Finally, the long-awaited interview of Rick Warren by John Piper has posted. Just last week, the 90 minute interview was released. I found the interview interesting and informative. I do think Rick Warren has gotten a bad wrap from us Reformed folk.
Warren doesn’t like to identify with the Calvinist label. Can we really blame him? He wishes that proponents of the Doctrines of Grace would be more gracious. I wish the same.
In the interview, it comes out that Warren is a monergist and believes in unconditional election. He’s uneasy with limited atonement as popularly conceived. His book The Purpose Driven Life was not originally intended for unbelievers, and he never expected it to sell as well as it did. Warren bemoans some of what he said in the book, wishing he would have been more clear in his emphasis on repentance.
Piper has very little criticism of The Purpose Driven Life really, and the book is what the interview is primarily about. Piper is aghast at some of the bitter reviews he’s read of the book. In Piper’s reading of it, he just doesn’t see it that way.
John Piper does challenge Rick Warren with regards to ensuring the legacy he leaves through his influence over thousands of pastors is one that encourages them to go deep and to explicitly root their ministries in theology. Part of Piper’s aim in the interview too, is “that the thousands of pastors and lay people who look to Rick for inspiration and wisdom will see the profound place that doctrine has in his mind and heart.”
I believe that Warren took the opportunity to clarify himself and his ministry and ran with it. He knew he was speaking to many critical voices through this interview. That said, he doesn’t come across as artificial or canned. The impression I got is that it’s the same Rick Warren, and that he’s been misunderstood more than people are willing to admit.
Am I now a rip roaring Warren guy? No. I’m cautious still with Warren’s ministry. But I am happy to have heard what I did of it. I’m more optimistic and hopeful for him and his influence. I’m also thankful that people like John Piper are willing to interact with people like Rick Warren. I think that there is a friendship budding here which can have a positive effect both ways. Piper can be encouraged to be more practical and think bigger dreams, and Warren can be challenged to be more explicit about how theology shapes his vision, and to be more careful with his influence over pastors all over the world.
The naysayers and critics will dismiss this interview altogether. They’ve already judged Warren (contrary to Romans 14), and now are going to be even tougher and more critical of John Piper. But I am willing to bet that if you listen to Piper’s three conference messages shared at Saddleback last month, you won’t find him back-pedaling. Piper apparently didn’t end up speaking at Saddleback church beyond the DG conference that Saddleback hosted. But 2,000 people attended the conference and so an important message was shared to the people who were in attendance.
I’ve spoken my mind about the Warren-Piper scandal before You can see several posts on this question here. And I’m willing to hope for the best on this. I doubt we’ll see Piper waver and falter in his message now. I am not sure we’ll see Warren change. But I hope people are challenged to think through secondary separation and other matters that something like this raises. Do we have to be ultra-critical of anyone not quite like us? Do we have to think the worst when we see a 2 minute video clip of someone being grilled on Larry King Live? Can we agree to disagree on such questions over someone’s ministry? Is it okay that I approve of Piper’s embrace of Warren and that you disapprove of it? Can we still be friends and get along?
I hope this scandal is behind us now. God will be (and is) the judge. We can rest in His sovereignty. Until then, remember, we’re not ministering on behalf of Piper or Warren or anyone else. We have to be faithful with where God has put us. I’m not of Piper or of Warren. I’m of Christ. But I respect both of these men and pray God’s continued blessing on their ministry.
Bob – Very good post. I feel that both of these men are sincere men doing what they think God would have them to do, however I feel many folks put both men on pedestals that neither deserve, and you know what I think about promoting men.
Over this w/end I had opportunity to speak with a young cousin and a young nephew about faith and churches at our annual Memorial Day picnic. I encouraged both of these young men to seek out and study the scriptures and to be cautious about how much “faith” they put into the guys standing behind the pulpit, also told them to disregard “anything” they say that doesn’t line up with the scriptures, and of course I cautioned them to avoid any belief system with a man’s name attached to it.
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Bob, I’m a member of Bethlehem and I would strongly encourage you to go to this link and scroll down and listen to the March 5 – hour 2 program with Brannon Howse. Please do. https://www.olivetreeviews.org/radio/mp3/index.php?page=1
“[I] told them to disregard “anything” they say that doesn’t line up with the scriptures,”
Such an interesting phrase Greg. I appreciate this, yes! Yet I wonder among our ministers and ourselves if we are truly prepared to seek out and know what lines up or does not with the Scriptures, those words the Holy Spirit inspired.
As the New Testament was and is in the Greek, and as modern Christians think in English and rarely use Greek for foundational doctrinal studies, I honestly doubt this is possible.
For instance, we see this word ‘sovereignty” of God bantered about among RT folks everywhere as a catch phrase. What does it mean in the Bible? Where does it come from? What does it mean in the Greek? Which Greek word are we appealing to? If we are appealing to the word basil, or Kingdom then we have some serious problems I think when we try to digest the coined phrased “sovereign grace” which of course is not a Biblical phrase in the Greek or in the English of which I am aware.
Hence the coined sets up a more philosophical foundation than a biblicist process of discovery of meaning. If this is so, then we should not hope to think that objective truth has been clarified, rather another subjective analysis has been applied.
Hence, not being a Biblical phrase the definition for that phrase “sovereign grace” [for example] which of course is not the sum total of both words together, is accepted according to the most influential “voice” out there – in relation to the approved Biblical system of thinking, which in our case is “RT.”
This that I am discussing has to do with epistemology and linguistics (and etymologies too as I believe are essential) in my opinion and also the neglect in our day of taking the time to truly plunge into the context of the New Testament and digest its contents deliberately and fully BEFORE latching in to a particular theological worldview and the definitions paraded by a theology.
I am not trying to be a cynic or anti-rational. The opposite! I believe in words and am encouraging the seeking to know what can be known by doing homework which is rare but is required by Bible hermeneutics rather than by studying men’s words (since you mention men, “the guys standing behind the pulpit!”) about God’s words, whether translations, systematic theologies, or commentaries.
Do we study God’s words primarily and mens words about God’s words secondarily? Or, do we study men’s words about Gods words primarily and God’s words secondarily?
Hence I would simply encourage folks to read through the gospels dozens of times, and become very familiar with their source terms in Greek if they say they love God. Then following that entertain pauline concepts (for instance) as based on and consistent with our Lord’s precise teachings as ‘inspired” by the Holy Ghost and preserved by God’s providential care. Few if any that I am aware of among the populist theologians believes this process, or has learned by means of this process, making all these men suspect and deficient in their view of theology in my opinion.
If the first matter of theology is not God himself, and of his works and of his enemies as he has revealed, then we have nothing upon which to build and test our theology. That is to say, if God did not preserve his precise words, then why should we seek to be precise in our theology and be unlike God? And how could we be precise – are we wiser than God?
On the other hand, if God did preserve His words precisely and what we might call “providentially” (which is a supernatural process within natural settings – but NOT a natural process itself) then why would we waste our time with translated terms and especially with coined terms rather than the actual terms of the Holy Ghost.
Our modern scholars and systematic theologians have handled God’s words in what some call the neutral perspective or view. How sad. Yes God meant the Bible to be a simple book, easily understood I believe, and written in the peoples language. Yet this does not release modern linguistics, scholars and theologians from recognizing that the language of that day is not the language of ours and therefore doing the word studies to understand sozo and soteriology based on the terms and congnate terms throughout the New Testament is the only hope to “affirms what are called “the doctrines of grace” — the particular view of Calvinism with regard to salvation” as Bob wrote in the Calvinism blog.
Thanks for your thoughts in these blogs Bob. I am sorry I find them deficient in relation to the Greek terms upon which your priorities are established. Salvation itself as taught in the New Testament is not understood by RT folks Biblically in my opinion.
Greek is essential and fundamental to a true discovery of the New Testament doctrines beginning with salvation. Martin Luther himself believed that. Later however Erasmus was dumbfounded and became greatly dissatisfied with Luther’s stubborn reversal toward these views which he originally had seemed to endorse while he thought of Erasmus as his mentor and stated the same.
I believe we need a renewed Presentation Theology, not a return to protestant theology. We are here not to protest but to confess Christ and present him to the world and prove through science that he is Creator so his Lordship is automatic and positive.
I prefer the word wisdom, not sovereignty, or as many honest calvinists: arbitrary choice! The wisdom of God is taken out of key corrupted Greek N.T. texts, particularly in doxologies, and therefore also stripped from most modern (virused) Bible translations.
By the way this is not about the KJV. Its about God’s preserved words, the words the Holy Spirit gave in the first century and has kept.
I hope this serves to encourage the study and use of God’s words not men’s words as you Greg have so admirably mentioned,
Yours for Jesus’ Authority, Roy