A Lesson In American Christianity From John Piper

(Credit: Wikipedia)

We were sitting in the car going to I don’t quite remember where when our conversation about I don’t remember what somehow turned to politics.

What I do remember is my friend’s long and impassioned rant against the evils of socialism.

When he finally paused to take a breath, I asked him a question I already knew the answer to, “Do your kids go to public or private school?”

“Public,” he said. “I can’t afford to send them to private school. It’s way too expensive.”

“Then maybe socialism isn’t quite that evil after all,” I replied.

“What are you talking about?!” he shouted back.

And then I spent the next I don’t remember how long talking to him about all the various socialized aspects of our government – like the public school his children attend – that he fully and happily embraces.

It was a moment of sad irony that I couldn’t help but think back on today when I came across John Piper’s latest installment of Ask Pastor John. Even though I’m neither a subscriber, nor an avid listener (and freely admit my deep opposition to Piper’s theology), when the link popped up in my Facebook newsfeed with the headline like “How Should Christians Think About Socialism?” I couldn’t help but click.

Ignoring for the moment the fact that I find the phenomenon of Christians asking celebrity Christians (or people in general asking celebrities in general) to weigh in authoritatively on subjects they have little to no expertise in to be profoundly bizarre, I was sincerely interested in Piper’s thoughts on this particular matter given my familiarity with both his theology and socialism itself (I double majored in undergraduate school in Religious Studies and History/Political Science).

Given that familiarity, I had a guess at what Piper would say, but I had to see/hear it for myself if only to confirm my suspicions.

You can click here to listen to and/or read Piper’s entire response, but in summary (and after acknowledging he is “not an expert in political science or economics” and doesn’t “know much about [socialism]”), Piper rejects socialism because it is coercive and coercive systems might “backfire and result in greater poverty or drab uniformity or, worse, the abuse of the coercion as we saw in the murderous states like USSR and Cambodia.”

In other words, for Piper, socialism is evil because although it “borrows the compassionate aims of Christianity in meeting people’s needs” it is coercive in doing so.

While I could spend the entire post talking about Piper’s obvious conflation of socialism with the communism of places like the former Soviet Union, I’m more interested in Piper’s problem with coerciveness. Not because I’m adamant socialist, but because given Piper’s Calvinist theology and Neo-Calvinism’s lust for a coherent and internally consistent theological system, it’s rather surprising (or at least it should be) to learn of Piper’s distain for socialism.

Let me explain.

Fundamental to John Piper’s Calvinist theology is his faith in a coercive God who controls and manipulates every single thing in existence from the tiniest atom to the march of human history and everything in between, before, and after – including suffering and damnation.

Yet, inexplicably, Piper despises socialism because it attempts to coerce the individual for the good of society.

Let that sink in for a moment.

God coerces individuals to slaughter women and children for His glory.

Good!!

Government coerces individuals to ensure education, health care, shelter, and other basic needs.

Bad!!

In the immortal words of Chaz Michael-Michaels, it’s mind-bottling.

Of course, John Piper isn’t alone in his Christian disdain for socialism (or communism, which it seems he believes is basically the same thing). Many, many, many evangelicals would join Piper in his condemnation of socialism as somehow unbiblical because, like Piper, they believe things like private property and a free market economy are core Biblical tenets.

And that’s what so fascinating to me about Piper’s latest installment of Ask Pastor John.

Of all the people who, on paper at least, I would expect to support a coercive political system like socialism, it would be someone like Piper for whom coerciveness and internal consistency are so fundamental to his belief system. I mean, shouldn’t Calvinists be the strongest proponents of socialism (or communism for that matter) in the entire Church?

Which, to me, begs the question: How is it that someone so committed to the importance of coerciveness and ideological consistency suddenly turn a blind eye to the obvious incoherence between his theology and his politics?

I can’t say with 100% certainty exactly how that happens, but I suspect it has a lot to do with the Cold War culture he grew up in which indoctrinated him at a young age to believe that any political system that wasn’t a capitalist democracy wasn’t just flawed; it was inherently evil.

Regardless of origin, what I do know is Piper is not alone in his ability to ignore the obvious when it comes to contradictions between his faith and politics. If anything, his inconsistency is emblematic of American Christianity and American evangelism in particular.

From immigration and gun control to healthcare and caring for the poor, American Christianity has become synonymous with its ability or willingness or even zeal for turning a blind eye to the egregious ways in which our political convictions contradict the faith we confess.

Like Piper, we go to astonishing lengths to twist and contort and ignore scripture until it becomes a sanctified prooftext for American capitalism. So much so, that simply raising questions about the negative effects capitalism can and does have on the poor (to say nothing of a whole host of other political issues) is akin to the worst sort of heresy.

Our faith has been baptized in the waters of capitalism, refined in the fire of American patriotism, and somehow we either don’t realize it or simply don’t care.

God help us all.

Now, to be clear, I am not trying to imply that socialism (or any other political structure) is ordained by God and therefore “real” Christians should be socialists. That would be to simply repeat Piper’s mistake of trying to fit the round peg of Kingdom theology into the square peg of modern politics.

But I do think Piper’s take on socialism does offer an important lesson for us all.

For if someone as intelligent, well educated, and incredibly dedicated to ideological consistency can become so profoundly blind to the Americanization of his faith that he can make such an astoundingly ironic condemnation, how much of our own faith has been Americanized without us realizing it?

How many of our political convictions contradict the gospel we proclaim?

How much of our faith is actually Christian?

And how much of it is nothing more than sanctified patriotism?