John Piper recently delivered the commencement address at Bethany College and Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Titled Seventy Years Without Shipwreck, Piper humble-brags about the fact that he has been a Fundamentalist Christian for seventy years; that God has never forsaken him; that he never deconverted.
Piper begins his address by letting students know that he doesn’t like the word “deconversion.” Piper thinks the word is trendy; a word devised by Satan to mask what is really going on; a word that has no basis in reality (since, according to Piper’s Calvinistic theology, it is impossible to “deconvert”).
The word deconversion is not in the Oxford English Dictionary. At least, not yet. Words are created to name reality, not the other way around. But we didn’t need the word deconversion. The Bible abounds with words and descriptions of some forsaking Christ:
apostasy (2 Thessalonians 2:3)
falling away (Matthew 24:10)
shipwreck of faith (1 Timothy 1:19)
turning back from following the Lord (Zephaniah 1:6)
trampling underfoot the Son of God (Hebrews 10:29)
going out from us (1 John 2:19)
cutting off of a branch (John 15:2)
becoming disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:27)
turning away from listening to the truth (2 Timothy 4:4)
denying the Master who bought them (2 Peter 2:1)
We didn’t need a new word. My guess is that the new word deconversion came into existence so that the old, foolish, tragic, heart-breaking reality could feel as trendy as the word. How shrewd is our enemy.
The overarching premise of Piper’s address is that people deconvert not for unresolved questions about “history, science, logic, or ethics,” but because they have a deep-seated love for “darkness” and sin. Yes, the reason you and I walked away from Christianity is that we wanted to sin; that our faith precluded us from fulfilling our lusts and desires, so we divorced Jesus so we could fuck, steal, lie, cheat, and murder to our heart’s content.
While this argument may work with those uninitiated in Evangelical Christianity, those who spent their lives working in God’s vineyard (and coal mine) know better. There’s plenty of fucking, stealing, lying, cheating, and murdering going on among God’s elect. Murder, you say? Yes, murder. One church member I pastored murdered his infant daughter by shaking her to death. Another church member slaughtered his ex-girlfriend with a knife in a fit of rage. He is presently serving a life sentence. While neither of these men were “committed” followers of Jesus, they both professed saving faith in Jesus Christ. Besides, I personally know a number of on-fire Christians, pastors, evangelists, missionaries, and college professors who committed adultery and fornication — both heterosexual and homosexual. Piper has been in the ministry too long not to know these things. There’s no difference between how Christians live and how the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines and Jezebels of the world live.
Piper goes on to list five ways the deconverted sin. First, they have a love for “life’s cares, riches, and pleasures. Second, they have a “love for the present age.” Third, the deconverted “reject a good conscience.” Forth, they become “re-entangled in worldly defilements,” and finally the deconverted have been led astray by the “deceitfulness of sin.”
Piper sums up his five points this way:
I don’t think you will find any exceptions to this in the Bible. The root cause of apostasy, or falling away, or making shipwreck of faith, or deconversion, is not the failure to detect truth, but the failure to desire holiness. Not the absence of light, but the love for the dark. Not the problems of science, but the preference for sin.
In other words, Piper only sees one reason for our apostasy: sin. No matter what we say, no matter how many times we tell our stories and explain ourselves, the Pipers of the world refuse to accept we what say at face value. I can only conclude, then, that Piper and his ilk deliberately lie about unbelievers and their motivations, using their apostasy to justify their theological beliefs.
Piper concludes his address by saying that Christians who deconvert were never True Christians®. Of course, he does . . .
Piper states:
We all know — you have been well taught — that God never loses any of his elect. Not one of his predestined children is ever lost. “For those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). None of them deconverts finally. The ship of saving faith always makes it to the haven. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19).
With a quote from the Bible and a wave of his arrogant, self-righteous hand, Piper dismisses millions of people who were once devoted followers of Jesus; people who loved the Lamb and followed him wherever he went; people who committed their lives to sacrificially serving the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; people who were Christian in every possible way. I was part of the Evangelical church for fifty years, and a pastor for twenty-five years. Much like Piper, I was a Christian for a long, long time. Imagine if I dismissed Piper’s faith out of hand. After all, he has not lived a sinless life; marital problems, disaffected children, and all sorts of less-than-Christian behavior. Piper would rightly be offended if I dismissed the totality of his life, focusing, instead, on his “sins.” Maybe the good pastor secretly has hedonistic desires, and not the Christian kind that he loves to preach about.
How about we accept each other’s stories at face value? That’s what decent, thoughtful people do. When a Christian tells me their conversion story, I believe them. I expect the same treatment in return. I once was a Christian, and now I am not. But, Bruce, the Bible says ____________. That’s your problem, not mine. My past life was one of devotion to Jesus and the work of the ministry — in thought, word, and deed. It’s your thinking that needs to change, not mine. And as long as Piper and his merry band of keepers of the Book of Life continue to ignore the stories of those who have walked away from the faith, they will never truly understand why an increasing number of believers are exiting the church stage left.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Unfortunately, Piper has a vested interest in not understanding. He wants to paint all non-Christians with the apostasy label. Being empathetic means he would have to admit non-Christians have good reasons they are not (or are no longer) Christian.
BJW, and that touches upon the crux of the issue. Calvinism is very much a religion which values revelation over reason, i.e., the “Holy Scriptures” over fallen human wisdom and reasoning. It’s probably why, to my knowledge, most presuppositionalists (I think he is definitely one of those) usually have a Calvinistic background. Once you label human reason itself fallen and hopelessly infected with a sinful nature, you can easily dismiss Reason in favor of your particular Bible interpretation, which you then call Revelation. If you’re fortunately, you will also gather a fun club to help encourage you do so, just as he has done.
I’d love to hear John Piper expound on some of his biblical wisdom with regards to his son, Abraham, who has rejected Christianity. However, that probably won’t happen, because Abraham, who is a Tik Tok social media influencer, would most likely have a legitimate retort. Plus, John most likely wants to keep this little “family secret” from his many followers.
Benny S, Abraham Piper does great work! I am sure Daddy Piper tries to ignore his deconverted, I mean, apostate son as much as possible.
Piper says those who deconvert were never True Christians. Piper must be a true Scotsman because Piper’s bagpipes are playing really loud.
So in other words I never really deconverted so I will end up in heaven with Piper telling me I told you so for eternity. Wait- wouldn’t that be hell?
In Calvin’s, do apostates still go to heaven? Once predestined always predestined? 🤣🤣🤣
I figured you all would be jumping for joy in support of the man who murdered his infant daughter by shaking her to death. Only difference is he did it outside the womb.
One who has truly seen the light which is Jesus Christ does not run back into satanic darkness.
Were you born an asshole, or did you momma raise you to be one?
Your commenting privilege has been revoked.
Fuck off Howell Wilson. I have plenty of other things to say but honestly, I don’t think you would care to hear them.
Incredible, the cognitive dissonance these people live with.
To maintain their mental and ‘moral’ pre-eminence everyone who disagrees with their narrow views of how the universe works are relegated to their version of some eternal hell. (My uncle, incensed at my de-conversion, informed me by FB Messenger that I’d be going there. He has not talked to me for years with the exception of this all-important Christian message.) Even they have no clear explanation of this place from their ‘holy’ book, but they are sure it involves torture. Eternal conscious torture. For you.
Piper with his seventy sanctimonious years of being absolutely sure he’s The Best–God’s Own Favored One–is one of many examples of a life lived under evangelicalism’s repressed and judgmental system of pride and abject immorality. If there is a more narcissistic way to live life I do not know of it. Keep talking, Piper. De-conversions are sure to be the result.
You’re right; it really does have its roots in “the Bible says,” doesn’t it? It’s the same with Romans 1: The Bible SAYS everyone knows God exists (the Christian God, of course)… so it doesn’t matter if we don’t see him, we’re self-deluded, or blind, or whatever. Their presupposition that the Bible is true really gives them no option here; they have to choose to believe us or the Bible. It’s annoying.
Consider Piper’s audience. He’s speaking to graduates of a Fundagelical Christian College. He needs those people to go out and SELL! SELL! SELL! Jesus. How much harder would it be to contemplate proselytizing someone who truly deconverted because they realized that their religion was nonsense, versus proselytizing those who claim to have deconverted, for whatever stated reason, but who really are at odds with God because they want to sin? The former (like me) might just give proselytizers both barrels (verbally, of course). The latter can be shamed into coming back into the fold. At graduation, he’s gotta rally the troops and convince them that they have a a future beyond answering phones for a pittance in a Republican congresscritter’s office.
It’s all about the Benjamins. If Piper’s imagined God can park an 18-wheerler load of Benjamins in a man’s driveway, he will go on Fox News forthwith kissing Jeeeezus’ foreskin and proclaiming the existence of JC’s Abba faster than Piper can say “Phúc me!”