I Haven't Forgotten The Rick Warren And John Piper Controversy

As Friday's post was derived from the Third Lausanne Congress, I was reminded of two things. First that John Piper was speaking at that Lausanne Congress, and secondly, that I will soon be critiquing Rick Warren's message at John Piper's Desiring God conference. As a preview to that upcoming series, I will state that the whole Rick Warren saga at Desiring God 2010 was shocking for three major reasons:

1. I am all for John Piper speaking with Rick Warren, but I am shocked that he would invite Warren as a keynote speaker to his conference.
2. The content of Warren's message was the usual one hour of "how to fix your life" and "hey everybody, look how humble I am". This surprised me because I thought Warren's chameleon like behavior would dictate that he would come to this setting with crowd pleasing reformed theology and dupe them into thinking that he's in our camp.
3. That those on the platform, when asked for feedback on Warren's presentation, either sat there with that glazed deer in the headlights look or dug deep to find some complimentary things to say about it. Needless to say this left me with a deep sense of betrayal since I strongly identify with John Piper as one of the heroes who lifted me out of the mire of man centered therapeutic moralism into the stratosphere of God's Sovereignty and Glory in redeeming evil sinners through Propitiation. Why was he dragging me back to taste this vomit once again, and why was he not taking this lame moralist to task for his crimes against the Gospel?

This will all be discussed in more detail in the not too distant future. But I am very pleased to say that I was thrilled to hear Piper's message at the Lausanne Congress because his message served as a stern correction to the evangelical drift towards alleviating human suffering without speaking of eternal suffering. This is the second part of Piper's address where he zeroes in on the neglected subject of God's wrath :