Not at all. Faith is a gift of God’s grace. To be able to love and trust Christ in the midst of suffering is glorious indeed. This is what makes Jesus look beautiful. Not the death of the girl or the suffering this causes. It’s not the only thing that glorifies God but it’s one of the things.
i think (but obviously can’t verify) that JP was establishing a point here about God being enough, despite losing people, potentially forever. …well, ok, yes, God is so good that His presence would comfort, but i think God is better than a warm blanket and a cup of tea. I think He fixes things.
was JP going for a “it is well with my soul” sort of thing? if so, fair enough…in this life, these tragedies happen, and God is our Comforter. but it isn’t empty “there, there” comfort…it’s “behold I make all things new” comfort. that is to me why it is “well with my soul” (i hope i have that kind of faith if i do go through horrible times).
JP is interesting. i have actually agreed with him a couple times, at least in theory. he has come out, all guns blazing, at the abomination known as prosperity gospel. he also was asked if he thought it was ok for Christians to drink (really a dumb question IMO, the answer is too individual to have any meaning as a general instruction), he said he felt it was fine to have a beer…but not so fine if you do it in such a way as to cause an ex-alcoholic to start again. that to me is orthodox Paul…all things are permissible, but not all beneficial, and it’s better to not cause your sister or brother to stumble.
he’s an angry guy, JP…he really is. i find it a bit disturbing, especially when too often i find that same anger in me…maybe God will help him start to free himself with the discovery that double predestination is just as evil as prosperity gospel, that limited atonement hurts just as many as unwise drinkers around ex-alkies. i hope God doesn’t stop this process in me, too. choosing the right things to be angry at, and not hurting people in the process.
The source of Piper’s remarks regarding his little girl: (imo)
He merely substituted things/people most dear to him. He may lose all but God is the strength of his heart. Yes, his Calvinism is abominable, but this remark (as Sonia has also elucidated) appears to be a cry of faith from the darkness.
I think you are right here, Cindy 
. However, when one knows the full context and all allowances have been made I still go with some of the gut reaction that left me feeling very disquieted and actually upset last Friday when I listened to this broadcast. Well the broadcast wasn’t addressed to me – it’s addressed to fellow Americans – but I’m thinking about the loving American Tulip Calvinist Mom who is actually numbed by grief and feels rage at God when her little boy or girl dies (the sort of emotions C.S. Lewis explored in ‘A Grief Observed’). And this woman is actually hearing what John Piper is saying in terms of Calvinist teachings about assurance being a sign of election. I do believe it is the image of God in me that makes me feel concern for this hypothetical woman – and my heart goes out to them (and to each and all of them).
The mother heart of God – that is God’s inclusive love - seems to me a genuine Universalist insight. A number of our women prophets across the centuries – Julian of Norwich, Hannah Whitall Smith, Dora van Assen – have voiced strikingly similar insights about this. I find the story of Ann Bathurst particularly moving in this regard – concerning her struggle with hard-line doctrines of election and the fate of her dead children; yes, very moving indeed (it seems to me that visions often come to people when the insights of the heart are being suppressed by a logic that makes the thoughts of the heart unthinkable)
Ann Bathurst, of London told how, on June 23rd 1678,’ a year of Jubilee was proclaimed, and prophesied to me by an Angel or Spirit in a Dream or vision when another Spirit [was] given me that was accompanied with new understanding’’. She described how ‘Christ was One with me, and I one in Him, the blessed Union, which I had long desired’.
Then she was seemingly visited fleetingly by her dead children, who came to her ‘like two Bright Sparks, one after another, and entered into this great Light and became one with it’. The memory provoked a poignant physical reaction, which she interpreted as a spiritual sign:
‘O how my Breasts do warm me with the hot milk: where are thy Children Good Lord? and what is this for? I am even in tears, lest the Child should want it, whilst I am as over full with it. O what! Even what is this for?
Bathurst’s ecstasy appears to have unleashed a massive emotional catharsis, and the maternal grief and fear surrounding the loss of two infants welled up to the surface in her union with love itself. Crucially, the visions led Bathurst to a ‘new understanding’ of God’s nature. Part of the release which she experienced in being reunited with Christ (and, in Christ, with her children) had to do with her own inner religious crisis. In the course of her dramatic epiphany she became ‘undeceived’ of ‘the doctrine of Election’ and persuaded of God’s gift of universal grace.
What a beautiful, beautiful story, Dick. My heart does go out to any poor mother who’s been told her lost babies have gone to hell or to limbo or anywhere else but the arms of Jesus. What an obscene doctrine imagined by harsh men who have never felt the love and tenderness of nurturing a child! (I’m thinking Augustine here.) I can’t tell you how angry I feel when I think of such a man decreeing that unregenerate infants will suffer the fires of hell and the “just” wrath of an angry god for all eternity. How was this heresy ever permitted to permeate the teachings of the “church?” It’s a travesty to saddle any grieving mother or father, sister or brother, aunt or uncle or friend with such hateful and hurtful “doctrine.”
I didn’t watch the video (or listen – whatever it was) as I can’t abide Piper. I’m sure he did what he truly believed was best, but I wasn’t aware that he said the only reason he could tell his little daughter was with God was the assurance he felt. THAT, my brother, is a pile of . . . . I agree that scripture offers no more and no less hope for children in the age to come than it does to adults. THAT part is true. Especially the no less part. Which is to say that the Good Shepherd will lead, carry, or drag ALL of His lost sheep home because that’s just the way He is. His justice and His mercy are the same. And if His mercy doesn’t look like justice to some, that is only because of the hardness of our hearts.
Love you, Brother
Cindy
Piper believes that all children go the heaven when they die.
It’s the only truly human thing TO believe, Michael, which is why the idea of limbo was invented – to calm the fears of parents who’ve lost precious little ones. Nevertheless, limbo was not (unsurprisingly) enough to give the needed comfort. So we invented the age of accountability – not out of whole cloth, but very close to it.
Scripture doesn’t support limbo at all. That’s a total fabrication.
Paul made a statement that once he was alive before he knew the law, but then when the law came, sin awoke and he died. This has to refer to both/and/or the law as delineated in scripture and the law as in the moral law instinctively known by all people, since Paul, earlier in Romans, explains that all people are accountable; the pagans because of this universal knowledge of God that comes to them via the universe itself, and the Jews because they are the recipients of the teachings (Torah). Nevertheless, all die, even those who haven’t sinned according to the sin of Adam. Therefore I would submit that this passage doesn’t support an age of accountability. (I’m arguing against the logic of Piper’s position on children, btw, not against your statements, Michael.)
As you know, I and most of the people here (including you yourself) agree that children do not “go to hell.” We just carry it a little bit further in saying that NO ONE goes to the traditional hell. Yes, there is retribution, but rehabilitative retribution – and it doesn’t last forever. By Piper’s analysis, if he believes that all children go to heaven but many adults do not go to heaven, that poor woman who drowned her children to save them from hell was acting with perfect compassion and logic. This is a doctrine of devils. It takes logic and stands it on its ear, and I don’t even know what to say it does to the mercies of our loving Father. Yes, He certainly has made provision for children – ALL His children.
Love,
your sis, Cindy
OK Michael apologies again - if the following is true (and I have no reason to doubt the source)then yes you are right -
*John Piper, after acknowledging the presence and importance of original sin, says that if a person lacks the natural capacity to see the revelation of God’s will or God’s glory then that person’s sin would not remain—God would not bring the person into final judgment for not believing what he had no natural capacity to see. In response to Romans 1, which speaks of Gods revelation through nature as leaving those who have never heard the gospel without excuse, Piper says if a person did not have access to the revelation of God’s glory—did not have the natural capacity to see it and understand it—then Paul implies they would have an excuse at the judgment. He concludes:
The point for us is that even though we human beings are under the penalty of everlasting judgment and death because of the fall of our race into sin and the sinful nature that we all have, nevertheless God only executes this judgment on those who have the natural capacity to see his glory and understand his will, and refuse to embrace it as their treasure. Infants, I believe, do not yet have that capacity; and therefore, in God’s inscrutable way, he brings them under the forgiving blood of his Son.*
So John Piper has softened traditional teaching here – the Westminster Confession is not as compassionate - that’s to be applauded 
. However I wonder at what age Piper thinks a child becomes responsible? According to John Piper’s belief system -
The faith that God is going to get you through is actually a gift of God to the elect – it’s the gift of assurance (it is only given to the elect)
You cannot be sure that your children once they reach a certain age (whatever that is)are numbered with the elect – and though it may seem tough, you can have faith that you will one day rejoice that God is just if a child of yours is actually one of the reprobate to be tortured for eternity. As dear Cindy points out - it’s at this point no consolation can be found.
And feelings of anger against your sovereign God during tragedy is a sign of rebellious reprobation
Indeed, there may be a deep cry from his heart as you suggest which is cracking his own logic at this point in the presentation; I really hope as he reaches a crescendo in the video it is a measure of his own perplexity here.
Following the YouTube links when I saw this video I was also disturbed that John Piper chaired a symposium on the murder of Michel de Servetus. After some bullish and very selective excuses had been given for Calvin, one panel member summed up by saying ‘Michel de Servetus was a bad man. He got burnt at the stake. That’s it – next question!’ And the panel – including John Piper - and the audience burst into amused laughter. So I agree Cindy 
, John Piper is generally not what the Doctor ordered for a night in.
Its’ hard getting the right balance of trying to see the good in someone who is a child of God (as John Piper is - and can obviously be a man of great compassion) without being afraid to stand in our truth and stand up for our own principles and beliefs and call a spade a spade. I just want people to feel OK if, like me, John Piper’s video did not speak to their condition – that’s all
Regarding Sonia’s question about Piper having been a racist – although he’s repented of it; well the beliefs of Five point Calvinism have often fostered racist ideology – because they have drawn the line of election and reprobation racially. I don’t think that Five Point Calvinists have been innovative in non-racist theology (although moderate Calvinists played a role in the struggle against slavery in England). Certainly I’ve been very impressed doing the biogs on Pog’s thread at how many men and women in the old Universalist Church of America were instrumental in the struggle against slavery because of their belief in human solidarity under God. They had their first black pastors in the second half of the nineteenth century (The first black Universalist minister was Joseph Jordan (1842–1901)). Good for them and we should celebrate them – and I’m glad John Piper has had his mind opened by their legacy.
Love to you all
Dick
Michael I was going to delete my posts above. Btu I’ll let it stand. I just always want to put some markers down at time like this. You have a strong and mature faith - you can see the good in John Piper without being phased - and that’s great. Perhaps my faith is weaker - although I’m no shrinking violet. I just know that well I actually watched a few videos by John Piper who I was only aware of as a sort of universalist pantomime villain before - the one about a faith as cold and sharp as steel, the one about the herem massacres, the one about Servetus, and the one about the child going through the car windscreen. I’m still in one piece - but I wanted to give a ‘handle with care and stand firm warning’ to any who are truly young in the universalist faith here.
Blessings to you - and I really have no more to say now
You’ve taught me a lot about John Piper - and its not all bad
Blessings
Dick
Cindy,
Eternal conscious suffering isn’t something I hold to because I think the Bible can be read another way. But I don’t condemn those who hold to it. I don’t condemn period.
Cindy,
You can call me Cole. It’s my middle name and the one I go by.
Well said, Michael. And that is precisely what you SHOULD say and do. Piper is a brother. So will Stalin be one day. Certainly the two are NOT in the same camp AT ALL. I mention them both because while I also do not condemn Piper, and I do not condemn Stalin, I do condemn certain actions of theirs which I believe to be in opposition to the love of God. So long as those actions don’t affect anyone else but them, perhaps it’s none of my business, but the moment these actions begin to affect others in a negative way, then we have not only the right but the responsibility to point out the wrongness of the actions and condemn them as unworthy of a child of God. (Actions include teachings – Piper teaches some harmful things; Stalin committed some horrendous atrocities. Not equivalent, but I wanted the contrast. I’m not saying Piper is in the same league as Stalin by any stretch. He most assuredly is not. Yet his actions can also be harmful and wrong.)
I can see good in the attitude of trust that Piper displays regarding his little girl. There is good in him. I can see harmful things, too – things that will hurt many people, if they believe his teachings. Those things honestly, I have to condemn. He himself is a beloved child; some of his teachings are not worthy of him.
Love, Cindy
Okay! Cole, then.