The Crypto Variant

I have a lot of respect for Piper, but if I posted Deuteronomy 7:3 – "You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons" – with vague commentary in the middle of a national debate about what it means to be an American, every person currently defending him would rightly assume I was making a political point and they'd be livid. Piper posted Leviticus 19:34 in the middle of that same debate. His defenders say he's simply quoting Scripture, as if that settles it. It doesn't. A tweet is never just its words. The person tweeting brings context the words can't carry. Timing does too. What you conspicuously leave unsaid often says more than what you actually wrote. Everyone in this conversation knows Piper chose that verse and not a verse that could be coded rightwing and the choice is doing political work whether he names it or not. Pointing to the text alone is special pleading. You can't claim a post is just Scripture when you know perfectly well it isn't.

Racist. Deranged. Humiliating to our country. The fact that we have decided to pretend to this is normal every day is a moral abomination. Have we any shame? And every day an entire generation is being told it is “Christian” to support this. God have mercy on us.

Racist. Deranged. Humiliating to our country. The fact that we have decided to pretend to this is normal every day is a moral abomination. Have we any shame? And every day an entire generation is being told it is “Christian” to support this. God have mercy on us.

I would take the pro-life movement a lot more seriously if they were marching in the streets to demand full funding for SNAP and WIC like they march to protest against abortion.

What’s your opinion on “The Church” that will get you in this position?

Mike, I actually consider you too intelligent to fail to see why a secular for-profit company like Harper Collins publishing books with a variety of outlooks is not comparable to a Christian non-profit like Christianity Today taking money from a major abortion funder. A for-profit company like Harper Collins operates in a commercial market, publishing diverse viewpoints to maximize profit and appeal to a broad audience, not to align with a specific moral or religious mission. A Christian non-profit that claims it "seeks to join with God in uplifting what is good" has different obligations in what it publishes and whose money it uses to publish it. Non-profits that rely primarily on grants creates dependence to conform to donor expectations to ensure survival. That kind of structural dependence is qualitatively different than a publisher choosing which manuscripts to accept. (And its worth noting, that in the run-up to the election CT published several articles arguing that Christians should NOT view abortion as a reason to vote, but rather it would be better to sit out the election. In fact, your Board Chair was officially part of an effort to ensure that Kamala Harris was elected.) A Christian non-profit, by contrast, is expected to uphold ethical standards tied to its faith-based identity, making funding from a major abortion funder a direct conflict with its stated values. (As your own new editor-in-chief said in 2011 about a different religious publication taking money from George Soros, "The donation is more evidence that Wallis and Sojourners are on the left, even though the organization appeals to young evangelicals by claiming to be apolitical…” I'd say the exact same description can be applied to CT. As for your making this about Trump (Trump!), well, that's expected. I have lots of friends who are not pro-Trump. Friends who vote third party or didn't vote. I can't begrudge them their conscience-dictated choice and never have. Trump is indeed a mixed bag, but most of the policies that bag has offered have been very good and I will unreservedly cheer those and say God showed this nation mercy when he ordained for Trump to be elected over Harris. I don't have to triangulate my convictions.