A Thoughtful Review of "Risk is Right" by John Piper

Back in 2012, Dr. John Piper published his book, Risk is Right: Better to Lose Your Life Than to Waste It.  He wrote it to a risk-adverse North American church resting comfortably when much of the world is dying in poverty and the darkness of never hearing about Jesus Christ’s work on the cross. The message that the Gospel is worth the risk is certainly true…I have spent the majority of the past two decades risking my life in various situations for His Name Sake.

It is imperative to challenge the North American church to re-consider the apathy and comfortable living that characterizes her.  It would greatly glorify God and bless Him if we rose up as a North American church to more holistically identify with our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world and understood and entered into the risks the Church faces elsewhere.

God has greatly used John Piper to impact many, and what he teaches has great weight.  My concern from a pastoral perspective is in how his book on risk is understood and applied by cross-cultural workers moving into and out of high risk situations.  My approach is not to be divisive or denigrate what he has written or his contribution to challenge and admonish the North American church.  Much of what he writes about – Christ’s glory, the significant worth of risk, and such I resonate with and celebrate.

My desire is to encourage global workers and those who pastor them to thoughtfully consider Piper’s writings on risk as primarily geared to the risk-adverse church and to use caution when applying his book to the high-risk situation field workers face.  Below, I share some of the thoughts that come to mind as I interact with Piper’s writings.

TITLE
The first “red flag” is the title,  Risk is Right.  When spoken to the North American church who views risk as dangerous (it is) and possibly irresponsible (definitely looks that way when considered from professional risk assesment), he is offering an opposing view to challenge people out of their mediocrity.

But in the world of living in high risk for months and years on end, risk is NOT always right.  Sometimes, God calls us to retreat, move back into safety.  Each risk situation must be considered individually, as risk is situational.

There are numerous examples of people in the Bible who avoided risk honorably – Daniel didn’t go out to the same event as his 3 colleagues who got thrown into the fire.  Both Jesus and Paul retreated from risk at various stages in their ministry.  So no, “Risk is not always right.”

CHAPTER ONE
The first statement that raises alarm bells for me is KL108, where he states, “If Christ is so valuable that the hope of his immediate and eternal fellowship after death frees us from the self-serving fear of dying and enables us to lay down our lives for the good of others, such love magnifies the glory of Christ like nothing else in the world.”   Dying for Christ is spoken of as a high sacrifice in the Bible, but it is possible to “hope in his immediate and eternal fellowship” and still have fear of dying but not be self-serving.

I don’t want to die – I want to live to be a mother to my children at least until they are adults. This has been my constant prayer as I’ve lived for almost two decades in and near war zones and in cities where terrorists attack frequently. It is not a self-serving fear for me to want to live to do what God has tasked me to do – be a mother to the children he gave me.  Fear of dying is not ALWAYS self-serving. Fear is a natural human emotional response to danger.

Numerous testimonies reveal that when we are called to actually give our lives for His Sake, he gives us the grace to not be filled with fear at that moment, but often not before that moment.  Fear is normal, and not always “self-serving,” “wrong” or sinful. His statement implies incorrect theology and understanding about fear and normal human physiology.

CHAPTER TWO
In the first two sentences, Piper makes a categorical statement that is very difficult to argue with: “If our single, all-embracing passion is to make much of Christ in life and death, and if the life that magnifies him most is the life of costly love, then life is risk, and risk is right. To run from it is to waste your life.”  Immediately, Piper has backed himself into a pastoral corner here that I don’t think he intended.

A field worker who feels called by the Holy Spirit’s voice to avoid or retreat from risk, would feel guilt and shame and condemnation, knowing that he is now done something that Dr. Piper says is wasteful. However, Scripture does not teach that it is a waste to run from risk – it doesn’t say anything about it specifically.  The Bible does consistently teach throughout that we are to listen to His voice and obey his commands. Faithfulness of obedience is God’s measuring stick.

What God rages most about in the New and Old Testaments are those with apathetic hearts, those who don’t care about widows and orphans, those who have dishonest weights (hypocrites).  God affirms those who love justice and mercy, who love God, their neighbor and themselves.

Anyone who has lived long-term in risk knows that it is much harder to live for Christ than to die for him.  This is simply because his Spirit imparts a special grace at the moment of martyrdom to enable believers to stay strong in it.  However, living for Christ in a dirty, dusty, poverty-stricken place where death is all around you and one daily receives threats of being kidnapped or killed, where the mosque preachers against foreigners every Friday – these places are challenging places to thrive joyfully, although it is very much possible.

Disappointingly, he again restates his Chapter Two thesis at the very end, KL176, that “it is right to risk for the cause of Christ” without adding the caution that it is right when we are led by the Holy Spirit to risk our life. God clearly led people in the Bible at times to avoid risk, which wasn’t sinful or selfish.

His third sentence in Chapter Two: “I define risk very simply as an action that exposes you to the possibility of loss or injury.”  His definition misses a significant part of risk. We risk also for gain. Any type of risk is taken for the gain. So risk for Chrit is taking an action that exposes us to the possibility of loss, but also gain. And somehow, there must be a different way of addressing those who actually do risk their lives to go into hostile and abrasive cultures where there is clearly a real threat of being killed.  My family back home do not face the same risks where they live as what I faced with my husband and children in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Later on, (KL 152), he amplifies this with the section on “Exploding the Myth of Safety.”  In risk, as he rightly states, the mirage of safety whether in North America (or Afghanistan) does not exist.  There are always things out of our control and unknowns – the things we don’t know that we don’t know.

The problem is that a North American Christian living in the comfort of constant electricity, running hot water, and an air-conditioned office simply does not face risk at the same level as being part of a global worker community of 300 foreigners living in a Muslim city where foreigners are targeted.  It is simply NOT the same statistical risk level. These are different data points.

Risk, wherever the Bible refers to it, is almost always always in the context of actually walking into a place (city, country, or our international Sunday church service) where we could be killed or suffer harm. When there are active Taliban or ISIS threats against us, we are risking our lives.

My personal problem with his definition of risk is that he utilized only half of the secular definition of risk, instead of turning to how the Bible defines risk, gleaning from the references there what it could mean.  Perhaps I’m just “splitting hairs” on this issue, but much of the time the community I lived among in Afghanistan were daily risking their very lives, not simply “loss or injury” such as the examples he gives of loss of job, etc.

He is correct in reminding people that “losing your life is not always the same as wasting it.”  (KL 135). I appreciate what he said that it “may not be loving to choose comfort or security when something great may be achieved for the cause of Christ and the good of others.”  Indeed, this is why Neal and I chose to stay in a very dangerous place for almost nine month of total lockdown so we could stay and minister to the people.  Our children, our family, and our community thrived in that situation.

CHAPTERS THREE & FOUR
Here, Piper seems to use what I describe as the "anecdotal approach" to risk.  He chooses three Old Testament stories whose connection is the risk they took. These stories do give us hope. The problem with only choosing these stories, ones where people risked their lives, is that there are other honorable stories in the Bible where people rightly avoided risk or risked things other than their lives.  Daniel clearly did not go to the same event as his 3 colleagues, else he also would have been thrown into the fire.  He avoided risk, and the Bible does not condemn him.

Piper chose to cite only Paul’s last experience when he chose to walk into the place of his death.  Piper focuses on the people of the Bible and what they did, but what he fails here to address is how each of these people heard God’s voice or were led to risk.  How did Esther discern what she was to do? Some are called to risk their lives, but not all are.

There were plenty of times in Jesus and Paul’s life when he mitigated risk by avoiding it, or retreated from risk, or transferred the risk to some others in the community. How did they know what to do in each situation? The point of many of these passages is to see how the people in the BIble interacted with God and obeyed or disobeyed him and what he did with them and their situation. In other words, the point should be to look at how Paul heard from the Spirit and discerned the Lord’s leading and NOT on what Paul did (move towards or away from danger).

CHAPTER FIVE
Here, Piper re-frames the disobedience of the Israelite nation when they were paralyzed by fear and took their eyes off of God and refused to move into Canaan, into the Promised Land.  His conclusion was that because they didn’t obey, they didn’t risk, they wasted their lives.  He concludes, “How much is wasted when we do not risk for the cause of God!”

Dr. Piper is certainly consistent in his thesis that risking is the only right thing to do. I’m not even quibbling with his re-framing of this story as a missed “risk” experience.  But I have deep concern and want to urge the greatest of caution in taking this as a guide for field workers already in high risk situations.  Workers need to engage in responsible and wholistic risk assessment and management and determine God’s leading as I’ve described thoroughly in Facing Danger and Facing Fear. When we choose to step away from certain risks while remaining in the high-risk situation, we are not being disobedient or wasting our lives – the implication Piper makes in his last sentence.

Sometimes we need to avoid or mitigate risk in order to live another day in dangerous places. And this is right.

CHAPTER SIX
I had hope when I began reading this chapter. Perhaps Dr. Piper will give some cautions. I love his opening few paragraphs, challenging people who are still attracted to the mirage of safety. But keep in mind his audience here – he is not primarily addressing those already in the cross-cultural risk situation. He is very correct in describing some of the wrong reasons people risk. These have all been true of people on the field. But he stops short of encouraging people to really listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice about each specific risk, and again gives the unfettered response that risk is right and God will supply the strength to do it (thankfully, so true).

What I was sad about here was the lack of acknowledging how hard risk is, how God will minister to our heart in risk, how God cares deeply, but Piper chose to stay on the surface conceptual truth that is abstractly removed from the real risks workers face.  Perhaps I’m being too hard here, as the book is meant to be a brief response on risk to the North American Church. 

CHAPTER SEVEN
This is probably the best chapter in Piper’s book.  I didn’t receive it as encouragement, however, during our difficult years in Afghanistan, because of the previous six chapters and his lack of awareness of the great loss, grief, and challenge of living in risk.  I really appreciat how he answered the question of Christians go hungry but God will give the crust of bread if that is what is needed to remain faithful to him in the suffering moment.

CHAPTER EIGHT
While I love the spiritual triumph described in this last chapter, I know how much grief, loss, tears, and depression I have walked through personally, and how much so many others walk through.  The book ends on this positive note, but those pastoring field workers in high-risk situations need to use caution of reiterating the truths stated in this chapter, because it doesn’t address the situational challenges of the risk situation, and help people understand the additional losses and griefs they may need to walk through for the sake of Christ.  Glossing over these challenges too fast and addressing the triumphalism and conquering piece may not go over well for those in the chaotic, confusing situation of risk.

An overall caution of using Piper’s book as a foundation for a theology of risk is that it is not an exegetical foundation of risk in the Bible; there are no apparent exegetical references to fear. It lacks addressing the emotions, the loss and grief.  I’m disappointed that Piper elevates risk as the ideal (instead of faithful obedience) without the necessary caution to move into or out of risk based on the Holy Spirit’s leading.  God clearly demonstrated battle strategy throughout the Old Testament, and Paul spiritualizes this in his writings in the New Testament, describing the spiritual war we are in.  This implies strategy, thought, retreat, advance, and wise planning and decision-making.

For Piper, the foundation of risk is faith and trust, and if we fear, then we are not having faith. This is a binary solution to a complex problem, because fear is a normal human emotion that we are told in Scripture to not let paralyze us, but to move forward out of obedience when we are called to engage the enemy. Applying his thesis  to cross-cultural workers seeking wisdom on what they should do would be dangerous, because it could encourage field workers to risk when they are really being led to avoid risk that day.

In other words, risking unwisely and when not being specifically led can lead to the “small death” instead of the “big death”. By this I mean the death God has ordained that brings him the most glory.   Both Jesus and Paul demonstrated they avoiding certain risks, where they could have been killed much earlier in their ministry careers, so that they could die the big death, the one that would give God the greatest glory.  I know Dr. Piper would agree with this!