“I became a Christian due to Jordan Peterson … it isn’t that he converted me but he got me excited about the Bible and things developed from there.” That’s a story that I even have heard in numerous forms from multiple person. Peterson has been a gateway for many individuals. But where does he stand himself? His positive view of the Bible, his eager for transcendence, the conversion of his wife and daughter, and his desire to see Christianity because the de facto value system of the West have caused many to wonder if he has arrived on the destination he appears to be heading to. Two events this week have given some indication of where he’s on his journey.
Firstly, Peterson spoke on the Australian conference of the ARC (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship). I used to be privileged to attend this event together with 700 others. After a stimulating and inspiring day, Peterson gave the ultimate talk. Given that the entire conference had majored on the fruits of Christianity, without mentioning the roots, I had great hopes that Jordan would bring us back to the foundations. After all, the aim of the conference was to enable us to inform a ‘higher story’, and while stories of family values, economic prosperity, and social justice are higher, they should be based on the most effective story of all – the Good News of Jesus Christ.
But it is evident that while Peterson grasps and appreciates much of Christian teaching and the worth it brings, he still doesn’t grasp much of its basic message.
We were told that “if we conduct ourselves based on the best ethical principles there is no such thing as a desert, we cannot turn blue … that is the higher story that ARC hopes to inform”. But that leaves us with the query of what the best ethical principles are? and more importantly dooms us – because none of us are able to living to that standard. The law shows us our need; it doesn’t, and can’t, save us. Peterson teaches a type of moralistic therapeutic Deism, with a dose of tough love thrown in. But it isn’t enough.
His key misunderstanding is concerning the Cross. To Jordan it’s primarily exemplary. It is the best example of the self-sacrifice that we’re all called to. It is nearly as if he seems to consider that by taking up our own type of sacrifice, we can also atone not just for our own sins, however the sins of the world. It’s no wonder that he looks and feels like a heavily burdened man. Indeed, that is an element of his great appeal. He is a deeply compassionate man who cares for others and desires to assist others. But he can’t be the Saviour.
The Shorter Catechism in its famous first query asks, “What is the chief purpose of man?” and answers, “to glorify God and luxuriate in him endlessly.” Peterson asks ‘what’s our meaning?’ and answers “meaning is to be present in the adoption of maximal voluntary responsibility”. That’s more more likely to result in a type of self-flagellation than it’s to guide to salvation.
Peterson also cited Jung and appeared to agree with him that the culmination of Protestantism is that every person will turn into their very own church. Such individualism would indeed be each dangerous and absurd. But he didn’t appear to think about that Jung was flawed – which he actually was. Protestantism accepts the biblical teaching concerning the church being the bride of Christ and being one. No one who accepts the Bible could ever think that it teaches we each turn into our own church. That is a reductio ad absurdum.
Also this week a fascinating interaction between Jordan Peterson and Richard Dawkins, brilliantly moderated by Alex O’Connor was broadcast.
Dawkins at times looked bemused and I had a level of sympathy with him. Trying to get Jordan to present a straight answer to an easy query was like attempting to get blood out of a stone. When asked “do you think Jesus was born of a virgin?”, Peterson responded, “I do not feel qualified to comment.” He also went on to say that it didn’t matter if the Bible was divinely inspired or simply a product of human evolution. Dawkins rightly identified that it makes an enormous difference, but Peterson insisted the 2 positions were essentially the identical.
O’Connor had a slightly good insight by which he argued that Peterson’s position of creating the mundane divine might be easily reversed. What if Peterson was making the divine mundane?
It is amazing that Peterson is capable of point people to the sunshine, despite the fact that he appears to be lost within the fog of Jungian myth, memes and meaning. Dawkins after all continues to read the Bible entirely through the lens of his materialist worldview and due to this fact has no ability to discern any reality out of that narrow and soulless vision. Watching the conversation, it did feel so much just like the blind leading the blind.
I really like Peterson. I even have benefited enormously from his writing and talks, and I really like the way in which he communicates such compassion, care and truth to a generation that’s in desperate need of it. But it isn’t enough. At his Sydney ARC talk he emphasised the necessity for the person to sacrifice for the sake of the family, then community, then nation. He describes this as ‘Jacob’s ladder’. At the highest of the ladder he suggests that there’s ‘whatever transcendent unity’. It’s not enough.
I briefly met Peterson on his last visit to Sydney. I asked him why he had a lot give attention to Moses (especially Genesis and Exodus) and never on Christ. And that’s where I feel the actual issue lies. A transcendent unity at the highest of the ladder, who we will only reach by self-sacrifice, just isn’t the excellent news. Christ coming down the ladder to us, then again, is.
Peterson jogs my memory of the wealthy young man who got here to Jesus. In the story we’re told that Jesus checked out the young man and loved him. But then, because he loved him, told him to sell every thing he had, give to the poor after which come follow Christ. But the person’s face fell, he went away sad (Mark 10:17-27). Until Peterson can let go of his burden, he’ll go away sad.
Peterson feels the pain of those that he so clearly desires to help. I feel his pain. He jogs my memory a lot of Pilgrim in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress together with his burden still on his back. Until he stops reading the Bible through his Jungian spectacles, he won’t have the opportunity to be ‘unburdened’. He needs to return to the Cross, to the Christ who really was born of a virgin, really did come from God, really did rise from the dead, and really does forgive, renew and redeem; to the Christ who gives us this best of all invitations “Come to me, all you who’re weary and burdened, and I gives you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
