to your need for Christ: guilt, grace, gratitude.
That is confusing.
Churches that teach Gospel but apply the Law, are Law churches. Right-leaning. Pharisees.
Churches that teach Gospe, without O.T. Law, end up making up their own laws. Left-leaning. Modern day heterodoxy, and secularism.
Chruches that correctly teach Law and Gospel, and apply the Gospel according to Jesus example, are becoming increasingly rare.
Piper is a good bridge to Baptist to get them to start reading Reformed theology.
Negative. The way to start reading Reformed theology is to pick up a confession and read it. Everything else is pseudo-reformed.
Did you watch any of his Calvin conference videos? The Eschatology debate was good
Nothing he says interests me. I don't like it when people cling on to someone else's tradition. If he wants to be a Calvinist, he should adopt one of the Reformed Confessions and put himself under the authority of a Reformed denomination. Calvin was a confessionalist.
Like I said, I've seen too many evangelicals read his stuff and come to the wrong conclusions. His latest defense of guys like Doug Wilson means that he is coming to the wrong conclusions himself.
The fact is that "ordinarily, there is no salvation outside the church." Most evangelicals are basically unchurched as they don't attend a true church where a) the word is preached, b) the sacraments are administered properly and c) church discipline is practiced. The Bible and the confessions say some very scary things about so-called "Christians" who neglect church, and attending a "church" that isn't a true church is neglecting church.
If evangelicals can read Piper's books and come to the conclusion that they can still remain in their own "churches," something is wrong.
The thing about the Reformation was that it involved a lot of costly decisions for people that were convicted that they needed to attend a true church. Many paid with their lives.
The Eschatology debate was Historic Pre-Mil vs. Amil vs. Post-Mil, moderated by Piper. It was fascinating