Confessions of a (Former?) Reformed Celebrity Fanboy

Some of these thoughts have been gestating for awhile, but ever since I read "A Not-Famous Pastor's Take on Evangelical Hollywood," I have felt somewhat affirmed that I ought to share my more recent struggles. I write this without a bit of cynicism or sarcasm. This just comes from a place of honest struggle.

While I don't wish to dramatize every little decision in my life, one of the greatest struggles I have dealt with is simply coming to terms with the possibility that I may be called to be a pastor. I have touched on this frequently here and there in the last few months on the blogs. The truth is, it is very hard not to compare yourself to the celebrities of the preaching world. I know that this is not something that these godly pastors would want to have happen because of their ministries, but it is a reality for myself and for many others, I am sure.

The truth is, we are living in a day and age when I have at my finger tips every single sermon that John Piper has preached since starting preaching back in the 80s. I can listen to thousands of sermons from the heavyweights. And if you're just listening to listen, there is nothing but healthy and good eating to be done. But what if you're like me, and you want to be a great pastor and show Christ to your people someday? Well, that's when the celebrity pastor thing becomes a little bit trickier. Yes, the responsibility lies with me to be a grown up and have realistic expectations of life in the ministry and not get too excited about Paul or Apollos. But what if I'm not getting sectarian because of Paul or Apollos? What if I'm just paralyzed at the thought that each Sunday when I'm preaching to these people, many of them will be going home and listening to far more substantial, robust, careful preaching than I could ever hope to deliver from my pulpit?

Perhaps the fact that I have 30 years' worth of sermons from Piper, MacArthur, and Ferguson on my iPod cheapens the preaching, just like it cheapens Led Zeppelin's discography to know that you could download the whole thing in 15 minutes from the internet.

Sermons were meant to be studied, poured over, and prayed over. I can get them at the touch of a button. At one point while I was in college, I listened to 8 hours of preaching a night at my overnight job at Target. While I was fed, I never really appreciated the blood, sweat, and tears that must have gone into each and every sermon. The digging, the reading, the praying, the linguistics involved, the people in the pastor's mind as he was working the sermon out... it all gets lost because it's just raw consumption with no interaction, no personal touch.

Morrissey (the former lead singer of the band The Smiths) was being interviewed once, and they asked him what music he's been listening to. He said (and I'm paraphrasing because I can't find the quote), "I just keep listening and listening. I'm like an obese person who eats even when they don't enjoy it. I just consume so much that it all sounds the same to me after awhile." What if we're becoming like that today with regard to preaching. "Preaching? Oh yeah, I can get that whenever I want. Yeah, Piper's pretty good. My pastor doesn't sound anything like him, but at least I can hear him whenever I want."

I think that the celebrity culture that exists in the Reformed world today is introducing a subtle cheapening of preaching. After all, if I can get it and hear it this easily, and it's always so GOOD, how can my pastor's Sunday sermon NOT seem cold, dry, and lifeless in comparison?

I have two great and godly pastors - Pastor George Granberry and Pastor Rick Franks. Pastor Rick has taken me under his wing, as it were and spent a great deal of time with me mentoring, discipling me, and just spending much needed time encouraging me to grow in the Lord and to develop the traits that a good pastor needs to. And you know, as much time as I spend listening to Piper and Keller, one thing I know is that it wasn't John Piper who called me after my daughter had to be admitted overnight to the hospital. And it wasn't John MacArthur who got in touch with me to see how my foot was doing after I sprained it on the job. It was these men. Men who minister to me week in and week out.

I do not envy my pastors. Just like I don't envy the wife of a man who won't cancel his subscription to Maxim magazine. I know the comparison is horrible, but how can the pastor or the wife ever compare to what the man is getting the rest of the week? The airbrushed falsity of the magazine is similar to the airbrushed picture of the life of the much better pastor across the street who comes to you without any baggage, without making any demands of you, without asking anything of you. He delivers the Word, packaged up perfectly to the 'T' and then he goes, once the audio file is finished. Meanwhile, your pastor comes down from the pulpit, perhaps he's a big socially awkward, and maybe he trips when he's coming down from the pulpit. At the church potluck, you hang out with him but have trouble making small talk. It's these flaws, these imperfections that give the preaching of the Word it's power - because it comes from earthen vessels who are unable, under the gaze of their congregations, to present the illusion of perfection or meet any unrealistically high standard.

So as I said, I don't envy my pastors. As long as I keep giving into the Reformed celebrity culture, they are always going to play second fiddle to Keller, Piper, and Ferguson. Who could stand in comparison to such luminaries? Maybe church members like me were really meant to be fed by their pastor and not subsidized the rest of the week by the "big boys." Maybe the internet has presented unprecedented opportunities that I shouldn't be taking advantage of. I don't know... I'm still trying to work through these things. But if I don't verbalize the problems I am seeing right now, will I ever be able to be honest with myself about the strengths and weaknesses of the way in which I was discipled by the radio and iPod for most of my life before finally finding a Reformed church to call home? I really don't know.

[Edit: Let me also suggest that Carl Trueman's post at Reformation 21 is certainly relevant to what I have to say here.]

Piper on M'Cheyne - On Prayer and Preaching

This is a bit old, as far as the internet goes, but I still can't help but recommend the following resource. It is John Piper's biographical message on Robert Murray M'Cheyne from this year's Desiring God Pastor's Conference.

Among the most helpful aspects of what Piper had to say were his parsing out of M'Cheyne's advice to those ministers who tend towards the more intellectual side of things:

Since the intellectual part of the discourse is not that which is most likely to be an arrow in the conscience, those pastors who are intellectual men must bestow tenfold more prayerfulness on their work, if they would have either their own or their people's souls affected under their word. If we are ever to preach with compassion for the perishing, we must ourselves be moved by those same views of sin and righteousness which moved the human soul of Jesus.

As I sense the time for seminary drawing nearer, I am more and more frequently made aware of my own prayerlessness and the lack of real faith that such prayerlessness manifests. Elsewhere, M'Cheyne says something else that causes this intellectual to pause:

We are often for preaching to awaken others; but we should be more upon praying for it. Prayer is more powerful than preaching. It is prayer that gives preaching all its power. . . .

As I see it, we need men like this - because I would never naturally come to conclusions like this - and yet I know that they are truths which are Biblical and which come from only a few short years of M'Cheyne's experience.

So anyway, as I say - definitely read/watch/listen to Piper's talk on M'Cheyne. It's absolutely worth it.

This Photo Needs a Caption!

I'll start it off: "John demonstrates for his barber the 'fu-man-chu'."

Don't Waste Your Life Sentence

Piper's Warning for Young & Restless Reformers

John Piper was asked whether there was any warning which he might have for the Young, Restless, and Reformed crowd. He responded that the greatest tendency for this crowd (and I feel he was talking to me in his response) is to idolize theology and not God Himself, much as modern worshippers idolize "loving God" rather than God Himself.

Reformed people tend to be thoughtful. That is, they come to the Bible and they want to use their minds to make sense of it. The best of them want to make sense of all of the Bible and do not pick and choose saying, "I don't like that verse. That sounds like an Arminian verse, so we will set it aside." No! Fix your brain, don't fix the Bible.

The kind of person that is prone to systematize and fit things together, like me, is wired dangerously to begin to idolize the system. I don't want to go here too much, because I think the whiplash starts to swing the other direction, and we minimize the system, thinking, and doctrine to the degree that we start to lose a foothold in the Bible...

So that would be my flag, the danger of intellectualism. And maybe the danger of certain aspects of it becoming so argumentative or defensive that it becomes unnecessarily narrow.

He then reminds us of how we should be doing things:

We should be intellectually and emotionally more engaged with the person of Christ, the person of God—the Trinity—than we are with thinking about him. Thinking about God and engaging with him are inextricably woven together. But the reason you are reading the Bible, and the reason you are framing thoughts about God from the Bible, is to make your way through those thoughts to the real person.

Using Technology to the Glory of God

I have been half tempted to start calling this blog "Bring the Kindles," but it just wouldn't have the same sort of ring. Also, I doubt that our democratic process of decision making here would pan out in my favor with said proposal. All that to say, I'm here to pitch to you that e-readers are awesome and that you all should get one. I want to run over some of my experience with using my own e-reader to the glory of God.
When I first purchased my Kindle, one of the first things I did was download the ESV Study Bible from Amazon's online store for $9.99. It takes some getting used to, but it's pretty cool being able to carry that big fat study Bible around in my lunchbox to work each day.
As Reformed thinkers, we're really pretty lucky. Most of the stuff that we have that's worth reading was written by dead guys whose descendants aren't exactly looking for royalties anymore. This means that while the Emergents (are there any left?) are out there buying Brian McLaren's not-so-generous piece of un-orthodoxy, we are in the blessed position of being able to get almost all of our food for free online.
The next thing I did was download lots and lots of Jonathan Edwards sermons, place them in a MS Word document, and convert them into a Kindle-friendly format (MOBI). I've done this with virtually every Jonathan Edwards book, since they're all available online. Then I did the same thing with John Owen. In fact, I'm 90% done with reading Mortification of Sin in Believers, and it has been life-changing. This book alone has made me so grateful for the Kindle.
The last and greatest feat was creating a readable version of Calvin's Institutes for my Kindle. I only have Volume 1 completed, but a book like that deserves tender loving care.
It's pretty incredible to be able to read these books that are usually so large and clumsy and difficult to hold and be able to walk around my house or even let the Kindle read them to me aloud if my hands are busy.
There are lots of possibilities. If you have the right program, you can convert the many books in PDF format that Desiring God gives away for download into Kindle format, as well. I've got God is the Gospel, Desiring God, and Don't Waste Your Life loaded up. Granted, converting some of these PDFs can be a pain, but most of them are very easy and quick to do.

Here are some of the best sources I've found for free online Reformed books:

Puritan Library
Desiring God
Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Monergism's Large Section of Free Books

Feel free to let me know about other good resources for free online books.

Thoughts From a First Time Atlas Shrugged Reader

I want to talk about a book. I know, I know; that's so old fashioned. After all, when was the last time we actually talked about literature on this blog? Well I'm not sure, and I'm too lazy to comb through the archives and find out. But I venture to guess it's been a while [ed. Josh posted one on Jan. 10th, you dope].

After having received an Amazon Kindle as my early birthday present, I quickly set to reading Ayn Rand's ubiquitous novel Atlas Shrugged, a book which I have been intimidated by for years, every time I walked past it in my high school library. While I don't plan on doing an in-depth review of this book, I have finished almost half of it and wanted to share a few thoughts.

I'm approaching the book with half-delight and half-dread. Here's what I'm excited about. I know that Rand was somewhat of an anarcho-capitalist, and I have long been drawn to the libertarian/anarchistic view of government espoused by the likes Mises and Rothbard.

I somewhat dreaded reading it, in part because of her atheistic views. Now, I'm not afraid that she'll make persuasive arguments for atheism, per se. Rather what I'm afraid is that she will present a compelling defense of laissez-faire capitalism, but that it will lean completely upon her atheistic presuppositions. That, and the book's just really long.

I can report, having made it to the halfway point of the book, that her defense of capitalism, while certainly consistent with her worldview of "man as a heroic being" does not, to my mind, suffer if one holds theistic presuppositions.

One thing which I have noticed is that Rand's concept of pleasure and delight in others has tended to make me a better worshipper of God. Here is what I mean by that. At one point, Rand describes two friends:

Francisco seemed to laugh at things because he saw something much greater. Jim laughed as if he wanted to let nothing remain great.

In another passage:

Of what account are praise and adulation from men whom you don't respect? Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?

In another location, a character remarks that

If ever the pleasure of one has to be bought by the pain of the other, there better be no trade at all. A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud.

Now, certainly, a statement like this applies to economics and the "looters" as Rand calls those who favor redistribution of wealth (the Robin Hood mentality). In fact, that's what she's referring to, in the context of the book. But an absolute statement like this applies broadly to many things, and what I am thinking of in particular is the implications of a statement like this for worshipping God. If Rand is correct, and this principle may be applied broadly, then worship of God should not seem like a sacrifice. Rather, it should be a matter of the creature delighting in a being who is to be greatly admired. In Atlas Shrugged, it becomes quite apparent that the concept of admiration is very important. The characters of Dagney and Reardon, early on, consider one another the only people worth admiring, and it is quite apparent that both have been looking for someone worthy of their admiration. This leads to an intense romantic relationship, but one just wants to scream at the page, "Look even higher! There is an even more admirable person whose value is infinite! You will never run out of worship if the one you admire is infinitely worthy of that admiration, such as God is."

Really, the book has convinced me that Ayn Rand has had a profound influence upon John Piper's Christian Hedonism. Now, while he has certainly said as much in his own writings, I am almost tempted to argue that the influence of Rand is the thing which causes Piper to stand out most from the evangelical/Reformed preachers of our day. There are times in Atlas Shrugged when it almost feels like Piper is the one writing. The concept of worship and delight and admiration are so prevalent in both Piper and Rand that it seems beyond coincidental. While Piper normally points to the Apostle Paul, Jonathan Edwards, and C.S. Lewis as having the greatest influence on his Christian Hedonism, it's almost as if he's embarrassed to include (perhaps justifiably) Rand in his list.

The other side of this coin is that the overlapping areas of Rand, Edwards, Lewis, and Piper demonstrate, I think, that even in the musings of an atheistic philosopher who would most certainly repudiate the worldviews of these Christian thinkers, there is nevertheless a fascinating similarity. The desire to worship God is a universal desire and in my opinion, Rand is simply giving voice to this human need while at the same time "suppressing the truth in unrighteousness." She has taken this desire to worship the greater and most admirable and cut the possibility of God (the greatest and most admirable of all beings) out of the running. When you do that, the only thing you have left to worship with any admirable qualities is a human. In fact, Rand's views of gender roles echo this:

the essence of femininity is hero worship — the desire to look up to man...an ideal woman is a man-worshipper, and an ideal man is the highest symbol of mankind.

I could share more, but I'm only half done with the book. I'll share more, later. By the way, I know that there are like, scholars who spend their whole life studying Ayn Rand, and for my own sake I hope none of them read this, because they'll probably tell me I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Piper at Angola Prison

From the Horses' Mouth

Piper on the New Calvinists

If You Are Late to the Discussion

Back in June Christianity Today posted a primer on the current justification debate, particularly the one going on between John Piper and N.T. Wright. This primer is a great introduction to the main points of contention between Piper and Wright. If you are new to the "New Perspective on Paul" controversy, this is a great place to start. Some of the issues addressed in this article are the problem, the righteousness of God, the Gospel and the future justification. It is these last two issues, the Gospel and future justification that are of particular interest to me.

The primer summarizes Piper and Wright's understanding of the Gospel in the following way.

Piper: The heart of the gospel is the good news that Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead. What makes this good news is that Christ's death accomplished a perfect righteousness before God and suffered a perfect condemnation from God, both of which are counted as ours through faith alone, so that we have eternal life with God in the new heavens and the new earth.

Wright: The gospel is the royal announcement that the crucified and risen Jesus, who died for our sins and rose again according to the Scriptures, has been enthroned as the true Lord of the world. When this gospel is preached, God calls people to salvation, out of sheer grace, leading them to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as the risen Lord.

The primer concludes with the area that I am most concerned with in the New Perspective, that of future justification.

Piper: Present justification is based on the substitutionary work of Christ alone, enjoyed in union with him through faith alone. Future justification is the open confirmation and declaration that in Christ Jesus we are perfectly blameless before God. This final judgment accords with our works. That is, the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives will be brought forward as the evidence and confirmation of true faith and union with Christ. Without that validating transformation, there will be no future salvation.

Wright: Present justification is the announcement issued on the basis of faith and faith alone of who is part of the covenant family of God. The present verdict gives the assurance that the verdict announced on the Last Day will match it; the Holy Spirit gives the power through which that future verdict, when given, will be seen to be in accordance with the life that the believer has then lived.

The Reformed Comedy Hour Presents Dr. Dan Sweatt

I may be the first - or the three-hundredth - person to react to this sermon by Dr. Dan Sweatt of Berean Baptist Church which was preached back in April of this year. I'm always the last draw at the gunfight, it seems. Either way, please forgive the insensitive title and the excessive polemics. I rarely indulge myself like this. And besides; I'm almost certain Dr. Sweatt will never read this because he doesn't strike me as the kind of man who reads things from the people he rails against.

[Another disclaimer: I am well aware that this is all old hat. I've heard these things all my life. I started saying half of it when I first came out of my mother's womb, before I learned how to read the Bible. I've heard it from family, from teachers at school, and from people who don't understand what Calvinists believe. So why bother giving Sweatt any attention at all? Mainly, because I just want everyone who is interested to see that this sort of error still floats around out there, even after all these years and Time magazine cover stories and such, the people who hate us still refuse to hear us.]

I want to address in broad terms the real issue Sweatt is dealing with in this sermon. He's concerned, because he's just read the book Young, Restless, and Reformed and he thinks all the young fundamentalists are leaving their churches and becoming Piper-ites. He thinks that the colleges are all going to get closed down and the windows are going to be boarded up [13:37; 16:41]. He thinks that everyone's going to abandon inerrancy for a new church order with John Piper at the top as the protestant pope who interprets Scripture for all these poor Calvin-worshippers who don't know how to read the Bible for themselves [32:45] (then why didn't they just stay Arminians!? Ha ha ha!)

But as I was working today and listening to Sweatt's sermon, I was struck by a few horrifying things which I am literally unable to go without commenting on.

[32:00] What is the most familiar New Testament verse that every child in Sunday School learns? John 3:16...For God so loved the cosmos. [In a mimicking tone] 'Well it doesn't really mean that. You know, He only loves the elect. He doesn't love everybody.' That whosoever believeth... 'Well it doesn't really mean whosoever. You gotta understand. It doesn't really mean that.' We tell our people, "Read the Bible. Study the Bible. Trust the Bible." And then we tell them that it doesn't say what it means!

Other than the fact that that last sentence was nonsense... I'm sorry, Dr. Sweatt, but does part of being a fundamentalist mean that you don't actually listen to the people you decide to straw-man? For most of the fundamentalists I know, it does. Is there any Calvinist reading this blog who would interrupt someone reading the direct text of John 3:16 and say, "It doesn't really mean that!"? I mean, come on! John 3:16 literally reads, "God so loved the entire created order that the believing ones would not perish but have everlasting life." In the original text, the word "whosoever" is totally absent. I love this verse, and so do all the Calvinists I know. Not only for its simple truths, but because it teaches specifically Reformed things like particular redemption (notice that according to this verse the benefits of Christ's death accrue only to those who believe). Lets move on to even more outrageous caricatures.

[35:22] Who was Charles Spurgeon's successor at London Tabernacle? [A: Rev. Dr. Arthur T. Pierson] You don't know, do you? Who succeeded Calvin at Geneva? [A: Theodore Beza] Who succeeded John Knox in Scotland? [A: Lawson of Aberdeen]...Now let me show you something. Calvinism has never in the history of the world - the history of Christianity - survived the generation of charismatic leaders. It's never happened. When Spurgeon died...50 years after Spurgeon was dead, the Baptist movement in England was also dead...The point is, who succeeded Martin Luther!? [A: Johann the Constant] ... Every single time in history, these charismatic leaders come to the fore... and when they die, the movement dies. And here's the reason; this is important. The theology will not support church growth and evangelism. It will not do it. If you believe the doctrine, if you believe the theology, you will not win souls!...Find me in history any exception. It never has.

Either this man is a liar, or he is totally ignorant. Well, or he's bad at logic. Or all of the above. Or this is all one very long, sophisticated, and highly ironic piece of first-rate performance art. First of all, the very first protestant missionaries were Calvinists from Geneva! Second of all, Spurgeon left the Baptists due to the downgrade controversy. It was Spurgeon's belief that the compromises leading to the downgrade controversy are what were leading to Baptist declines in England. Thirdly, Calvin is a terrible example, because his successor, Beza was a highly influential theologian and is still read by many today. Simply because Dr. Sweatt doesn't know who Beza is (or doesn't think his audience knows) doesn't prove anything. The same follows with Sweatt's analysis of Knox and Luther. I just wanted to print Sweatt's ignorant and illogical statements so the world (or at least thinking Reformed people) could see the kind of butchered logic and ridiculous truth stretching this man has to use in order to argue against Calvinism.

The only time in this man's entire hour-long self-indulgent diatribe where he even uses the Bible to deal with Calvinism is when he quotes his trusty old friend, John 3:16. He talks about himself and how awesome it is to be him [22:30; 24:15] far more than he even bothers dealing with Calvinists in Scriptural terms.

Some more brilliant nuggets: "[10:45] Today, academic discussion is the reason to be. We gather in great groups to discuss theology. We used to gather in great groups to plan our strategy for reaching the lost." Since he's so obsessed with Piper after reading Hansen's book...click here to see all the resources at Piper's website dealing with evangelism.

"These young men...have run right past a Biblical position... and into the arms of John Piper." Again, the quotes just get better.

More could be said, but it's bedtime. Enjoy the sermon, everyone. You'll howl in pain and laughter; often at the same time.

Make War

Jonathan Edwards learned it, John Piper learned it, and so did John Owen

I couldn't help but be reminded of Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon on Divine Light while reading John Owen today. John Owen writes:

Moreover, be not contented to have right notions of the love of Christ in your minds unless you can attain a gracious taste of it in your hearts; no more than you would be to see a feast or banquet richly prepared and not partake of it for your refreshment. It is of that nature that we may have a spiritual sensation of it in our minds; whence it is compared by the Spouse to apples and flagons of wine. We may taste that the Lord is gracious; and if we find nor a relish of it in our hearts, we shall not long retain the notion of it in our minds. Christ is the meat, the bread, the food of our souls. Nothing in Him is of a higher spiritual nourishment than His love, which we should always desire.

In this love He is glorious; for it is such as no creatures, angels or men, could have the least conception of, before its manifestation by its effects; and, after its manifestation, it is in this world absolutely incomprehensible. (1:338)

Jonathan Edwards 50 years later would write:

Thus there is a difference between having an opinion, that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty. The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the latter only by seeing the countenance. There is a wide difference between mere speculative rational judging any thing to be excellent, and having a sense of its sweetness and beauty. The former rests only in the head, speculation only is concerned in it; but the heart is concerned in the latter. When the heart is sensible of the beauty and amiableness of a thing, it necessarily feels pleasure in the apprehension. It is implied in a person's being heartily sensible of the loveliness of a thing, that the idea of it is sweet and pleasant to his soul; which is a far different thing from having a rational opinion that it is excellent.

Christ is Everything!

Piper on Preaching

Regaining Perspective During Hard Times

I have been thinking a great deal about the economic situation we find ourselves in. As a young person with two children, I find myself tremendously angry with the older generation because I know that it is they and their entitlement mentality which will be enslaving my children and I for many many years paying off the massive debt that they have accumulated for themselves in a matter of a few short years (federal deficits result in inflation, which is a form of hidden taxation which hurts low-income people the most). I find myself reading books on the Great Depression (Murray Rothbard's book America's Great Depression is quite good), and thinking about how things will turn out in the long run. "Will massive inflation set in?" (There's really no doubt that it will; I just think about it a lot.) "Will I be able to put a roof over my childrens' heads?" "What kind of world will we live in three or four years from now?" "Will America still be standing, or will it eventually collapse, as all Empires have in the past?" "Do I need to learn survival tactics and other stuff that crazy mountain-men are experts at?" These are questions I find myself laboring over. And they are the wrong questions for me - as a person who loves God and loves His glory - to be laboring over.

What I'm trying to say is, I've lost perspective. I have focused intensely on the human side of things, on the fiscal side of things, but I have lost focus on the big-picture questions about what economic downturns mean for the promotion of God's glory. Historically speaking, economic downturns usually mean religious revival (a subject which probably deserves further study and consideration in times like these, to be sure). This is of the utmost importance to those of us who love the glory of God and want His name to be delighted in above all else.

I really want to thank John Piper for the video below because of the encouragement and focus it helped me to regain. I hope it will benefit the rest of you as well.

It Doesn't Get More Christmas-y Than This!

Nothing gets me in the holiday spirit like watching my favorite living author make a snow angel.

One Very Good Reason For The Rising Popularity of John Piper

I am acquainted with numerous non-Calvinists who are baffled by the rising popularity of Calvinism, and almost all of them believe that John Piper is responsible in a large part. Watch this video for a taste of Piper's approach. It may help some to understand the beauty of the Calvinistic worldview, and its holistic, fulfilling, God-centered worldview. Mark Driscoll posted this video on his Resurgence blog, but I liked it so much, I just had to share it here.



I want this for myself, and for those around me.