Austin Fisher is the author of a new book titled Young Restless No Longer Reformed.

It's a book length critique of you, Pastor John, and Jonathan Edwards, and Yoke Hauvinism,

and on his blog recently, Kevin D. Young has written a fairly lengthy review, so there's

no need to do an in-depth review of the book here.

But there is something in the book, a specific critique of you that I want you to address

here on Ask Pastor John, and it comes on page 58 of his book where Fisher says your emphasis

on God's glory negates a proper emphasis on God's love.

He says that you've made God into a needy, glory-monger, trying to suck praise out of us, and

this, he says, has shrouded the beauty of God's self-giving, his love to us.

In Fisher's own words, he says this, quote, God's love is an end in itself.

And here I find a radical departure from Jonathan Edwards, John Piper, and the self-glorifying

black hole of Yoke Hauvinism.

Edwards claimed that the ultimate aim of God in creating the world was the full manifestation

of his glory, i.e. his self-glorification.

Love is just a cog in the bigger glory machine.

End quote.

Pastor John, how do you respond to this type of criticism?

Well, first of all, Tony, thanks for the question.

I am reading the book.

I have it here in front of me.

I don't know that I'll read the whole thing, and people will see why I might not finish

it before I'm done here, but let me start with that phrase, the self-glorifying black

...