Piperian Hedonism

Below is an excerpt from a thought-provoking, well, maybe, thought-sharpening, article by Doug Wilson (Blog & Mablog). In it, Wilson attempts to temper, or refine, our understanding of Piper's concept of "Christian Hedonism."

Wilson contends that we are all in danger of segmenting our life into the spiritual and the secular (my words, not his). He agrees with Piper's basic premise that all of life should be lived for God's Glory, and that in that we live in the ultimate pleasures and should acknowledge that reality and embrace it. Yet most of us are guilty of the segmentation; or as he puts it, "dualism" dangers. He writes, and warns: "I am fond of saying that dualism is bad juju, and this is yet another manifestation of how it works us over."

Rather, we should consider everything about our life and this world as "sacramental"; that is, an act of worship to God. That is a life perspective we should have, according to Wilson. And I eagerly agree with him.

Read the entire article here: Piperian Hedonism 3.0

And here is a helpful taste of his premise . . .

But God made the world, we trashed it, and then Jesus was born into it in order to redeem the whole thing.

So we need to remember the nature of the Creator/creature divide, and how the sovereignty of God determined to cross that divide by means of Jesus the risen Lord. The divide remains what it always was, and the incarnational bridge remains what it always will be, world without end. Now of course this has ramifications for our worship, but it also has ramifications for absolutely everything else.

By the nature of the case, we cannot present an exhaustive list, but the ramifications would include beer, mowing the lawn, sex with your wife or husband, brown gravy, sitting on the front porch, listening to a good poem, making movies, getting out the guitar, going to church, and getting a foot rub. There are two sacraments, true, but there is only one sacramental.

The world is a sacramental, and everything in it. Grace is everywhere, and gets into everything. Faith can dig it out of anything. The grandeur of God can flame out from anything, like shining from shook foil.

If understood, this results in mediated grace for everyone who is responding to God in true faith. God does grants immediate grace in various ways, true. When He converts a soul, when He visits someone with direct blessing, when He receives our worship, the grace can be immediate. But this immediate grace is supposed to be a radiant grace, spreading out through everything else, affecting everything else, causing everything else to become a mirror that reflects the glory of God.

Blessings
3 John 8
Bill H.