I don't like John Piper

After hearing him, listening to him, reading him and hearing so many others talk about him, I've decided I don't like John Piper. I've just had such a hard time with this brother for so many reasons and have struggled to appreciate the good of his ministry with the bad. I know, I know, we aren't supposed to get to the point of saying that we don't like someone this coldly. But I've been learning that it's necessary.

Lately God has been opening up my heart to the fact that I have harbored unforgiveness towards people and communities in my life. I know how damaging this is to all those involved including myself.  I have taken graduate level courses on forgiveness, love and reconciliation. I've been trained in the Greek, the Hebrew, the language and lives of experts on this field and have devoted my life to the message of forgiveness, I've preached it, taught it, lived it, counseled others to embrace it and have judged those who don't - but now the radiance of my own guilt has reached my own eyelids.

Let's give a toast to the blindspots and ask God to show them to us in good time. I have them, you have them, we all have them. It's not enough to just say I have them, I need to know them. I dislike John Piper because he thinks differently than I do, says things that disagree with my fundamental convictions about how important statements should be said regarding God, convictions, tolerance towards those I disagree with in and outside of my beliefs, etc... I don't like feeling like he is right and I'm wrong because I think differently than he does.

But, even with people whom I agree with, I find that I still don't like what they say at times and how they say it. I'm willing to put up with these aspects because of my resonance with their way of thinking. I guess John Piper frustrates me because I want him to be kinder to those who disagree with him, to those who's theology is not his. I believe that after sitting and having tea with John, I would like him on a personal level but I know that I still would be frustrated.

Lately, I've learned that the best of friends are the ones that are frustrated by me, yet they stick around. Or, they frustrate me and I stick around. What about the people who disregard your humanity, step on your dignity, dislike your personality or just plain abuse their power over you? What if they didn't begin as your friend or even worse they did and then seemingly betrayed you? What if they give you benevolence without respect or lip-service without action? What do we do with those people?

Boundaries anyone? I think boundaries are necessary - first to understand that boundaries do exist and then the needed navigation of how to set up, maintain or even at times remove them. I want respect, health, balance, passion and consistency in my convictions and relationships. But life isn't that straightforward or simple. I have learned a lot about how to have boundaries and self-respect through many broken relationships but what about those broken relationships? What do I do with those? Many of them still effect me and though I can ignore some, others I know I can't.

I feel as if the lessons I've learned about being a person of health by maintaining healthy boundaries and being patient in relationships could have a detrimental effect on the softness of my heart. Could it be that the pursuit of healthy boundaries has turned into an effort to cortisone my heart off into a safe but lonely corner where the brokenness of the world cannot break in? Have I renamed the status of an "unforgiving heart" to accomodate what I want to hear - maybe - a "heart with boundaries" might sound better...

What about John Piper? Have I justified disliking him in spite of the fact that he's a brother? I disagree with him but my frustration with him is beyond that because I know that if he decided that he was going to change the things that I was upset about - I would be disappointed and would need another figure to pin my frustrations upon. Anyways - Unforgiveness has immobilized so many potentially beautiful relationships, friendships and learning communities.

I want to be filled with love - not just for people that I agree with, am in community with but with those who I owe nothing to, to those who owe me something, to those who have wronged me beyond recognition and to those who I have unconsciously hated. Unforgiveness - it's a cancer that we harbor.

Christ said to love our enemies - what he didn't tell us was that that most of our enemies we create on our own. They are people who may or may not have harmed us, but the choice for them to be an enemy is ours. We create them, feed them, cage them and expect that our bags of stones are justifiable.

Christ may have said to love our enemies but I'm discovering that my enemies, at least most of them, are really not enemies, just people who I chose not to forgive.

 I'm sure he knew that, so in his infinitely wise way, he allows us to call them enemies so that our feelings can be named and then he commands or coxes us - however you want to hear it - to love them.  To love them - why - so that what we have done in our hearts to make them an enemy can be undone.  We are our own best propagandists.  Vilify for victory, right?

No, not right

They are not enemies - most of the enemies we are called to love are really our family members, our loved ones, our brothers and sisters, our friends, our children, our confidantes, our ex-husbands and wives, our ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, our own flesh and blood. A few really are people who despise us for no reason but most aren't. Forgiveness doesn't remove the wrong done, the pain inflicted, or the negligence imbued, but it does free us from having to create more enemies.

If I live a life of love, enough enemies will come, so why create my own?  Maybe deep down we need enemies like the CIA needs another cold war in order to justify why we exist...why we are important...why we finally have meaning.  My frustration with John Piper is that his hyper-transcendental view of God negates the role of humanity in God's design - we are not just conduits for God's glory to pass through, we are not a means to an end - we are not just happy so that God can be glorified - we are happy to just be happy, to know what joy is and enjoy it ourselves and of course God enjoys that - we must mean more to God than that.  No parent buys a Christmas gift for their child to feel joy for themselves - they buy it for their child's joy which then gives them joy.

There has to be a more important evaluation of our existence than that.  It seems that if that's all we are then we will either accept his conclusion - that our happiness is only about being a vessel, a conduit or a means for God's ultimate end of glorifying himself through us as a means - a necessary but maybe unintended consequence.  We are therefore not an end in and of ourselves.  Or the alternative is that we will continue to search for meaning outside of the soothsayer's realm and some say that the danger is we'll turn to Oprah, Tolle, Buddha, or Osteen.  Of course we will because we weren't created to ignore that part of our humanity that seeks dignity and meaning outside of just being a means to an end.

For God to be the ultimate "End" does not remove humanity's need to be "end" in and of ourselves.  If we are primarily a "means to an end" and are to accept that woeful existence in military fashion, then some of us will look for meaning incessantly until we find it elsewhere while others will give up and then others quietly accept their mean status of being a "means" devotionally and devoid of the abundance we were meant for.

It becomes very hard to forgive when our enemies bring us so much meaning and significance to the degree that harboring an unforgiving heart becomes the source of our life - a life that was meant to be lived in abundance.  Just like in Monsters Inc. - we suck the fear out of our enemies for an inkling of energy when it is really their laughter that will fill our homes with light.  When our value as image bearers of both the image and likeness of God is rightly appraised by us as it is by God, then our need for value-adding enemies will cease and our need for enemies will cease and our need for unforgiveness will cease.

So what about John Piper - have I made him an enemy - I'm afraid so.  He's not and I do love him because he's my brother and a man of great integrity.  So should I dislike him, no, I just disagree with his way of thinking and doing things - but I love him.  Without recognizing that I truly disliked him, though I've never met him, his status as an enemy in my heart couldn't have been undone unless I loved him.  Some will find this love hard to give and that is the point of release - wherein I recognize I have what it takes to love my enemies, but I need help to take the step.  Many have done it before my time who never chose to follow Christ, but they followed him nonetheless.  So do I dislike John Piper? - well I did and I may again, but at least I know that's wrong.

I finish with a quote from Rob Bell

In a Chicago Sun Times article entitled The Next Billy Graham?, Bell responded to his critics:

"When people say that the authority of Scripture or the centrality of Jesus is in question, actually it's their social, economic and political system that has been built in the name of Jesus that's being threatened," Bell says. "Generally lurking below some of the more venomous, vitriolic criticism is somebody who's created a facade that's not working...But I love everybody and you're next!" he says, giggling. "That's how I respond to criticism."


I want to love my enemies, so that I can realize that they really aren't my enemies.  Blessings on your path to forgive and be forgiven and on loving your next enemy!