In Which John Piper Doesn't Tell You To Find A New Job

Liam Neeson on the phone (from the movie "Taken"). Image text: "Post doc job search- I have a very specific set of skills." Image source.

So the Lord laid a burden on my heart to respond to bad theology from Desiring God. Here's an article on that site, written by John Piper: How to Serve a Bad Boss. The advice in this article is just... not good. Mostly because it NEVER mentions anything about "maybe if you're unhappy with your job and your boss isn't treating you right, you should think about getting out of there and finding a new job."

It's a short article, so I'll just go through and respond to the whole thing [all italics are from the original]:

Rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. (Ephesians 6:7–8)

Consider these five things from Ephesians 6:7–8 in connection to your job.

1) A call to radically Lord-centered living.

This is astonishing compared to the way we usually live. Paul says that all our work should be done as work for Christ, not for any human supervisor. With good will render service “as to the Lord and not to man.”

This means that we will think of the Lord in what we are doing at work. We will ask, Why would the Lord like this done? How would the Lord like this done? When would the Lord like this done? Will the Lord help me to do this? What effect will this have for the Lord’s honor? In other words, being a Christian means radically Lord-centered living and working.

Umm, I don't really think this a helpful way to conceptualize job responsibilities, but, eh it's not that bad so I guess I won't say too much about it. Probably it's possible to imagine you're actually working primarily for God rather than for a company, and have that not necessarily lead to unhealthy things. Eh. Sure, I guess. Personally, though, I don't think it's a good idea, because it adds a whole extra unnecessary person into the system and puts your focus in a weird place, which could cause you to not accurately see the situation.

2) A call to be a good person.

Lord-centered living means being a good person and doing good things. Paul says, “With a good will [render service] . . . whatever good anyone does.” Jesus said that when we let our light shine, men will see our “good works” and give glory to our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).

Yes, I agree with this one. Be a good person.

3) Power to do a good job for inconsiderate earthly employers.

Paul’s aim is to empower Christians, with Lord-centered motives, to go on doing good for supervisors who are not considerate. How do you keep on doing good in a job when your boss ignores you or even criticizes you? Paul’s answer is: stop thinking about your boss as your main supervisor, and start working for the Lord. Do this in the very duties given to you by your earthly supervisor.

Items 1 and 2 didn't mention anything about working for a bad boss, so I just assumed they are about average normal work situations, and sure, whatever. They're definitely not the advice to give someone working for a bad boss, but that didn't seem to be their target audience, so it's fine. But this one here, item 3 on Piper's list, is where we start getting into what to do if you have a bad boss.

And this here is BAD advice. Just keep "working for the Lord", if your boss "ignores you or even criticizes you"? What?

Okay, over here in reality, here is some advice: Maybe you can get them to treat you better, maybe by talking to them or some other influential person in the company. Or maybe you determine that your boss is sort of bad at dealing with people but it's not necessarily harming you; they are still doing their other boss duties good enough, so it's not ideal but you can at least accept it. You don't have to like each other, but at least you can coexist. Or you see if you can transfer to a different manager, or start looking for a new job entirely. Just a few suggestions I thought of off the top of my head. Obviously some of these will not work in some situations. You have to examine your own situation and decide what the best course of action would be.

But no, Piper wants us to just pretend it doesn't matter that your boss is treating you wrong. Just sort of try not to care about that, and force yourself to believe you are "working for the Lord." This is terrible advice.

4) Encouragement that nothing good is done in vain.

Perhaps the most amazing sentence of all is this: “Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord.” This is amazing. Everything! “Whatever good anyone does.” Every little thing you do that is good is seen and valued and rewarded by the Lord.

And he will pay you back for it. Not in the sense that you have earned anything — as if you could put him in your debt. He owns you, and everything in the universe. He owes us nothing. But he freely, graciously chooses to reward us for all the good things done in faith.

Umm. No, this is terrible advice.

So Piper is saying that if you just keep doing the right thing, even when you're in a bad situation, good will come of it. This is just NOT TRUE, and it leads to people wasting so much time and emotional energy.

For example, when I was in college, there was a website that kept track of how many credits each student needed to graduate, and I noticed there was an error on the website- it said I had not taken a class that I actually had taken. So I sent a polite email to somebody about it. I got some polite response back that didn't really reassure me, and the website continued to claim I had not taken that class. A semester later, or a year later, I emailed somebody about it again, and got another "eh I'm sure it's fine" response, and nothing changed.

And I'm thinking, yeah it's easy for you to say "it's fine" when you're some administrative person in some office and this doesn't affect you, but this is my degree and this could potentially turn into a huge problem that stops me from graduating. I would like this problem solved.

It got closer to when I was supposed to graduate- maybe 1 semester or 1 year before graduation. And I concluded that my sending-of-polite-emails was not working. Maybe I was sending them to the wrong person. So I had to DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT, see. Eventually I ended up going and talking to someone in person about it, and they DID get the website changed so it had the correct information. Good. And I graduated with no problems.

But if I had followed Piper's advice? Well, yeah, it wasn't my fault I was in that situation. It was someone else's mistake. I did nothing wrong. And I politely sent an email to point out the problem. Which is the right thing to do in that situation. And... if I was following Piper's advice, that would be it. He doesn't say anything about "look at reality and the results of your actions, and if you're not getting the results you want, you will need to try doing something different." No- his advice is literally the opposite. To people in a bad situation, he says to just keep doing what they're doing. Just be secure in the fact that you are doing the right thing, you are doing nothing wrong, and that's all you have to think about.

If you buy into this ideology, there's no way to notice "hey this is not working, therefore I should try something different." You're supposed to just force yourself to not care that it's "not working." You're doing the right thing, so God will handle the rest.

Hey, people have emotions. You can't just force yourself to not care. I remember how ANGRY and STRESSED OUT I was about this problem, so angry because that wrong information was there FOR YEARS and nobody seemed to care. Back before I realized I needed to try something different, that sending polite emails to this one unhelpful person was never going to solve the problem.

In reality, it doesn't matter that it's not my fault, and that I'm "doing the right thing." The reality is that if this problem didn't get solved, I would be the one who suffered for it. Of course that's not fair, but that's how the world works. And so I need to understand that that's the reality I'm dealing with. And that the person I emailed was not the right person who could/would actually solve the problem- which is also not my fault, but reality doesn't care about that. I need to actually see the reality of the situation and figure out what to do from there- not just naively "do the right thing" and feel good about how none of it is my fault, and trust that that means everything will magically be okay.

But the advice and morality lessons I learned in church (and other Christian sources, like VeggieTales) were always about abstract "virtues" that we should apply to our lives. There was no mechanism to actually examine a situation and understand all the practical aspects of what was happening, or realize what I'm doing is not working so I should change my behavior. I'm learning that VeggieTales morality doesn't fit with the real world, and now I believe in what I'm calling "boundaries morality" instead. I had to figure this all out on my own. It totally goes against what the church taught me.

I'd like to point out that in Piper's article, he doesn't say that if you just keep doing good, that means the situation will get better. He says you will be "rewarded by the Lord" but he doesn't say what that reward will look like or when it will come. Perhaps you will only get the reward in heaven after you die. So nobody can accuse him of claiming that following this advice would actually solve the problem.

I'm here to tell you you don't have to live that way. You don't have to just "do the right thing" and let injustices happen to you and try to have faith that you will be rewarded someday because it was other people's fault rather than yours. You don't have to let computers claim that you never took a class that you actually did take. You can STAND UP FOR YOURSELF. You can make a plan about how best to navigate the situation and solve the problem. Yes, I know it's not fair that you should have to do that, because it's not your fault you're in that situation- BUT THAT IS HOW THE WORLD WORKS. And life is so much better when you take steps to solve your own problems, rather than waiting for God to "reward" you.

(I gotta put a disclaimer on that, because I'm a feminist and I know it's bad when people try to tell marginalized people to just work harder or have a better attitude or whatever, and that will solve their problems- without trying to do anything about the systemic injustice that caused those problems in the first place. I'm not talking about people who are stuck in a bad situation with no options because of systemic injustice. I'm talking about how evangelicalism trained me to not even look for what options I had.)

When I read Piper's advice in item 4, about how you should just stay in a bad situation but keep "doing good," I think of how the church tells women in bad marriages to just submit to their husbands more, just be an even better wife, just keep praying for him, and then magically it will fix your marriage. And people get stuck there and waste years of their lives. Just naively believing that because they're "doing good", good will come of it. No, it does not work that way. They're just wasting their time and their emotional energy, and it's not going to solve the problem. You are valuable and you deserve to be in a better situation- so get out when you're able to get out. There's nothing good or virtuous about continuing to stay and suffer in a bad situation.

One last thing about item 4: Gotta love how Piper finds an opportunity to tell us God "owes us nothing." Wouldn't want people to misunderstand his article and think that they deserve good things. Piper thinks we all deserve to go to hell, and God is well within his rights to just kill you at any time for any reason.

5) Encouragement that insignificant status on earth is no hindrance to great reward in heaven.

The Lord will reward every good thing you do — “whether he is a bondservant or is free.” Your supervisor may think you are a nobody — a mere bondservant, so to speak. Or he may not even know you exist. That doesn’t matter. The Lord knows you exist. And in the end no faithful service will be in vain.

Ughhh. If your supervisor really doesn't care about you that much, maybe find a new job where people appreciate you? SERIOUSLY. Why on earth would you just try to tell yourself "that doesn't matter", if you have a chance to get out?

In this whole article, Piper never once says anything about your happiness, or getting into a situation that's good for you. Instead, it's all about how to stay in a bad situation and force yourself to not care when people mistreat you. Because in Piper's ideology, we don't matter. All that matters is our obedience to God, and how we are glorifying God. It's like it never even occurs to him to mention anything about pursuing your own happiness. He really doesn't care about that. It's not a priority at all in his belief system.

That't the end of Piper's article. Coincidentally, I read another post this week about somebody with a bad manager, so I'd like to talk about that. The post is What can I do about doing badly on an impromptu coding test?, posted on Workplace Stack Exchange by a user named Cloud:

I have been at my organization for around 18 months. I took a technical programming test (basically a C# kata of sorts) in the interview and flunked it. However, they said they liked my attitude and could see I had other skills (outside of .NET) and so agreed to hire me. I agreed to accept on the condition I received the support and training required.

The short story is the last 18 months have been very dramatic. I've had personal issues with my manager and have struggled to complete some work (and also successfully completed work within my skill-set) and feel I haven't learnt from the team as I hoped I would.

I have been studying for around 5 - 10 hours a week in my free time and feel I have improved my C# / .NET skills by a decent amount since starting.

Yesterday, my manager came to my desk, asked me to close all applications and turn off my internet connection. He then inserted a flash drive into my machine and said I had 30 minutes to complete a programming challenge. It was the same one I was given in the interview (I hadn't attempted it since).

There were 9 'stages' to the challenge. I believe I could have completed all of them but due to the time constraint I only managed 3.

In a follow up meeting, I was told that a 33% success rate is not good enough and that I need to show significant improvement in the next 6 months.

I feel that this kata didn't represent my learning, it was very niche and I didn't get to demonstrate all of the things I've learnt that were outside the scope of the challenge.

What can I do to show 'significant improvement' from here? I have asked what I should be learning specifically but just get told 'it's your career, you decide', which frustrates me.

Cloud here is in a bad situation. Their manager says they need to "show significant improvement in the next 6 months", so Cloud feels quite worried and asks for advice on "What can I do to show 'significant improvement' from here?"

And the response? Here's the top answer, written by a user named Twyxz:

The way your manager has sprung this test no you is completely unfair and clearly an attempt to prove that you are not able to work here when realistically the time restraint was likely too short and the notice was non-existent. The way he approached you was outright rude to begin with.

Your best choice here given your past experience and current situation is to spend the next 6 months continuing as you are and starting a job hunt. Look for a new job as the way you are being treated is unacceptable and you should not have to tolerate it.

Your manager has:

1. Not told you what to improve on which is completely unfair especially when you're trying to.
2. Specifically targeted you with a test (potentially triggered by something else)
3. Given you bad training and caused issues in the past.

The bottom line is Get out of there ASAP!

Your manager is targeting you and is doing anything he can to get you fired without breaking any rules per se.

YES. Cloud wants to know how to improve so their manager will be happy with them, but the other users in the forum recognize that's not going to happen. The manager is treating them in a way that's completely unprofessional and unfair, and there's likely nothing Cloud can actually do to please him and keep from getting fired.

You don't stay in a situation like that. You get out.

(Isn't it nice to read some reality-based advice, not written by John Piper? Love it.)

To me, Cloud sounds very young, like maybe this is their first job and there are a lot of things they don't understand about how "the real world" works. (Sounds a lot like me when I first started working as an engineer.) They don't understand what a manager's job is- a manager should give feedback on your performance, and they should give you training if there are skills you need to learn. They shouldn't wait 18 months and then suddenly tell you you're not doing good enough. Cloud seems ready to blame themself, and thinks they can fix the situation if they just try hard enough to improve. But that's not how it works. And the other posters explained that it's not right for your manager to treat you that way, you deserve better, this isn't a situation you can fix, so you should look for a new job.

But I can imagine someone with an evangelical background, equipped with nothing but Piper's "you're working for the Lord" advice and VeggieTales morality lessons (like me...), being told by an authority figure "you need to show improvement in the next 6 months" and naively believing it. Staying in that situation because it never occurs to them to think about other options, or because of simplistic Sunday School lessons about "quitting is bad." Just trying to obey what the authority figure says, just trying to work hard and "do good" and trust God that it will be okay. And then 6 months later suddenly getting fired and being COMPLETELY SHOCKED and devastated and blaming themself.

They never taught us how to recognize when a situation is bad and GET OUT. It was always about how to try to change other people's behavior and solve the problem, or how to help yourself accept the situation. It was always about "doing the right thing", picking the right "virtue" to apply. I was never told to prioritize my own health and happiness and just GET OUT because IT'S NOT MY JOB TO FIX OTHER PEOPLE. (Boundaries!) No, I'm supposed to say to "set a good example" and be "the only bible they'll ever read."

And sometimes I think, well that's because I was just a little kid when I was taught these things, and kids don't really have the option of getting out of a situation they don't like. Their parents make decisions about where they go to school, where they go to church, what friends they see, what extracurricular activities they do, and so on. So sometimes I think maybe it makes sense that I was never taught about how to recognize an unhealthy situation and get out. But then I read things like Piper's article, which is definitely for adults, who HAVE THE OPTION to send out their resume and find a new job, and not once does he say anything about "consider looking for a new job" or anything about getting yourself into a situation where you'll be more happy and healthy.

I've embarked on a quest to review all the VeggieTales movies, and there's a lot I criticize about them. And sometimes I think, well this is just a movie for kids, they had to simplify things, that's why the advice comes across badly. But... when I reached adulthood, I never got an updated version of those things. There was never a Sunday School lesson on "you know how we said don't spread rumors? Well actually here is a more nuanced perspective on when it does or doesn't make sense to repeat information you've heard about another person."

And John Piper's article about "How to Serve a Bad Boss" ... it's not any more grown-up than "VeggieTales: The Ballad of Little Joe." The advice is the same. Just keep doing the right thing, and even though you're being treated badly, God cares, so eventually you'll be rewarded.

You don't have to live that way. Just because some authority figure tells you "you have to do XYZ" doesn't mean it's true. Look for your other options, and get out if you find something better. It's not your job to stay for the sake of people who aren't even treating you right. You deserve better. You deserve happiness. But of course John Piper doesn't believe that.

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Related:
From "Virtues Morality" To "Boundaries Morality"
I knew Desiring God ideology is spiritual abuse, but wow.
Christianity Taught Me I Don't Matter