I'll make a few comments on this:
I agree with most of what Piper says. In addition, just because Trump won doesn't mean Christians should instantly fall in line. We need to maintain our standards. We need to maintain our distance.
That said, there are some odd things about Piper's lengthy statement. I agree with him that Hillary's position on abortion is morally disqualifying. That, however, is an understatement. There's a long list of things that make Hillary morally unfit to be president.
Conspicuous by its absence was any reference to the outgoing president and his lawless administration. Surely Obama was morally unfit to be president. So was Bill Clinton. So was LBJ. So was JFK. So was Nixon.
Moreover, whatever we might say about his personal morality, Jimmy Carter lacked the wisdom to lead the nation or the free world.
Which makes me ask: does Piper have a policy of speaking out on the moral fitness of a US President, or is he making an exception in Trump's case?
On a related note, isn't this a day late and a dollar short? Why not express his public disapproval during the primary season? Why wait until the game is over? It's way too late to change the numbers on the scoreboard.
Finally, public figures rarely make good role models. It's misplaced idealism to have any expectation to the contrary.
In my view, Mr. Piper has become little more than a philosophical and theological bandit and frankly, started out that way with his errant Christian Hedonism.
ReplyDeleteWhy and when he is given heed is beyond understanding. So much of what has come out of his mouth and from his finger-tips has disqualified him as an exegetically sound and theologically balanced voice for the Evangelical community and yes, I stand by that indictment and no, I will not post forty pages of argument to support this charge, they stand online for anyone to discover but will gladly post link after link after link, if asked. Now to the specific article.
Yes, the conspicuousness of failing to critique Mr. Obama is one of several glaring problems with his piece but why is this such a mystery? He, hopefully not you or your companions, drinks from the well of the errant humanist doctrine being hoisted upon the church called multi-culturalism, multi-ethnicity and racial reconciliation (To rebut this, I succinctly point to Peter's declaration, "But you are a chosen race (γένος/genos), a royal priesthood, a holy nation (ἔθνος/ethnos), a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.")
Have you not read his lengthy laments of being reared in the South during the era of segregation in which all of his personal guilt has been transferred to the church as wholesale in its guilt? Have you not read his exegetical abuse in his book, Bloodlines, where he dares to interpret Galatians 3:28 as a deliberate vehicle in which God intends to speak to the goodness of interracial marriage which I could care less about but certainly in this situation, care, because of his misuse of Scripture?
He is eaten up with this and has swallowed, whole, the false leftist narrative of Mr. Trump with regard to racial relationships where Mr. Trump's own record stands as a vanguard against this lie. His record of social inclusion is rather remarkable, frankly.
John Piper is a modern pharisee in many respects and I am sorry to report this. To declare so broadly, without truly knowing Mr. Trump to any degree apart from what is reported by the mostly far-left media, is to perform a fool's errand.
It is strange, however, that this allegedly unfit president is giving unprecedented access and requesting, heretofore, unparalleled counsel from Evangelical sources, conservative as well, as reported by Richard Land. And more strange, in combat against Piper's claim, is his choice of a devout Christian as VP.
As it was once said, most people are not fit for civil leadership because they do not have the stomach for it and even less for military leadership during war.
John Piper lives in an isolated world, one in which he does not even practically manifest an appropriate understanding of the two-kingdoms and their distinct and separate protocols.
There is no warrant for his parading. He is a paper-tiger who could no more lead this country than the rest of the keyboard knights could who sit in utter confusion regarding what Americans saw and understood in Trump - A man who wants their country not just to survive but thrive, because of its exceptionalism which has kept the world free, particularly this nation, for two centuries, and rescued many individual nations from despair and tyranny which is precisely what Mr. Trump desires.
Piper doesn't mind admiring MLK which is bizarre since MLK was both a theological leftist and moral degenerate, at least according to the standard Piper imposes upon Donald Trump.
This duplicitous is not just concerning, it is downright disqualifying of Mr. Piper as any worthy critic but more so, another pound of the many on the heap of his novel philosophical and theological aberrations which should have long ago, prompted many avenues to shut down and doors to close with respect to where he is given a podium.
Thank you Alex. I hope people around here won't read you as being a 'racist' but will grasp the point that Pieper has imbibed and now disseminates a Leftist narrative of race relations, which includes the term 'racist' being used against anyone who points out that narrative. Piper's Desiring God was interesting, but his full-throated endorsement of multiculturalism strikes me as one who has read the writing on the wall about the decline of a white majority and now seeks to maintain his power and influence by being an early advocate for the 'New Majority'.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone would interpret my position as even remotely racist, it would be akin to claiming a farmer is polluting when he throws his seed onto the ground.
ReplyDeleteInstead of listening, they would be lying to themselves with a false confirmation of what they determined to find.
I remain stunned at the ambivalence, possibly fear, cowardice or sadly, plain ignorance which results in very little pushback and rebuke from conservative Evangelicals against the aberrations and malfunctions of Piper.
They seem to be utterly hypnotized by this man and unable to comprehend the damage even this single article will cause to the development of sober and principled judgment with many impressionable Christians who will emulate this destructive self-righteous posturing.
I realize my indictment is harsh but the damage done by this man's errors on so many points is far more more crushing to its subjects.
As to multiculturalism multi-ethnicism and this false doctrine of racial reconciliation, I stand with the Scriptures in hand which reveal that we are all - as believers - reconciled in, through and with Christ, hence, making all believers reconciled to one another which transcends human contexts and is spiritual in nature and which is the basis for our fellowship and camaraderie.
To place the demand of any additional reconciliation, be it racial, ethnic or cultural, is to both impede the only true basis of our reconciliation and fellowship - which is spiritually based and in and through Christ with shared Word and Spirit and to, in reality, abandon the spiritual construct and means of our true spiritual reconciliation and replace it with another construct which is based in human reconciliation such as race, ethnicity or culture.
Finally, as Peter said and I cited earlier, our genus is now spiritual and as Paul said, we are a new spiritual species.
And all of this speaks to Piper's dereliction in failing to understand the distinction of the two kingdoms with the kingdom on the right being the spiritual kingdom manifestly the church and the kingdom on the left which is human governments formed in the divine institutions of the self, then marriage, then family and finally civil establishments or governments which rule in that kingdom.
And both have distinct and separate protocols.
John Piper has completely failed to grasp this as Scripture displays and seeks to impose into the spiritual kingdom, ideals and practices for the human construct of the left kingdom and ultimately only gravely injurious to the spiritual kingdom.
In the church we are reconciled to one another via our reconciliation to Christ and our singular doctrine, Spirit and culture is that of Christ.
Camaraderie outside of the spiritual camaraderie we have in Christ is a human construct and left kingdom issue which does have some Scripture to inform it but even then it does not require individuals, families, tribes or nations to formulate is a multicultural, ethnic and,so on, manner.
This false ethic and new pseudo morality Piper is pushing is not Biblical and conspicuously absent in the church's doctrinal history, even if it remained onky as a left kingdom pursuit by Piper but as we know, he is attempting to force this left kingdom ideology onto the spiritual kingdom, the right kingdom. I've typed too much. Forgive me Tribalogue.
Alex A. Guggenheim
ReplyDelete1. I disagree with several of Piper's positions including his Christian hedonism, his pacifistic tendencies, etc.
2. However, I wouldn't go so far as to call him "a modern pharisee", "theological bandit", "disqualified...as an exegetically sound and theologically balanced voice", "parading" himself, "duplicitous", "downright disqualifying", engaging in "destructive self-righteous posturing", pushing a "false ethic and new pseudo morality", etc.
He's not legalistic. At least in my experience reading his works and listening or watching to his sermons and interviews and the like, he typically seems to go out of his way to attribute ideas he's taken from others. He does seem to strive to be faithful to the Scriptures in his exegesis and in how he teaches and lives out the Bible (even though I may disagree with him). He's done a lot of good work for the kingdom. Most importantly, he does preach the true gospel and makes it central to his life's work.
3. I suspect Piper's positions on race and ethnic issues as well as multiculturalism are largely driven by the time and place he grew up in. Didn't he grow up in South Carolina in the 1960s? At any rate, I would highly doubt Piper is intentionally
4. While I don't agree with a lot of Piper's politics, neither would I entirely agree with your two kingdoms. But that's a topic for another day.
Hey "Rocking with Hawking"
DeleteI am just curious, and want to understand; (because I agree with most of what you say) aside from the problem of the word "hedonism" - if we define that the way Piper does, "Christian hedonism" = "finding our highest joy and pleasure in God Himself" - knowing and loving and treasuring (one of Piper's favorite words) God above all things - what problems do you have with his "Christian hedonism" ?
Hey Ken, thanks for your question, and thanks for your fine work in extending God's kingdom with the gospel (e.g. Muslims)!
DeleteI think if what Piper means is what you say, then I don't have a problem with his Christian hedonism.
In fact, in general I do think you're right. I do agree with you here. I think Piper isn't so caught up with specific usage of terminologies and the like. Instead, I think Piper is mainly attempting to motivate Christians to find our delight in God. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism teaches: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
In other words, my disagreements with Piper on his Christian hedonism are probably more peripheral disagreements than central disagreements, I think. For example, I would disagree with how Piper defines and formulates things. Such as the use of the word "hedonism" (as you pointed out). Or saying "the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever". And so on and so forth. (See what Jeremy Pierce has to say about Christian hedonism, for example.)
But again I think I largely agree with you here.
Thanks for your encouragement and answer.
DeleteI always thought Piper made a good point about
"the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever".
Since the "chief end" is singular, along with the other things he used, such as C. S. Lewis and Jonathan Edwards, etc., I was convinced by his argumentation. can you tell me why that was wrong?
Is not the expression of 2 "chief ends"?
Thanks again, Ken. In my little opinion, I think in general it's fine.
DeleteHowever, my reservation is it seems possible for the believer to glorify God, say, in tremendous pain and suffering, which are presumably times when the believer is not necessarily "enjoying" God. As I'm sure you know, the Psalms for instance are replete with times when the various psalmists are in physical, mental, and emotional turmoil, to say the least, yet it's possible their lives in those times are still "glorifying God", even in the midst of their pain and anguish.
That's my thinking anyway, but I'm sure I haven't gone through the heights or or depths that Piper has gone through in his life, so I sometimes think, who am I to throw stones at Piper for his remark here? I could be missing something he sees more clearly than I do.
Sure, calling John Piper a "a modern pharisee" and a "theological bandit who is disqualified...is to my opinion becoming a judge, which is the Holy Scriptures warns us against.
ReplyDeleteIn my Opinion, It is true we might disagree with Piper's stand, but we need not to be so emotionally moved to make such statements. I think you should join Piper in the prayer He made for President Trump.
rockingwithhawking-
ReplyDeleteIt is good to here you contend with Piper's errant doctrines of Christian Hedonism and pacifism.
My qualifications of John Piper maybe be troublesome for some against a venerated vicegerent and so, difficult to receive but I believe this descriptions are warranted and not exorbitant.
When you say he is not legalistic, I point you to but one of a litany of anecdotes which gathered together, form an unflattering profile of Mr. Piper as one who consistently performs the legalistic duty of law-adding.
My reference is to a recent blog at Desire God where he now teaches that all sexual lusts which go on in the mind of a husband must be confessed to his wife but he does not even stop there. He exacerbates this destructive tenet with the additional demand that the husband must provide precise details of the sexual lust fantasy to his wife.
And as I said, this is but one of the countless legalistic law-adding landmines of John Piper which apparently are disregarded because somewhere, sometimes, he utters the true gospel and to that I ask, is it here you refer to in his seminal book on Christian Hedonism that he preaches the true gospel:
"Unless a man is born again into a Christian Hedonist [sic.: emphasis is Piper's] he cannot see the kingdom of God."
Talk about law-adding legalism. This is so much so the gospel is now altered. God does not say we must be born again via faith in Christ, now we must meet the proprietary demands of John Piper's toxic doctrinal elixir of extra enlightenment and spiritual formation called Christian Hedonism.
I know, I know, but what he meant by that...may we be saved from such justifications.
Or is it this gospel, from Piper's Future Grace deception?:
A faith that only looks back to Christ’s death and resurrection is not sufficient..... Forgiveness for the Christian also depends on having....a futuristic faith in God’s promises. Thus we cannot regard justifying faith as sufficient if it honors only the past fact of Christ’s death and resurrection but does not honor the future promises of God.... (206-207).
As to what motivates Mr. Piper on the fugitive pseudo racial morality he is forwarding, it does not matter, ultimately what should drive him is sound doctrine. And to seek to mitigate it by proposing he probably is not "intentionally" is, alone, the unfavorable allegation that he lacks mature and appropriate personal and pastoral perspicacity with regard to his motivations. But what should concern all of us is that this is being imposed upon the church in a prescriptive manner with little defense.
But frankly, I disagree. I believe he eagerly latches himself to the counterfeit racial crusade with its artificial racial morality in which the Bible has been misused to formulate a doctrinal impostor.
BTW, John Robbins, now with our Lord, is the founder of The Trinity Foundation. They are Reformed in their doctrine and I recommend you examine their work. He qualified John Piper as a Neo-Legalist.
kennethirungu - I accept your qualification of me as a judge. The Bible teaches that we are to form righteous judgments. I did just that. It was against the decades of work strewn about by Mr. Piper which repeatedly contains dubious and damaging tenets.
As to your assertion my impetus is emotional, I can only assume that this is a problem you have, yourself, and that it cripples you on any occasion in which you have vigorous objections. My hope for you is that you will mature out of this hence, keeping your from reading this into the words of others when it is absent.
Alex A. Guggenheim
Delete"BTW, John Robbins, now with our Lord, is the founder of The Trinity Foundation. They are Reformed in their doctrine and I recommend you examine their work. He qualified John Piper as a Neo-Legalist."
Sorry, Alex, but I think John Robbins was a bit kooky.
Not to mention I have significant disagreements with his Scripturalism.
As I recall, Robbins did indeed maintain a list of people he happened to think were heretical. I wouldn't be surprised if the list does include Piper. But just because Robbins thinks so doesn't make it so, I'm afraid.
I believe there have been a few posts here on Triablogue criticizing Robbins if you wanted to search for them.
"My reference is to a recent blog at Desire [sic] God where he now teaches that all sexual lusts which go on in the mind of a husband must be confessed to his wife but he does not even stop there. He exacerbates this destructive tenet with the additional demand that the husband must provide precise details of the sexual lust fantasy to his wife."
Delete1. I likewise disagreed with Piper's podcast here.
2. Although I think you're sort of misreading what Piper said and taking what Piper said further than he did.
3. I think Steve Hays has more fitting criticisms here:
https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/12/should-you-confide-in-your-spouse-that.html
One last thing for now. I think you're lopsided in your criticisms of Piper. For example, you give examples of his alleged legalism. Apart from the question of whether or not you're accurately representing Piper in your examples, I'm afraid I think you've missed many of his sermons and other works where he's crystal clear about the gospel.
DeleteAgain, I have my disagreements with Piper, but I don't think he's as "false" (and so on) as you believe him to be.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/01/berean-call-responds-to-john-piper.html
ReplyDeleteAuthors on this site defend the position on joy. Please be more clear on what you reject about racial reconciliation, because you sound like you reject it whole cloth. Please supply more warrant for your position.
I did supply a number of things against the false teaching of racial reconciliation with which you are not interacting.
ReplyDeleteI could copy and paste but it does seem a bit tedious and a misuse of comment space. But then I am discovering with you a profile of ignoring, or dismissing and thus, not interacting with, many of my points.
It could be you have pegged me as a lesser and have granted yourself such a license and if so, it didn't come by way of Christ. But I'm sure that isn't the case.
Okay so you dismiss Robbins as kooky, there is a significant line of heavy Piper critics remaining. Let me guess, they are all out of balance.
A convenient way to escape responsibility for interacting with weighty points, a thing you magically insist we not do with Piper and instead mitigate his errors with recognition and reception of the true things he might say. We call this duplicitousness in many places.
As far as the issue of Piper's disastrous sex fantasy confessionalism, you seem ghastly casual in your walk by it as something with which you just disagree, failing miserably to confront the potential and real destruction it causes to marriages.
And to this, I point you to Trueman and company over at Mortification of Spin who, in an an audio link, thoroughly covered the Piper material and soundly discredited Piper's deleterious counsel.
As for my typos and your quoting me, if you like filling your time with "sics", be my guest. My comments are deliberately poorly edited seeing I do not invest what little spare time I have with the minutiae of literary and grammatical finesse in the comments section at a blog.
Alex A. Guggenheim
DeleteAt first I wasn't going to respond, because you're obviously quite hostile toward Piper and won't be convinced otherwise, but I'll muster one last attempt in the hopes I'm wrong about you:
1. Hm, you're not fairly representing what I've said. Not to mention you're reacting (overreacting) with tremendous offense despite my replying to you respectfully. These sorts of things give me pause about your ability to accurately and evenhandedly judge what someone is saying. This includes your judgment about Piper.
2. There's no obligation for me (or you) to answer you (or me) point by point. One can choose what and how to reply to someone. Nothing wrong with that. It's not "escap[ing] responsibility". It's not "failing miserably to confront".
3. Sure, you think otherwise, but not everyone shares your priorities. Just because you happen to think your points are "weighty points" doesn't necessarily mean others think your points are "weighty points".
4. I'm far from "ghastly casual" when I've linked to Steve Hays' post with its trenchant criticisms. Did you read what Steve Hays wrote? Is Steve Hays' post a "casual" response?
5. Besides, it's not as if you've addressed every single one of my points either. However, the difference is I don't mind. I never called you out for not doing so. It doesn't bother me like it seems to bother you when someone doesn't respond to eeeeeeeeeeverything that you say. So go ahead and respond or not respond. I know I'm not important enough to merit a response so it's no skin off my nose when someone doesn't respond to me.
6. I already pointed out that Piper's response to race is hardly what you allege it to be (e.g. "false doctrine", "false ethic", "new pseudo morality") but more likely due to the time and place of his birth and upbringing i.e. South Carolina c. 1950s. It's understandable someone born in the Deep South and who came of age in the era of Jim Crow would act and react as Piper has.
Also, I don't see Piper forcing Christians to abide by his racial sensitivities. At most, he seems to be attempting to convince and persuade Christians, not shoving his ideas about race down their throats.
As someone in a much younger generation than Piper, as someone who didn't grow up in the South, and so on, most of Piper's sermons, interviews, and books (e.g. Bloodlines) on the topic of race relations strike me as largely irrelevant to me. What Piper says on race doesn't have much of an affect on me simply because I just can't see things the way he sees them. That's why I generally give Piper a pass when he talks about race. Others may be different, but I can only speak for myself.
7. Speaking of which, it seems to me you're not giving some people enough credit. We're not all sheep (except spiritually speaking in relation to Christ our Shepherd). We don't buy everything Piper says hook, line, and sinker. One can appreciate Piper, but not agree with everything he says. It's not as if we're all so naive and gullible that if Piper says x about a topic, then everyone listening to Piper is immediately convinced of x.
Delete8. Yes, Trueman et al have criticized Piper. Such as on the whole celebrity culture. But Trueman's criticisms of Piper aren't entirely the same as your criticisms of Piper. Also, I don't think Trueman is as hostile toward Piper as you are, despite his criticisms. For example, has Trueman ever called Piper "a modern pharisee", "theological bandit", "disqualified...as an exegetically sound and theologically balanced voice", "duplicitous", etc.?
9. Last and perhaps least, I again think you're overreacting. I didn't mention your "typos" (plural) or "filling [my] time with 'sics'" (plural). I hardly care about "the minutiae of literary and grammatical finesse" when it comes to blogging. I only mentioned sic once because you typed "Desire God" rather than the well-known (among Reformed Christians like us) Desiring God. You're making a mountain out of a molehill.
"As to multiculturalism multi-ethnicism and this false doctrine of racial reconciliation, I stand with the Scriptures in hand which reveal that we are all - as believers - reconciled in, through and with Christ, hence, making all believers reconciled to one another which transcends human contexts and is spiritual in nature and which is the basis for our fellowship and camaraderie
ReplyDeleteTo place the demand of any additional reconciliation, be it racial, ethnic or cultural, is to both impede the only true basis of our reconciliation and fellowship - which is spiritually based and in and through Christ with shared Word and Spirit and to, in reality, abandon the spiritual construct and means of our true spiritual reconciliation and replace it with another construct which is based in human reconciliation such as race, ethnicity or culture"
This is not clear. What are you saying here. If you are saying we are one In Christ and that is the basis for our unity that is not controversial. But you seem to be saying that unity does not reach to the nations and create a demand for unity in Christ which extends to culture and race. That would leave races irreconciled without a Gospel reaching to them. But again it is not clear what you are saying. Please clarify how you are using words like multiculturalism better.
I agree on some issues with you like pacificism. But you haven't developed arguments against his doctrine of CH.
Other points you made were mostly against him which I am not here to defend if you are comfortable with such comments that has nothing to do with me.
But please clarify your disagreements with reconciling the races in Christ
Peter 1 of 3
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, in one sense but incorrect, in another. Human culture and our race/ethnicity or human genetics are not spiritual constructs, they are human, anthropological and social constructs. The body of Christ, by its very essence, is just that, a spiritual construct.
Hence, to believe that the gospel somehow must, by default, extend to human culture and human genetics with regard to the reconciliation of believers is to miss, completely, its transcending design and purpose.
Racial and cultural compatibility has to do with just that, race and culture and not our spiritual compatibility or fellowship. To attempt to impose racial, ethnic or cultural compatibility upon the church is to not just frustrate our spiritual compatibility but to, in the least, impeded it and often, destroy and and replace it with this unbiblical hybrid.
My Christian fellowship with another believers has to do, not with my reconciliation with their social order, their genetics or its expression and cannot, because this is not the protocol or unique design of the church, which is not an order of human identity but of a spiritual one as I pointed out earlier in referencing Peter and Paul.
Our shared DNA is spiritual. Our shared inheritance, identity and values are spiritual properties.
My fellowship with other believer-priests is in shared doctrine and shared Spirit which results in a shared spiritual culture - such expressions of our spiritual gifts, prayer and our being Spirit-filled as we interact with one another. It is based in, on and through Christ and Christ alone. Paul makes it absolutely clear and in no less terms, we are a "new spiritual species".
Outside of the kingdom on the right, is the kingdom on the left, in which those human constructs of race, ethnicity and human culture exist with validity and consequence and right so.
But never does it speak of such left kingdom co-existence or developed social compatibility as something that will or must result when we are made alive, spiritually, through the gospel.
Spiritual compatibility does not = social or human compatibility. This is truly an elementary theological principle that is simply being ignored.
Do you realize the basic premise of this awful idea that we, as Christian, must be racially, ethnically and cultural reconciled to one another?
Underlying this is the postulate that spiritual reconciliation not just will but must result in social reconciliation with all believers, which is simply not just not true and impossible, mind you, but also is countermanding of the new spiritual order we have in the church in which all those born again, enter, and exercise their spiritual compatibility.
Let me put it is the most simplest of terms. In the spiritual kingdom, that on the right, we share spiritual properties. These and these alone are why we are compatible with one another in the church. Shared Spirit, doctrine and the outworking spiritual culture in the church which is produced.
2 of 3
ReplyDeleteIn fact, when the church comes together we have a body of people who generally would never come together, socially speaking, and are quite incompatible on many days and in many ways. Not always. Yes, we find some great friends, at times in local churches but what, truly, is that from? For the healthy believer it is elevated spiritual fellowship, usually, and sometimes social compatibility.
But since you and others insist on human, anthropological reconciliation (which I doubt anyone really knows what that is supposed to look like in any detail, it is just an appealing humanistic ideal with no real working anatomy) let me ask you....
Why isn't everyone in the church everyone else's best friend, equally and simultaneously, on a social level?
Let's just leave the shared spiritual commune out of that. Why is that? I mean if we are going for the ideal and this human reconciliation, shouldn't we be poo pooing best social friends? To have a best friend is to say you like others, less. Isn't that, ultimately, what this is about. - Social lessers?
How dare we have social preferences as Christians, right?
Wrong, but that is why this errant ideology conclusively leads to in its end.
It demands that our spiritual identity somehow contract our social person with a new make-up of personality and social compatibilities. That is ludicrous.
Now to the nuts and bolts. What is it with the RR (racial reconciliation) people that insist on a personal racial rapport with everyone? That is called narcissism, in this case racial narcissism.
However, since many Evangelicals have bought into the lust to be liked by liberals and social engineers who generally control the various media and will call them names if they do not accept this humanistic ideology as on par with God's plans, they, too, have rushed head first into adopting this as some heretofore, undiscovered Biblical racial morality that suddenly, we are now enlightened by and must hoist upon the church though, glaringly, it has been absent for 2000 years. That ought to bother you, just a bit.
The plain fact in Scripture is that our rapport, as believers, with one another, is not from some transformed social order where we give deference to one's genetics or social position.
It is abundantly clear from Scripture, for example, where in the kingdom on the left, Paul instructs slaves to obey masters and masters to be principled in their treatment of slaves yet, within the church, there is no such order - not because we have been reconciled either to the social order of the slave or master, but because in Christ, there is a new order.
It is a spiritual order where we are all believer-priests, our racial identity is spiritual and the spiritual gifts, given by God's Holy Spirit, determine our place and function in the body and its diversity and has nothing to do with our human, anthropological or social properties or their reconciliation among believers.
I will conclude with two points.
First, I encourage everyone reading this to go back and read the great "In Christ" treatise by Paul in Ephesians. Over and over he talks about who, what and why we are and the dynamic of our spiritual identity and function. It will, I believe, reinforce the distinction I have presented.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, on a more succinct point, I direct you to Paul's letter to the Philippians. In chapter 4 there are two women who are experiencing incompatibility. The suggestion is that it is personal, which means their personalities and so for, or human/social properties simply do not blend well, though they are both believers.
What does Paul direct? Does he demand they reconcile, humanly or socially? Does he demand the development of some kind of personal rapport of camaraderie as fellow believers in the body of Christ? Nope.
Why?
Paul does not attempt to remedy their human/social incompatibility first, because he likely understands that he could not possibly demand in any reasonably way that two people who are not humanly/socially compatible, suddenly be so. That is a conjecture on my part, I stand guilty but is not the weight of the point, here. Just a reasonable suggestion.
But more importantly, because that isn't the dynamic or basis of our unity and fellowship and that our camaraderie, as the church or the kingdom on the right, is spiritual in nature which comes from a shared Spirit, Word and the subsequent ecclesiastical culture of spiritual life. Thus he directs the two women:
"I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord."
And it is "in the Lord" that is the key. Which is why I point to Paul's Ephesians document in citing the spiritual nature of our exercise and fellowship as believers, which is "in the Lord".
And where and what is "in the Lord". I'll tell you, it is shared Spirit (spiritual DNA), doctrine (values and beliefs) and its subsequent spiritual, NOT HUMAN, culture.
Tl;dr. Alex Guggenheim writes a treatise which would be better summed by simply citing Gal 3:28-29 because it teaches in essence that Christians are the true offspring of Abraham by their union with Christ, not their race, ethnicity, sex, class, or other background. Nice sermonette from Alex, I guess, but not sure how this is relevant to Alex's previous remarks about Piper and race relations.
ReplyDeletePeter
ReplyDeleteMy hope is that since I went to the trouble to leave no stone unturned in earnest to provide clarification which you requested that you will do two things:
1. Interact with my major points
2. Provide a similar argument to sustain this novel and recent doctrine of racial reconciliation which for argument's sake I have allowed the assumption of its anatomy to exist but yet have not seen any constructive arguments to validate it's theory.
AG