“Christian Hedonist” vs. hedonistic Christian
November 10th, 2007 at 8:14 am (Teaching, Bad Teaching)
You may have heard of the thesis called “Christian Hedonism” conjured up by John Piper. Folks who subscribe to this philosophy call themselves “Christian Hedonists”. Notice what is the main subject and what is the modifier in that phrase.
First and foremost the subject of the term is hedonist. That is, one can primarily be described as a hedonist (a person who pursues self-pleasure as their highest aim in life). Secondarily the adjective Christian is used. That is, “Christian” is the specific type of hedonist that one is. This type of hedonist has found that the one object that gives him the most pleasure is God. In other words, one is essentially a hedonist first and foremost with the term Christian simply being a modifier.
This can be shown to be true by simply turning the words around, i.e. if you were a “hedonistic Christian” you would first and foremost be identifying yourself as a Christian, the term ‘hedonistic’ is simply the type of Christian you are. In this instance, you could say you follow after or pursue Christ first, and the way you pursue Christ is hedonisticly.
But Dr. Piper has seen fit to say that he wants all men to be Christian Hedonists, i.e. become hedonists first and foremost (pursue your own happiness as your goal in life) and the best way to accomplish the goal of getting the most pleasure for yourself is to maximize your self-pleasure in God (now he gets to call it “Christian”).
In other words, Christian Hedonism is real hedonism at the core, foundational, heart-motive level. It becomes Christian because he has found that the best object to be happy in is God. To me that sounds like self using God as an object from a self-centered motive to achieve the goal of satisfying self’s desire for self-happiness.
Listen to John Piper’s description, “Those who know me best know that I am a Christian Hedonist. That means that I think my desire to be happy is a proper motive for everything I do. I do what I do because I think it will make me happier in the long run. In fact, I think that if I abandon this pursuit of joy, I will become incapable of worshiping and obeying God.”
Of course a Biblical Christian (or just plain old-fashioned ‘Christian’) is not pursuing his own self-pleasure at all, but rather makes it his ambition to please the Lord.
Rom 15:1-3 Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not please ourselves. Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me.”
2 Cor 5:9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
A plain vanilla ‘Christian’ is not concerned about his own happiness, yet generally receives tons of joy as a gift from the Lord, as a by-product of obedience and service to Him.
Let us endeavor to please God in all respects ( Col 1:10) and abandon the pursuit of our own pleasure with no fear of Piper’s man-made condemnation that we’ll be “incapable of worshiping and obeying God”.
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Clifford Solomon said,
November 12, 2008 at 8:01 pm
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