My concern with the teaching of “Christian Hedonism” is that the followers of Piper’s “hedonism” I’ve seen firsthand and many others on Christian boards have misapplied the intended teaching and have ended up focusing on the joy itself instead of on the Lord Himself. Put another way, Piper’s hedonism teaching has acted as the bridge that some his followers used to move from the spiritual joy of the Lord to the joy of the flesh. I’ve painfully observed one Christian leader, also a very close friend, who swallowed the teaching whole and in the years since has been stunted in his growth. But he doesn’t see that, which is a characteristic I’ve found to be true in almost every case. So, it’s a very subtle thing and the fruit is also somewhat ‘cloaked’, somehow more shallow and different. In a nutshell, that’s why I believe the teaching is dangerous to many.

I don’t understand the need for the teaching in the first place. It seems to be so easily misunderstood and misapplied by many Believers, particularly those who are not theologically mature enough to handle it. And I would have much preferred Piper make his case based on Scripture and not the famous ‘chief end’ Westminster Catechism (I’ve seen good theologians rip the statement to pieces in a debate setting, though no good theologian I know of thinks it is dead wrong, completely unscriptural, or anything like that).

What it looks like to me is a good theologian, 20 years ago, who wanted to come up with something new and different. I could be dead wrong about that. But I know that particular trap is a seduction that has snared many. Our Christian bookstores today are full of examples of it, most of them significantly more harmful than Piper’s book could ever be.

So, to get back full circle, I would say that Piper’s “Christian Hedonism”, at best, is an extremely poor choice of terminology.

It is also written that God has given us all things for our joy, and that nothing is to be refused if taken with thanksgiving. In this we do enjoy God because we honor the gifts that he gives. As a good Father he showers us with gifts and entertains us as his children with his favor. Far from being a looking towards man, man’s joy when taken from the hand of the Father with awe and thanksgiving, who gives perfect and good gifts to men, is to center our joy in him. As the preacher says, it is to enjoy him forever. Further it has not yet entered the mind of man, those things which the Father has prepared for those who love him. As the Father honors the Son and the Son the Father, Christ’s prayer was that we too would be one with them. I cannot imagine the joy of Christ’s reunification with the Father at the ascension. Though we now only know in part what that will be, we know that when we see him, we shall be like him, joy full to an infinite degree.

The words were sweeter than honey except for the last line. I have never been able to fully accept the famous declaration of the Westminster Catechism. [FWIW, I am in alignment with John MacArthur on everything I can think of with the exception that I have some quibbles with the Lordship Salvation issue.]

The word ‘enjoy’ has always seemed to me a poor word choice. Because it points to the Self, which is fallen in this present time/space continuum. Had the declaration been written, “… to glorify God and worship Him forever”, or to “glorify God and walk with Him forever”, or to glorify God and exist ‘in Him’ forever”, or to “glorify God and commune with Him forever, to glorify God and work with Him forever, or even to glorify God and obey Him forever”, it would have been a more accurate word choice. Because the ‘enjoyment’ of God is a byproduct of worshiping, walking, existing, communing, working, and obeying the Lord, it seems to me. Nor does it seem to be in complete harmony with the scriptual fact that we were created “for His pleasure”, not ours.

Perhaps I have been negatively influenced by John Pipers’s “Christian Hedonism” (which I consider to be perhaps the poorest choice of words in human history) and is based on this declaration. I believe this idea has led many Believers to pursue self-centered enjoyment of God instead of God Himself.