God is NOT a Sadist
John Piper is Wrong
It is bad enough that the Christian influencers and Christians who seek power are calling empathy sin. But now, John Piper has decided that lament is bad. John Piper is a patriarchal, Reformed pastor whom you may have heard of. His Desiring God podcast and Ask Pastor John are very popular. His view of God is one that is skewed in my opinion. Of course, he believes the Wesleyan-Holiness view of God to be wrong. But Piper’s view of God is of an all-controlling, capricious, and thin-skinned god. Piper often takes positions which make God out to be a monster. He has told women that they should stay in abusive marriages because women must submit to men in all circumstances. Piper has even said that he believes women should not serve in any leadership position whether religious or societal. It is Piper’s view of God that leads him to question the very idea of lament.
Rick Pidcock writes about this in a Baptist News Global article by summarizing Piper’s comments in a February 12, 2026 episode of Ask Pastor John.
It is never right, it is always sin, to feel or think or say critical things about God and God’s ways.
It may be right to feel or think or express perplexity at God’s ways and to seek help from God to understand as much as possible -- to cry out for it.
It may be right to feel or think or express how painful God’s ways are in your life and to seek God’s help to understand and endure.
The sin of having critical feelings or critical thoughts of God is not made worse by the sin of expressing those words to God aloud.
God disapproves of being criticized because it dishonors God, but God forgives those who repent and trust Christ.
You can probably see some problems with Piper’s claims here if you spend any time in The Psalms or Prophets of Hebrew scripture. Questioning God is a theme in those. Criticism of God is part of the human experience of God. But for Piper, God’s honor must be maintained at all cost. Piper’s god is a thin-skinned man who punishes based upon slights to his honor. That is not the God of the Bible, nor is it the God revealed in Jesus. But Piper’s view of God is popular. It is why so many believe that the relatively recent atonement theory of penal substitution is so popular. Piper’s thinking is embraced by many apologists and influencers. Many of whom have no theological training and don’t truly understand the concepts they argue about. Thus the idea that empathy is sin.
The path from empathy being sin to having an issue with lament is not a far trip. But empathy and lament are not only not sin, they are critical parts of the experience of God throughout time. The rejection of lament is a move by those who hold power, who have privilege, and who demand obedience above all else. This is a central thought in the excellent book The Back Side of the Cross by Diane Leclerc and Brent Peterson. They flip the ideas of Piper’s atonement on their head by asking us to consider the sinned against, not just the sinner. Contrary to the sadistic god Piper describes, God is able to absorb our criticism and outcries and reflect it back as love.
Leclerc and Peterson define lament for us. “A lament is a stirring cry, where God is asked to be a better God, indeed, where God is held accountable. Most laments have three groups present: the speaker, God, and the enemy.” (Back Side) I suspect you see Piper’s problem with lament. It is a concept where we might accuse God. Lament is an action we should be willing to enter into - especially with the abused and the forgotten. Piper believes God only desires praise and that anything less than total praise is rejected by God. I really don’t believe the God revealed in scripture is that narcissistic. That leads Piper to say that God’s honor demands our total submission to whatever comes our way. But this is not good news to the hurting. “If Christians fail to follow the model of the Psalter and only offer expressions of praise without any space for lament, such praise can become hollow and ring false in the ears of the abused.” (ibid)
Any rejection of lament should ring hollow in our own ears and lives. I am tempted to use the image of a dominatrix for Piper’s god, but that would be false because Piper believes God to be male through and through. How a holy other God can be either male or female is a mystery. Scripture says that both make up the image of God. But that idea leads to women having equality and Piper ain’t having that. One of the end results of Piper’s theology is harm. “Spiritual abuse can happen when spiritual truths or biblical texts are used to do harm or to manipulate people into dysfunctional thoughts or behaviors.” (ibid) Why are there so many scandals for prominent pastors? Because many hold to the idea that they speak for a God who demands obedience to the ministers of God (if they are male of course).
The logical conclusion of Piper’s view is that God forces harm upon people. Let me be clear, Piper is wrong and I believe his view of God leads to sinful behavior in leaders. But I also see the way that Piper’s view sounds to the abused, hurting, or vulnerable. Leclerc and Peterson help here. “A crucial, but often overlooked outcome of a Christian masochistic view is that a position of demanded submission and acquiescence of one’s suffering as God’s will make resistance to suffering inappropriate and thus impossible to express. The sexual connotation here stands as a vivid analogy, as God forces suffering upon us.” (ibid)
Piper’s view creates a masochistic religion. The god in any masochistic religion is a sadist by nature. Apologies if you really like John Piper, but he is selling a sadistic god. The fact that so many come to believe in the God portrayed by Piper causes me to lament. The very season of Lent is one in which we make decisions that lead us into solidarity with the hurting, the outcast, and the powerless. Piper wants a God who strikes with anger and gives Piper the authority to wield power over others. Within Piper’s world, women and others who report abuse are sinners who are experiencing the discipline of God as evidenced by their circumstances. The person whose body is being attacked by cancer is under the rebuke of God. Why? Because that view of God means God just does such things for mysterious reasons or that God does such things because you are bad.
Paul the apostle used a slang word for such doctrine - σκύβαλον (skubalon). Most translations use words like dung or garbage. But many scholars believe the modern equivalent would be bullsh*t. Piper’s theology is not good news - it is skubula. It belongs on a dung heap, but his views are popular because they allow for human beings to act like that version of God. Demanding submission and total obedience to capricious ideology.
The truth is that God is a God of empathy. God not only can handle lament. God welcomes lament. We should be a people willing to lament the harm done in the name of God and the harm that happens to our fellow human beings just because. That harm is not brought by God. Here I come to a common theme in my writing. God is a God who is with us. Truly with us and wants relationship, not obedience. God wants our hearts full of love that pours out into the world on others. God desires mercy, not sacrifice.
That’s the good news. God wants us to know who God is. As Christians observe Lent, we think on Jesus’ time in the wilderness. A time when Jesus was offered the power of this world, the power to do as he wished, the power to control. But when offered the world, Jesus said that was not the desire of God.
When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. (Lk 4:16-20 NRSV)
God is not a sadist.
Leclerc, Diane, and Brent Peterson. Back Side of the Cross: An Atonement Theology for the Abused and Abandoned. Cascade Books, 2022.
https://baptistnews.com/article/forget-empathy-the-new-war-is-on-lament/
