YouTube has decided to reintroduce pastor John Piper's audiobook 'Coronavirus and Christ' after initially removing it for "violating" the platform's content standards.
The audiobook version was uploaded to DesiringGod.org and YouTube on 8th April, before being taken down on 15th May without notice.
In a statement on 28th April, YouTube announced that it would be expanding its “fact check information panels” and cracking down on content that was unhelpful in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, in early April, YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan revealed to Axios that the popular video-sharing platform had already “removed thousands of COVID-19 videos" for "violating policies."
The 'Coronavirus and Christ' audiobook saw a sudden uptick in views after being reuploaded yesterday, jumping from around 187,000 to over 200,000 as of Wednesday morning.
As Premier previously reported, Piper's book has been forced into the spotlight recently after an atheist group urged the US Secretary of Defense to punish a military chaplain for sharing a copy of the publication with his colleagues. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation skewered Piper for alleging that coronavirus could have been sent as a judgment from God and criticised him both for his belief in "predestination" and his views regarding homosexuality.
Piper has said that he wrote the book to "summon the whole world to repentance" so that we would all "experience a transformation of our thinking and our feeling and our living" that "brings our lives into alignment with the infinite value of Jesus Christ."
