{"id":15315,"date":"2026-08-05T09:29:33","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T13:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=15315"},"modified":"2026-08-05T09:29:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T13:29:33","slug":"john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment.html","title":{"rendered":"John Piper Warns Christians About ‘Doomscrolling’: Every Tragic Headline Should Lead to Repentance, Not Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Adobe Stock | Inset: Micah Chiang \/ Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For many people, scrolling through an endless stream of heartbreaking headlines has become part of everyday life. But pastor and author John Piper believes Christians are called to respond to tragedy differently \u2014 not by consuming it as entertainment, but by allowing it to draw them closer to God.<\/p>\n

In a recent episode<\/a> of Ask Pastor John<\/em>, the 80-year-old founder of Desiring God reflected on Luke 13:1-5, where Jesus responds to two tragic events by urging His listeners to repent rather than speculate about why the victims suffered.<\/p>\n

“You deserve the same thing, so repent,” Piper said, summarizing Christ’s message. “That’s what suffering should do to you: make you penitent.”<\/p>\n

Piper explained that when people told Jesus about Galileans who had been killed by Pontius Pilate and others who died when the tower of Siloam collapsed, Jesus rejected the common assumption that those victims were somehow more sinful than everyone else.<\/p>\n

Instead, Christ redirected the conversation inward.<\/p>\n

“What he denies is that we can identify different degrees of badness in people from different degrees of suffering that they experience,” Piper said. “And what he affirms is that you … are just as liable to perishing as they are. Unless you repent, you’re going to likewise perish.”<\/p>\n

According to Piper, Jesus’ warning ultimately points to eternal judgment and serves as a reminder that every day of life is an undeserved gift of God’s mercy. Rather than asking why tragedy happened to someone else, believers should marvel at the fact that they have been given another opportunity to turn to Christ.<\/p>\n

Piper also recalled being deeply impacted years ago by a sermon by late theologian R.C. Sproul titled “The Locus of Astonishment<\/em>.” Sproul argued that Christians often focus their amazement in the wrong place.<\/p>\n

“What you ought to be amazed at is that you weren’t among the number,” Piper said, paraphrasing Sproul. “You weren’t under the tower when it fell. That’s the amazing thing \u2014 that you and I are still breathing and have some time to repent so that we won’t perish.”<\/p>\n

The longtime pastor also warned against what has become known as “doomscrolling” \u2014 compulsively consuming tragic news for shock, emotional stimulation or entertainment.<\/p>\n

“Looking at the news day by day on your phone, looking at the news just because it’s interesting or shocking or titillating, is not good,” Piper said. “That’s not a good motivation.”<\/p>\n

Instead, he outlined six biblical reasons Christians should stay informed: tragedy should lead believers to repentance, remind them of God’s sovereignty, prepare them for future suffering, encourage courage through the example of faithful believers, strengthen solidarity with persecuted Christians around the world, and help them identify practical ways to serve those in need.<\/p>\n

Piper also acknowledged that believers were never meant to carry the emotional weight of every tragedy happening across the globe.<\/p>\n

“We are not God,” he said. “We cannot handle emotionally all the suffering of the world. We just can’t… We should want to know the suffering that moves us to action and makes us better Christians.”<\/p>\n

His comments come as studies suggest doomscrolling has become increasingly common. A 2024 Morning Consult survey<\/a> found that 31% of American adults regularly engage in the habit, including more than half of Gen Z adults. Separate research published in Applied Research in Quality of Life<\/em> has linked excessive doomscrolling with lower life satisfaction and poorer mental well-being.<\/p>\n

Piper’s message echoes recent advice from pastor Max Lucado, who encouraged Christians to follow the example of the prophet Elijah by confronting evil when necessary but also stepping away to be renewed by God. Together, their counsel offers a timely reminder that while believers should not ignore suffering, they should neither allow an endless cycle of bad news to replace trust in God’s sovereignty, compassion for others, nor a heart ready to repent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For many people, scrolling through an endless stream of heartbreaking headlines has become part of everyday life. But pastor and author John Piper believes Christians are called to respond to tragedy differently \u2014 not by consuming it as entertainment, but by allowing it to draw them closer to God. In a recent episode of Ask…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":15317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJohn Piper Warns Christians About 'Doomscrolling': Every Tragic Headline Should Lead to Repentance, Not Entertainment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"John Piper says every tragic headline should lead Christians to repentance rather than doomscrolling, urging believers to respond in faith.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"John Piper Warns Christians About 'Doomscrolling': Every Tragic Headline Should Lead to Repentance, Not Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Piper says every tragic headline should lead Christians to repentance rather than doomscrolling, urging believers to respond in faith.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-05T13:29:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/08\/Doom-Scrolling_credit-Adobe-Stock-Inset-Micah-Chiang-Flickr.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beliefnet Contributors\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"John Piper Warns Christians About 'Doomscrolling': Every Tragic Headline Should Lead to Repentance, Not Entertainment","description":"John Piper says every tragic headline should lead Christians to repentance rather than doomscrolling, urging believers to respond in faith.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"John Piper Warns Christians About 'Doomscrolling': Every Tragic Headline Should Lead to Repentance, Not Entertainment","og_description":"John Piper says every tragic headline should lead Christians to repentance rather than doomscrolling, urging believers to respond in faith.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2026-08-05T13:29:33+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/08\/Doom-Scrolling_credit-Adobe-Stock-Inset-Micah-Chiang-Flickr.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Beliefnet Contributors","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment.html","name":"John Piper Warns Christians About 'Doomscrolling': Every Tragic Headline Should Lead to Repentance, Not Entertainment","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/08\/Doom-Scrolling_credit-Adobe-Stock-Inset-Micah-Chiang-Flickr.jpg","datePublished":"2026-08-05T13:29:33+00:00","dateModified":"2026-08-05T13:29:33+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"John Piper says every tragic headline should lead Christians to repentance rather than doomscrolling, urging believers to respond in faith.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/08\/Doom-Scrolling_credit-Adobe-Stock-Inset-Micah-Chiang-Flickr.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/08\/Doom-Scrolling_credit-Adobe-Stock-Inset-Micah-Chiang-Flickr.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Adobe Stock | Inset: Micah Chiang \/ Flickr"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/john-piper-warns-christians-about-doomscrolling-every-tragic-headline-should-lead-to-repentance-not-entertainment.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"John Piper Warns Christians About ‘Doomscrolling’: Every Tragic Headline Should Lead to Repentance, Not Entertainment"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/","name":"Christ News Today","description":"Christian News From Around the Globe","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d","name":"Brandy Grenier","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/author\/bgrenier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15319,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15315\/revisions\/15319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}