Pride & Prejudice

John Piper is our hero sans ego! John Stephen Piper '68 is an evangelical Calvinist Christian preacher and author, currently serving as Pastor for Preaching and Vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Piper calls those who live out this motto Christian Hedonists. Piper places a heavy emphasis on the objective and absolute nature of truth and is confident in the Christian's ability to grasp that truth through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Piper said "I get a lot of flack for the Hedonism thing, but hey have you ever tried to tell a guy sitting next to you on an airplane that you are a pastor? Now I just say I run hedonism conferences, and ask if they would like to attend. Sure they are surprised when they show up as the only person in a toga, but we have people for that."

Piper holds to a complementarian view of gender roles. This view says that the Bible teaches that a husband is called to lovingly lead, protect and provide for his wife and family, and that the wife should joyfully and intelligently affirm and submit to her husband's leadership. He also says that the Bible teaches that men are to bear the primary responsibility to lead the church and that therefore only men should be elders. Although he does let his wife carry all the luggage when they travel.

Piper's theology is Calvinist and Baptist. He also believes in double predestination, which includes "unconditional reprobation" as a corollary to the Calvinistic doctrine of unconditional election, and he subscribes to the Leibnizian view. We asked him what all that really means and he said "Either it has been revealed to you what it means or it hasn't, it's not something you can figure out by yourself."

Piper describes himself as an "optimistic premillennialist"and holds a post tribulation view of the second coming of Jesus. He maintains that Romans 11 teaches that a mass in-gathering of ethnic Israel will be saved when the hardening of their hearts is removed at Jesus' second coming. He advocates the importance of hoping in the resurrection of the dead at Christ's return. Schuller & Olsteen both said recently "we think we believe that way too!"

We asked Piper what he thought about Wheaton and his time there, he said "Wheaton is sometimes known for producing hypercritical pride. And that’s not its fault, probably, because only sinners go to Wheaton. And most of them are snooty, smart people. And what can Wheaton do, except fan that flame?" (quote from the alumni magazine)

We tried do a follow up question but ironically Wednesday, Piper said in a statement that many people will try to read between the lines on, John Piper has announced that he will be taking 6 monts away from nearly all public life as a result of what he calls "several species of pride" in his soul... http://tinyurl.com/y9k6fvl