John Piper’s Son, Barnabas, Divorces

 

Eleven and a half years- that’s how long it lasted. Eleven and half years of marriage and then gone….When she told me she was finished it was like a knock at the door from the police chaplain – utter shock, not real, numbness, anger, fear.

-Barnabas Piper, “When A Marriage Dies,” Published January 10, 2017

Such begins Barnabas Piper’s public–and rather opaque–post about the end of his marriage.*

Divorce has come to evangelical “royalty.”

And if one can grasp anything from the post, it clearly portrays a man in pain. As someone who can relate very intimately to the pain of divorce, my heart goes out to Barnabas Piper.

This life event makes one wonder if it will impact the divorce theology of Barnabas’ father, John Piper:

Will Piper still hold to the “hard-nosed” view that divorce is never allowable for a Christian (and remarriage unacceptable while the divorced ex-spouse lives) when it comes to his own blood experiencing divorce?

I have written a couple posts as to why I disagree biblically and pastorally with Piper’s position on divorce (See here and here).

One thing I notice about John Piper’s writing on the subject matter–and as I experienced in my former denomination–is that such writing or teaching on divorce usually assumes the Christian spouse–or minister–gets to decide whether or not to divorce. This is not always the case.

Some of us–i.e. divorced Christians–were not given a choice.

In the “no fault” divorce world, a Christian spouse might not choose divorce yet still find himself or herself divorced.

That seems to be the case with Barnabas Piper:

When she told me she was finished….

And strangely I believe more in marriage now than I ever have. I believe it is worth fighting for and investing in.

-From “When A Marriage Dies,” Published January 10, 2017

Such musings strike me as coming from a man who would have continued working on the marriage if he had been given that option. But that is just my impression. 

Caution:

***The details as to what happened in the demise of Barnabas Piper’s marriage are explicitly chosen to be held out of this, hence opaque, post on his divorce. (That is why I do not speculate as to the divorce cause.)***

That said, I do find it curious that Barnabas seems uninterested in publicly presenting even a cursory case as to why his divorce does not morally disqualify him from continuing in Christian ministry. Such is his chosen profession.

Very odd. And it is doubly so coming from John Piper’s son who has chosen to broadcast his divorced status to the world.

Let me conclude with two thoughts:

1. My hope from this awful tragedy is that God will use it to awaken His Church. I hope the church will start seeing the divorced–and especially, those abandoned by their spouses against their wishes.

2. Another hope of mine is that this awful tragedy will lead John Piper to season his stance on divorce and remarriage with more mercy and grace for divorced Christians. Sometimes God uses painful circumstances in our lives to teach us to be more merciful and charitable to others. I know this is case in my own life.

 

---

*Special thanks to The Wartburg Watch for promoting my blog and alerting me to this story via their post here.