Who Said It?
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.
Pat Robertson?
Ken Silva?
Jack Van Impe?
Fred Phelps?
James Dobson?
Nope…
It's the inglorious vainglory of John Piper via The Tornado, the Lutherans, and Homosexuality :: Desiring God.
As soon as someone preaches this utter swill, they are discredited right out. There were no storms at the PCUSA 218th General Assembly as I recall. Also, that storm for which James Dobson and his cronies prayed to hit the Democratic National Convention never happened. This is conspiratorial bunk that uses the bible as a weapon of ideology, not a source to find God's grace.
This sort of "theology" tries to divine God's pre-destined program for us by picking and choosing natural events that appear to confirm a pre-existing ideological condition. It's not theology, it's insurance to justify one's own ideology.
It is not theology, but idolatry. It is extracting what you want God's will to be from nature rather than attend to that progressive revelation which may, and likely will, send this sort of Pharisaism asunder. For that is what we learn from Jesus. The more you think you have the Gospel cornered, the more you are relying on your own divinations and ideas. When this happens, as with learning anything new, one is less attentive to revelation. One becomes more attentive to one's own whims and God looks just like you – an epiphenomenon of your own foolishness and absurdity.
John Piper has moved into this territory of self-delusional idolatry. If God looks like him, which he seems to think does, I want no part of it. Why? I think God is better than that. And so, we all should strive to be better than than the crap he is now offering.
UPDATE: Check out Adam's reflection as someone more "in the know" about Piper. And be sure to check out my fellow Keystone Stater Jenell Paris' wonderfully titled: The Toddler, The Discharge, and The Humidity. It really is nasty humid from where we sit in our respective locations today. I work for a small Catholic college in the tradition of the Religious Sisters of Mercy about 2 hours from where Jenell works at Messiah. God must not like either the Religious Sisters of Mercy or the Church of the Brethren this week. I will await her son's repentance as well. And liberalpastor shows us how God must have missed the target of sin and shame. Maybe God has been hanging out with Dick Cheney whose aim was off when he shot his friend in the face.
Here is an additional post on Piper:
God always does what is wise. God loves us so much he kills us. God has a wonderful plan for your life…..death.
I suspect Pastor Piper would have us praise God for allowing our house to be destroyed;for allowing our family members to plunge off a bridge to their death.
Count me out. I have no interest in a God who does such things to us. According to Piper such things are supposed to make us fear God.
I suspect for many people, hearing of a God who maims and kills to send people a message, makes them anything BUT fearful.
The God of John Piper? I want nothing to do with such a God.
And neither do agnostics and atheists. This kind of theology is exactly why the non-religious have a lot to say these days.
Which leads us to the question of the day: Did Piper pick a peck of pickled pomposity?
Related posts:
Oh well, you have decreed it: it must be so. I repent in dust and ashes.
Yeah, and think of how much God must hate poor people when he wiped out their houses in New Orleans.
Why would anyone try?
Why would anyone care what some random stranger on the interwebs thinks?
Some readers may also find Piper's thoughts from the 2007 collapse of the I-35 W bridge in Minneapolis to be of interest, where he argued that God allowed the bridge to fall so that people could hear him. Spewing this kind of stuff is not uncommon for him, unfortunately.
But I mention this to also draw attention to Greg Boyd's responses to that post. He is also a pastor in Minneapolis, of course. He has profound wisdom that, I think, many of us who read Drew may resonate with. There is this post on why the bridge collapsed, as well as this onewhere he responds to an allegation that his view is inconsistent with the book of Job. Great thoughts that are full of wisdom and grace, I believe.
and as you know i have oodles of posts on the very question asked that this post does not have to do with. i do have an lgbt category. but my guess is that mr. urutu will disregard those as well since he wants a specific answer to the question rather than to think about the basis of the question itself.
[...] because Piper's cutting and pasting of scripture tells me that he is more interested in justifying his own ideology with religious authority than he is in serious reflection.[1] It is very destructive and [...]
I'm new to this blog, but allow me to share that I tried to share a biblical and theological response to Piper's claim at:
At http://chainlink-chainoflakesncd.blogspot.com/
I'm new to this blog, but allow me to share that I tried to share a biblical and theological response to Piper's claim at:
At http://chainlink-chainoflakesncd.blogspot.com/
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