I’m not even an armchair John Piper observer, but the latest musings of the pastor who brought us “Desiring God” pulled me off the couch. Here’s a summary from The New Christians blog:
So yesterday, John Piper once again entered crazy-television-evangelist territory and blamed a small tornado that jumped over Minneapolis and toppled a steeple on Central Lutheran Church on the fact that the ELCA delegate were down the street discussing whether to welcome practicing homosexuals into the clergy. He even implies in his post that the lack of warning by the National Weather Service shows that God cooked up this twister with her his pinky at the last minute.
Of course, this is not new territory for Pastor Piper. He made similar claims to know the Divine Mind after the Minneapolis bridge collapse, the Asian tsunami, and other times …
All of this is to be expected. Piper’s twisted logic that interprets some natural phenomenon as authored by God to scare sinners while completely ignoring others shocks us, I think, because he otherwise seems like a pretty reasonable fellow. For words like that to come from bombasts like Falwell and Robertson is to be expected, but Piper somehow seems above that.
But he keeps doing it, so we should no longer be surprised. It’s part of his schtick.
As for that ELCA debate, the largest Lutheran denomination voted to allow gay men and women in committed relationships to serve in the clergy. Over at GetReligion, tmatt questions whether that limits these Lutherans to monogamous relationships.
