Commenting on the YouTube video for my article “John
Piper’s New Religion: ‘Christian Hedonism’”, a viewer asked the following
question: “‘Christian hedonism is all about your own personal pleasure.’ This
is your claim not John Piper’s. Can you provide further evidence for this?”
Following is my response, which I hope will open the eyes of many to the
dangers of “Christian Hedonism”.
That Is the Question!
First of all, in the statement you quoted, if you look at it, I was actually asking a question. What I said was this (to give it some context):
“Remember Paul told the Philippian jailer when the jailer asked, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ And Paul simply said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved’ [Acts 16:30-31]. Well, now after two thousand years of church history, Piper comes along with this new idea and says, “Well why don’t we change that to ‘Delight yourself in the Lord’?” Why does Piper say that? Well, because Christian Hedonism is all about your own personal pleasure, right? ‘Believe in the Lord’, that’s an objective truth. I am looking to someone outside of myself to be saved, namely Jesus Christ. What Piper wants to do is twist that to this personal subjective feeling of delight and it becomes all about his personal delight for salvation. That is Hedonism. That is apparently Christian Hedonism according to John Piper.”
The part you quoted is
from when I said, “Christian Hedonism is all about your own personal pleasure,
right?” So that’s the question I was asking. That’s my understanding of Piper’s
position, and that’s why I said at the end, “right?” But still, it’s a
question, rhetorical, maybe, but still a question. I’m providing my
understanding of Piper’s position, and welcoming feedback. If you see it
differently, please share why you disagree.
Piper’s Cosmic “Sugar Daddy”
But as far as why I said what I did, here’s an extended quote from an article titled: A Critical Examination of John Piper’s “Christian Hedonism” (the bracketed words and numbers are from the original article):
“From this one would expect Piper to conclude that the highest thing man should seek after is to make ‘glorifying God’ the end and ‘enjoying him forever’ the means thereof. And indeed, here [it] becomes apparent that Piper carries two faces. For sometimes, this is indeed his view: ‘I must [sic.: emphasis Piper’s] pursue joy in God if I am to glorify Him as the surpassingly valuable Reality in the universe.’[11]
However, this is not ‘Christian Hedonism’. Several paragraphs later, Piper shows his other face: ‘Christian Hedonism as I use the term does not mean God becomes a means to help us get worldly pleasures [notice the qualification - MK]. The pleasure Christian Hedonism seeks is the pleasure that is in God Himself. He is the end of our search, not the means to some further end... Christian Hedonism does not reduce God to a key that unlocks a treasure chest of gold and silver. Rather, it seeks to transform the heart so that ‘the Almighty will be your gold and your precious silver’ (Job 22:25).’[12]
God is not the means toward ‘worldly pleasures’ - why qualify it with ‘worldly’? Because ‘worldly’ pleasure wouldn't satisfy us; rather, He is the means toward ‘the pleasure that is in God Himself’. God is not ‘reduced’ to a ‘key that unlocks a treasure chest of gold and silver’ - again, such a treasure wouldn’t satisfy us; rather, this god is exalted to a key that unlocks the treasure chest of joy that is found in him. As Piper says later on, ‘Christ becomes for us a Treasure Chest of holy joy’[13]. Notice: God is a means for man to attain pleasure. Piper continues: ‘Christian Hedonism does not make a god out of pleasure. It says that one has already made a god out of whatever he finds most pleasure in. The goal of Christian Hedonism is to find most pleasure in the one and only God and thus avoid the sin of covetousness, that is, idolatry (Colossians 3:5).’[14]
That it is idolatry to find pleasure in anything apart from God we do not deny, and that therefore we should seek pleasure in God we do not deny either; but what we do deny, and what makes ‘Christian Hedonism’ turn pleasure into a god, is its claim that the pleasure received from worshiping God should be the highest motivation for that worship (remember Piper’s definition of ‘hedonism’). It is notable that even in this paragraph Piper presents finding ‘most pleasure’ (in God) as the ‘goal of Christian Hedonism’.
This is (supposedly) acceptable because God also gets what He wants: glory. As Piper summarizes, ‘we get the happiness in Him; He gets the honour from us’[15]. A splendid business deal indeed! Piper explains the relationship between us seeking pleasure in Him and He being glorified in this way: ‘Consider the analogy of a wedding anniversary... Suppose on this day I bring home a dozen long-stemmed roses for [my wife]. When she meets me at the door, I hold out the roses, and she says, ‘O Johnny, they’re beautiful; thank you’ and gives me a big hug. Then suppose I hold up my hand and say matter-of-factly, ‘Don't mention it; it’s my duty.’ ... If... she asks me, ‘Why do you do this?’... the answer that honors her most is ‘Because nothing makes me happier tonight than to be with you’. ‘It’s my duty’ is a dishonour to her. ‘It’s my joy’ is an honour. There it is! The feast of Christian Hedonism.’[16]
Which one critic has succinctly summarized thus: ‘Let us use the earthly analogy of marriage to address this question. I have two possible options of what to say to my wife... Option 1) I love you; therefore I will live to please you alone [and try to find pleasure in you], even sacrificing my life and my earthly pleasures if need be, so as to ensure you are cared for and all your needs are met. Option 2) I love pleasure; and I have chosen you as the vehicle through which all my pleasure will be derived, and only through you will I pursue any pleasure, and you will satisfy my every desire so as to give me the pleasure for which I live, and any loving or beneficial thing that I do for you will only be done contingent on the expectation that I will somehow benefit from that action by experiencing pleasure from it. If your wife thinks that Option 2 is as selfish as my wife thinks that it is and if she thinks that Option 1 is the truly loving position to take (in fact she is still waiting for me to get down on one knee, gaze up into her eyes and reread Option 1) then imagine praying Option 2 to a jealous God. If a wife wants to hear you say, ‘I love you and will live to please you’ do you not think that God Himself wishes to hear the same? Do you really believe that God wants you to pray to Him and say, ‘Dear God, I love pleasure, therefore I only worship You to get pleasure in You, so please me in all that I do’?’[17]
It does not glorify God when we ultimately make Him the means whereby we receive pleasure and try to keep Him happy with this by claiming that this glorifies Him the most! The greatest commandment is to love God Himself, not pleasure in God (Mat. 22:36-38). The highest thing we are to seek after is God Himself and His glory and not pleasure in God. If a ‘Christian Hedonist’ will only do something ‘if, and only if’ he receives pleasure from it, then it follows that he will obey God ‘if, and only if’ this gives him pleasure. In other words, the Christian Hedonist’s chief motivation in all things is his own pleasure. That is, the Christian Hedonist is – a hedonist. Piper even admits it: ‘all genuine emotion is an end in itself’[18] and, ‘Happiness in God is the end of all our seeking. Nothing beyond it can be sought as a higher goal’[19].”
Piper’s Sermon: “It’s My Pleasure!”
Also check out Piper’s article titled “It’s My Pleasure!” on the Desiring God website. The first three sentences are pretty clear at describing Piper’s beliefs. He writes: “Those who know me best know that I am a Christian hedonist. That means that I think my desire to be happy is a proper motive for everything I do. I do what I do because I think it will make me happier in the long run.” So these statements by Piper are also why I said that “Christian Hedonism is all about your own personal pleasure, right?” In the first three sentences of his sermon, Piper makes it clear that it’s “all about” him: not Him as in God, but him as in Piper! Piper refers to himself almost ten times, and that’s not counting the title! Notice the personal pronouns Piper uses: “me”, “I”, “I”, “my”, “I”, “I”, “I”, “I”, “me”. So in the first three sentences of his sermon, Piper refers to himself almost ten times! And that’s not counting the title of the sermon, which is, remember, “It’s MY Pleasure!”
Just to clarify, when I said that Christian Hedonism (CH) is “all about your own personal pleasure”, I did not mean that other things are not involved. Of course they are. Of course Piper puts God in there somewhere. That’s obvious. I don’t deny that. But what I meant when I said that CH is “all about” your own personal pleasure, is that, in other words, one’s own pleasure is “the be-all and end-all of the Christian experience”. (The phrase “be-all and end-all” simply means the most important part or the reason for something.) In CH, glorifying God is not the highest goal of the individual; it is merely a means to an end: that end being the pleasure of the worshiper.
I also think it’s important to remember that at the end of the day, Piper is a hedonist. Being a Christian hedonist doesn't mean he’s not a hedonist, it just means that he’s supposedly getting his pleasure not from wrong things or places, but from Christian sources: from God Himself. But that doesn’t erase the fact that Piper is a hedonist. So what about Christian Hedonism? In Christian hedonism, God is exploited as a means to an end: that end being the pleasure of the worshiper, the pleasure of the individual. So who’s the real god in Christian hedonism? What is the highest aim, the highest end, the highest goal? It is one’s own personal pleasure.
Is it wrong to be happy? No, of course not. But it is wrong to elevate happiness to a higher position than God Himself, which is exactly what CH is doing by relegating God to a cosmic “sugar daddy” who exists to give me what I really want: “My Pleasure!” (so says Piper). In CH, God is simply a means to an end, a way to get what the worshiper really wants as most important: their own personal happiness. Yes, God is thrown into the mix, that’s what makes it “Christian hedonism”. But God is not the highest motivation, aim, goal, end, pursuit, nor thing. The most important thing is the pleasure of the individual.
So let’s be honest and just recognize that Piper is a hedonist.
What is a “hedonist”? A “hedonist” is someone who believes:
• “the ethical theory that pleasure (in the sense of the satisfaction of desires) is the highest good and proper aim of human life.” (Oxford Languages)
• “The pursuit of one's own pleasure as an end in itself; in ethics, the view that such a pursuit is the proper aim of all action. Since there are different conceptions of pleasure there are correspondingly different varieties of hedonism.” (Oxford English Dictionary)
• “living and behaving in ways that mean you have as much pleasure as possible, according to the belief that the most important thing in life is to enjoy yourself” (Cambridge Dictionary)
• “hedonist: a person whose life is devoted to the pursuit of pleasure and self-gratification” (Collins Online Dictionary)
That’s what Piper
believes, if he’s a hedonist, which he is. So Piper believes that “[his own]
pleasure is the highest good and proper aim of the human life”. That’s just the
definition of hedonism. Anybody going to say that Piper doesn’t believe in
hedonism anymore?
Christian Hedonism Is a Philosophy
Christian Hedonism (CH) is a philosophy, that’s what makes it appealing to a lot of people. It’s this new thing, and Piper is like one of the gnostic elites who has this deeper knowledge. And so people look up to him and they want that deeper knowledge. For example, in his article “Christian Hedonism: Forgive the Label, Don’t Miss the Truth”, Piper tells us what the “truth” is that we’ve all apparently missed for two thousand years thinking that the Bible is all we need! So Piper is here to give us the full understanding apparently, and this is what he says, “Christian Hedonism says...that we should pursue happiness, and pursue it with all our might.” Well there you have it ladies and gentlemen! That’s the truth according to John Piper, according to Christian Hedonism.
But what do the Scriptures say? That’s the real question, isn’t it? “For what does the Scripture say?” (Rom. 4:3). Now this is interesting, because my Bible doesn’t say to pursue my own personal happiness with all might, but rather it says: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5).
So John Piper, this gnostic elite, says to pursue happiness with all your might. That’s the truth according to CH. But the real truth, the truth that we find in the Bible, says something quite different. It’s not about pursuing my happiness, but instead what am I instructed to do? What am I to do with all my might? Pursue happiness? No! But rather, “love the LORD your God” with all your might! Notice the difference: Piper’s ultimate focus is on himself and pursuing his own happiness with all his might, whereas the Bible instructs us to “love the LORD your God” with all your might! This is the great and the foremost commandment (Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:36-40). In other words, Piper has replaced loving God with all his might (the greatest commandment), with pursuing his (Piper’s) own personal happiness with all his might! Sadly, Piper’s “truth” is nothing more than the idolatry of happiness. Dress that up with a little “psuedo-intellectual babble” (Col. 2:8, Amplified Bible) and slap a fancy label on it (“Christian Hedonism”) and now you've got something! Now enrolling gnostic elites!
Is it wrong to pursue
happiness? No, of course not. But CH in effect “puts the cart before the horse”
by using God as a means to an end, and that end or goal is the happiness of the
worshiper. (In other words, instead of God being the highest goal or aim or
most important thing, happiness is put in that place and God is simply the
means by which the worshiper gets what he or she really wants, which is their own
personal happiness. So CH has it backwards!) By way of contrast, Jesus said
that the main thing is love: loving God and loving others, not personal
happiness. Personal happiness will follow (see John 13:17), but it’s not the
goal, it’s not the aim, it’s not the most important thing, rather, it’s a
by-product that results from the main thing. Years ago, A. W. Tozer wrote a
book titled “The Pursuit of God”. Well, to put a title on Christian Hedonism,
we could call it: “The Pursuit of Happiness”. So, you see the difference? It’s
a different focus, a different aim. In CH, God is merely the means to an end,
and that end is one’s own pleasure or happiness. CH basically exploits God for
what the worshiper really wants, which is their own personal happiness. CH basically
uses God for what the worshiper can get out of Him (what the worshiper really
wants), which is their own pleasure, happiness, delight, and satisfaction.
Those things are not wrong, but when they usurp the place of God as the main
thing, the most important thing, the goal, the aim, then they take the rightful
place of God and they become idols set up in the place which is reserved for
God alone. And that is idolatry.
“Christian” or “Christian Hedonist”?
The followers of Jesus in the New Testament were simply called “Christians” (Acts 11:26), and they adopted this title because it was an accurate description: they were Christ-ones or Christ-followers, followers of Christ. Remember that hedonism was a pagan (or at least a secular) philosophy at that time, but interestingly the Christians did not call themselves Christian hedonists! This is significant. They simply called themselves “Christians”. Why? Because they were follows of Christ, not Christ plus the philosophy of hedonism, but simply followers of Christ: followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is HIM that we pursue with a single focus (regardless of how we feel about it in the moment), it is CHRIST ALONE that we follow! We do not follow Christ plus hedonism, we follow Christ alone. So you see the difference? Anything added to Christ alone as the Highest or most important or main thing is idolatry, not Christ plus, but Christ ALONE: “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything” (Col. 1:17-18, NASB).
Why weren’t the early Christians called “Christian hedonists”? The reason the early Christians weren’t called “Christian hedonists” is clearly because they weren’t Christian hedonists!
What’s the Main Thing?
Back in Bible school a fellow classmate had this slogan on his desk, and I always remember what it said: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” The main thing is not your personal happiness, the main thing is Jesus Christ alone. He is our single focus, the lover of our soul. Not my happiness, but His holiness! “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of Hosts, the whole earth is filled with His glory!” (Isa. 6:3).
I love Him for Who He is, not for what I can get out of it.
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