John Piper made a lot of people unhappy when he invited Rick Warren to speak at the Desiring God national conference coming up later this year. There has been no shortage of critiques of Piper’s decision. Well known bloggers and pastoral leaders alike, including Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, Douglas Wilson, Justin Taylor, and Michael Horton, have weighed in with thoughtful responses.
If you’re interested in this controversial development, you’ve probably read all of those. In this post I simply want to link to three other articles that you may not have seen. (If you haven’t read the other responses I mentioned but want to, you’ll find links to all of them in the three articles below.)
The most recent of the three is this article at Christianity Today by Collin Hansen, author of Young, Restless and Reformed. Hansen wants Christians to care about the implications of this controversy, and wonders how well evangelicals can make the “shift from destruction to construction.”
Out of everything I read, I think this post by Trevin Wax was my favorite. Trevin makes a much needed appeal for humility, and models it in the process.
The third and final post is by Bob Hayton (who has an interesting story all his own which you can read here). Bob’s post was written prior to the recently ended Together for the Gospel conference and considers what it really means to be unified around the gospel. Here are Bob’s thoughts.
That’s (almost) all for this post. I’m way too busy to do anything other than post a few links or videos or posts that were actually composed before I started my currently insane work schedule.
One final thought on this subject: If there’s any way I can work it out, I’d like to go to the Desiring God 2010 National Conference this fall. Have any of the rest of you considered going?
who am i? 
Appreciate this roundup of links, Barry. You’re right about Trevin Wax’s post—definitely one of the best. And I hadn’t yet read Bob’s piece. Helpful stuff.
Hey, Deek. Have you given any thought to going to the conference?
No, not really. It always falls right on or very near my wife’s birthday. I’d bring her with me, but she’s in med. school and cannot afford the time away from class or studies. No budget for that sort of thing anyways. It would be great, though. Maybe someday, Lord willing. I always download the conference audio and listen to it later.
Thanks for the link, Barry. I had seen Colin’s post, but only glanced at Trevin’s. Giving that post a full read was definitely encouraging.
Blessings in Christ,
Bob Hayton
I appreciated your thoughts about the centrality of the gospel, Bob. Glad you were encouraged by Trevin’s post, too. Blessings, brother!
Barry,
I’ve never been, but I am about 90% sure that I will be going to this one!!! We should try to work something out!
That would be awesome, Matt. I’d like to take my wife, too. I know you’ve got a little one at home. Is there any chance your wife might go?
I think I may have told you at one point, but I went to the first DG National Conference (on Jonathan Edwards) in 2003. It was incredibly good.
At the risk of expressing an unpopular observation, Dr. Piper did not demonstrate humilty in his defense video.
He has validated a ministry that has indirectly caused great pain to untold numbers for multiple reasons.
Too many are willing to give Dr. Piper a pass because of his Reformed record. His recent actions are a departure from that very record.
Too many are unwilling to do their homework on Rick Warren. Too many are being duped because Dr. Piper is being duped.
Do your own homework.
Hi, Jim. Speaking only for myself, I’ve done my homework, which is why I’ve taken the position I have.
Reading some of these links, I was much more concerned with the (at least accusation) about what Warren has endorsed or recommended in terms of reading.
Then again, I don’t necessarily base my reading recommendations on what exactly I agree with…
There’s plenty of reason to be concerned about Warren’s beliefs, Dan. Feel free to elaborate on your concerns.
My concerns are mostly random. I’ve got a lot of respect for the guy and he seems to anger a lot of the right people, if also a few of the wrong ones. Generally if someone’s getting flak from the theological ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals’ alike, it gives me the impression that they’re probably doing something right.
My concerns seem to be mostly the random things I’ve heard; for instance, the controversy about just how involved his church was or wasn’t with that Left Behind video game made me concerned not about commercialism but about taste (art-wise and morality-wise.) It took me a second to find the link that had my concern in this case because it was a link from the site one of your original three went to:
“Rick Warren endorses a host of books, from New Age authors to Emergent writers to conservative evangelicals.” – Michael Horton, on the page ” http://www.whitehorseinn.org/archives/425.html “, which was linked from the CT article. While I certainly have concerns about the ways a Calvinist will define something being ‘new age,’ I would not at all be surprised to find that Warren has endorsed a number of books with problematic implicit or explicit ideas.
The comment I made about how I make recommendations is true, though I do also often factor in the necessary caveats like “how educated theologically is the person who will read this?”