John Piper ruined Twitter.
This blogger thinks so. He blames Piper for the rise in cringeworthy Christian status updates – particularly on Twitter.
I like the cut of his jib. Piper can get away with it. If you’re following Piper you expect to encounter the real, passionate man that he is. If you’re not that man (or woman) don’t pretend to be.
But then I lost all my normal “friends” on Twitter.
They all turned into little John Pipers. I used to see real tweets from people. Some would talk about their latest blog posts or posts they found interesting. Others would talk about their recent studies in Scripture or what books they were reading. Many of them were fun and humorous.
Now many of them are just pretentious and therefore obnoxious.
Once the nature and style of Piper’s 140 characters or less were released, people started to mimic him. Gone are the “fruitless” tweets about how their toddlers did something cute or about the interesting things that happen day-to-day. It has been replaced with numerous (and annoying) pithy statements and faux-holiness. How do I know these are “faux?” Because most of you changed over-night. While it takes a lifetime to be sanctified, it only took your Twitter accounts 24 hours.
Amen brother.
But I’ll balance this critique of all the wannabe Pipers with a critique from Piper that made me think a little… When Abraham Piper (John Piper’s son) asked what he should say to a room full of Christian bloggers his father replied:
Tell them that it takes relentless intentionality to keep a Christ-exalting blog from become a clever blog. The temptation to entertain is almost irresistible.
Now. I started this out as a clever blog – being a Christ-exalting blog hasn’t really been my “intention”. Maybe it should be. Though then it would lose its place as an outlet for my cleverness.
John Piper ruined my blog.