Don Johnson: An open letter to John MacArthur

[Don Johnson]

Ron Bean wrote:

If the charismatic issue is a first level doctrinal issue, as it very probably is, might not energies be better directed in addressing that issue than addressing someone who’s connected to someone who, while not being a charismatic, doesn’t see the issue as problematic?

Should be able to respond more on Thursday if my schedule continues as planned.

Ron, you have earlier in the thread made somewhat snide remarks about separation, repeating the old tired caricatures where you supposedly end up separating from everyone if you believe in separation.

I wish you would look at my article again and point to where I am calling for separation from John MacArthur. As far as it goes, if my article were to reach him, my hope would be for him to be stronger with Piper et al than he has been. I think that Piper is far more involved in charismatism than MacArthur has let on. There is more evidence in the audio of the Strange Fire conference, but I just don’t have time to go through that right now and point to the clips I am thinking of. In any case, John MacArthur is probably the one person with enough access to Piper and “clout” in that world who could influence Piper one way or the other. So my letter to him is an appeal to reconsider his dismissive stance when Piper is brought up. I am NOT calling for separation from John MacArthur, so please don’t suggest that I am doing so.

~~~

I appreciate the effort Jay is taking on this. I think that Pipers view of prophecy isn’t the primary issue with him, I think he is not exactly the same on prophecy as some of the more extreme charismatics, but there is a whole gamut of issues, not just prophecy, when it comes to Piper. He was at least open to if not supportive of the Toronto Vineyard laughing revival. He has endorsed some pretty extreme charismatic prophets, and continues to do so. There is much more than just his personal view of prophecy that is objectionable.

Don,

Can you give us facts of how he was open or supportive of the Toronto Vineyard? Because the things I’ve read from his own mouth, he was the exact opposite, going to great lengths to point out how unbliblical the Toronto Airport Vineyard really was with their prophetic barking, spirit-filled laughter, and gold-filling sightings. By the way, even the Vineyard denomination practiced separation against the Toronto Airport Vineyard by kicking them out of the Vineyard denomination.

There is this, taken from the Desiring God website:

Last week fifty eight people from Bethlehem went to a conference in Anaheim, California called “Holiness Unto the Lord.” It was sponsored by Vineyard Ministries International. The Vineyard movement, led by John Wimber, is characterized by 1) openness to all spiritual gifts for all God’s people, 2) an expectation of supernatural power in the form of special guidance or healing in the ministry of compassion and evangelism, and 3) vital corporate worship. It is different from traditional Pentecostal and Charismatic renewal in 1) minimizing the place of tongues, 2) stressing power evangelism, 3) being rooted in reformed theology, and 4) treating all the gifts as available to all Christians as the need for them arises. The best introduction to the Movement is Power Encounters by Kevin Springer and John Wimber.

I saw at least ten things at this conference that I thank God for and want as part of my life:

• The utter necessity of humility in all that is genuine. “God appreciates what He initiates.”
• Pressing on to intimacy with Jesus—beyond ministry, and beyond study.
• The priority of corporate worship as the source and goal of ministry power.
• The confession of sin and the need for a holy life.
• The call to base all of life and thought on Scripture.
• Openness to God’s presence today in the form of supernatural demonstrations of power.
• Recognition of the sovereignty of God in determining if and when any healing or miracle might happen.
• Emphasis that extended time in prayer is essential to a life of holiness and power.
• An outward focus on evangelism, missions and church planting rather than just a private experience of spiritual chills and thrills.
• A spiritual passion—taking things of the spirit seriously and letting things like television and sports and hobbies etc. fall way to the background of what is exciting in life.
  

And I saw three things that concern me and that I want to avoid.

• The use of “prophetic utterances” (revelatory words from God) in a large worship setting with no provision for testing them (according to 1 Corinthians 14:29, 1 Thessalonians 5:21 and 1 John 4:1), but instead an encouragement to affirm them immediately with praises without questioning. This not only gives too much authority to the prophecy but also gives too much prominence to the prophet. I sense that it also contributes to the neglect of the proper use of Scripture. Which leads to my second concern.
  
• Misleading ways of handling Scripture.
  • a) I detected throughout the plenary sessions and workshops and writings a tendency to base points on allegorization rather than on clear biblical teachings. For example, one speaker built his message around “the altar, the tent and the well” to teach on sacrifice, sojourning and intimacy. What this does is to create a vagueness that allows numerous references to contemporary movements which may in fact not have a foothold in actual biblical teaching.
  • b) In addition to this there was the problem of using prophetic utterances to provide the clue for interpreting texts.
  • c) And finally there was the apparent use of signs and wonders as the seal of truthfulness instead of the Berean approach of testing all things by Scripture (Acts 17:11).
    
• Weakness in the holiness teaching itself. Little effort was given to careful exposition of the key biblical passages on holiness or righteousness of life. The difference between our standing as holy in Christ (already) and our need to pursue holiness which we do not have (yet) was not clear. The role of “striving” was not clarified. The threats of Scripture to the unholy were neglected. The title of the conference “Holiness Unto the Lord” was not explained.

I believe God is at work in the Vineyard Movement—as in hundreds of other movements today. Oh, that we may be on the Move with God in Minneapolis!

Pastor John

If he was concerned about the last three things, I have no idea why he’d want to send people to this conference, much less praise them for what they did right. I wonder what/if his involvement has been with Vineyard since then.

Jay,

Of course, when Piper and people from his church attended the conference, that was at least a couple decades ago. John Wimber died in 1997. Initially, many of us who were are in the “open, but cautious” camp when it came to the spiritual gifts were trying to figure out if there was anything to the 3rd wave movement. Practicing what it means to

“19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject every kind of evil.” I Thess. 5:19-22

About 20 years ago, I attended a Vineyard church in Grand Rapids and came to about the same realization as Piper with the 3 things that he wants to avoid.

Why is it a problem to mention some of the good along with the bad? He is just teaching his church discernment………

There’s some more I need to know, and yes, I do think that leeway should be given. After all, I wasn’t the same person in 1990 I am now…I wasn’t even finished with college yet! :)

My question revolves around that ominous last sentence. Why was this being portrayed as ‘a movement of God’ in light of his concerns? If it was dangerous enough to warn his congregation about the divorcement of the Scripture from their practices and the establishment of signs/wonders and personal experience above Scripture, then why even speak warmly of it at all? It is a threat to the sufficiency of Scripture and an indirect attack on God’s character.

It’s very possible that he went only the one time and this is his way of warning Bethlehem that there are problems. If so, I’d prefer that the warning carried more heft and not as much “politeness”. Make sense?

Jay,

It does make sense. Personally, I think Piper viewed Wimber as more Biblical than I would. I’m guessing back then WImber went to great lengths to convince Piper he was ok. Again, WImber did practice separation by kicking out the Toronto Airport Vineyard out of the Vineyard denomination because all they did was focus on nutty “outward manifestations of the Holy Spirit” and left out any Bible teaching. At the same time, Wimber initially lacked discernment and a lower view of the Scriptures. One of the quotes from Wimber in the early 80’s that I had a problem with was this: “Calvaryites [Calvary Chapel attendees] are sometimes a little too heavily oriented to the written Word. I know that sounds a little dangerous, but frankly they’re very Pharisaical in their allegiance to the Bible. They have very little life, and growth and spontaneity in their innards. Sometimes they’re very rigid and can’t receive much of the things of the Lord.

GTY’s blog put this article out today on the John Piper-John MacArthur issue:

One reaction of particular interest to me was from my friend John Piper, so when I was pointed to his Ask Pastor John podcasts, I was eager to listen. The first thing I’d like to say is how much I appreciated John’s kind opening remarks.[1] It sounded as if, at the time he recorded that podcast, he still hadn’t personally listened to the material presented at the conference. That put him in the unfortunate position of responding only to what people were reporting was said about him. It seems that those close to John misunderstood certain statements at the conference,[2] so he responded to what he thought were criticisms and misrepresentations of him and his ministry. Given that context, for him to respond with such gracious and humble remarks makes me so grateful for his friendship and the partnership we’ve shared in the gospel for all these years. The feelings of love and appreciation are entirely mutual.

Clarifying a Misunderstanding

But just to set the record straight, I wasn’t commenting on the relative frequency or conviction with which John preaches on this issue in his ministry. My concern is not that he doesn’t seem “exegetically convinced enough to advocate” for the continuationist position with his own flock (though he has expressed his own confusion over this doctrinal issue [3] ). Rather, I was making the observation that John’s commitment to the continuation of the miraculous gifts is a rare error—an anomaly—in his otherwise sound theology. It genuinely confuses me that such erudite and sound-thinking brothers like John Piper, Wayne Grudem, and others could get this issue so wrong. Nevertheless, I know that John has never advocated—and has often criticized—the excesses, abuses, and theological errors that have been associated with Pentecostalism and other stripes of the charismatic movement. For this I have always been thankful.

So I hope that clarifies what I said and why I said it. It’s unfortunate that most of John Piper’s first podcast was spent on responding to such a misunderstanding, and I’m thankful for the opportunity to correct it.

Nevertheless, there are some other comments he made in this first podcast that I’d like to respond to. The first has to do with John’s belief that prophecy is God spontaneously bringing biblical truths to a preacher’s mind. Now, it’s good for a preacher to pray for that. But that is not the supernatural gift of prophecy. This illustrates one of the central concerns of my book Strange Fire: the charismatic movement, even down to the most conservative continuationists, has entirely redefined the New Testament miraculous gifts.

In Scripture, prophecy is always presented as the infallible, authoritative declaration of God’s inerrant revelation. It was not an impression on the mind, whether clear or vague, but a verbal declaration, using words the prophet vocalized audibly or wrote legibly in the presence of others who could hear or read them. Scripture never uses the terminology of prophecy to speak of mystical, intuitive impressions. When continuationists use the biblical terminology of the miraculous gifts to describe something other than the biblical phenomena, they tacitly concede the central premise of the doctrine of cessationism—namely, that the miraculous gifts of the Spirit as defined and practiced in the New Testament do not occur today.

The way that Piper defined prophesy in his podcast was new and different to me, and while I appreciated his defense of it, I didn’t agree with him on that point. MacArthur’s definition of prophesy is much closer to the truth and more defensible.