Things are starting to warm up like a New England Puritan chowder. Politics is at the root of many evils, but it is not the central evil. The role politicians should have in our lives is the same as an ox eye daisy: “We love him, we love him not” with the “we love him not” pedal winning the day almost always. Yet, we bear a fifth commandment imperative to respect and keep a close eye on them. And when they disappoint us, we should dispose of them quicker than the leftover daisy and bring in the new guy. Politicians are not sacramentum, and we owe them no allegiance, except the allegiance of quiet and peaceful servant-hood. We should weigh that battle carefully and discerningly.
It came to my attention yesterday as fast as a lightning strike on twitterdom an article by one named John Piper. In fact, I read it within seconds of its publication. It should be noted that I read between 8-10 Piper books in my life, and I had the occasion to dine with him and a few others in an ETS conference in 2003, and sat under his general tutelage for the last 20 years. I am a connoisseur of evangelical information and there is nowhere you go in Baptist-land where Piper’s name is not known. My graduate background and pastoral writing world also puts me in close proximity to all the players in the Evangelical-dom. I am more generous than Bilbo and tend to like them more often than not.
Still, as one who consumes evangelical data faster than most, I see little things called trends. And the trend these days is to make black and white moral decisions about politics, which generally means that the pendulum swings to the Bernie side of things rather than the Cruz side of things. I have seen it so often in college campuses that I guess we could call it a “trajectory.” It’s one reason dads need to get their kids reading Proverbs early and listen to the ethics of the ants, and throw in a Puritan or two to moderate our inner libertinism. We need to shape their minds early on the things liberals hate to talk about: centrality of the Bible, worship, Lord’s Day attendance, and manliness in an age of kale yogurt.
Back in 2009, Piper was really astute when he said that in the constellation of things, he could see himself voting for the lesser of two evils, even if they were both pro-choice candidates. What would lead Piper, a charismatic, calvinist, evangelical, to get to the point where he cannot parse between private piety and externalized piety? I have seen this story before. Piper gets wrong the distinction between sins within its proper hierarchy.
An unrepentant adulterer 20 years ago, or an arrogant man, or a divisive man struggles with private piety for a variety of reasons. It may even be his lack of faith altogether. But those internalized sins do not form category of thoughts for culture in most cases. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that no man has seen Trump’s history of adultery with a Playboy beauty and said, “Yes, I am going to follow his example and adulterate because the president did.” This is a basic distinction that anyone who reads Ethics by Jefferson, Bonhoeffer, or Schaeffer would see.
To equate these two is almost to make a mockery of the civic codes of Moses that carefully distinguished categories of sacrifices and sins. All sin deserve death, but not all sin is created equal. But when Joe supports abortion at all stages, envisions a society where little boys can become girls, wishes to nationalize policies completely at odds with federalism, and endears himself to clear enemies of the Church, then we have a problem, ladies and gentlemen. Biden’s sins are external sins at the policy level. Yes, Trump is all the things Piper says he is, but Biden is all those things as well and his external impiety is enough to swallow Korah.
It’s not that Piper is wrong, but that he fails to be truly be right. He asserts two right things and approaches the praxis entirely in error. If in theory he’s right, he fails the praxis test, as John Frame would say. He fails to navigate the consequences of elections. Would you rather have a man who nominates a Catholic judge with seven kids, a 12-passenger van, two adopted children to the bench? Or a man who would never ponder for a second putting the ACB’s of this world in any bench? A man who fumbles through Christian speech, but is at least able to hear Christian speech? Or one who surrounds himself with worldly causes almost always supported by the most ungodly in the populace?
Why, tell me, are my mainline Christian friends, almost everyone of them, sharing an equal love for the Biden team and an equal love at the LGBTQ rallies and an equal passion to force down pro-choice legislation so antagonistic towards the man in the White House? I tell you, it’s not because he cusses in locker rooms, it’s because his positions tend to lean towards the side of legalists like you who still believe that until we figure out this baby-killing business, nothing else makes much sense.
Piper may not vote for anyone in this election, but I remain highly concerned about his trajectory. He changed his position since 2009 and he has every right to do so. I change my views on food daily. But what Piper cannot do is falsely equate actions. Pride is a dangerous thing and can lead to all sorts of painful consequences, but Amy Coney Barrett and religious freedom and a host of other healthy conservative causes at the very least means that Trump’s pride has not affected the common policy sense. It’s a result of someone who plays well for his team. But what do we call a man who seeks the destruction of the unborn and policies that any common-sense evangelical should call evil? I think I will stick to the ol’ way of speaking: pride.
