John Piper, Government & The Election
Last week John Piper, the venerable and esteemed pastor and author, penned a rather troublesome article about the upcoming showdown between President Trump and former Vice President Biden. The gist of his position, in case you haven’t read it, is that he’s puzzled by evangelicals who support the President and disavow Democrats due to the latter’s stance on abortion. He reasons, quite erroneously, that Mr. Trump’s personal character, which he details as highly sinful, is, in fact, more deadly to the nation than either abortion or socialism (both of which the Democrats embrace).
To support his argument, Mr. Piper points out that the President is guilty of “flagrant boastfulness, vulgarity, immorality, and factiousness…” and that these sins are nation-corrupting. He says, “they move out from centers of influence to infect whole cultures.” Two things about this.
First, this isn’t an article to condemn the good Mr. Piper, whom I love in Christ. It is, however, a rebuke of rather bad theology and surprising lack of wisdom. I will tread carefully due to the very important fact that he is the Lord’s servant and I fully expect, in the Lord, to see him quite a bit in the age to come. That said, it’s his application of biblical principles that I believe are illogical and my “attack” is solely upon those ideas and certainly not on the great man himself.
Second, and most importantly, this article is designed to give the reader a more biblical and robust understanding of how Christian principles are to guide us in the area of politics. This is quite an unserviced area that should be addressed. Moreover, it’s exactly here that the contradiction of Mr. Piper’s reasoning is found.
The root of his error is in never defining the biblical role of the civil magistrate. Being a pastor, his concern is primarily with the salvation of individual people but those people live and move in authority structures established by the the Lord (Romans 13:1). It’s critical to understand this before we ever address the topic of politicians and disparate political parties. This isn’t an endorsement of a candidate or political party. On the contrary, it’s an article through which I’d like to point out that we often make the error of talking about politics without first consulting the Bible and, therefore, letting God define the role of government for us. By omitting this clear definition, Mr. Piper is guilty of applying an arbitrary definition to the state. This leads him to several errors.
First and foremost, he never provides the biblical definition of government. How are we to evaluate any candidate for office when we haven’t a clear and biblically consistent understanding of the nature of that office? This is, perhaps, the greatest error in all political discourse. In Romans 12-13 we’re provided with a clear definition that God has established this authority for our benefit. The state is His minister…His servant and not a moral free agent as is quite commonly believed today. Mr. Piper’s reasoning that the President’s bombast and pride are worse sins than abortion because pride leads to all other sins ignores the appalling difference between Mr. Trump and the Democrats. Mr. Trump is, indeed, a prideful man who thinks highly of himself. But it’s the Democrats who are the champions of “personal autonomy” in all areas of life and governance. Where else does the abomination of abortion come from except from the arrogant lie that a woman is a completely autonomous unit, with no higher moral authority, which gives her the freedom to literally re-write moral law? In short, Mr. Piper misses the critical difference between personal pride and the systemic autonomy claimed by the Democrats. We cannot serve half a God. Either He defines the role of the state or we do.
For example, Mr. Piper cites 1 Kings 14:16 (he sinned and made Israel to sin) as biblical evidence that a Christian is in error to vote for Mr. Trump. But this exegesis is preposterous. The passage is talking about Jeroboam who was guilty, not of bombast and Twitter storms, but of literally setting up an idolatrous state-supported worship! In one case, Jeroboam appointed priests from all his tribes to run his unholy sanctuaries, which was a blatant violation of God’s order that only descendants of Aaron were to be priests. Talk about dropping context! To make such a charge, Mr. Piper must provide an equivalent example of the President. Clearly, he must know better than this. Yes, bad company corrupts good morals (1 Corinthians 15:33). But does Mr. Piper truly believe that a man who uses salty language and brags, and/or had a sinful sexual past, is like Jeroboam? That’s quite a stretch of basic logic and, I will argue, a great slander on President Trump. To judge a civil magistrate on this rather than upon his/her fidelity to the standards God has given is a major error.
Second, the New Testament era gives us, not a religious state of Israel, but a true separation of powers as it were. The Lord gives us three primary authority structures – the family, the church, and the state. The state is God’s avenger, carrying out His wrath on the evildoer. Romans 13 provides the only instance in Scripture where the Holy Spirit stops to define a profession’s (non-church) specific foundation. In Romans 12 we’re told never to avenge ourselves. This clearly tells us that it’s biblical to defend ourselves from an assault. But the issue of vengeance, that is, the correction of criminal wrongdoing, is given by God to the civil magistrate. We’re told clearly and unequivocally that “vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord,” (Romans 12:19) and then that “he (the magistrate) is a minister of God, carrying out His wrath on the one who practices evil” (Romans 13:4). Modern Americans, socialists especially, insist on usurping that authority and using it themselves.
This is the missing context that would provide clarity for Mr. Piper’s article. When he says that bad character will lead to bad policies, we can certainly agree to an extent. But what’s worse than bad personal character in a leader, is the wholesale rejection and ignorance of God’s righteous order for civil life. The civil magistrate is God’s avenger who carries out His wrath on criminals. The state, therefore, isn’t neutral, but an agent of the most high God! Romans 13:6 actually spells it out: we pay taxes to support our rulers who are servants of God who are to devote themselves to the apprehension, prosecution and just punishment of criminals. To judge a politician or political party outside of this context leads us into the type of theological blunders present in Mr. Piper’s article.
The state isn’t authorized to punish private sin. Read Romans 12-13 to see the context. He, God’s avenger, is to punish only those sins that we can rightly call a crime. If the state is authorized by God to punish private sin – to literally use force – then the gospel is drained of meaning. In the age of Christ, the church prays for peace so that it can preach the glorious gospel to everyone. God’s wonderful order is the only thing that makes this clear! All other ideologies conflate the great authority structures of family, church and state. The modern Democrat party, for instance, is Marxist, which is a sinful black hole where the state subsumes both family and church. In God’s order, the church preaches the forgiveness of sin in Christ and the state keeps order through punishing crime. In Marxism, the state defines right and wrong and is both church and state. God puts us in families that go to church and live in a state. In Marxism, the state is both family and church. In the Bible, Jesus Christ is the King; in Marxism, the state is king. There is no king in the New Testament because God has come in Christ to redeem sinners.
In confusing all this, Piper fails to see why freedom is so important as a political issue. Political freedom, protected by the God-honoring state that acts rightly as God’s avenger against crime, provides rich soil for the family and church to thrive in peace. There simply is no true peace outside of this context and the bloodbaths of the 20th century where socialistic ideas were acted upon are clear examples. In this way, President Trump, despite his legendary personal shortcomings, is the more biblical candidate. Mr. Biden’s party is openly espousing ideas (Marxism) that led directly to the murder of hundreds of millions of souls, the enslavement of millions more, and the evisceration of family and church.
So, as you see, this is a far greater issue than just abortion, as Mr. Piper writes – though abortion alone is a deal-breaker. On a side note, to claim that the President’s pride and Twitter account are deadlier for America than 1 million slaughtered babies in the womb is the height of spiritual confusion. I know a man who never swore, drank, or took the Lord’s name in vain. He also taught a Bible study at his church. Another man I know struggled openly with lust, anger, and vulgarity. Does it matter that the former man cheated on his wife and left her with his two children? Does it matter that the latter man, despite his sinful struggles, remains faithful to his family? Of course it does. One’s faith compels him to what? To action.
In closing, I’d like to bring Mr. Piper to the book of James where we see clearly that the test of faith is doing good. The personal sins of the President are his personal sins. I’m not his pastor, nor his counselor. To my knowledge, he has not celebrated his extra-marital affairs while in office, so I leave that to his church and family as I should. Mr. Piper seems to say that the President is unrepentant on those counts but I’ve no evidence that he is. On the area where we can and should judge him – that is, his fidelity to a Biblical standard of government – he is clearly better than the alternative. He’s taken clear and demonstrable actions during his presidency to protect the precious lives of the unborn and political liberty by appointing three conservative Supreme Court justices. Isn’t that a great definition of doing good?
As for Mr. Piper’s vacuous argument that culture-saturating pride kills more people than abortion – and it is incredibly vacuous – we must reply. We must clarify because it’s morally insane to grant moral equivalency to Trump’s arrogance and the bloodbaths that are Marxism and abortion. What good, James asks, is it to say to a person in need, “God be with you” if you don’t actually help them when you can? Mr. Piper’s argument that policy isn’t more important than personal character is unsound precisely because of this. It assumes that an uncouth leader who promotes freedom and life – in accordance with the biblical mandate for the civil magistrate – is no better than a well-mannered mass-murdering tyrant. How utterly preposterous and shameful.
In all, a vote for Mr. Trump by a Christian is in no way a contradiction insofar as the Christian understands that the civil magistrate is the Lord’s and he/she votes for the candidate whose policies are most in line with God’s mandate. A vote against political liberty is a vote for the state to be outside God’s moral law. It’s a vote for a king, which is a vote for idolatry. This isn’t about abortion alone, therefore, but whom we will serve. Mr. Piper would have us walk around and judge the private sins of a ruler as more important than their policies; this conflates church and state, which God has separated. But the judge of a good mechanic is how well he can fix a car. It would be nice if he doesn’t swear while he’s working but the ultimate goal is a car that runs. Likewise, God’s minister in government is to avenge inter-personal evil (crime) and, thus, preserve political freedom for all, not infringing upon the family or the church. A good civil magistrate will support Godly law and order and political liberty. A good policy is to say with Gallio (Acts 18:14-15) “if it were a matter of vicious crime…” and leave the rest to the separate authorities of family and church. Mr. Trump’s pride does not extend to the abolition of Godly authority but Marxist ideology certainly does. Mr. Trump may be vain, but Marxism/socialism is clear and open idolatry. By this evaluation, Mr. Trump is the clear choice over Mr. Biden the same as a master mechanic would be over a child playing with a wrench.
Thus, contrary to Mr. Piper’s position, the Christian position is to vote for those people most likely to hold and advance the principles of Godly government. No political party is completely Christian because Christianity has a King in Jesus Christ and the state has a specific thing to do: punish evildoers who commit crimes like theft, assault, murder and rape. The state is in no way to try and be the church or the family. We should reject not mere personal pride but the most arrogant thing of all: the messianic state, the false god of government who promises men and women freedom through sin and idolatry. We must reject abortion and Marxism as profound evils and vote for candidates most likely to rule in line with Romans 12-13. In this election, that’s Donald J. Trump and not Joe Biden. Of course, if like Mr. Piper you don’t like either man, don’t vote for them. My point, as I’ve said, hasn’t been to endorse a candidate but rather to articulate the biblical standard of government by which we can rightly judge the efficacy of any politician or civil magistrate. As always, confusion reigns anywhere that God’s word is obscured, ignored or misunderstood. It’s my hope and prayer that this article helped in that regard and that we see only Jesus Christ as our rock and redeemer and yet don’t turn away from actually “doing good” by supporting God-honoring law and order in this present evil age.
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