John Piper’s recent retirement from preaching, after 33 years in the pulpit of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, hardly means retirement from pastoral work through other means, including writing. I interviewed the 67-year-old author of 50 plus books in front of students at Bethlehem College and Seminary.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune referred to you last Dec. 29 as “the fiery preacher of hard-line biblical values.” How would you describe yourself in seven words or less? Desperately dependent on grace, happy about it. 

Last November I stood beside a library shelf with three friends—one of whom would soon become my boyfriend. I had invited them all to my house for fall break. My hometown library, with its blue soft interior and grainy quietness, was a safe place for me to wonder whether Jonathan liked me as much as I liked him. Since—I unabashedly admit—I had extended the invitation to him with ticklish ulterior motives.

We’re driving to Mount Evans, Colo., on the highest roadway in North America when it hits me: I’m homesick.

This is backward, of course, because Colorado is my home state and Kansas my reluctantly adopted current state. I should be feeling homesick in Kansas, not among the pines and aspens in some of the prettiest country in the world.

Last week I wrote about the amazingly uncritical reception Reza Aslan’s falsehood-filled book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (Random House), received from National Public Radio.The bad news this week is that Zealot, aided by the NPR imprimatur, is near the top of best-seller lists, and is still meeting a fawning reception rather than the fact-checking it deserves.