John Piper, bible scholar and pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN, is no stranger to post-catastrophe commentary. After the bridge collapse in 2007, he penned this. Greg Boyd, also a biblical scholar and pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, MN, responded in his usual way here.

Now the dueling pastors are at it again. In case you haven’t heard, this past week tornadoes touched down in the Minneapolis area. A particular tornado struck during the meeting of the ELCA  (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America), where the issue at hand was the ordination and support of gay clergy. (They voted that monogamous gays can serve.)You can read about all that here and other sources.

The next day Piper posted his commentary on the whole matter. The whole point of his post is that moments like this are a glimpse of God’s judgment on sin and should lead us to repentance (arguing mostly from Luke 13 and other similar passages). (Piper posted a clarification of Thursday’s post here, which basically rehashes his main point.) Yesterday, Boyd responded with a detailed critique of Piper’s comments.

The repeated disagreement between the Minnesota pastors stems from a clash of worldviews. Boyd is an Arminian and an Open Theist; Piper is a Calvinist and determinist. These theological “systems” are totally opposed to each other and represent different views of God. One’s view of God impacts one’s view of the world and therefore, influences how one interprets world events.

It’s not surprising that Piper and Boyd disagree. The best that we onlookers can do is to take notes, carefully weigh the exegesis from both sides, and think long and hard about how we view God, his justice, the powers, and the Scriptures.