I feel sorry for Piper.
If you’ve been anywhere near a blog in the last couple of days you probably couldn’t go two or three clicks before running into something about John Piper’s now infamous post on the ECLA’s “Consideration: Proposed Social Statement on Human Sexuality.” Piper concluded that the tornado than ran through the city was in his own words.
“The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction. Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into sensuality. Rejoice in the pardon of the cross of Christ and its power to transform left and right wing sinners.”
Many have offered great responses. Adam Walker Cleaveland wrote, John Piper Contributes to Culture of Fear. Drew Tatusko wrote, The Tornado To Stop Gays. Jake Bouma offered a large list of responses in the press and others in the religious world to the approval of the statement. But my absolute favorite was Jenell Paris’ The Toddler, The Discharge, and The Humidity. Jenell writes:
“Wow. Today the weather in Grantham, PA is “82 degrees, feels like 88.” The humidity is 73%. God is speaking to us, too, and he preordained me to interpret today’s weather for the residents of Grantham, and perhaps even Mechanicsburg, our surrounding suburb. My spirit is unclear regarding Camp Hill or the city of Harrisburg, so I don’t think the prophecy extends that far.”
The point has been well made already. John took it too far in his desire to extend a theology that contributes to fear. I can easily see this becoming the butt of a joke for a long time. Any time something negative happens I can see someone saying, “It was a gentle but firm warning to the (insert name of party) to turn from sin.”
But believe it or not that’s not what this point is about. As I was watching the whole thing unfold, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for John Piper. His cards were now out on the table. If his response did anything it was to give us a glimpse of Piper’s image of God. And what is sad to me is that is the God Piper lives with, one who is always ready to strike the moment John does something wrong. In contributing to a culture of fear, Piper has inadvertently revealed the culture he himself lives in.
Can you image how that feels?
PS: Tony Jones offers a compelling question. Who in the Evangelical intelligensia will call out Piper for his remarks? It’s a serious question that suggests an interesting bias. But the real juice is found in the comments. Many question why God would send Jesus and then get angry all over again. Brilliant observation. One guy named R. Jay Pearson says,
QUESTION: Exactly what kind of “god” comes down to the world, becomes human, offers himself as a sacrifice for all humankind’s sins, but then turns around and uses cancer and other events as punishment for sins he supposedly had already died for?
ANSWER: A “god” of human invention and human imagination.
What’s ironic about this statement is that it’s so easy to create an imaginative version of God and become subject to that version. We need God to be angry so we can be angry at the world around us.
