Mara

Thanks, David, for clearing up the Piper/SGM ministries thing for me. I really don’t want to run around passing off misinformation as fact.

For the record, I admit I’m one of those who can get pretty angry over remarks preachers make that don’t help the abused and can actually be used to hurt the abused further.

But stepping back and looking at it more objectively and less emotionally, I do believe both Cheryl and gengwall have answered you well. There is a foundational misunderstanding of the Gospel of Grace as it relates to gender, marriage, and roles that Piper misses.
Because he misses it, this creates holes in his understanding in several areas including the area of abuse. And with those holes in his understanding come holes in giving practical advice in those areas including abuse.

Plus the fact that Piper is such a nice guy, I really don’t think he gets the abusive mindset, at all. He gets being angry and not understanding human beings of the female gender. He gets that men are sometimes harsh and that some/many of those men can be won over by a soft answer from a female. But he doesn’t get that there are those who will be encouraged to abuse more when given a soft answer.

If you have any influence in your church, I encourage you to read and then recommend to Piper “Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men” by Lundy Bancroft. It will open your eyes if they aren’t open already. And it will open Piper’s eyes if he would be willing to read it.

I love the church, and the people in it with all their faults. The LAST thing I want to see is for the church, any part of the church, to become irrelevant to the world because of a faulty understanding of the Word of God.
The LASY thing I want to see is for the abused to leave the church and leave Jesus Christ due to faulty teaching, when it is Jesus who wants to heal their wounded souls.