Has John Piper Jumped the Shark?

            I have spent a lot of my time recently listening to bad preaching, in fact I have been spending a good chunk of time listening to false teaching.  Not because I am buying it, but because I am preaching through the book of Colossians and have come to Chapter 2 and Paul’s response to what theologians call the Colossian Heresy.  And while the exact nature of that heresy has been lost in the mists of history, there are several elements of it preserved in Paul’s response to it. 

Sadly they all are still with us and have infected large segments of the professing church.  Legalism – check, calls for asceticism – check, unhealthy obsession with angelic/demonic beings – check, sensuality of mind – check, being puffed up and  going on in detail about “visions” – double check.

Which brings be back to why I have been listening to so much false teaching lately, I want to get a taste of how bad it really is out here, and unfortunately it is pretty bad.  Just walk down the aisles of your local mass market Christian book Store or peruse youtube and you will find that every aspect of the Colossian heresy on prominent display.  I wanted to see and hear just how bad it is, and that is how I Ran across this “testimony” from Kim Walker – Smith, the lead singer of a band called “Jesus Culture.” 

 If you don’t want to waste the time to sit through the video, let me summarize it for you.  She sees “Jesus” who has stretch Armstrong like super powers and uses them to show her that he (the lack of capitalization is purposeful, whatever she may have seen/imagined it wasn’t the Jesus of the bible) loves her "this much".  Then she has another vision where she not only sees Jesus, she also sees the father who reaches into his chest and tears a piece of his heart out Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom style.  She also canoodles with her vision of Christ and both the father and son of her visions apparently have the habit of bursting into maniacal laughter.  To call it crazy and heretical would be an insult to crazy heretics the world over.

The video itself wasn’t that shocking, after all Jesus Culture is from the heretical Bethel Church in Redding California, where students of the church’s School of Supernatural Ministry are promised that they will receive no instruction from professors or trained theologians (or anyone else who might point out the gross heresy, different gospel, and cult like control exercised at Bethel) but only from Apostles and prophets.  (And I am guessing not in the form of study of the inspired scriptures written through the Apostles and the prophets, but I digress.)

What I did find somewhat surprising was that Jesus Culture was invited to be one of the featured worship bands at the Passion 2013 conference, an ostensibly “mainstream” conference for evangelical young adults held last week in Atlanta, with as many as 60,000 in attendance.   But in the grand scheme of things even this is really not that surprising, given the willful lack of discernment in the broader “evangelical” world of 21^st century America.

But what I did find absolutely flabbergasting and shocking was that my wife interrupted my rant about how any youth/college pastor that took his students there or senior pastor who knowingly allowed the young members of his flock to go there and be exposed to this kind of deadly false teaching should be immediately fired by saying "but Piper was there."

I thought that couldn’t be.  I said she must be mistaken.  She countered that she saw an article about it on the Christianity Today website.  I countered that it must be Don Piper who also made outrageous unbiblical claims of visions of heaven.  She demurred and said she couldn’t be sure.  So I googled and sure enough John “desiring God” Piper was a speaker and participant at Passion 2013 along side of Jesus passion and a host of other problematic participants.  My jaw dropped.  So with much sadness I think we all have to ask an important and weighty question.  Has John Piper jumped the theological shark?

Now let me say that it brings me no joy to ask this question.  I deeply respect and love the ministry of John Piper.  As a young believer, saved out of a very sinful lifestyle, his book When I Don’t Desire God: Fighting for Joy was a real lifeline for me more than once, and his book Let the Nations be Glad was formative in my view of global missions, and I actually mourned when he ceased his radio broadcasts because they were a great encouragement to me during a period where my job required lots of solo time behind the wheel.  And I appreciate his more scholarly work as well.  I deeply appreciated The Future of Justification his scholarly response to N.T. Wright’s new perspective on Paul, it was brilliant and decisively took the exegetical fight to Wright who tends to intimidate lesser minds with his command of the Greek language and confuse them with his circuitous use of the English one.

I also appreciate Piper’s pastoral heart.  His commitment to living, and having the staff of Bethlehem Baptist live in the same Minneapolis neighborhood as the church, even though it is not the best, and his willingness to engage with and teach on social issues beyond abortion and homosexuality from a truly biblical perspective is a model that all shepherds should seek to follow.

In short, I am a Piper lover and have been deeply impacted by his ministry.  Sure I wish he would repudiate continuationism.  And I am baffled by his relationship with Mark Driscoll, whose misogyny, impropriety and generally unloving and prickly demeanor have only gotten worse despite Piper’s mentorship.  And I was alarmed by his invitation to Rick Warren to Speak at the Desiring God 2010 conference.  But I have always given Dr. Piper the benefit of the doubt.

I understand the reluctance to come out of the closet as a cessationist, and the doubt that can be injected into an otherwise excellent exegete’s mind by a few experiences or the testimony of experiences by trusted friends.  It is wrong, but I can see how someone would be wobbled there.  And I sort of sympathized with his motive for mentoring Driscoll, after all Driscoll does undeniably have a huge audience, and seems to get soteriology right, so I can see wanting to straighten him out.  As far as Warren goes, I bought into the explanation that he wanted the DG attendees who had likely never heard Warren be exposed to what he actually teaches.  After all I have often thought that if discerning believers heard what seeker sensitivity actually espouses they would sound the alarm so loudly that the Druckerite ministry model would be forever wiped away.  But participating in Passion 2013 may well be a bridge too far.

It was the involvement of Jesus Culture that drew my attention but their participation was far from the only deadly dangerous problem with Passion 2013.  In Fact I suggest you actually take the time to google “problems passion 2013” you will likely be, if not shocked, deeply saddened by the results that come up.  Contemplative Spirituality and mysticism were front and center for the entire conference, including a lectio divina session that Dr. Piper helped lead.   Hosting pastor Louie Giglio delivered the final message of the conference which was an exhortation based entirely on an extra-biblical revelation he claimed to receive.  Prosperity-lite preacher Jude Smith delivered a seductive message redefining the Gospel not as the atoning sacrifice of a sinless savior by which repentant sinners can be reconciled to a holy God, but as a call for community based on a deeply twisted (twisted and in error yet seemingly plausible – see Colossians 2:4) understanding of Genesis 1:26.  And the whole shebang was capped off by Beth Moore preaching the Sunday service at Giglio’s Passion City Church (so much for 1 Timothy 2:12 and biblical authority).

By his presence and participation there John Piper lends his de facto endorsement to all of these practices, ministries and teachers, and that is an enormously dangerous thing.  John Piper is one of the very few names that have earned a reputation for absolute fealty to the biblical gospel, the authority of scripture and the Lordship of Christ.  And now that reputation is lending credibility to the ministry of false teachers who proclaim a different gospel and those who deny the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.  It is a very short leap from John Piper and Jesus Culture were both at Passion 2013, to John Piper is trustworthy so Jesus Culture is trustworthy to Jesus Culture is Trustworthy so Bethel Redding and Bill (and Beni) Johnson are trustworthy to the "gospel" they preach is just as able to save as the Gospel Piper preaches.  That is how Satan does his work as a murderer.

While John Piper, to my knowledge, hasn’t himself said anything contrary to the gospel, this is an enormously alarming development.  And while I am sure that Dr.Piper would say he would never depart from the biblical Gospel, I am equally sure that if you asked Billy Graham in 1968 if he would ever say that Mormons are Christians or James McDonald circa 2000 if he would ever embrace someone who denies the trinity as a brother in Christ they would have said no too.  It is my prayer that Dr. Piper ceases to share the platform with the kinds of teachers found at Passion 2013, and that he disassociates himself with them before it is too late.  As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:33 bad company ruins good morals, and bad company can destroy a ministry too.  Has John Piper jumped the shark?  Maybe not, but he is definitely water skiing in a leather jacket.