So I see from the Internet that John Piper set off a flurry of reactions and responses to his gun post. I refer to the one in which he discouraged Christians from packing heat, you can imagine how that went over. For my readers in the UK, yes, this really is a thing. Some churches have debates over open or closed communion. Others over here have debates about open carry.
Now this all comes from John Piper being so darn controversial. John is a friend, but if I have said it to him once I have said it to him a hundred times, “John, you shouldn’t be so controversial. You should try to be more mild and soft-spoken. Try to imitate my mellow groove.”
Okay, so maybe not a hundred times. And maybe my mellow groove is busted.
But seriously, John is a friend and so (before differing) I want to begin by defending him against a glib accusation that is easy to level in debates like this, but which really goes wide of the mark. In his post, he envisions a scenario in which his wife is being assaulted, and tries to answer the question whether it would be all right to shoot the assailant.
“I do not know what I would do before this situation presents itself with all its innumerable variations of factors. And I would be very slow to condemn a person who chose differently from me.”
But what we do know from John’s article is that he wouldn’t have a gun on him as he made the decision what to do. Now here comes the glib accusation. It is easy to say — as some have said — that leaving this open to question is not very “manly,” and that a true husband from ‘Merica would place a tight grouping of at least three holes above the assailant’s right ear.
John is actually doing something very different, and he is doing it in a very masculine way. He is a biblical absolutist, and he is pursuing a tight, systematic, rational argument from the text of Scripture. Differing with his argument, as I do, is not the same thing as answering him. In the meantime, I don’t have a doubt in my mind that John will go wherever the argument requires him to go, and he will submit to the text, whatever it says. We need more of that, not less.
Layering different aspects of masculinity like this reminds me of a story. Once a truck driver, who had a mild and unassuming appearance, was eating breakfast at a roadside cafe. While he was eating, an evil-looking biker gang of five entered the cafe. They saw at once that he was an unprepossessing man, and so they started to mess with him. They dumped salt in his eggs, rumbled his hair, stole some of his silverware, and so on. The truck driver said nothing, and simply attempted to finish his breakfast. When that proved to be something unlikely to happen, he got up quietly, paid his bill, and silently walked out. The bikers began to laugh uproariously, with one of them sitting on the abandoned stool to mimic the truck driver’s mousy little responses. Then one of them said to the cafe owner, “That guy sure wasn’t much of a man, was he?” The cafe owner nodded his head in agreement, while looking out the front window. “You got it. And he is not much of a truck driver either — he just ran over five motorcycles.”
The lesson is that there are different ways of gauging masculinity. Sometimes you have to look for different things. Make sure you are looking in the right spot.
So then, with the preliminaries over, let me say four things about all this.
First, full disclosure. I may or may not own multiple guns that the authorities may or may not know about, and I also decline to reveal when I might or might not be willing to carry, or under what circumstances. How’s that for full disclosure?
Second, when John assembles, as he does, many passages that outline what demeanor Christians ought to have, it is not enough to produce a verse from the Old Testament allowing a homeowner to shoot a midnight intruder (Ex. 22:2), and then conclude that an appeal to “turn the other cheek” doesn’t “mean that.” Quite so, and I do in fact agree. But what does “turn the other cheek” mean? When does it mean it? When do we apply it? Exegesis of “turn the other cheek” that results no one ever having to actually turn any cheeks ought to be suspect exegesis. This much is, I believe, irrefragable.
If we zero out the many passages that John assembled, if we explain them all away, we really are leaving too much room for carnal swagger. I would want to leave room for the Exodus homeowner to be armed, but for him to be spiritually armed as well — liberating him on certain occasions not to use the weapon he lawfully has. John used the example of the missionaries murdered by the Auca Indians — but we should not forget the fact they had firearms they choose not to use. In short, they were armed martyrs.
Third, there are macro-paradigm issues involved in all this. One time John Piper was asked about some of my doctrinal monkeyshines, and he replied that he thought I was mistaken. But he also added that it was just the kind of mistake that he would expect a Presbyterian to make. This is exactly the same kind of turnabout thing. John is a Baptist, and consequently has a very different take on the relationship of the Old and New Testaments than I do. Or, to take another example, he has a different understanding of God’s law than does, say, Joel McDurmon. This will necessarily shape what passages he gathers in order to make his argument, and the same goes for those debating him. The use of different quarries will result necessarily in different kinds of houses.
So I really don’t object to a debate about Christians arming themselves. Since millions of us have already done so, we might as well investigate what the Bible says about it. But as we do, we need to have some foundational preliminary debates first. Otherwise we will just wind up playing one more round of paradigm bumper cars.
And fourth, rather than getting into a debate about the leaves and twigs, I would like to make just a few observations about the trunk. Let me return to the passage from John’s article that I quoted earlier.
“I do not know what I would do before this situation presents itself with all its innumerable variations of factors. And I would be very slow to condemn a person who chose differently from me.”
We oftentimes assume that the ultimate test of commitment is what you are willing to die for. I think this is a fair way of evaluating commitment, but it is not the only way. Another way of measuring commitment is to ask a dedicated Christian what truths he would be willing to kill for. And you can take this same kind of standard, mutatis mutandis, and bring it into the fellowship of the church. What kind of truths would you be willing to excommunicate for?
The reason I think John simply wants to have a serious argument, a serious discussion, a real debate, is his statement that he would be “very slow to condemn a person who chose differently from me.” Not only would he be slow to shoot the assailant, he would also be slow to “shoot” the one who shot the assailant.
So John is not wanting to create a quasi-pacifist enclave. He is wanting to have some people engage with him in a real debate, with everything on the table, in order to find out what Scripture requires of us. I believe we need to do this because most of us don’t know yet. We have many Christians who are not yet straight on the authority of the Old Testament. We have many others who are not yet straight on the authority of the Sermon on the Mount. We have a mere handful who see Deuteronomy and the Sermon on the Mount as integrated parts of the same moral system, grounded in the character of God. We are sorting this out while living among shrill secular progressives who are gunophobic — clear misogunists all — and strident secular conservatives who are “happiness is a warm” gunophiles. And then God in His sovereign determination decided to throw some radical jihadists into the mix. And every stroke that God lays on us is as much to say, “Time to study your Bibles!”
So instead of creating hypothetical situations where an assailant is attacking your family, let’s create a different kind of hypothetical. Let us say that a member of John Piper’s leadership team shot and killed someone who was violently assaulting his wife. The prosecutor refused to touch the case because he said it was an open and shut case. The response was well within the law, and the force used to stop the assailant was not disproportionate. Let us also say that the man who did this believes that he did the right thing, the only thing that he could have done under those circumstances. He is not apologetic at all. In short, he had a gun on him, and he had that gun because he disagreed with John’s entire approach as outlined in the article. Now what?
So how do we answer these questions? To the law and to the testimony! But we will have to talk about a lot more than guns.
THIS is how Christian brothers ought to disagree – with respect for each other, and a diligent attempt not to misrepresent the other person’s position. The thing that disgusted me about McDurmon’s article was the way he went about savaging Piper as if Piper was completely unaware of the OT and a exegetical nincompoop.
Joel McDurmon ( here, http://americanvision.org/12837/a-biblical-response-to-john-pipers-denial-of-the-right-to-bear-arms/ ) stated that Piper “ignored” the Old Testament so, yes, in that sense McDurmon would at least be saying that Piper has acted like he is unaware of the OT. But McDurmon points out a situation that’s much worse than that: Piper effectively in Marcion pietistic fashion also seems to make the authoritative decision that God’s word in the Old Testament is not authoritative, despite Paul’s New Testament teaching on the general continuance of Old Testament relevance for “training in righteousness” for doing/”working” what is “good” (2 Tim 3:16-17) which is consistent with Christ’s general… Read more »
Really well said
Does the Baptist tradition tend toward this strain of pietism / Marcionism?
Not that I am aware of.
Yes, unfortunately, especially with (denominationally or even just theologically) Baptistic strains of: 1. Dispensationalism (i.e. “no point in busting out Brass-o for external, non-personal, non-internal/pietistic matters/conduct/reform of this sinking ship/earth/world/nation/gov’t/society” that Satan still allegedly rules over — despite the resurrected Ruler/King of kings per Rv 1:5; 19:16 already claiming all authority BOTH in heaven AND on earth has been given to Him in Mt 28:18) and 2. New Covenant/Canaanite Theology (where some set of God’s OT ethical standards can Marcionically/autonomously optionally taxi-cabbed until a desired select destination OT verse, but then preferentially/arbitrarily exited just in time before a next dreaded… Read more »
It does in its Dispensational and higher life reconfiguration. And I see has been noted below, this would be in accord with the (at least mildly) antinomian ethical assumptions of New Covenant Theology. A graduate from Bethlehem College and Seminary informed me that the ethics taught at that institution best accords with NCT. If this is so, then those conclusions help us understand John Piper’s ethics and his view of self-defense in particular.
It’s how EVERYONE ought to disagree, but one would think one could count on Christian brothers disagreeing thus at the very least.
THIS is how you speak when you’re personal friends with John, and want to therefore show extra gentleness.
But McDurmon’s respectful but pointed article is exactly how Doug otherwise speaks to errant religious folk; probably less so. It doesn’t savage Piper an ounce more than truth does.
Would it be safe to say that the use of force would be contingent on the motive for the attack?
If you are being beaten to death just because, you may use force. If someone is harming your family because they are scumbags, shoot away. But if you are being beaten to death because of your testimony, that is when you don’t resist and shout, “Forgive them, they know not what they do.”
I guess that’s how I see it.
That one’s a difficult distinction I still wrestle with. Do we defend our lives and the lives of others only in non-faith related situations, or do we defend ourselves in all situations?
And is there a distinction in proper response between your atheist neighbor deciding it’s time to kill the Christians, and the government deciding it’s time to kill the Christians?
Liberty, brothers…liberty! honestly if you have liberty to defend yourself then you do no matter the situation and the method of self defense is open as well…Testimony or otherwise. What are you going to do…ask why they are killing you to find an appropriate response. Hopefully brothers we will be so led by the Spirit we will know what our God wants of us in the moment. To glorify by sacrificing our lives or to glorify in defense of the innocent.. A much stronger case can be made for defense of the innocent vs. self defense BTW.
This is how I see it also. Great question. Would love to hear Brother Wilson’s thoughts on this.
Would make sense, but Piper seems to think that it is not possible to differentiate between suffering for Christ and what we might think of as “regular suffering”, which would help to partly explain his views.
I agree with that. Piper’s argument is mostly based on verses that relate to persecution for a Christian’s testimony. That’s a different situation than being attacked by an arbitrary gunman in a theater.
I’ll add to that. I think Piper has a valid point about allowing the government to administer justice. But justice and self-defense are not the same thing. The (proper) argument for carrying is per the later.
In concurrence, and also that there is a distinction with a difference between vengeance and defense.
I think you are correct, and I am not completely convinced by Piper’s arguments either, but I do think he has a very valid concern about the attitude of “only my family matters, self and family defense is all” that sometimes leads to completely insular, anti-missions and evangelism, and in some cases, complete tribalism.
I think the situational context matters more than the mere motive itself. If an atheist threatens a Christian and tells him he’s going beat him up, and tries to make good on the the threat, the Christian isn’t obliged to take it sitting down simply b/c the atheist was motivated by an animus against Christianity. Being willing to pay the cost of faithfulness, if the circumstances are beyond one’s control, is not equivalent to absorbing misplaced wrath on purpose when the circumstances are beyond one’s control. Interesting complications could arise from various hypotheticals involving state involvement, but mere motive of… Read more »
In concurrence, and based upon the totality of the circumstances, and as such that would be reasonably objective given the information known at the time.
My view is that sufficient force to stop an attack is always justified, even if it results in the death of the assailant, unless you are being attacked for your faith, in which case we are called not to fight.
I agree. St. Jean Breboeuf went back to minister to the Iroquois, knowing it would almost certainly result in his death. They cut out his heart and ate it so they could be as brave as he was. I think his willingness to accept martyrdom was probably instrumental in their conversion. But I don’t think we can infer from his actions that he would not have lifted a finger to prevent the murder or rape of the innocents.
But just because they’re beating you to death for your testimony doesn’t mean they’re not scumbags. There’s no reason to have that false dichotomy. And what about overseas missionaries who are physically attacked by locals not because of their message, but because they’re mistakenly seen as dangerous intruders? In that case they’re not being persecuted for their testimony, but would you still consider it appropriate to shoot the local attackers, as appropriate as if some random thug were attacking you on the street? My point, and I think one of Piper’s as well, is that there are hundreds of different… Read more »
well u couldn’t take ur gun overseas anyway, so i guess u would have to learn how to deal with situations without a machine capable of ruining multiple lives in seconds. I am a very conservative Presbyterian, who does see how the Law and the NT align, and agree this is a very difficult situation the US has gotten itself into, but I think that painting anyone who wants out of it as a progressive is making it worse. The rest of the world, secular and Christian, are worried, but I have faith that God can bring about change –… Read more »
Exactly – in the vast majority of the world that is not America, especially in many places where Christians go to witness, we cannot take guns anyway. Should we illegally smuggle them in, and harm the witness of Christ in that way? Should we not go to such places, and only hide out in the places where we feel safe with our guns? Or should we learn to develop other means of standing up for ourselves and our families that speak the love of God to people and are most likely to lead to the redemption of ourselves and our… Read more »
Thank you for responding to Pastor Piper. I have nothing but respect for him but disagree very strongly with him on this issue.
Although I disagreed with some of Piper’s points, I’m thankful for a little push-back within reformed conservative circles against the chest-thumping, jingoistic, ever-so-pervasive and boring brand of neocon Christianity represented by Falwell’s speech.
Protecting oneself and one’s family has nothing to do with jingoism.
Protecting oneself and one’s family has nothing to do with neo-conservatism either, which is a doctrine born of former Trotskyite communist who think it’s a good idea to enforce the ideals of American Exceptionalism around the world at the point of a bayonet.
I like a Piper a whole lot, and he’s usually dead on, but a Christian sitting there while his family is raped and killed when he can do something is just a relinquishing of responsibility. Providing also means providing protection. 1 Tim 5:8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
I think that in the context, that Scripture is addressing temporal/material provision, such as food and clothing, etc. I say that to anticipate the argument. With that said, since the provision is for food (to keep the person alive and healthy), then how much more important is the person consuming the food.
So, yes.
Thus i believe it to be a sin to permit the crime when intervention is possible. Even old grannies have been known to do this,
I agree. That would be a sin of omission. We are required to do what we can to protect not only those we are responsible for, but also for the innocent and oppressed. If God didn’t want us to intervene then he can certainly put us in a position where we can’t intervene, like with most martyrs.
if you honestly think God would judge u for not keeping weapons while you are living normally in a place that has a low probability of being invaded by unstoppable violent intruders, you’re not being honest
If i lived in the Faeroes or Iceland I probably would not need a weapon.
I think they have Wampas in Iceland though, so you might. (Although they are fairly easily dispatched with a lightsaber, so no firearm needed.) Does anyone know if Iceland requires a conceal and carry permit for lightsabers? Or is it just open carry?
i don’t know what wampa is, but there are a fair number of gun owners there. Guns are pretty tightly controlled, licensing and so on. There just is not much violent crime there.
i was in Prague last year and even though it is a big city it felt very safe. So did most of Berlin (there are sections to avoid there).
Except for an icepick.
Why have we gotten so caught up in a gun culture that we seriously believe the only options for a Christian with the authority of God behind him are shooting a gun or doing nothing?
There isn’t a single person who would sit there and do nothing.
And there isn’t any evidence that people without guns are more ineffective at protecting their families than people with them. Much less is that something that any Christian with the Holy Spirit should beleive. God did not create a world where the person with the biggest gun is the one who will win.
Nobody seriously believes it’s the only option, it’s just been found to be the best because 1) known as the Great Equalizer, it allows everyone of any gender and many with disabilities to defend themselves, and 2) the man intending to do you or your loved ones evil will probably have a gun since it’s the method of choice of force. God not only gave us the command to be armed and dangerous, he gave us the brains to be able to use the best tools at hand.
You say it’s the best tool at hand. I strongly disagree. I believe that the best tools at hand will deeply reflect our relationship to God and reliance on him, and will be built on the truths we know about the God of Jesus Christ. A gun does nothing of the sort. Do you see the slightest difference between how a non-Christian defends himself with a gun and how you are suggesting Christians should defend themselves with guns? It’s not a “great equalizer”. All else being equal, a gun will favor the person who is the quickest to use violence… Read more »
Sorry, I don’t share your pietistic attitude that we’re just supposed to handle our all physical problems by purely spiritual methods. Just like God said to work if we want to eat, we should be willing to do what it takes physically to handle what situations he puts us in. He will guide our aim; he will help us to make the right decisions on when to aim. Guns are just a tool, and our job as Christians is to use what tools we have access to to glorify God. Protecting your family is glorifying God.
What is a “purely spiritual method”? I don’t think we’re supposed to pray away our problems either, though prayer and continued communication with the Spirit should inform our actions. But i do believe that all of our actions should reflect our God. Christ gave us many tools to employ when faced with enemies….shooting and killing them exercises none of them. You’re ignoring the fact I pointed out that guns favor those who use them with ill intent, over those who use them carefully. In addition to the previous facts, I should have also pointed out that a good guy with… Read more »
“Protecting your family is glorifying God.”
Not automagicaly. It is possible to protect your family without glorifying God.
I agree; everything that can be done can be done in a way that doesn’t glorify God.
Actually most police shootings happen in self defense per FBI statistics, and you are correct all things being equal the person who is most inclined to kill will win but if that same person has a gun and the good person is unarmed the good person will die almost every time. And if you think how we respond should reflect our relationship with Jesus, think about how we are to love are wife, like Jesus loves the church. And what does Jesus do for his bride he dies for his bride and……….kills for his bride in revelation and in the… Read more »
Mellow groove! Ha! Nice you see you laughing with the flat of your sword, as it were.
This is where I think some evangelicals are absolutely crazy. If your spouse or child is getting assaulted, this is not an evangelism opportunity. it is not about being winsome and all that garbage. It is about protecting the family that God blessed you with. To me it is a horrible sin to fail in this regard.
I think I am probably to the left of many people here but to me it is simply unthinkable that you would not use any means at your disposal to stop an assault on another person.
But we will have to talk about a lot more than guns.
good.
BTW, from the McDurmon link the line
“NO. There is only one variable in this situation: the angle at which you shoot the rapist in the head.” is pretty good too.
For what it’s worth, I expect it was precisely this kind of line that Wilson had in mind when he wrote: “Now here comes the glib accusation. It is easy to say — as some have said — that leaving this open to question is not very “manly,” and that a true husband from ‘Merica would place a tight grouping of at least three holes above the assailant’s right ear.” Which, of course, doesn’t mean that McDurmon was wrong. If we get more from Wilson on this, as I expect we will, I see him disagreeing with McDurmon just as… Read more »
Unfortunately, I think what we are looking at in Piper’s case is not a sound exegesis of the various texts, but rather just another example of him interpreting scripture through the lens of his liberal-white guilt-egalitarian worldview. Piper has a habit of doing this, as when he frequently dresses in sackcloth and ashes to repent of the fact that someone in his family used the “n-word” when he was growing up in SC or when he stated that inter-racial marriage is a “positive good”. Sorry, but Piper has just said too many loony things to be taken seriously any more.… Read more »
Piper is a liberal…said no one except radical libertarian/conservatives ever.
Also, does your condemnation of Piper’s pro-interracial marriage indicate that you think interracial marriage is, in fact, a positive evil?
When it quacks like a liberal, I call it a liberal. Piper’s views on race are indistinguishable from the typical fare one would find on HuffPo or Salon; in the aftermath of Ferguson, Piper said that we needed “emphatic resolves” to further appease disgruntled blacks. So, I’m sticking with “liberal”, although “fatuous” might be reasonable alternative.
I put inter-racial marriage in the same category as playing Russian roulette or driving 90 MPH on mountain roads without a seatbelt; not necessarily sinful and evil per se, but in general, incredibly foolhardy and to be counseled against.
Mmm. Well, I shall take that to heart, and forthwith join with my local chapter of neomarxist progressive millenial hipsters in their charge to erase gender, race, and all other systems of oppression, while merrily defending the right of all minorities to be treated better than majorities based on their minority othering.
Since, you know, I’m also clearly a liberal.
I notice, subsequent to my original post, someone else has commented on Piper’s liberalism.
Those someone elses, if they are who they usually are at this blog, are likely, like you, pricked by Piper’s condemnation of your narrow minded tribalism.
A narrow minded tribalism established by Divine Providence in Genesis for the overall benefit of mankind I might add. Mindlessly tearing down the walls of which constitutes social vandalism.
Disagreeing with Piper is completely fine – I do myself in many places – but only someone who has not bothered to engage seriously with anything he’s ever said would call his positions mindless.
With regard to his views of socio-political topics, which oddly seem completely disconnected from the Calvinist theology he claims to uphold, I have found his views to be pretty much mindless. Piper might a theological conservative, but he’s just another liberal on social matters. He and Russell Moore should form a club.
Those social liberals. Always talking about how evil abortion is, and how homosexual marriage is an abomination.
What he advocates sounds like some kind of masochism. It is truly a perverse attitude. Of course God wants us to protect our families.
And what is your tribe that has such venerable lineage?
Japhethite, Anglo-Celtic
I don’t think there were any Angles or Celts around as far back as Genesis, so it looks like you’re stuck with Japhethite and a lot of conjecture.
You must be pretty obtuse to deny that there is an ethnic group of Celts and Anglo-Saxons, mixed together in the British Isles over the past 1500 years, and predominant in the American South. And it you don’t see them in Genesis Chapter 10, you must have a reading deficiency.
Do you support the Christian Identity movement? Don’t they believe that the Anglo and Celtic races are the true chosen people? Everyone in my extended birth family is Anglo and Norman back to the Conquest, which gives me the right to say that if they are God’s chosen people, God chose very oddly!
I don’t know what the Christian Identity movement is, but I don’t buy into all the crackpot theories like British Israelism, etc.
I think it’s the same thing. It does sound crackpot to me too.
I don’t know your ethnicity nor hers; Mexican is a nationality, there are several ethnic groups within the country from caucasians of Spanish descent to full blooded Aztecs and whole range of mestizos in between, as I’m sure you are aware of. Based on my visits to MX, I don’t notice the white skinned Spaniards marrying into Aztecs very often. For every time I hear someone say “It worked for me”, I hear others noting with regret the unanticipated stress and problems that compounded all the other strains in a marriage.
White skinned Spanish marrying into Aztecs is the reason there ARE mestizos. It might not happen much anymore, but as you say, there is no Mexican “ethnicity,” so who are these people supposed to marry under your scheme?
As long as they stay on their side of the border, I don’t care.
Oh, that means you know you can’t apply your system consistently for all believers across all cultures, but it’s convenient for ruling out people different from you. Got it.
Oh, and so as long as all the American mestizos stay in America, where their ancestors may have lived for 200 years, and the Mexicans stay in Mexico, you don’t care if the American ones marry your kids?
The English settlers of America generally refrained from intermarriage with Indians (Pocahontas and John Rolfe being a notable exception, but an exception nevertheless). The English preferred to bring their women with them to replicate their home population in Virginia and later, in other Southern Colonies and in New England. The English, Dutch and German settlers of the Middle Colonies followed the same general pattern. As a result, a white European population became predominant in British colonial American and hence, the US. Thus European cultural achievement was mirrored in America as was the Protestant Work Ethic and the doctrines of liberty… Read more »
If the Protestant Work Ethic and the doctrines of liberty and rights developed in Reformed theology were what made the US a prosperous freedom loving country it wouldn’t have mattered for Mexico if the Spanish had brought their women.
Of course what the southern colonists were also pleased to bring were Africans. They may have opposed intermarriage but they had few qualms about intercourse. Given most “black” Americans have European ancestry, white southerners must not have participated in the demographic stewardship. I’ll agree with you it was immoral and irresponsible, though not for all the same reasons you think so.
You ignore the fact that, prior to Bacon’s Rebellion, blacks in Virginia had the same status as indentured servants and intermarriage between poor whites and blacks was not uncommon. Also, by 1860 there were nearly 500,000 free blacks in the US, half of whom lived in the South, some of whom married renegade whites. That accounts for the mixed race population. The notion that wealthy white planters were keeping harems among their slave women is abolitionists non-sense with no basis in historical fact. Slavery existed in northern States for 200 years, from the early 17th to early 19th centuries, so… Read more »
Intermarriage between poor whites and blacks was not uncommon. If you say so. Blacks married “renegade” whites. Okay. Must have a lot of those renegades. Some “black” Americans are descended in part from Puritans and Quakers. In other words it was everywhere in the colonies. Could be. What cannot be is all that and 400 years of what you like to call demographic stewardship.
I’m not the one who mentioned harems, you did that, but don’t kid yourself that intercourse between slave owners and their slaves didn’t happen.
Catholic Latin America may never have achieved the level of industriousness and thrift of Holland, England or Germany, but it could have risen to that of Spain, or even France if the Spanish had been responsible enough to replicate their European population in the New World.
Argentina had a predominantly European population and was one of the wealthiest nations on earth in the early 20th century, ahead of France and Germany, per capita. Unfortunately, they traded their economic birthright for a mess of populist and socialist pottage and became an economic basket case.
The French, on the other hand, sent many of their people as fur traders, not settlers. Because they lived as itinerants, the French traders did not bring wives but intermarried (or simply mated) with native women. How do you account for the Quebecois becoming a freedom-loving people with a prosperous middle class?
The French Canadian case raises a very good point which I didn’t get into. As you say, among the early French settlers there were many trappers and traders who lived an intinerant life and took Indian concubines. The white population grew slowly, compared to the British colonies to the south which were well established by the late 17th century. Louis XIV realized he needed to increase the French population to keep New France strong, so he sent 800 young women over in 1663 – 73 to marry and raise families. As a result, the population doubled in those years and… Read more »
Which has what to do with the question of whether be happy about your kids marrying a hard-working, Christian American of mixed Meso-American ancestry who was born on “your” side of the border? You stated that you didn’t care who they married, so I assumed that included your kids. If that’s not what you meant, say so, admit you got so carried away with border control issues that you forgot what you were talking about, but don’t lecture me.
I wasn’t asking for a history lesson about stuff I already knew.
My point is that, ultimately, whether or not your kids are “happy” with intermarriage shouldn’t be the paramount concern. The concern is whether or not you the society you are creating will be like America once was (white European, prosperous and free) or whether it will be like Mexico (Mestizo, poor, and despotic). They may be happy; they may be un-happy, that will vary from day to day and person to person, but once you destroy the demographic makeup of a nation, it is nearly impossible to recovery it.
Congratulations!
Or you could have said “I’m of British ancestry” and made sense. Me too. So what? British, Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon doesn’t describe tribes or a tribe though. Fifteen centuries still doesn’t get you even close to Genesis 10, so as I said, you’re left with Japheth, possibly anyway, and a big gap filled with you can’t be sure what all, until you get to any ancestors you can name. Genesis 10 also doesn’t get you a divinely ordained for-all-time (or any time) wall between peoples. It just tells you who the sons of Noah were and describes where their near… Read more »
Where was this established? Babel? thx.
i’m a conservative and this bothers me also. There seems to be a lot of entrenched values of culture mixed up with religion in america. I myself am looking for answers to which parts of my own culture have been around so long and are so intertwined with generations of churchgoers that they are often confused. The world has become very multicultural very fast, and although I agree that marriage within your own culture means there’s less differences to navigate, I am absolutely sure we are all created in the image of God and I would never presume to know… Read more »
Thankfully, I’ve not met many people like Bull, ashv, or Barnabas in my own church or even in casual acquaintance. I do think their values are incredibly toxic – an unbiblical extrapolation from isolated texts in the Bible as well as a natural outrage at the evils progressives continue to propagate – but I see Christians accepting the evils of Marxism much more than the evils of their kind of tribalism.
I’m the product of one of those interracial foolhardy Russian Roulette relationships. Asserting my existence should, in pursuit of sensibility, not have happened is uncomfortable to hear, but so be it. I didn’t choose to be born so there’s not much I can do about that. Count it as a misuse of God’s free will gift to my parents, if you like.
I would be interested in what your reasons are for holding such a view.
As for every other one of your points, I agree. Piper is committing leftist-driven, modern social justice reinterpretation of God’s Word.
Nope, you bear God’s image.
Part of me wants to upvote you for plainly stating your ideas, so I did; but there is the hope in me that says “common sense” will change as ‘common man’ is transformed into Christ’s image and your defensive views will not be necessary.
I’ve posted rather lengthy comments on the scriptural support for honoring and abiding by divinely ordained ethnic boundaries elsewhere in this comment thread.
Just where in scripture do you see a mandate to a) ignore God’s division of mankind into ethnic groups, b) engage in marriage relationships that are beset with enormous cultural dissimilarities instead of simply marrying within your own ethnic or socio-economic-ethnic group?
I’m not offering any new or original interpretation. I’m simply following the way most Christians thought about marriage and ethnicity before the American population was dumbed down and brainwashed to parrot the shibboleths of radical egalitarianism.
Most States had laws against miscegenation; these laws date from colonial times and by mid-20th century, 2/3 of the 48 States had anti-miscegenation laws. Who do you think wrote these laws, passed them and enforced them? Some group of odd ball bible-kooks on the margins of society? This was normative thinking in a self-respecting society.
Note also the genealogy of our Lord includes Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. All foreign women who were included because of their faith.
I’ll have to tell the two close relatives I have who married people of another race how riskily they’re living. I’m pretty sure neither of them (one of whom has been married for 15 years) has noticed any significant disruption in their lifestyle, so it will be news to them that their ordinary lives are like driving 90 mph without a seatbelt. They may have been subjected to some unkind remarks, but then unkind remarks from pitiful people happen — like the people who have made unkind remarks to me concerning the astronomical number (five) of children I have.
My family has made a lot more risky decisions than my parents marrying each other “outside” of each other’s race. Having 8 children, or homeschooling them, for example. The gravest spiritual and emotional threats to the family have been consistently personality, never race.
But if you start from the assumptions that Rebel and others have, that similarity is the only safe and thus wise and prescriptive path, and then extrapolate that to a principle, then the kind of enthnocentrism they advocate makes sense. I question that assumption.
There are several practical reasons to avoid it, and no compelling reasons to encourage it.
What are the practical reasons for avoiding it?
The effect on the children, primarily. Medically, it practically eliminates the possibility of bone marrow or organ transplants. (Additionally, different races have different birth mortality/premature birth rates, and current research indicates that mixed-race couples’ birth outcomes fall between the rates for each race.) Culturally, it introduces conflict in identity and social roles; the President of the USA has written about this at length.
From what I gather finding bone marrow donors is a problem, organ transplants not so much. Practically eliminated may be an overstatement, but it is reported to be a problem. Apparently it will be until a wider registry is built up, which presumably a bigger multi-race population will help to do. Conflict in identity is an issue, but only because, and to the extent, we choose to treat race as central to identity. Very much of the worlds population is already, and long has been, what you would regard as mixed race. If fact mixing is how some of what… Read more »
It only eliminates the possibility of bone marrow transplants in the first couple of generations, after which you have things like “cousins” and “aunts and uncles” in the picture who will be matches. Organ transplants have their ethical issues to being with, IMO, and keeping apart people who have biblical reason to marry and no biblical reason not to on the tiny, tiny chance that one of their offspring might need a bone-marrow transplant is a really odd way to approach decision-making.
In fact, it’s tantamount to arguing that nobody should have married before the 20th century, because bone marrow transplants and organ transplants didn’t even exist.
The President of the USA was raised in a cultural Marxist environment in which race was over-emphasized as a feature of identity, so he is motivated to find more significant issues than actually exist. There is no reason for any conflict in “identity,” though there are of course social conflict issues. Each person’s identity is properly ultimately rooted in Christ, not physical characteristics, cultural customs, or family background. But since social conflict is not an inherently good reason not to do anything else that is righteous, a godly man marrying a godly woman whom God has brought to him ought… Read more »
ashv, you are overstating the issues. Transplants are pretty much a non-issue. Mortality rates are low anyway and are only relevant on a population (not individual basis); and they almost certainly reflect socio-economic status not a genetic basis. Probably the genetic issues are the least the less related the couple are.
No, there are significant infant mortality and premature birth rate differences between races even after adjusting for age, income, and so forth.
I like to see that. Both race only and interracial stats. I read a lot of papers and critique strongly what I read.
Even so, infant mortality is so low now in the West, it is hard to argue based on data that is significant on a population level but not the individual level.
Further, some medical issues increase the fertility issues for individuals. Do they not marry?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2867623/ is the one I saw most recently.
Thanks ashv. The study mentions 80% of stillbirths were missing data on the race of either the mother or the father, which presents a significant possibility for bias and explains why the stillbirth rates in our dataset were so low. This means their conclusions were based on 20% of the actual still births that occurred. This really needs confirmation in other studies. This study says blacks (and mixed race) have twice the risk as whites. Another (linked) study mentions risk of 1.2-1.4 for mixed compared with 1.7 for black. A meta-analysis (of 2 papers) showed 1.4-1.5 for mixed vs 1.9… Read more »
I’m glad your family has faced no difficulty in that regard. I’m certainly not going to assert mixed-race marriages are always imprudent, but the modern discourse around them discourages investigating the practical issues that may arise.
The modern discourse around marriage includes all kinds of stupid ideas. Nobody says that’s an argument for discouraging marriage.
You make a good case for encouraging people to carefully consider the ramifications of their specific choices in marriage. You make no case for discouraging any two sufficiently mature Christians from marrying one another.
I haven’t said it should be discouraged, just that there is no particular reason to encourage it.
Not sure what we’re talking about then, if you don’t think it should be discouraged. Some of things you have said sound pretty “discouraging” to me. Marriage should generally be encouraged between two Christians who desire it, and race should be a non-factor apart from actual, quantifiable things that could raise problems, and are noticeable without direct reference to race — e.g. huge cultural differences that would be a factor no matter what people’s ancestry was. There is nothing that “race” stands for that is not already a consideration whether race is a factor or not, so I simply don’t… Read more »
I can think of eight. My siblings and I. And I can think of hundreds of “pure” marriages which have produced great practical reasons to avoid those kinds of unions.
Yes? No one has claimed otherwise.
You literally just claimed there were no compelling reasons for it.
Yes. There is no reason to believe that interracial marriage is, per se, a positive good.
Except in the sense that it is always a positive good when two believers marry.
You don’t believe it’s possible for a Christian to make an imprudent match, so long as one’s spouse is also Christian?
Yes, I believe that a particular match can be imprudent. But in general, I believe what scripture says about marriage being a good thing, not a thing to be discouraged on man-made, extra-biblical grounds. Scripture speaks much of being prudent in all things, but it never speaks negatively of any particular marriage between believers, that I’m aware of. So the burden is in favor of marriage between believers with prudence, and I would need a biblical principle to discourage it in a given case. She still thinks like a child, he will not take care of his own, they seek… Read more »
How does one repent of a sin committed by an ancestor or relative? Do Calvinists believe that is an ancestor committed a sin, the descendant bears that sin, and must repent on the ancestors behalf?
I saw some years ago that the Southern Baptists repented of slavery (at least that is my memory). How are descendants responsible for the sins of ancestors?
They can’t; they shouldn’t. It is asinine to accuse people who lived 200 years ago of “sin” because they held slaves in accordance with biblical principles and civil law. As a 6th generation Southern Baptist, I am ashamed of that idiotic resolution they passed “repenting” of slavery on behalf of our g-g-g-grandparents. Not sure why you are directing your comment towards me.
Only because you mentioned that this Piper fellow felt guilty because of someone using a racial slur years ago. Thank you for your response.
I think that Doug Wilson, in the notorious pamphlet that people still bring up from time to time, argued that southern slavery was not practiced in accordance with Biblical principles. For one thing, it was race-based. For another, there was limited opportunity for the enslaved to earn their freedom.
The bible sanctioned ethnic based, multi-generational slavery with no promise of manumission (Lev 25:44 – 46), so if that’s your objection, it’s pretty easily refuted. The Gibeonites provide a concrete example of same.
W Christendom replace slavery with serfdom from the fall of Rome thru medieval times. Slavery was only re-introduced in the 16th century because of the sheer backward, underdeveloped state of heathen African society. Are you saying slavery would be more acceptable if it was practiced on an “equal opportunity” basis.
Well, I have plenty of other objections but I used Pastor Wilson’s because it is much less liberal than mine.
The point is that the bible recognizes the institution of slavery and respects the rights of slaveholders while commanding the humane treatment of slaves. It has nothing to do with opinions derived from liberal political philosophy.
Here is something I have come to realise: some of these sins, which is us falling short of the mark, are intergenerational. For instance, down my fathers side we had some nasty ideas about some types of people. By being open and honest, and praying on it – and then just repenting – or turning it around! If you’re lucky enough to know any of the previous generations, if 2 or more of you praying on it together you can help each other recognise these sins and ask God to forgive it and the repent part was in this example… Read more »
I have a theory that scientific materialists and calvanists are cut from a similar cloth….after all if your genes or predetermination are to blame, ur a bit like a robot. With tendencies to judge other, different robots.
A solid, careful Calvinist would never say that God is to blame for our sin or predilections. We would (I hope) say that God created us with our own personality and desires, and we are responsible for what we do with them. I don’t really see how any other philosophy makes sense, unless one believes that somehow a person magically creates their own personality out of whole cloth at birth.
I never said it was a developed theory ;-) re; predetermination pawson wrote about jeremiah watching the potter respin a bad vase, about the pot not knowing it would be good or bad but the clay allowing itself to be manipulated by the potter – or not. No babies I know are Christians, but I believe they all have a destiny, to allow Christ to walk with us is our choice entirely, a choice we make by entering into a relationship with Him and allowing ourselves to be moulded continuously :-)
Okay…but we love God because he first loved us. We would not allow ourselves to be molded if we did not believe it to be best – and we can’t believe Him to be best unless he has already called us. As C. S. Lewis put it in the Silver Chair – you would not have been calling to me unless I had been calling to you.
interesting! All a bit brainbending however I do know that if I sit here and debate philosophy I’ll miss the Christmas service – its already nearly 30 degrees at 9am here – have a fantastic Christmas! (well I hope its a Merry predetermined day for ya ;-)
Happy Christmas to you as well! I hope you choose to make very merry ;)
“Piper has a habit of doing this, as when he frequently dresses in sackcloth and ashes to repent of the fact that someone in his family used the “n-word” when he was growing up in SC ”
I may be wrong but the ‘someone in his family’ who said nigger that he is showing repentance for was himself.
I’ve yet to run into anyone who was against interracial marriage in modern times who didn’t also have racism tracing through their positions as well. “UnreconstructedRebel” is no different, nor does he really care if he is considered such, I think. These are some of the comments he leaves strewn about: “Trotsky tried to discredit this by giving it a pejorative name, “racists”, which nothing but an epithet and really has no fixed meaning. The use of the term “racist” nowadays is meaningless – it just serves to intimidate white people through some weird kind of psuedo-guilt conjured up by… Read more »
Thanks for the bibliography, although I notice you don’t have the courage of conviction to share your comments for all to see.
I notice you still haven’t defined just what “racism” is, other than a smear term to try and cow into submission those who don’t buy into the glorious promises of radical egalitarianism and “diversity”. You keep drinking that cultural marxist kool-aid now.
You defended lynching, slavery, segregation, and the KKK. I’m not going to define “racism”, argue about that, then argue about whether your many statements fit it. I shared your actual comments so they could be judged on their own merits. In my opinion, your insistence on defending lynching, defending slavery, defending segregation and Black codes, defending the KKK, and generalizations black people as criminals, lazy, intelligent, “Black savages”, “drug dealers” and “gangster rap artists” are all both contrary to the Gospel witness and typical of people who are against interracial marriage. And you can’t see my comment history? I didn’t… Read more »
I have yet to run across anyone who advocated for inter-racial marriage that wasn’t an unthinking drone, mindlessly regurgitating the PC pablum that swills around ether in contemporary media, education, politics, etc. “You defended lynching, slavery, segregation, and the KKK.” Yes I did and stand by it. The men who participated in it had the moral courage and backbone to first establish a Christian civilization in a howling wilderness, and then fight to defend it and uphold it. Maybe it makes you feel righteous to look down your nose at men from the past 200 years and sniff “racists” in… Read more »
“I have yet to run across anyone who advocated for inter-racial marriage…”
How do you define advocating for inter-racial marriage?
Either endorsing as a positive good (like Piper) or failing to discourage it as a misery-multiplier for society (most contemporary Americans).
I’m in a fantastic interracial marriage, which came together out of a shared desire to serve God with our whole hearts and has been committed to dedicated service to God the whole time. There certainly wasn’t a woman I had ever met of my own race who shared my passions in this regard to the same degree of specificity that she does. I’ve attended around a dozen interracial marriages, all within the Church, all involving people who are devoted to service in and through Christ, and I can only think of one that wasn’t a fantastic success (and that example… Read more »
In the 16th century, Spain was a much more powerful, wealthier and glorious nation than England. However, the Spanish colonist of N America took a lax view of interracial marriage while the English colonist, with the famous exception of John Rolf/Pocahontas, eschewed miscegenation.
As a result, the English legacy is the United States while the Spanish legacy is Mexico. Which would you rather leave for your descendants to dwell in?
In the mean time, have fun living for the day while you consign the future of the nation to the dustbin.
So when Boaz married ruth he was multiplying his societies misery? You are operating with a false dichotomy where anybody who doesn’t discourage inter-racial marriage is endorsing it.
When people don’t want to engage the point, they seem to deflect the discussion with ridiculous examples. Boaz marrying Ruth is not what we are talking about here. Nor are we discussing the considerations of an O’Reilly marrying a Rossini or a Gundersonn, or even an Eisenstein. Anti-miscegenation laws in American history were always about either white/black or white/Indian marriage, Interracial marriage in contemporary society is about crossing profound ethnic differences. It’s about Kim Kardashian and Nicole Simpson Brown. BTW, how have those worked out?
White and Black people are part of the same society. There are certainly profound differences in the experiences of a White American and a Black American, but why do you seem to think those differences are “profoundly” more meaningful than coming from different nations and religious faiths?
Can you explain what happened in your life to cause you to hate Black people so much and spend so much of your time trying to attack them and distance White people from them?
Your accusation about hating blacks is typical of the drivel trotted out when trying to discuss topics like this. I don’t hate blacks. I am opposed in principle to marrying my niece or other close kin or someone who is 13 years old and think there should be laws against it. That doesn’t mean I hate my relatives or young girls. Got it? Similarly, but for different reasons, I am opposed in principle to white/black marriages, and favor laws against it. Most Americans throughout our history agreed on this rather basic point, which is why nearly every State had some… Read more »
I think everyone is learning from this exchange between wannabe Rebel (spouting the usual Darwinian horses%@# about differences in intelligence and civility being the result of race/skin color/ethnicity alone) and his interlocutors is that it is unprofitable to argue with a lunatic. As Chesterton might have put it, Mr. Wannabe Anonymous Rebel is trying to fit ALL THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PEOPLE into his little head, and it is his head that is splitting. I suggest the best course is to make merciless fun of this lunatic and others like him until they go away or, better yet, man up and… Read more »
Do you hate blacks Ben? Sure sounds like you are trying to dodge the issue, maybe you realize that your PC cultural marxist values are morally and intellectually bankrupt and are have managed brink this once great nation to the brink of disaster in the span of a lifetime. Rather than consider you just might be on a sinking ship, instead of plugging the leaks, your recommendation is to “make merciless fun of this lunatic”.
Grow up.
Let’s remember a few of the things you said about Black people: “Time to bring back lynching. It’s the only thing that seems to keep these black savages under control.” “In any society, there is a renegade, feckless element that requires restraint by law, peer pressure, corporal punishment, etc. to be compelled to at least exhibit a modicum of civilized, responsible behavior. The black race is over-represented by these types of people, say 80% (made up statistic) of blacks fall into this category.” “The institution of slavery kept blacks working productively and living peacefully. It also had a civilizing impact… Read more »
Yep, I hate black thug gangstas who cause murder and mayhem in society and urge extreme measures to prevent their actions from spiraling out of control (ever heard of the Rodney King riots?). Don’t want them for son-in-laws either. Got me there. Of course your approach of just pretending to look the other way and act nice while scores of innocent bystanders are killed by criminal savages is much more Christian; I guess at least that way, there no risk of being called a “racist”. Maybe you could even aspire to be like the Great Emancipator, adored by both races… Read more »
“It’s about Kim Kardashian and Nicole Simpson Brown. BTW, how have those worked out?”
I have no idea, but I can’t immagine it going well for anyone of any race.
“Anti-miscegenation laws in American history were always about either white/black or white/Indian marriage, Interracial marriage in contemporary society is about crossing profound ethnic differences.”
So the only interracial marriages you disaprove of are white/black and white/indian? Not white/mexican, white/philipino, white/laotian?
Get the immigration policy sorted out and we won’t have to worry about all the combinations. As recently as 1970, the USA was about 89% white. Which society would you rather have your children and grandchildren grow up in – the one from the 1950 – 60’s or the one we are currently facing in the early 21st century?
It would be foolish to think that a return to the culture of the 50s-60s is possible.
Not foolish at all if you return to the immigration policy of the 50’s
More than the immigration policy has changed.
Yes, it’s obvious from reading through comments on this thread. Americans, at least white Americans, have simply lost all moral courage and lack the will to propagate or even defend their society
And yet this is politically and socially a very conservative board. Could it be that many Americans here no longer see defending “white interests” as either moral or courageous?
This is NOT a conservative board, socially or politically. Maybe they don’t think America is worth upholding and defending. After all, the Israelites in 6th century BC Jerusalem didn’t think Judah was worth upholding/defending, nor did the Romans of of the 5th century. Is that the future you are willing to capitulate to – a nation turned apostate and overrun by barbarians?
Do you realize how much of this has to do with white people generally despising the bearing of children in the last 50 years, and black people less so?
Yep, failure to reproduce was our own fault. Can’t blame that on anyone but whites themselves who can’t seem to be bothered to sire the children needed to carry on our civilization and instead prefer to import hordes of “immigrants” from various Third World basket case banana republics.
Off topic, Jane, but I thought of you when I heard about Alan Rickman. My Colonel Brandon is gone forever.
So you did and do support not only slavery and segregation, but also lynching and the KKK? Good that’s out in the open, but no, this isn’t a case of “at least he’s honest”. Ashv? Really?
I defended slavery as practice sanctioned by the bible, as did essentially every Christian leader and theologian taught from Paul to Augustine to Aquinas to Calvin to Edwards to Dabney. It is unbiblical and dishonest to characterize it as sinful or evil, as many un-informed contemporary Christians do today. Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, the most renowned theologian and evangelist respectively, of the 18th century were both slave owners. Do nitwit evangelicals today really think they know the scripture better than these two men and are someone more moral or righteous than they? Segregation served a purpose to allow peaceful… Read more »
Glad you feel compelled to clarify. Make it a little more clear for me. Say, for the sake of argument, I accepted your version of the KKK in the 1860’s. Do you also applaud the historical activities of the KKK generally? Do you commend the lynching of blacks that has occurred in this country, generally speaking? How about similar vigilante killings of white men? Is extrajudicial execution a feature of that high civilization for which you long?
Have no idea where you are going with this, but in general, I only support the actions of the Reconstruction era klan (disbanded ca. 1870). However, KKK-esque vigilante groups continued to provide the only available justice in rural areas of the South well into the 20th century and in many cases on the frontier, it was either klan justice or no justice, so I don’t universally condemn that aspect of their activities. Most lynchings, white and black, were part of these kind of retributive justice actions. Vigilante justice is not ideal, but it is better than no justice (read the… Read more »
Clarence Thomas?
How seriously we take Piper’s exhortation to earnestly discern what the Scriptures say about this, and how respectfully we disagree with Dr. Piper, truly are vital points. But I think there is a temptation here to give John Piper more room to maneuver than his piece justifies. That doesn’t mean we ought to glibly dismiss him as a pacifist, or a dishonest exegete (and I thus take no issue whatever with the insertion of those points), but in light of the paradigmatic divide Wilson referred to, it’s fair enough to observe that Dr. Piper’s post was more squirrely than necessary… Read more »
Pastor Wilson, you wrote:
John is a Baptist, and consequently has a very different take on the
relationship of the Old and New Testaments than I do. Or, to take
another example, he has a different understanding of God’s law than does, say, Joel McDurmon.
This will necessarily shape what passages he gathers in order to make
his argument, and the same goes for those debating him. The use of
different quarries will result necessarily in different kinds of houses.
In a future post, if the Lord leads you, an exposition on the different “takes” would be most helpful.
thx.
Here’s a good place to start: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-does-john-piper-believe-about-dispensationalism-covenant-theology-and-new-covenant-theology
I appreciate what Doug said, and I am glad there are patient men like Doug to say what he said. I however find Piper’s article to be sickening. My big problem with theologian types like Piper is that they are so deep into theology that they can’t see the plain truths of the world. Why do you think God gives men barrel chests and strong arms? Is it to flex at the beach or harm weaker people? Of course not, it is for work and to defend themselves and others. These are two primary purposes of a man in this… Read more »
In fairness to Piper, he is not willing to kill in order to protect his neighbor (or family). He, conceptually at least, does affirm the role of the man as the protector. Just peruse any of his multitude of articles regarding complementarianism.
Not merely a neutered Christianity, but an invertebrate one.
Name-caller! Wait …
Penguins have spines. I think penguins are pretty tough, too.
Tough old birds wearing dinner jackets.
It is not a straw man. It’s the attitude of several commentors here.
Straw man is maybe not the best way to put it, let me try again. Piper is focusing on the complete wrong thing. Sure there are some gun totting macho types out there and that is bad (I watched a video where some lady shot a handgun over a thief running, that is a poor use of a firearm), but it isn’t a significant problem among Christians. In the Marine Corps (where you would expect gun crazies to be) there were a few guys that wanted to put a cap into some A-rabs but that was 1 in 50, most… Read more »
I appreciate your response, though I think you underestimate the number of folk who have this attitude. However, I do completely agree with you that too many Christians are passive and lazy – but I think Piper is very much against that attitude as well. I don’t think that gun ownership is the only way of demonstrating strength and responsibility, and I think he gives a strong, Biblical answer (which I don’t completely agree with) for a different way.
If you walk in Norfolk or Richmond( or a Chicago, etc) after dark you had better be packing or at least have a good alternative. Christians don’t live in a vacuum. If you are bent on taking such risks, you at least owe it to your family to minimise the possibility you will be harmed. They depend on you financially, if not in other ways.
Don’t go where it is knowingly dangerous unless the risk/benefit analysis requires it.
Every fight that you avoid (in the specific context) is one that you win.
There is a sweet homeless man in my neighborhood who never got over his PTSD from Vietnam. He is feared by many of the local street people because his temper is unpredictable and ferocious. Because I don’t have a car and I do often have to be on the street at night, this man has taken me under his wing. He walks me to and from the bus stop, and he has spread the word that nobody better so much as look at me funny. You would not think, to look at him, that he would be my guardian angel!
Ahh, that’s very sweet.
I know. He even taught me how to hotwire the dryers at the Laundromat, but I promise I don’t do that!
Maybe your Church could provide someone to walk with you to the bus stop. If he has an unpredictable temper, he could turn on you.
Merry Christmas!
You too!
Well said. Maybe I do underestimate the attitude, or maybe the cowboy attitude is becoming more prevalent and I haven’t noticed. You say Piper gives a “strong, Biblical answer” that you don’t completely agree with. To me it looks more like he is using verses and principles that don’t apply to self/neighbor defense. Just because he quotes the Bible doesn’t mean it’s the right answer. Right? For example, the parts of the Bible Piper cites regarding the disciples or Paul not resisting the Roman and Jewish authorities, even when wronged, more readily applies to how we interact with the IRS.… Read more »
As I’ve said, I don’t completely agree with Piper, for some of the same reasons you are bringing up here – but I think Doug would agree (based on his initial post) that Piper isn’t just quoting the Bible – he’s looking to interpret Scripture with Scripture, forming a complete understanding of the Bible’s commands for living our lives and shaping our attitudes. I don’t agree with Piper’s stance against guns, but I do agree with his heart for reaching the lost, not strutting around being little one-man armies.
Mr. Miller,
Fraternally, “… I think you underestimate the number of folk…” is void for vagueness. Neither you nor I have met “many” anyones, so our analysis, unless specific to the individual, is just a subjective impression. There are, I would guess, more than one person here who has seen the elephant. Nonetheless, the attitude that you speak of could simply be heard better because its louder than a quiet man.
Anecdotal evidence does, as you say, prove nothing. Which is why I qualify by saying “I think,” not “You are wrong.”
I live in a very crime-ridden, gang-infested area of Los Angeles, and I have a hard time coming up with a coherent position on gun control. I don’t think we can carry here without a permit, and I have heard it said that you have to be a movie star or a major civic donor to get one. But even more than criminals, my neighborhood has crazies, many of whom are clearly not in treatment. In my first year in LA, I was called out to calm down a neighbor who had pulled a gun on a man who had… Read more »
I want to start in reverse with your questions: Opinions (not speak of you, but just in general) rendered in the absence of subject matter expertise can be right, but the percentage of probability is low. Without performing an exacting voir dire upon myself on this forum (which I want to avoid), I would ask that you advance the credibility (of said SME) needed for a cogent answer. Open carry is unsound for anyone except for very specific circumstances (uniformed displays of authority or duty). One principle of conflict is the element of surprise. Many of the denizens who care… Read more »
Continuing to the next question: “do [ I ] think there is any way to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill while allowing normal people to protect themselves? I think that first, one has to be able to make a clear definition of mentally ill, and a clear delineation between “crazy” and evil. There have always been reprobates; Scripture warns against drunkenness and sloth. A brain pickled by any substance (and including the very clear links (not correlative but causative) between marijuana use below age 35 and schizophrenia) is undergoing organic damage. But, and it is… Read more »
I am glad that Liberty encouraged people to take charge of safety.
I found it refreshing.
In my experience (regardless of western U.S. cultural affinity to the term), the label “cowboy” has always been a pejorative. In the circles I have traveled, it was used for someone who acted in an unthinking, self-propelled (headlong), profane fashion, with little respect for authority, education, training or experience. I have seen more than one die as a result of their lack of self-discipline, or any discipline for that matter.
Good post Mr. Taylor.
Piper doesn’t live in the isolated suburban bubble you placed him in, with rows of manicured lawns with picket fences owned by golfers with 2.4 children each. He spent the last three decades living in a predominantly Somali, gang-infested neighborhood. He’s woken up to gunshots a time or three.
I disagree with him on this, but he isn’t writing this naively.
He is naive and you are just giving a different example of my point. My example was, the most violence an American sees is “people raising their voice in the grocery store.” You gave the example of the violence that John Piper sees as “living in a neighborhood with scary black people and hearing gunshots at night.” It’s the same thing.
Yay! Good. I really like how you’re setting about talking about this. We need to have conversations about this, and I’m glad to see how you are going about this. Maybe this could end up being a ‘debate’ between you and Piper. The thing that makes me not reject Piper out of hand, as I might be wont to do, is to see how sincere he is. I respect how he is going about doing his thinking, and the care with which he does. I have no expectation that I would agree with his conclusion, but I’m very willing to… Read more »
I wonder if john Piper has a problem with the police officer who he calls when someone has his wife at gunpoint having a weapon. If he does not have a problem with the officer being armed he is inconsistent in the least and possibly a hypocrite.
You are correct in a specific sense regarding the officer’s action in using lethal force. Actions taken IDOL, “in defense of life” is not solely enforcement of the law per se, it is the stopping of an act to defend said life. It can also be an enforcement action, but is is not only that. Your argument that the officer is defending by proxy is legitimate (although that act is more rare than individual citizen self-defense).
Just wondering: How is justifiable use of lethal force IDOL by the officer not an enforcement action? Are you referring to the spontaneous aspect of his response?
It is not solely an enforcement action unless it is a singular act pursuant to a warrant. Lethal force by a citizen or a law enforcement officer is, as I mentioned, IDOL; when death occurs, it is a homicide: death at the hands of another. Common language used for when such an act is “justified” by any person (LEO/non-LEO) is similar to when the situation is “an immediate threat of serious bodily injury or death to any person”. This is an official explanation of the legal principles; although directed at LEO’s, it expands to them from the basis of “any… Read more »
Couple of things. First, the statement Piper made “I don’t know what I would do if . . .” Studies of incidents show that those who don’t decide before hand and practice their response will just stand there and and gape, or panic. If they do anything helpful it is only by accident. Second, in order to understand the scriptures, we must understand the social norms at the place and time they were given. When Jesus said to turn the other cheek, he was referring to the social norm that slapping someone’s face was an insult worthy of a fight… Read more »
Your statement of “…those who don’t decide before hand and practice their response…” is very accurate. The paradigm is that “you will not rise to the occasion; you will default to your level of training”. Panic is not fear; panic is the action taken in the absence of a trained response.
Where does Phineas fit in this discussion?
Wherever he wants, given that spear and all. (Sorry, trying to be funny)
THAT made me laugh.
This strikes me as some kind of sick masochism, dressed up in theological terms.
One of the reflections that led me away from my youthful commitment to pacifism (although I always saw the necessity for some wars) was that we are required to defend the weak and defenseless.
Doesn’t turning the other cheek mean letting it go, returning good for the wrong done even? If, in the scenario presented, turning the other cheek is the imperative wouldn’t that mean the husband could do nothing at all? How many people who would say he was wrong to shoot the assailant would agree he would have been wrong to do anything to try to stop it?
Romans 12 “Love in Action”
9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
It’s OK to hate evil. It’s a good thing to defend the innocent and a good thing to stop evil actions.
Stopping evil doers from doing evil is returning good for evil.
Flood, flail and famine are some ways Jesus has stopped evil .
The “turn the other cheek” and “turn over your cloak” language is interesting in its very restraint. Jesus chose relatively slight, and bearable offenses to ignore. He didn’t take it to an absurd extreme: “if they rape your wife, give them your daughter too.” That’s where the Romans 12:18 admonition (“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone”) is instructive. There are times when it is NOT possible to live in peace, and you must braid the whip, and encourage Romans 13 judgment (in all of its incarnations, including that of father… Read more »
http://pulpitandpen.org/2015/12/23/a-response-to-john-piper-why-gun-ownership-is-biblical-and-good-part-a/
I love the pic at the link.
Romans 14 12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. 13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. 14 I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. 15 If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not… Read more »
This as been an interesting and somewhat respectful debate. I don’t really agree with John Piper’s points, but I think it’s a discussion we need to have. We really do live within a gun culture in the US and while I am rather grateful for that, there are a few problems that we need to find some middle ground on. So many men arm themselves in the event of an attack on their wife or children and yet statistically, men are far more likely to actually use guns for suicide. People don’t like to hear that, it doesn’t sit well… Read more »
Yes – a gun in the home is far more likely to kill a family member (though homicide, suicide, or accident) than to kill a dangerous intruder. And homes with guns in them experience higher murder and suicide rates than homes without. And yet so many people seem to talk like the mere act of introducing a gun into a home will make the family safer Something of the American gun culture, going back to our founding, has convinced many of us that the bullet in the chamber is more powerful to protect us than the Spirit of God in… Read more »
“And yet so many people seem to talk like the mere act of introducing a gun into a home will make the family safer”
It would also be flawed to say that the mere act of removing a gun from the home will make the family safer.
If that was the only thing that was done, with no other variables, then yes, on average that would make your family very slightly safer. But I certainly agree that it is no solution in itself nor should it in any way be the focus of your concern for your family or a catch-all Christian response to potential violence.
Spare the rod, spoil the child. The Lord, though a peacemaker, is not a pacifist, and we have responsibility to protect those whom He has placed under us. Israel did not eschew arms when dealing with the machinations of Haman.
That John Piper is one of the most influential Christian leaders in America today tells you all you need to know about where evangelicalism is headed. Anyone who thinks that a movement that would have this guy for a leader is going to stand strong against gay marriage and trannies is out of his mind.
If we have to debate whether a Christian should have a gun on hand, we’re doomed. Piper’s a fun teacher, but he’s not a leader.
well said
I really appreciate this article, this response to an article I guess. The issue is complex and there is disagreement. But the disagreement is respectful and kind and, I dont know, Christian? This is very encouraging. I dont know if I agree with Pastor Wilson. I’ve always been more in the Piper camp on the questions, despite my wife’s objections. Ive recently began to see things the other way. But either way, this is what a disagreement between Christians ought to look like.
I think Piper’s real concern here is Christian witness rather than ethics. It’s not so much about what is permissible as what we hold up as exemplary. The occasion for his thoughts was Falwell responding to terrorism by holding up a gun rather discerning an occasion for Christian witness or sacrifice. “What is the moment of life-threatening danger for?” Piper asks.
Piper seems to think Christians are (perhaps) *allowed* to defend ourselves against violence, but that we should be *known* for responding with the kind of self-sacrifice Jesus modeled and taught.
Witness over ethics?
Yes, a Yahoo could shoot his daughter’s rapist in an effort to extend and ensure his own little deluded heaven on earth.
It’s our job as commentators to shame the bad witness and motivation while praising the good action.
We can thank God that Winthrop, Bradford, Cortez, and the rest of Christendom’s explorers weren’t bothered by such an absurd hermaneutic. There is one sacrificial lamb. The Romans 13 magistrate establishes order, and then the gospel can be preached and conscience obeyed. People who think they can allow their wife to be raped as a meek witness for Christ suffer from a Christ complex.
Does your proud disdain for Christians taking up the cross and following Christ extend to the Apostles as well? I suppose it’s too bad so many of them suffered from this “Christ complex” you’ve invented (you certainly didn’t get that from the New Testament).
Where in the New Testament do you find Paul and the apostles standing by while women and children are raped and beaten? Men of God standing by, never having even contemplated what they might do to protect them? (Piper’s example)
Being persecuted and jailed for preaching the gospel is quite a bit different from offering up innocents to evil doers and hoping your neutrality will be taken as a good witness. Far from it. Wicked men are likely to scorn that sort of surrender and close their ears to good news being offered up by cowards.
Props to Doug for addressing John.
I had bet he’d let this slide entirely.
And we’d all have been the poorer.
Yeah, but what did he actually say?
It seems to boil down to “I kinda sorta think Piper is wrong, but don’t really want to come right out and say so, and even if he is wrong, he’s, very, very spiritual, and this article is very, very, very, very spiritual, even more spiritual than the deeply spiritual stuff he usually writes, so if he is wrong, he’s wrong for all the right, deeply spiritual reasons, and he has given us much to think about, and for that we should thank him.”
Not DW’s proudest moment.
It seems to me that Piper’s stance on this is completely in accord with his opinions on racism and on immigration.
Does this guy think that some rapist/killer is going to be converted if he lets it happen? I thought gendercomps were very serious about the duty to protect women.
I wish that had been my experience! Protecting women’s rights is theoretical and doesn’t require a man to get his hands dirty. In a dangerous situation, give me a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal any day.
Piper’s first strategy for dealing with intruders threatening his family is probably to offer to adopt them.
Why are people so concerned about Mr. Piper’s views? He is so wrong on this, i would be concerned about his views in other areas.
Was he a close associate of that potty-mouthed guy, Mr. Driscoll?
I wouldn’t say close in that they appeared at the same events often. But philosophically? Yeah. They’re both radical feminists who pose as opponents of feminism, but in actuality only criticize feminists who are a bit more out there than they are. Driscoll got rich appealing to women by constantly running down men as immoral, unprincipled, self-indulgent, immature, unreliable, weak pansies who aren’t worthy of the love and respect of women, who are saintly and pure. Driscoll, himself, of course, is no weak pansy. He’s a real man, a spiritual giant. That’s why chicks dug him and flocked to his… Read more »
I don’t care for Mr. Driscoll.
Sorry to be a one-note Johnny, but I would think gendercomps would be furious at this.
Especially since JP opposes sending women into military combat.
I still like Piper, but I do wonder how and why DG could publish a post praising a woman who beats the fool out of other women for money and sport because of her supposed humility while simultaneously advocating men be peaceable and peaceful if faced with their family being brutalized by criminals so they bear faithful witness to Christ and illustrate that their security isn’t in a gun and the love isn’t in their stuff. And women shouldn’t be police officers.
Has Piper in fact followed through with his hermeneutics and logic?
Whom did he praise?
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-new-kind-of-champion
Seems inconsistent.
Is the problem here Pietism? I think that the Baptist General Conference is Pietist, but I may be wrong.
You are being far too soft on him. His position is incredibly wicked, and demonstrates a warped conscience.
I appreciate this, Pr. Wilson, and I have also appreciated and profited from Pr. Piper’s ministry via his books, DVDs, etc. However, while we all need to figure this out, I confess to some impatience with it all! I see this massive inconsistency on display from many of our churches, who will celebrate the 4th of July, the sacrifices our ancestors made in VIOLENTLY resisting King George and Parliament, while seeming to display a go-along, get-along attitude toward calling out our far more tyrannical and evil government, AND while supporting the troops to meddle overseas, while hesitating to defend ourselves… Read more »
Throw in Tours and the Battle of Lepanto. Add Phineas and his spear–Phineas attacked! It seems to me that willfully refusing to wield the sword is an honorable position. However, it is a decision that must be made after learning the rudiments of the thing. For example, I generally dislike poetry. There are maybe one or two poems that I like, but the craft is not something I want to practice or be around. The same can be said for guns or sports or math or theology–people are wired differently and that is a good thing. Still, an initial exposure… Read more »
Indeed! And what about Pastor Muhlenberg, who, when he finished preaching the gospel at his church’s service, removed his vestments to reveal the uniform of a Continental Army officer? I fear that some folks, including the Pipers, have up to now been able to regard this as a mere topic for stimulating conversation on blogs like this one, or over coffee, albeit with eyebrows furrowed, indicating their seriousness and sincerity.
That time is over.
Cucktianity as opposed to Christianity?
There is a fundamental difference between defending the Faith with guns and defending your life, family, and property with guns. Scripture roundly condemns the former and roundly supports the latter, I believe. All conversations about the proper use of packing heat should retain these distinctions, for conflating them is a large part of our messed up hermeneutics on the topic.
I also find it amusing that the hoplophobes are so fixated upon the instrument, some to the point of obsession. When the same cross-section are directed toward history, of the church and also culture, they seemingly take positions that would not have received much traction in either.
Discuss among yourselves, if any are still interested, and either way may you all have a Happy New Year.
kmh
An implausible argument that evangelicals must oppose self-defense
By David Kopel December 30 at 2:49 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/12/30/an-implausible-argument-that-evangelicals-must-oppose-self-defense/?wpmm
The issues raised by John Piper about use of guns overlap with larger concerns about what responsible citizenship looks like for believers living in democratic structures of government. Christians must answer God’s call to dual citizenship between their earthly country and God’s kingdom. If interested, I explore some of these matters in a bit more depth here ( https://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/responsible-citizenship-and-the-bible/ ). I also see connections with common arguments against the practice of capital punishment (see: https://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/is-capital-punishment-mandated-by-god/ )
Liberty U. has a Concealed-carry training course. Awesome! from http://www.captainsjournal.com/2016/01/17/pistol-packin-christians/ Falwell — president of the evangelical Christian college and son of the late Moral Majority founder — told students, “If more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in and killed them.” Adding that he was carrying a weapon in his pocket, he encouraged students to take Liberty’s concealed-carry training course. Praying Pastor Wilson is rubbing his chin and thinking…. “if L.U can do it NSA can do it better”…(: There are some interesting principles I will parse if I get time tonight… Read more »