A prominent Christian singer and podcaster illustrates how, no matter how much respect one has for a Christian figure, there will always come a time when he must consult the Scriptures and adhere to what it says in context, not simply in theory.
Skillet lead singer John Cooper tackled the pro-vaccine article written by John Piper, a distinguished Christian author and Reformist, on episode 85 of the Cooper Stuff podcast.
Cooper began his episode addressing a comical piece of propaganda about bananas before moving on to John Piper's post titled "A Reason to Be Vaccinated: Freedom."
He stated that, although he admires and respects John Piper as a prominent Christian leader and preacher, he disagrees with several of his arguments in his piece.
"I'm gonna speak passionately because I always do," he said. "That John Piper's awesome. I love John Piper. Okay. And I think he's a very good man. I think he's a great man. He's incredibly smart. And I don't hate him. I don't have any bad will. We're brothers in Christ. But sometimes, you just gotta talk about this kind of stuff. And I'm gonna share my opinion on this. "
Cooper read the first two sentences of Piper's article before remarking that the second is a "straw man argument."
The following is an excerpt from Piper's writing:
"My aim in this article is to encourage Christians to be vaccinated, if they can do so with a good conscience and judicious medical warrant.
The people I have especially in view are those who are not vaccinated because of fear of being out of step with people they respect, and in step with people they don't admire. My message to them is simple: You are free."
"I don't have any problem with John Piper saying, 'I think the vaccine is a really good thing and I would encourage people to do it.' He has a right to say that. That's fine," said Cooper.
"But for him to act like, that a religion issue exists. That a lot of people are not vaccinated, and they really, really really want to vaccinate but the only reason they are doing it is because they have these Christian friends or Christian pastors who will be like, 'You shouldn't do that,'" he explained.
Cooper thinks that Piper is insinuating that the peer pressure of whether or not to get vaccinated is coming from Christians.
"Because what I see happening is the opposite," argued Cooper. "I see the pressure all coming from the other way. Right? Like people that are vaccinated are not losing their jobs because they went and got the vaccine, right? People who were vaccinated don't hear, 'No, you can't come into our church service on the bottom floor. You're not allowed to come in because you're vaccinated. That's not happening, right?"
"The pressure is coming from all the levers of power," he continued. "The government's putting the pressure on big business to do its dirty work, right? So big businesses, the ones that are coming down on everybody. Social media is coming down. Everybody is coming down on the unvaccinated. That's where the peer pressure is coming from."
As for Piper, Cooper says he thinks Piper is behaving as though it is coming from white evangelicals, considering that there had been roughly 17 articles published by white males who opposed the experimental COVID shots.
Cooper claims that the section of Piper's piece in which he cites statistics is a regurgitation of what the mainstream media has been touting. His issue with it is that Piper seems to be condoning everything as if it were a given conclusion that everything people hear from the media, politicians, and the Big Pharma is true. That, although there are some negative effects, they are minor.
Cooper claims that this ignores the reality that individuals are being censored and that stories of those who have had negative reactions are being taken down. Finally, it ignores the reality that one does not have to do much research to discover that there are likely to be more adverse reactions and fatalities as a result of the vaccination.
This sentiment of Cooper over Piper's article is understandable, given that Piper himself has previously emphasized the importance of critical thinking in his books and sermons over the course of many years.
"A just government is actually a servant of God"
Nonetheless, Cooper stated that he agrees with Piper's statement in the article that Christians are "free" to make decisions for themselves and their families.
Still, Cooper expressed his dissatisfaction with the Bible scriptures Piper used to back up his views. He feels they aren't "relevant" to proving Piper's points.
"He goes through a whole bunch of scriptures and I'm not even really arguing. I'm like, okay, yeah, we are free. No one owns us. The government doesn't own us. Amen to that. Absolutely agree with that," Cooper said.
"We are free in Christ because the son is and is free. Absolutely. Jesus Christ has actually set us free. So even though we do live in this world, and even though we do live underneath, you know, governments and things like that, who are appointed by God, right?"
"But the government has a role of authority put in place by God. So a just government is actually a servant of God in that sense, right? Would we see that moment?"
Cooper then employed his knowledge of hermeneutics -the science of biblical interpretation- to refute the other Bible texts 1 Peter 2:16, 1 Corinthians 3:21-23, and Romans 1:14 which Piper used.
The bottom line is that Scripture remains unchangeable, but when used as a principle to prove a point, the fault lies with the interpretation. Any interpretation of a passage may be produced unless Christians understand and follow the fundamental guidelines of prescription versus description while reading the Bible.
This brings Cooper's sensible conclusion: "It is time for us to start becoming a bit more aware that just because somebody says something good sometimes, one time, doesn't mean this in all."
"I don't blame all of those people because the truth is, the world is more confusing than it was because of the internet. Information is going out so fast and it is changing so quickly. That you have to keep digging into it to find out what is the movement that is behind this whole thing," he added.
