Disqualifying Dad (An Unlikely Defense of John Piper)

John Piper is a well-known 77-year old Minnesota pastor and media presence with four sons, three of whom currently do not rock his spiritual boat. Barnabas is a pastor in Nashville, Benjamin a construction worker and Karsten a college English teacher. If either of the latter two are not believers in good standing at their local churches, we certainly never hear about it.

Yay for good parenting doing what it is supposed to do.

Abraham Piper is another story. The man even has his own Wikipedia entry and a TikTok following of over two million for his two pages, self-described as “a smidge of sacrilege” and peppered with salty language. Not a believer, and not only out and proud of it, but formally excommunicated to boot, and dedicated to taking shots at the faith and publicly mocking his father’s beliefs.

The Biblical Qualifications

If we search the scriptures, it’s hard not to notice that Abraham presents a potential problem for his father, both in Timothy and Titus:

“Appoint elders in every town … if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.”

“An overseer must … manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?”

These are Paul’s qualifications for elders/overseers in the local church. I have written at some length on the meaning of the terms translated “debauchery” and “insubordination”. These are not qualities anyone could reasonably ascribe to small children, but only to mid- to late-teens at the earliest. I have met primary school children who are a handful. I have yet to meet one who is sensual, drunken, lawless, debauched or given to attending orgies. So then, one of the many signs a man is suited for service as a potential elder in the church is the good conduct of his children, even into their late teens.

Thus the problem Abraham presents for his father is not just emotional. Many think it should be career ending.

Disqualified from the Ministry

Here’s one fellow who at least considers the possibility, asking Doug Wilson whether he thinks Abraham’s apostasy disqualifies John from ministry:

“I read ‘The Neglected Qualification,’ [Wilson’s book] and think you make some excellent points about the Bible’s requirement that an elder have believing children and how this requirement is often neglected or ignored. In light of the views you express in this book, do you believe John Piper is disqualified from ministry as a result of his son Abraham? My understanding is that Abraham was excommunicated from Piper’s church and that he is a very public atheist on social media (I believe you have even interacted with some of his material). In the book, you put forward the standard that an elder should resign if his child is excommunicated from the church. Since Abraham was excommunicated, would you then conclude that Piper should have resigned from the pastorate? Would you advise against listening to Piper’s sermons and podcasts and reading his books since he is not Biblically qualified to be an elder? I have found Piper to be a faithful pastor whose work has been really helpful to me and who I enjoy listening to, but when I consider the arguments you put forward in the book, it’s hard for me to deny that he is Biblically disqualified from ministry, even though I don’t want to come to that conclusion. Am I missing something?”

Good question, William, though it raises a bunch of others in the process.

Gallons of Cheap Sangria

Here’s one: Why did Abraham Piper first abandon the faith at age nineteen and get himself excommunicated? Piper answers that himself with characteristic bluntness and flippancy:

“At first I pretended that my reasoning was high-minded and philosophical, but really I just wanted to drink gallons of cheap sangria and sleep around.”

Credit, at least, to Abraham for not playing victim and claiming it was all Dad’s fault.

Both sexual immorality and drunkenness are legitimate biblical reasons for breaking fellowship with a professing Christian. Both also constitute debauchery, the word used in Titus 1:6 to describe conduct that would disqualify one’s father from recognition as an elder. (Also, the teenaged Piper had pedestrian taste in alcohol, but that’s not an offense for which Christians usually exclude one another from fellowship.)

But does Abraham’s unapologetic rejection of the faith disqualify his father from ministering the word of God? Should John Piper’s sermons, podcasts and books all go in the bin because of his son’s dissolute life and public mockery? If we think so, we might be guilty of muddling together a bunch of things scripture keeps distinct.

Not Happy Playing Judge

Full disclosure: I am not a John Piper fan for various reasons. I am also not happy with the idea of playing his judge. Here are a few issues I haven’t seen addressed:

1. Exceptions and norms. Abraham Piper has three brothers who did not apostatize, as well as an adopted sister who has gone on with the Lord, which makes John Piper and his wife something in the range of 80% successful in sharing their faith with the next generation. We might say that characteristically John Piper’s children believe and are not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. Abraham is the sole outlier. Is it possible that when the apostle Paul listed this qualification for eldership, he too had in mind what was characteristic of a man rather than exceptional, as is often the case when the writers of scripture assess the lives of others? I for one am not prepared to rule that out.
2. As far as I can tell, Abraham is no longer a member of John’s household. I agree that, taken on its own, we could read the Titus passage to suggest that every one of an elder’s children must be believers walking consistently with their profession for the remainder of their natural lives. But when set side by side with Timothy, as I believe it should be, the intended message seems to be not that we should judge an elder’s fitness for service on the basis of the beliefs or behaviors of his independent adult children, but by how he manages those under his own roof, where he might be expected to have a measure of control. One of the ways my father managed his teenagers was to require decent behavior while living at home. If we couldn’t agree to that, it was time to go. For a while, I did. I do not believe anything Abraham is doing today disqualifies his father from serving as an elder. The question is not how does Abraham conduct himself today, but how did Abraham conduct himself when he was living at home?
3. Bible teaching is not equivalent to eldership. That is to say, a man may be a gifted and much-blessed Bible teacher while not qualifying (or even desiring) to serve as an elder. The reasons need not be moral. He might be too young for the job, be unmarried, have no children, or have a pre-salvation divorce in his track record. There is no biblical reason to believe a man who does not currently meet every Pauline standard for serving as a shepherd / overseer / elder / local church leader is thereby entirely disqualified from public teaching or ministry. This confusion between apples and oranges probably comes from the uncritical acceptance of the modern pastoral role rather than from scripture. Fitness for verbal participation in local church ministry is based on spiritual gift and meeting accepted standards of Christian conduct, not on the behavior of one’s adult children. Abraham’s conduct, if it happened under John’s roof, might disqualify his father from serving as an elder. I cannot see how it invalidates the content of his books, sermons or podcasts if his behavior is personally unimpeachable. Those ought to be judged on their own merits or lack thereof.
4. Local church matters are none of our business. I’m discussing the Pipers today purely for their illustrative value and because they are most definitely in the public domain by choice, not because my opinion of them matters a whit. What John Piper’s local church does about his ministry is none of my concern. Biblically speaking, each local church is an autonomous entity. We know this (for one) because the glorified Christ addresses churches individually. There is no such thing as a denomination or a “session” in scripture to pass judgment on those whose media presence in the Christian community transcends the local church level. That makes all discussion of what should or shouldn’t be done about John Piper somewhat academic.

To His Own Master

Church eldership is a tough job. Not everyone qualifies, and not everyone who qualifies at one point in time will qualify for his entire life. Kids have a funny way of making their own choices in life, and everybody but full-blown determinists recognizes this. It’s sad when a child apostatizes, but it is also quite common, and I do not find it is always a reflection of bad parenting. Parents may bring up their children in the training and instruction of the Lord only to find they reject the truth as adults and go their own way. I do not waste time speculating that the parents were insincere, lacked diligence, or failed to pray for their children as much as I do for mine.

Still less do I judge the contents of a man’s sermons, podcasts, books and blog posts on what his children do or say. It is before his own Master that he stands or falls. One day we may discover he was a much better parent than I am.