John H Armstrong

Is John Piper's Interpretation of Tornadoes Correct?

For the record, I have warm personal regard for Dr. John Piper. I have known him for at least 25 years. He spoke at several events for me in Wheaton and I did the same for him in Minneapolis. I respect him for his integrity, courage and godly perseverance through trials and deep challenges. I believe that he has helped multitudes discover a great and awesome God. I also believe he has impacted thousands of young Christians to grow in deeply personal ways. But I believe John does get some things wrong. I have avoided saying this in the past because I do not like to challenge the views of people that I know and love. While bloggers near and far can jump on John Piper's oft-quoted statements I am loathe to join in these criticisms precisely because of my past relationship with John. I place real value upon this past relationship with a brother in Christ even though John and I are not close friends now. (We are not enemies either so please do not read anything else into that statement.)

Just as my own writing is public so is John's. And just as my writing can and should be critiqued so should John's. At first I didn't like to read a critique of my writing but I have slowly come to embrace both the need and the importance of disagreement and honest review. I despise misrepresentation and dishonest, harsh and mean-spirited criticism. (Who doesn't?) This is true for all Christian writers unless they have no feelings. (Lord, deliver me from such people with no feeling!)

So long as public critiques are charitable, honest and reasonable I am prepared to argue that they are worthwhile. John's very public statements often create a firestorm of response precisely because he has such a passionate following. His own passion and certitude about so much that he writes invites deep loyalty and profound disagreement. If you read blogs and follow John at all, and I confess that I read very few of his day-to-day posts these days, then you know that John frequently writes things that spread like wildfire across the web because they are provocative in nature and he has a huge following. Perhaps, and I say this very cautiously, writers like John should especially be critiqued by those of us who care about him and believe the influence that he has upon large numbers of people includes serious responsibility. It is in this spirit that I engage with Dr. Piper's response to the tornadoes that devastated towns and killed people this past weekend. Here is how Piper's March 5 blog post on these tornadoes begins:

Why would God reach down his hand and drag his fierce fingers across rural America killing at least 38 people with 90 tornadoes in 12 states, and leaving some small towns with scarcely a building standing, including churches?

If God has a quarrel with America, wouldn’t Washington, D.C., or Las Vegas, or Minneapolis, or Hollywood be a more likely place to show his displeasure?

We do not ascribe such independent power to Mother Nature or to the devil. God alone has the last say in where and how the wind blows. If a tornado twists at 175 miles an hour and stays on the ground like a massive lawnmower for 50 miles, God gave the command.

John goes on to quote five texts and asks, "Why Maryville and not Minneapolis? Why Henryville and not Hollywood?" As you can see from the blog, if you read it, he provides three responses to his own question and then nobly and appropriately appeals to his readers to give personal help for the victims through Samaritan's Purse. He rightly calls upon all of us to turn from sin and flee to Christ for forgiveness. I have nothing but respect for these words of counsel. 

But a problem remains in Dr. Piper's post. Should a pastor actually speak with such certitude about "God reach[ing] down his hand and drag[ing] his fierce fingers across rural America killing at least 38 people with 90 tornadoes in 12 states, and leaving some small towns with scarcely a building standing, including churches?" This is the problem. And the problem is not new in American church history. John Piper's hero, Jonathan Edwards, clearly spoke in this manner. Early American Calvinism, in its Puritan forms, produced an abundance of this kind of sermonizing and speech. Fast days and calls for revival were filled with references to divine displeasure that were rooted in storms and crop failures. These events were interpreted as "clear" proof of God's judgment. This created a whole genre of sermons and literature that are one with Piper's contemporary jeremiads. 

Let me be quick to say that John Piper's deepest desire is to represent God as a sovereign, all-powerful and "big" God. He wants his readers to desire God for God's sake, not for their puny self-interests. His well-known thesis about "desiring God" has been taught and retaught for nearly three decades. He is essentially right in his thesis. (I have doubts about how his thesis is applied and the reductionism it creates theologically but that would be material for another post.)

How big is your faith? How big is your view of your inheritance in Christ? How big is God when you face tragedy? These are vitally important questions. Your answer will depend on how big and infinite your God really is and whether or not you allow yourself to experience this great, awesome, sovereign God. As your God becomes bigger your faith goes deeper and your trust will grow. John and I agree on this central point. 

Where John and I disagree, however, is in the way he takes one part of the biblical narrative, namely the biblical teaching on divine sovereignty, and makes it into a system of ideas that have God "reach[ing] down his hand and drag[ing] his fingers" in taking life and destroying towns. Even the august Westminster Confession of Faith, which is not weak-kneed Calvinism to say the least, speaks of divine sovereignty in such a way as to make sure the reader understands that God is not the author of anything evil. Thus this question about people being killed by God in storms raises another question: Is this act of taking lives in storms good or evil? Be careful how easily you answer this question. I believe there is great mystery here, a mystery that Scripture does not address in the plain ways that Dr. Piper assumes. Simply put I too believe in a big, sovereign and awesome God but I am not as ready as John Piper to assign everything that happens in nature and everyday life to God's direct action. Here is, I believe, the real problem.

I went back to some patristic writers yesterday and read statement after statement which affirmed that God is active in all nature. As I read I discovered, however, a balance that I believe is missing in John Piper's Calvinism. One of the most brilliant thinkers in the early church notes that most occurrences in the world are of the "intermediate kind (whether they are mournful or otherwise) and thus they are not brought about by God." Notice the reference here to agency in the little word by. This same theologian adds, regarding events in divine providence, "Yet, neither do they happen without him." He goes on to say that God permits evil powers to operate and nature to oppose the good. He concludes, "Holy Scripture teaches us to receive all that happens as though sent by God knowing that without Him no event occurs" (italics are all mine). Notice the cautious way he speaks by saying "as though sent by God." Piper throws such ancient caution to the wind. 

Another example, from an early church theologian, has to do with murder. He says God made the man who murders another because he is his Creator yet God did not make him a murderer. God "permits" (a commonly used word in patristic writers from what I can tell) this evil of murder but he does so in order that good might come, or that light might shine in the darkness. For this reason God does not "immediately" punish sinners. Why? God is patient, very patient. He is loving toward all that he has made and he reveals that love in his Son. Love best defines God's actions, even in mysterious storms that he permits for reasons we do not know and may never understand, because "God is love." 

Another early church writer, Arnobius (c. 305), sums up well what I believe is a much better way to understand this vexing question about storms, suffering and death:

They will ask, "Why, then, does not the Almighty God take away these evils? Why does he allow them to exist and to go on without ceasing through all the ages?" . . . We must answer that we do not know these things (italics mine). 

What I believe Dr. Piper misses in his zeal for divine sovereignty, and in his excessive preoccupation with putting God at the center of storms and lightning strikes, is divine mystery. As Arnobius said, "We must answer that we do not know these things." 

Mystery is a great word. In the Greek New Testament it means "a sacred secret." The greatest mystery of all has been revealed, namely God's loving plan to save the world in and through Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:25; Eph. 1:9; 3:9; Col. 1:26-27; 2:2; 4:3). But while this great mystery has been revealed we all too easily feel certain that this is easy to grasp. But the very reality of God himself, and his mysterious ways, transcends human reason and comprehension. Dr. Piper believes all of this I am quite sure. But he goes too far in using proof texts to argue for God's direct involvement in disasters. Here is his problem, at least in my estimation: The human mind cannot grasp such things thus we should understand that the human mind is grasped by the divine majesty in revealing the love of Christ to us by the Spirit. In attempting to make God very big Dr. Piper has made the gospel reasonable and simple, even reducible to human ideas about truth. I know this might shock your system if you love Dr. Piper's way of teaching but this is a real problem. It is repeated by Dr. Piper time and time again through an extreme form of Calvinism. (John Calvin himself was extreme at some points, especially when he taught double-predestination!)

Martin Luther got this much better when he taught Deus revelatus sed absconditus ("God revealed but still hidden"). Orthodoxy has cultivated what it calls apaphatic theology, which is a theology that stresses divine inaccessibility. And the Catholic Karl Rahner (1904-84) got this right in the 20th century by stressing the role of mystery. Vatican II and Pope John Paul II favored the language of "mystery" (singular) as opposed to older ideas about the "mysteries" (plural). For Karl Rahner there was ultimately only one mystery. (This is why I made reference to the way in which Piper's teaching detracts us from the gospel itself.) Rahner said the only mystery was that of the tripersonal God who through Christ's saving work and he mission of he Holy Spirit invites us to share the divine life. 

What I wish for Dr. Piper, and those who follow his teaching with such love and high regard, is a recovery of this singular mystery. I am quite sure they all believe they have this base covered. I am not so sanguine about this claim. When I read such bold statements about God reaching down his hand to kill people in rural America I have to at least ask this question: "Have you missed the one great mystery and thereby majored on applying your doctrine of divine providence as if this is the central mystery rather than the mystery of God's revealed love for all mankind in Jesus Christ?" What people in America needed to hear following these storms was not what Piper said on Monday but what Rahner wrote several decades ago.

A wonderfully insightful and pastoral response to Piper's blog, written by my friend Michael Mercer, should also be read at the Internet Monk site. It is titled: "Obsessed with Tornadoes Disorder." I found it to be the best response on the web among published reactions to Piper's post. 

I believe most people already have an understanding that the God of Christians is harsh and mean. When the mystery of the good news is buried in the subtext of a message like Dr. Piper's March 5 blog then the greatest mystery of all becomes a non-mystery. What is left is a debate about God's hand in storms. Now the blogworld throws bombs back and forth debating Piper's post, pro and con. This is a sad and a truly needless debate if we understood that there is one great (singular) mystery and this mystery has been revealed in Christ -- God's purpose is to save the world in his Son!

Thanksgiving

Today millions of Americans celebrate what we call Thanksgiving Day. My friend Steve Brown wrote in his recent Key Life publication that he’s a little bothered by devoting one day to this or that. “It’s as if the point is: You are a dolt and can’t pull this off all the time, but try hard for just one day.” He says this is something like Pastor Appreciation Day or Brotherhood Week. You can love your pastor for one day and then abuse him the rest of the time. (He is being humorous folks, if you do not know Steve.)

Steve Brown relates that when he is going through a season of complaining God reminds him that he is a lot bigger than he ever thought. He says that this Thanksgiving he will be thankful because he knows that Someone who loves us and who is in “large and in charge.” He relates the story of an atheist friend who was so thankful about the birth of a newborn son but had no one to thank. Steve asked him, “Who are you going to thank?” That’s when he became a Christian. Cool story.

Steve Brown concludes that some of us are going through rough stuff this Thanksgiving. Some of you are in a calm just before the storm. Others are experiencing great peace right now in your circumstances. But, he adds, “These aren’t even the issues. The issue is God. Run to him. Thanksgiving will be natural.” A big amen to thank.

A friend of mine recently received counsel from a minister who had gone through a very, very hard time. The minister urged my friend to take time at the beginning of each day to list twenty items for true thanks. My friend says this practice has done as much as anything he has ever done to transform his mind and heart.

“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NLT).

Happy Thanksgiving 2010.

Try Laughing at the Devil and Some of Those Preachers Who Think They Understand the Mystery of Divine Providence

When the earthquake destroyed much of Haiti earlier this year Pat Robertson made another of his characteristic public statements about good and evil. Martin Luther and C. S. Lewis, to name only a few thoughtful Christians of their ilk, noted that one of the best methods for dealing with the devil was to taunt him. They urged us to literally laugh at him. Well, I think there is an appropriate time to laugh at the silliness of some public pronouncements made by well-intentioned but unwise Christians like Pat Robertson. Honestly, if I didn’t laugh at such nonsense I would cry or get very angry. So try this “Letters to the Editor” response for a laugh.

Minneapolis St. Paul Star Tribune Letters to the Editor January 14, 2010:

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth—glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or what about "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox—that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it—I'm just saying: Not how I roll. You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings—just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

Lily Coyle, Minneapolis

Well, thank you Lily Coyle. You helped me think about how to better respond to the foolish pronouncements of men like Pat Robertson. (Sadly, there are a whole lot more than Pat who engage in this nonsense but he happens to do this way too often!) A little laughter, in this instance, does seem quite appropriate.

An Act of God or a Coincidence?

Last August, during the now famous Lutheran (ELCA) church-wide assembly in Minneapolis, lightning struck the steeple on a downtown Lutheran church where part of the meeting was being conducted. Since the ELCA voted to accept same-sex marriages at this meeting, a decision which created a storm of response pro and con, the news media covered this event rather intensely. As is typical of these types of events people were lined up on both sides like political parties set to win a debate. Some saw God’s smile in the events that unfolded while others saw a divine frown. Condemnations were forthcoming from all sides, especially from some evangelicals who relished the providence of this particular steeple being struck by lightning. They openly said that this somehow displayed God’s obvious displeasure. At the time I wondered (again) at this odd and all-too-frequent attempt to explain what we cannot, and should not, explain.

Was the lightning an act of God? Well, yes I think so myself. In fact, even insurance policies still use this kind of language about such events. But the question here is really simple: “Do we know precisely what God was saying in this lightning strike?” I think the answer is clearly “No, we have no warrant to make definitive statements about what God was thinking or doing in a lightning strike.”

I thought about this again when I read the news this week about a very conservative church in Ohio being struck by lightning. In some ways this story made me smile as I wondered who would speak about this lightning strike? At the same time I prayed for those who were impacted by the damage done. My own home church burned when I was 16 years old and I will always have deep sympathy for a local congregation that loses its building in this sudden way. What I smiled at was not the loss itself, or the feelings of the people in this local church, but the possible response of some Christians. Who was behind this “act of God?” I suppose some might even say, “The devil did this.” I find that is about as preposterous as the response last August that said “God was speaking against the Lutheran assembly and the delegates by revealing his displeasure.”

You don’t need special appeals to lightning strikes to make a case for decisions, good or bad. You need wisdom, prayer, the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Everybody could learn something if these tools were used well rather than by making spurious appeals to divine providence interpreted as if we really knew the mind of God on this matter, a matter which is clearly among “the secret things” (Deuteronomy 29:29) the Lord has not revealed to any of us.

The Weight of Fear

Pope Gregory the Great said: "The weight of fear is the anchor of the heart.” I see a lot of fear in a lot of Christian hearts these days. President Franklin D. Roosevelt noted in 1933 that fear paralyzes those who succumb to it. Francis de Sales said, “We must not fear fear.” And John Calvin said, “The inward joy, which faith brings to us, can overcome all fears.” But fear we do and fear seems to be in the air since 9/11. If Christians are not filled with anger and rage, at Congress or at the current President, then they are often filled with fear of the multitude of things that they believe can actually harm them.

The fact is a great deal of what most people fear is based much more on nonstop media hype than on reality. And whether it is the problem of immigration or the threat of crime we all tend to respond to “fear-driven” reports. But consider this list of unsettling threats and their far riskier counterparts:

Murders (2008) 14,180/Suicides 33,289

Children Abducted by Strangers (1999) 115/Children Who Drown in Pools (2006) 288

Burglaries (2007) 2.2 million/Identity Thefts (2005) 8.3 million

Shark Attacks (2009) 28/Dog Bites (Annual Average) 4.5 million

Americans Killed By Terrorists (2008) 33/Americans Who Died from Seasonal Flu (Annual Average) 36,171

Deaths by Allergic Reaction to Peanuts (Annual Average) 50-100/Deaths By Unintentional Poisoning (2006) 27,531

Women Who Die From Breast Cancer (2009) 40,170/Women Who Die from Cardiovascular Disease (2006) 432,709

Fatal Airline Accidents (2005) 321/Fatal Car Crashes (2008) 34, 017

Americans Audited by the IRS (2009) 1.4 million/U.S. Deaths (2007) 2.4 million

Oswald Chambers said: “The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God you fear everything else.”

I don’t know about you but I want to live each day with a proper fear (reverence) of God and less and less fear of all else that can happen to me. Frankly, much of what we fear each day will never happen and the worst that can happen is that I will die, thus the Lord will take me to himself by his grace and mercy. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

Fear weighs on too many Christian souls these days. Make it your decided purpose to address your fear each day with a deeper awareness of divine providence and the assurance of the gospel united with the hope of eternal life.

Why Comparison Never Helps

Recently a friend referred to his own developed theory of dealing with pain and suffering by saying to me, “Comparison never helps!” I wrote that statement down and then thought about it for a good while. I have to agree with it at a very deep level.

Here is how this theory works. I break my arm but you loose your arm completely. You feel that compared to me you have it much worse than I do. The problem is my arm still hurts and I am experiencing real pain. For the two of us to compare ourselves, and our respective levels of pain, will serve no good purpose. Your pain is not my pain, end of discussion.

But Christians, like all people, tend to do this comparison shopping of providence all the time. It’s just that Christians can do it with a greater sense of warrant and piety since they believe in God's active involvement in their lives. But you are you and I am me. We know that no temptation has taken either of us that is not common to all humans. What we don’t know is how each of us will respond to what is unique to us. For this reason comparison in these matters serves no godly purpose at all. I suggest you drop it and you will be far better off in learning to embrace God's love and providence both.

Judgment and Mercy

As cultures fall further and further away from God and his righteousness we should expect them to experience divine judgment. Several have suggested, in the past few days, that New Orleans was ripe for judgment last week. I have some sympathy with this view, at least up to a point. But I also have some questions. Let me explain.

First, there is no doubt that nations and peoples are raised up, and taken down, by God. Acts 17:24-31 is clear on this point. And the Old Testament provides us with abundant evidence that God judges wicked people and their cities. New Orleans is a wicked city. Make no mistake about this at all. Its crime and murder rate are exceptionally high and its celebration of gay and lesbian lifestyle is infamous. It has boasted of its decadence openly for years. But there are far worse cities than New Orleans. And there were many righteous people in this city as well. And what about the other gulf cities that were also struck by Hurricane Katrina?

Second, all of us deserve judgment since all of us have sinned (Luke 13:1-5). The tower of Siloam fell on eighteen people. Jesus noted that these eighteen who died were no more guilty than all others living in Jerusalem at that time. The point he makes is that such an event happened in order to call all people to repentance (Luke 13:5).

Third, a time will come when "a filling up of unrighteousness" is reached. Only God knows when this occurs in each instance. When such judgments do come the wicked and the righteous suffer through the same tragic events. (The righteous, of course, are taken into the presence of Christ through their death, regardless of the circumstances.) But why do the righteous suffer right alongside the wicked? So that all may seek God for mercy. And so that his purposes might work out for the accomplishment of his glory, which is often to be openly connected with the renewal of his church and the awakening of multitudes of sinners to the Savior's love and grace. Isaiah 53 indicates the principles that a remnant will suffer so that redemption might be accomplished. Though Christ is plainly in view in Isaiah 53 we, as his people, often do share in this redemptive suffering so that many might be saved.

Finally, we need to understand that the sufferings of the righteous on behalf of the unrighteous find their completion in the life, death and resurrection of Christ alone. Judgment, under the new covenant, falls upon Christ ultimately. The suffering One undergoes deep pain and trial for the saving of many. And if the Savior suffered, so shall we. Do not be suprised at the fiery (or watery) ordeal that impacts us all when events like Hurricane Katrina hit.

Leaders in New Orleans would be a wise if they sought the face of God at this time. At the end of the day FEMA can only do so much. God alone can heal both body and soul. Let us pray for a renewed church in the region and for the salvation of many. And let us do our part to love all men, especially those of the household of faith.