Home Christian News Douglas Wilson Responds to a Video by John Piper’s ‘Not Desiring God’...

Douglas Wilson Responds to a Video by John Piper’s ‘Not Desiring God’ Son

douglas wilson abraham piper
Screengrab via YouTube @Canon Press

Douglas Wilson, pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, recently broke down one of the “Christian bashing” videos of popular TikTok influencer Abraham Piper.

Christ Church is a megachurch known for attempting to strategically turn Moscow into a Christian town, and Piper is the son of influential author, pastor, and theologian John Piper.

Wilson featured the video in his “Doug Reacts” series on YouTube. This isn’t the first time Wilson has used one of Piper’s videos; last year, he discussed the agnostic’s calling fundamentalism intolerable. During that video, Wilson jokingly suggested to his audience they should smoke some pot, so they might be able to understand what Piper was trying to communicate.

In Piper’s recent video, the once Christian, turned prodigal, returned Christian, then deconstructed agnostic discussed how someone can determine standards of right and wrong.

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“Christians will be like—some Christians—if you don’t believe in God, how do you have a standard about right and wrong,” Piper said. “To which I say, I don’t know. I used to feel like, oh [explicative], that’s kind of a good point—but it’s not. It’s not a good point.” Piper then explained that he doesn’t know where his standard of right and wrong comes from and argued that this is true for everyone.

Wilson paused the video and reworded Piper’s comments into what he believes he was really trying to say: “So I don’t know where my standard of right and wrong comes from. I have nothing to base what I’m about to say. I’ve got no foundation for what I’m about to say. And what I’m about to say is going to condemn all you Christians.”

“In other words,” Wilson continued, “I don’t know anything, except that you’re wrong. I don’t know anything, except that you’re wrong.”

Wilson then asked how Piper could state that no one can know how they got their standard of right and wrong if he doesn’t know anything, saying, “How do you know something about everything, if you don’t know anything about anything?”

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“If you are an agnostic, how do you keep this true agnosticism from spiraling downward into nihilism [the belief that life is meaningless, rejecting all religious and moral principals],” Wilson said. “You can’t say ‘I don’t know,’ [and then say,] ‘let me tell you what I know,’ [which is], ‘I don’t know anything and let me tell you how I achieved this wisdom.’”

Piper then told Christians they are using God as a middleman if their moral standards come from Him, saying, “You don’t know where your standard of right and wrong comes from. Saying that you get your standard from something else doesn’t make it more objective. It just means you’re using a middleman.”