When I find a worthy author I engage that author intensely and exhaustively until I can articulate what they are and are not about. I’ve done this with CS Lewis, Thomas Merton, Marshall McLuhan, Mark Driscoll, Douglas Coupland, Madeleine L’engle, and I am now doing it with John Piper. Many people sip on these authors and then quote them out of context to make a point that the authors themselves never would have made. So you end up with people who are vehemently anti-Catholic quoting a high Anglican like Lewis, or more absurdly, they’ll quote GK Chesterton, who was a convert and great champion of Catholicism. But quote Thomas Merton to them and they’ll point and cry “Anathema!” in your direction and then leave the room.
At any rate, Piper is the stream or phase you’ll find me in now, but by phase I do not mean fad. None of the people I mention have been fads for me; they have been extended engagements that have turned into my foundations.
In time my focus on Piper will subside because he will take his place in my foundation, along with seemingly disparate others like Merton and L’engle. How is this possible? It’s not supposed to be… I guess that’s what makes me Emerging/Emergent to the extent that I am – I can live with the paradox and invite others to join me there..
So I don’t know what you’ve heard about Piper but I’ll vouch for him as one of the keenest expositors of scripture who also has a loving heart and a truth-hungry mind. I don’t agree with everything he says but he has the following in common with all the other authors I mentioned: he lights up my brain, helps me to understand things I’ve struggled to understand for years. He is far more compatible with my brand of Emergence than most suspect. He is sure of many things but unlike your typical American Baptist pastor he doesn’t attempt to snow you if he doesn’t know the answer.
This is a different conversation altogether, but I’ve come to believe that much of the Emergent movement grows not out of having read the Bible and found it lacking, but from not having read the Bible at all, or at least picking and choosing the passages that fit – which we all do, but I don’t see why it should be sanctioned in one movement and not the other. The same goes for politics… Donald Miller stumps for Obama, and today Tony Jones (former national coordinator for Emergent Village) did a national interview promoting Obama. I say that’s a double standard.
Anyway, I am not someone who buys someone else’s systematic theology and then tries to force it down other people’s throats. I believe in reading widely and stopping for an extended examination of ideas when I come across something compelling.
Here’s a 5-minute Piper segment that illustrates my point. The format is a daily Q&A podcast : audio or text transcript
