For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll use a more specific example; I was watching TBN the other day (that’s Trinity Broadcast Network), and Kirk Cameron was talking about religion. He was pleading–desperately, I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, but he seemed desperate–with viewers to be more aggressive in converting family members. He actually said one thing that struck me in a very negative way; he said (and this is not an exact quote, but it’s close), “We can’t use the excuse that, ‘well, I’m going to love them anyway.’ How can we love someone, if we’re not trying to save them from eternal damnation? How can we say we love someone if we’re not trying to save them from hell?”

That offended me, because it says my beliefs are an “excuse.” My belief is that religion is a personal choice, and that everyone should be able to believe whatever they want, no matter how offensive (in this case, I respect Kirk Cameron’s ability to believe what he does, as offensive as it is–I don’t expect anyone to take him off the air for saying it, is what I mean). I believe he should be able to have his faith and speak it. However, I disagree with the way he uses Christianity as a wedge between people; he teaches the ideology that, if you can’t convert someone peacefully, you need to find other ways to do it. He creates conflict with his faith, and he does it knowingly; and other people do the same, whether it’s under his influence or on their own altogether. THAT offends me.

Now, I understand that someone else will probably say, “Your ability to believe the way you do offends HIS beliefs,” because Christians are interested in “saving” everybody. To that I say this: Your right as an American is to believe whatever you want to believe, free of government intervention. Your right is NOT to have to government ENFORCE your faith; if one person uses faith to encroach on another’s peaceful enjoyment of life, then I believe that person is wrong.

I find it very odd that Piper would think there was some special message for the Twin Cities through Luke 13:1-9. When I read this I thought, “This is what God want’s to say to Minneapolis? If Jesus was walking around the twisted metal jutting from the ends of the bridge, wading into the Mississippi around the the chunks of concrete, and moving through the throngs of injured THIS is what he would say in the midst of this gut wrenching scene? Are you kidding me?

For me, there is a wonderfully instructive story in the Scriptures that describes a scene that Jesus encountered. Lazarus, “the one [Jesus] cared for” was sick. Jesus didn’t go immediately, when he was told, and when he later went to Lazarus’ house he was met by Martha who was beside her self and angry Jesus had not come sooner. And when he left her and entered the village, Jesus was met by Mary. John writes, “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.”

And then he wept.

When Jesus encountered the scene of emotional chaos, saw the emotionally fragile state of Mary and felt the lament of Lazarus’ friends over his death, Jesus’ soul was overcome by the moment and in a very authentically human response Jesus cried. He had no words when he stepped into the confusion of the moment. Instead he simply sat with Mary and the Jews and joined in their weeping.

And I can’t help to think Jesus would have responded in the same way, not with a lecture or scroll full of words about sin and instructions on Minnesotans eternal destiny, but rather with the raw human response of tears and embrace.

May we Christians simply join in with the Minnesota community and grieve. May we express gritty, earthy, human emotion and weep. May we simply be present, as a human, and leave the bumper sticker theology for another day.

-jeremy

Piper’s attitude can be easily misinterpreted and I know that when I read that passage the unspoken theology which Piper uses to support his statement to his daughter is open to wide misinterpretation. He speaks honestly about his own personal response, though, and I think it would be fair to say that this conversation would have been preceeded by an evening of great emotional pain and mourning for those affected by the tragedy. The Christian does not revel in it. He does not enjoy “judgement”: it makes him quake in fear. But Piper acknowledges what he believes to be true about it, rather than placating the child with petty non-answers like “sometimes bad things just happen”. The response to a tragedy is for the living, because it is too late for the dead, after all.

I was challenged by the thinking behind this response, and I would have said it was important to more roundly explain his thinking as he does here:

Unless You Repent…
There is a provocative sermon title right there!

(if you click on “listen”, the sermon includes more qualifiers which help with not misunderstanding the message. e.g. from the notes, you might think he didn’t care about AIDS when in fact he cares greatly about AIDS”

The basis of his teaching is that human beings are rebellious sinners not accepting God’s sovereignty, choosing to reject him and everything he stands for. Because of the grievous nature of this rebellion (made even more grievous by the sheer perfection of God) humans invite justice upon themselves every day, every minute.

Piper’s belief is that it is by God’s grace that we are given innumerable second chances every day we survive, to repent and return to God’s authority.

Therefore, Piper says, we should not be surprised when people are taken, suddenly, utterly. (After all, everyone dies. Is unexpected death such a travesty in light of this?) Rather we should be surprised that we have managed to escape similar destruction ourselves for this long, if what the bible says about God is true. The claim is that greater than God’s judgement is his mercy. But mercy can only be understood in light of judgement. (you don’t enjoy forgiveness until you realise what penalty you were saved from)

Piper, as a Christian, believes that we are eternal beings, and informing his perspective is this quote of Jesus: “Do not fear what kills the body and after that can do nothing. Fear what can cast both soul and body into hell” (Luke 12:4–5). In his sermon response to this, it makes me think that maybe John Piper cares a lot more about us than we do for him!

Understanding the biblical concept of heaven and hell is something that can only be approached in the light of understanding the character of God as it is set forth in the bible, I think. Mythology, human imagination, hearsay all contribute to what we think we understand about God.

I know that many people reject “God” on the basis of what they think they understand about him. In the same way, many people become Christians (or theists of some description) based on equally shaky justifications.

Some posts in this thread suggest to me that many atheists are going to town on their own concept of God, rather than the one Piper believes in.

I hope this does not come across as a blind defence of Piper’s thinking. All I am suggesting is that readers who can spare the time take a look and listen to the article above may find they understand the Christian perspective (as espoused by Piper) a lot better. May it be of use to you in the interests of the pursuit of truth.

I went back and re-read the original blog post, and I suppose I can see where you’re coming from; perhaps the term “hate-mongering” in this context isn’t necessarily accurate. Not to divert responsibility from myself, but I would attribute that to my feelings about the “love/fear” relationship with God that is portrayed in the media (see my earlier post). More accurately, I attribute it to the shock I feel when I hear someone say that. If I may once again “drudge up” my perspective on such a relationship, I don’t feel it’s any different than battered wife syndrome. On that, I feel we can reach a respectful disagreement.

On a slightly different note, though, I will say that I don’t exactly agree with the idea that teaching children interpretations of religious ideologies is “child abuse,” no matter how harsh those beliefs might be. What I do consider to be child abuse is when a parent actually abuses their child (go figure) in an attempt to instill religious belief (basically, inflicting any manner of punishment that legally qualifies as child abuse). That is what I specifically had in mind when I was talking about hiding terrible actions behind religion; I don’t think there is any excuse for child abuse, whether it’s religious in nature or otherwise.

My strongest case for this is actually Hemant, of all people; he says he was raised in a very religious family (going by what I read in his book), and yet he was able to make his own decision to leave his faith and become an atheist (much like I was). He was exposed to very in-depth religious sentiments left and right (though not fanatic or abusive), and yet he hasn’t become a hate-mongering religious fanatic. I believe it’s very possibly for a child to grow up in an even harsher religious environment than that, and still arrive at an educated conclusion about his or her faith (be it the same choice his/her parents made, or something else entirely, like atheism), so exposing one’s child to religious beliefs doesn’t really constitute “abuse” in my book; in fact, it might be a good thing in the long run, even if the child doesn’t turn out to be of the same faith–at least then, he or she will have some knowledge about religion, and won’t have to choose between the popular interpretations so often seen in popular religious (or non-religious) literature.

I also find truth in the (correct me if I’m wrong) 5th Commandment, “Honor Thy Mother and Father.” I believe that the very essence of freedom of religion is exemplified by keeping the government out of personal religious matters; as long as there is no physical or mental abuse taking place (examples include child beating, torturing, etc.), I don’t see much wrong with exposing one’s children to religious ideologies; I believe the very foundation of society is that the child is exposed to the parents’ limitations until he or she comes of age, and then he/she is allowed to leave home and create their own life, free to discard or carry on their parents’ religious legacy as they please.

It’s plain and simple to believe John Piper should be arrested for teaching his child something he believes? It sounds like you could use a “friendly atheist” course.

…I fear that extreme or hate-mongering ideologies will try to wedge themselves into our society under the guise of religious doctrine. For this reason, I believe in holding people who say things like what that guy said in the blog post accountable for their words; we need to hold people accountable for doing terrible things, whether they’re religious in nature or not.

Hate-mongering. I think that’s a rather strong word. While I disagree with Muslims and the like, I can hardly say I’m surprised by the things they do because of their indoctrination. I call them “evil” not in that they are following their faith as best they know how, but rather in that Islam disagrees with the words of Jesus. However, to say that Piper’s words are “hateful” or “hate-mongering” I’m not exactly sure where you’re seeing that. Piper is not being hateful. He’s agreeing with what he believes Scripture teaches. Scripture teaches that God is sovereign and answers to no one, whether we disagree with His actions or not. Scripture is rife with people disagreeing with God’s actions. This is no different than a math teacher agreeing with 2 + 2 = 4 in a system of ten. He is simply in agreement. However, as none of us live in an absolute monarchy, it is difficult for us to understand the nature of sovereignty, especially on the level of God’s sovereignty.

I wish more atheists would, as Hemant has done, make it clear that destroying religion is not their intent.

I too wish more people would realize this. However, as long as the main spokespeople for atheism (i.e. Sam Harris and richard Dawkins) are antagonistic and people here champion them as the saviors of the world from religious thought, it will be difficult to see the friendly side of atheism. I understand that atheists feel persecuted, and their writings and the teasing here is reactionary to that. On the flip side, Christians feel persecuted also. Some might argue that because Christians are in the majority and atheists in the minority, the persecution Christians experience is invalidated. We, however do not use this argument when it comes to the Nazi minority persecuting the Jewish majority or the white minority on plantations beating and raping the black majority. Furthermore, the Islamic majority in Muslim countries constantly persecute Christians. The atheistic majority in China persecutes, jails, and systematically murders Christians every day. All this to say, many here align themselves with those who are hostile to religion in general, Christianity in particular (though, to be fair, I have seen news slices looking at other religions), thus communicating that while they are “friendly” in theory, they are not friendly in practice. I do not claim you are without morals. I do not think you are stupid. I do not think you are worthless. I simply think you are wrong. That is said with as much hatred as a math teacher telling a student he has gotten his sums wrong. We can dialogue about it. But, please don’t pretend to not be hostile towards religion when this site and so many like them are clearly hostile, just as I do not pretend that a majority of Christians are hostile to the idea of atheism.

There will always be people who pervert (what I believe to be) the word of God, saying and doing all kinds of things. If the point of these posts are to prove that Christians aren’t as perfect as others believe that Christians believe they think they are, then you win… Christians will always sin and look like complete idiots, but that has nothing to do with disproving the existence of God. The two are mutually exclusive events.

I can’t speak for Hemant (as I obviously don’t know what he’s thinking), but when I post atrocities relating to Christianity, it’s to show a counterexample to the oft-cited argument that one has to be Christian to have good morals (or, in some cases, that all Christians are moral people simply by virtue of being Christian).

One of my long-held beefs with religious fanatics is that they seem to think that atheists (or others of actual faith) are immoral. The truth of the matter is that, in my experience, atheists seem to get their morals from a combination of logic and emotion, while Christians get their morals straight from the Bible, no questions asked (I know some people will disagree with this, but the reason I say it is, the most-cited answer to the question of “Why is that wrong?” tends to be, “The Bible says so”). For example, how I came to the belief that murder is ‘wrong’ is based on the idea of treating other people as an extension of myself, an idea I feel in my heart is right (this is not based on any logical deduction or religious belief, it’s simply what I feel); if I wouldn’t want that person to murder me, thus extinguishing my hard-earned experience, then I wouldn’t do that to the other person. Many Christians believe the same way, but in my experience, it seems to be that they come to the logical deduction phase after the fact; the Bible tells them that murder is wrong, and they’re content with that; the explanation comes later.

Which really isn’t that bad; we both arrive at the same basic conclusions for the most part (though there are obvious differences); the trouble starts when people try to say that values start with the Bible and can’t come from any other source, which means that a person without belief in the Bible can’t possibly have those same morals. Too many people of faith, I think, are of the belief that if it appears in the Bible, then it comes from the Bible.

The LEAST someone could admit is that Piper is being conistent (and I strongly suggest reading the entire post, not just the excerpted pieced posted here) with what he says he believes to be true. Even the more, while the idea of indoctrination is distasteful to many who frequent this site, it is only considered abuse because you do not agree with it.

On that note, I think it’s interesting that we label Muslim extremists as “insane” or “evil” based solely on the fact that what is “good” and “holy” to them is so different than what’s “good” or “holy” to Christianity. Muslim faith as I understand it advocates the idea that, if you die in defense/promulgation of your religion, no matter how many innocent people you hurt (because noone is innocent if they don’t believe in Allah), then you automatically go to heaven. I think that is a horrible and wrong belief, but that has nothing to do with the fact that it’s a religious belief–in this case, religion is only the vehicle that carries the real problem.

For the record, though….the reason I disagree with such ideologies has nothing to do with consistency and whatnot–rather, it has to do with the fact that I believe it’s a hateful message, and also a disturbing one (see my example of “loving and fearing God”).

Understand that I’m not against the idea of religious doctrine; I believe that many people find inspiration in it, and I see no harm in that (I have personally found inspiration in completely fictional characters, be they from a movie, video game, or book). However, I fear that extreme or hate-mongering ideologies will try to wedge themselves into our society under the guise of religious doctrine. For this reason, I believe in holding people who say things like what that guy said in the blog post accountable for their words; we need to hold people accountable for doing terrible things, whether they’re religious in nature or not. I think the focus should be not on the fact that the person in question is using religion to spread his beliefs, but that he is spreading hateful ideologies. I think if we approached it on this level, more religious people would be on board; so often, religious folks seem alienated by the discussion of religion in conjunction with hate-mongering, as they seem to think that the target is religion itself. I wish more atheists would, as Hemant has done, make it clear that destroying religion is not their intent.