Social Evils and Reformed Theology
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Pastor John recently led a Q&A with the students
00:00:07.760 | of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia.
00:00:09.660 | Here's one question from one of the students.
00:00:11.920 | - Hello, Dr. John Piper.
00:00:13.680 | I became Reformed after hearing you preach
00:00:16.080 | through John chapter six, 2009, I believe it was.
00:00:19.960 | So I probably wouldn't even be here at Westminster.
00:00:22.680 | I wouldn't even have thought about this school
00:00:24.520 | if it wasn't for just listening to you.
00:00:26.680 | So I'm very much indebted to you.
00:00:28.360 | - You're welcome, Westminster.
00:00:29.560 | (laughing)
00:00:31.800 | - Just keeping in thinking along the lines
00:00:40.320 | of what you said this morning,
00:00:42.200 | I was very intrigued by you unpacking TULIP
00:00:46.680 | and connecting it to just racial harmony.
00:00:50.800 | One of my goals in ministry is I think about doing theology.
00:00:54.240 | I want to connect, I want to bring Reformed theology
00:00:57.480 | to African Americans, black people.
00:01:00.080 | And one of the issues I'm thinking about is
00:01:04.040 | how does Reformed theology speak to certain issues,
00:01:07.400 | cultural issues in the black community?
00:01:09.320 | Some would say that we're going through
00:01:10.440 | a cultural crisis right now.
00:01:12.520 | High unemployment, high abortion rates,
00:01:15.280 | a ton of things, crime rates through the roof,
00:01:18.480 | and certain issues that I want to speak to prophetically.
00:01:23.200 | And I'm wondering, I haven't thought about this
00:01:25.400 | because I've only been Reformed for a few years
00:01:27.520 | and I'm still growing in my theology
00:01:29.160 | and kind of thinking through the implications of it.
00:01:31.560 | But you've been Reformed a lot longer than me,
00:01:33.760 | so probably you have more thoughts on this.
00:01:35.720 | Can Reformed theology speak to specific cultural issues
00:01:40.160 | that would you advise a budding, I guess, theologian
00:01:45.160 | to address specific cultural issues
00:01:47.960 | or maybe just preach the gospel
00:01:50.200 | and as people change, the issues kind of address,
00:01:53.800 | get addressed from a different perspective?
00:01:56.480 | How fruitful would you say Reformed theology is
00:01:59.280 | to addressing particular issues?
00:02:01.240 | And can we expect to see real cultural change
00:02:05.080 | from an endeavor like that, if it's even worth taking on?
00:02:08.360 | Is my question clear?
00:02:09.640 | - Yeah, it's totally worth taking on.
00:02:12.080 | And the grain of truth in the prosperity theology,
00:02:17.080 | the grain of truth in health, wealth, prosperity theology
00:02:21.880 | is that when the gospel takes root in a community,
00:02:25.400 | it changes everything.
00:02:26.560 | You know, it changes everything.
00:02:31.120 | Over the generations, a robust embrace of the gospel
00:02:36.120 | and its fullest and most biblical expression
00:02:41.400 | in Reformed theology will lift people out of poverty
00:02:45.360 | because the roots of poverty are moral roots.
00:02:49.440 | I mean, I watch it in my city.
00:02:50.760 | I live in the city, I look at the kids.
00:02:52.800 | I know why these kids are gonna blow it.
00:02:55.000 | Mom and dad aren't there, right?
00:02:57.200 | It's just not rocket science.
00:03:00.520 | Look at the kids at Hope Academy
00:03:02.200 | and long for them to have anybody at home
00:03:06.840 | to say, "Do your homework."
00:03:08.200 | Because if you just do your homework, you'll flourish.
00:03:13.880 | You'll probably go to college.
00:03:15.600 | You'll be able to make a life.
00:03:18.360 | And if you go home and you just watch TV
00:03:21.000 | and go out and goof off, you won't.
00:03:23.520 | It's a dead end street.
00:03:24.880 | But there's, I mean, the whole substructure
00:03:28.360 | that's there in the middle class
00:03:31.040 | to support efforts at success, where did those come from?
00:03:35.760 | They came from John Calvin and the Apostle Paul
00:03:39.440 | and the Geneva commitments.
00:03:42.000 | The Reformed Protestant work ethic
00:03:45.000 | didn't come out of nowhere.
00:03:47.000 | So the grain of truth in prosperity preaching
00:03:52.000 | is not that he'll put gold rings
00:03:54.160 | and best cars in everybody's hands,
00:03:59.040 | but that he will transform the substructure
00:04:03.000 | of the way we think about life
00:04:05.120 | so that we don't shoot ourselves in the foot
00:04:07.560 | so often in life.
00:04:09.640 | And so my answer is absolutely yes.
00:04:13.720 | Every problem, Reformed theology is relevant
00:04:18.720 | for every problem in every ethnicity
00:04:22.640 | of every stress and stripe.
00:04:26.280 | And the gospel is the core of it.
00:04:28.760 | And I think the way you should think
00:04:30.800 | about Reformed theology in the gospel
00:04:33.040 | is that the gospel of Christ crucified and risen,
00:04:37.960 | providing a righteousness we don't have,
00:04:39.680 | providing forgiveness we can't earn through faith alone
00:04:43.680 | is gloriously powerful when it addresses people
00:04:47.240 | who are the most broken,
00:04:48.440 | people who think they have not a prayer in the world
00:04:50.680 | to be right with God, let alone anybody else.
00:04:53.040 | And Reformed theology are the deepest roots of that
00:04:56.880 | and the highest branches of that
00:04:58.560 | and the farthest extent of that
00:05:00.160 | and the best expression of that
00:05:03.200 | and the kind of whole counsel of God
00:05:05.840 | that surrounds and protects that.
00:05:08.000 | And so you focus on the gospel into broken people's lives
00:05:13.160 | and then you have resources out here
00:05:15.120 | in all this Reformed theology
00:05:16.600 | to bring to bear on the peculiar stresses
00:05:19.080 | they bring to life.
00:05:20.960 | And it is, it is totally relevant.
00:05:23.640 | And the answer to the question, I think,
00:05:26.040 | about whether you just focus on the gospel
00:05:27.880 | or whether you tackle some of these things
00:05:29.280 | is you won't have a choice, right?
00:05:32.120 | I mean, the urban situation with a church
00:05:34.360 | full of unemployed, poor people, you have no choice.
00:05:38.080 | You can't say, oh, we don't deal with that here.
00:05:41.040 | It's over.
00:05:42.840 | That's life.
00:05:44.280 | That's real life.
00:05:45.200 | Are they gonna eat?
00:05:47.160 | So we don't, we middle-class wealthy folks,
00:05:52.160 | we can sort of think that way.
00:05:55.320 | Like, we'll just preach the gospel
00:05:57.320 | because all the presuppositions of prosperity are in place.
00:06:02.320 | Kind of unspoken, being fed.
00:06:08.040 | With a community that's been broken.
00:06:11.640 | And we've gotta be so careful.
00:06:14.000 | We're talking about African-American situation here
00:06:16.000 | because lots of books are being written right now
00:06:18.640 | that there is no such thing as black in America anymore.
00:06:21.360 | There are blacks, right?
00:06:23.200 | There are 50 black cultures in America.
00:06:26.080 | So you can't say the black situation
00:06:28.040 | or the African-American situation.
00:06:29.800 | But the most dysfunctional core of fatherlessness, say,
00:06:36.800 | that is addressable wonderfully by the gospel.
00:06:41.800 | There is no other address.
00:06:46.080 | I mean, everything else has been tried, right?
00:06:48.360 | Everything else has been tried.
00:06:49.680 | Obamacare is not the solution.
00:06:51.640 | And neither was the Great Society.
00:06:53.120 | Neither was anything else that any president's ever brought.
00:06:55.920 | War on poverty has never made a substantial difference.
00:07:00.920 | Whereas the gospel has lifted many people
00:07:04.080 | from the brokenness of their family,
00:07:05.960 | brokenness of their own personal heart.
00:07:09.800 | So more power to anybody who attempts to take on
00:07:14.800 | whatever aspects of American culture
00:07:18.680 | are presently broken and dysfunctional.
00:07:21.880 | Focus on the gospel, but yes, the Reformed theology
00:07:25.960 | as its larger expression and root and branch
00:07:29.520 | is an amazing resource for what you're gonna deal with.
00:07:33.000 | - That clip was taken from Pastor John's
00:07:34.440 | recent interactions with the students
00:07:36.280 | of Westminster Seminary.
00:07:37.840 | And speaking of the social impact
00:07:39.760 | of the gospel Reformed theology in John Calvin,
00:07:43.000 | see Marvin Alasky's lecture,
00:07:44.760 | The Secular Script in the Theater of God,
00:07:47.600 | which was delivered at the 2009
00:07:49.240 | Desiring God National Conference on John Calvin.
00:07:51.960 | It was also later published as a chapter in our book titled
00:07:54.480 | "With Calvin in the Theater of God."
00:07:57.120 | The lecture and the book can both be found free of charge
00:07:59.680 | at our website, desiringgod.org.
00:08:02.480 | And if you'd like to ask Pastor John a question of your own,
00:08:05.160 | please email it to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:08:08.960 | As always, thank you for sending in thoughtful
00:08:11.480 | and great questions.
00:08:12.960 | And thank you for listening.
00:08:13.960 | I'm your host Tony Reinke, I'll see you tomorrow.
00:08:16.160 | (upbeat music)
00:08:18.740 | (upbeat music)
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