Friday, July 29, 2022

Jordan Peterson, and the Importance of Spiritual Discernment

A brother in the Lord recently asked for my thoughts on a viral video by Dr. Jordan Peterson. In the video, Peterson delivers a charge to the Christian church. Peterson, himself not a professing Christian, probably feels a certain comfort level with doing so because of a shared sentiment with the likes of Ben Shapiro: The church is an ally to cultural and political conservatives for the health of Western civilization, and should therefore be treated as an ally. 


Those generally conservative-minded people do well to pay respect to the church’s influence over Western thinking. Philosophers like Charles Taylor have clearly shown that the Western way of thinking traces its origins back to the influence of the Christian gospel over the conscience. While much of Western thought has forsaken the Christian metaphysic of earlier times, the conservatives of the day are trying to uphold and support it. Thus there is a lot in common between the church on one side and the Shapiros, Petersons, Candace Owens’, Larry Elders, and Thomas Sowells on the other side. 


In Peterson’s video, he seizes on this alliance and calls on the church to stop worrying so much about social justice and worry more about saving peoples’ souls, which is the church’s job. While it is the church’s job to advocate for justice where it is lacking, Peterson’s point is well-taken. We are to be more focused on the gospel’s ability to speak peace to peoples’ relationship to God. Thus we should focus more on souls, and, theoretically, justice should follow. No argument there. 


Further, and this gets more to Peterson’s general occupational focus, the church is told to focus on discipling and training up young men. Peterson says, “Place a sign out front that says ‘Men welcome here.’” Similar to above, a corrective point is worth making: It was Christianity that uniquely established the equality of the genders such that women were regarded as of equal importance to men. This is because Christianity said that men and women were created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-27), and that, in the gospel work of the One who is himself the Image of God (Heb. 1:3), “there is neither…male or female” (Gal. 3:28). 


Nevertheless, men were created first, and thus occupy a more responsible position in God’s economy. So whereas Eve was deceived unto sinning (1 Tim. 2:13-14), Adam is the one held responsible (Rom. 5:12-21). Thus the New Testament places such an emphasis on the importance of training up godly men to lead and shepherd the home and the church. The texts are too numerous to list. But it is a plainly significant priority to the NT church. The point is this: Peterson’s charge is well-said. We need to train up young men to be men. 


All of that to say, there are some issues with Jordan Peterson correcting the church in any way. There are two that I see (and there will probably be more that I think about after I publish this post). 


First, Dr. Peterson is not a Christian. And since when does the church let outside voices steer its mission? Now, it is clear, as I have outlined above, that there is much in Peterson’s words that are consistent with God’s truth. Because of that, there is a lot in there which Christians can “amen.” It just seems to me that the things he is calling for are things that true churches are already doing, meanwhile, the churches that are overly focused on the world’s opinions are at least capitulating and at most are not true churches. You can tell a true church by its attentiveness to Christ’s Word. “My sheep hear my voice…they follow me” (Jn. 10:27). “The church submits to Christ” (Eph. 5:23). 


I think that if those championing Dr. Peterson’s message would look around, they’d see that there are churches everywhere that are doing the very things he is acting like are not occurring. These things just are not covered by the media because the Kingdom of God grows in a way less like a darling athlete's popularity and more like leaven hidden in dough gaining an expanded roll over time (Mt. 13:33; misspelling of "role" intended). Our church, for instance is doing what we can do to shepherd souls and train men to be godly men. As long as I’m the pastor here, our church will be imperfect in such endeavors! But we are trying, and will try. 


But the second issue, and this is the main one, regards something Peterson says in his charge to men to find a wife, tend a garden, build a family, etc. That run of points was a beautiful way of stating priorities that are priorities to God and should be for Christians. 


But towards the end of these comments, Peterson adds that man’s job is to “build a ladder to heaven.” In such a statement, he shows that he still, sadly, has not understood the Christian gospel. It is not only principially true that one becomes a Christian when they see that they cannot build a ladder to heaven but that they need Jesus to do it, but it is explicitly true, because this is exactly what Jesus said: Echoing the story of Jacob at Bethel seeing the angels of God walking up and down a ladder to heaven (Gen. 28:10-17), the end of John 1 has Jesus telling two of his new disciples that the essence of saving faith is to see the angels of God ascending and descending on Him (Jn. 1:51). What is Jesus’ point? That He IS the ladder to heaven, and that the only way one gets to God is if Jesus takes them to Him. He came from heaven not only to “show the way” (as one old worship chorus says) but to be the Way (Jn. 14:6). By ascending the cross outside of Jerusalem around AD 35, he was constructing a ladder between heaven and earth whereby men and women can be taken to God if they come and bow the knee to the thorn-crowned King who was crucified. Man does not build a ladder to heaven. Man does not even climb the ladder to heaven on his own. Man humbles himself under the Christ-King, who then, by his cross, takes man up the ladder to God (1 Pet. 3:18). That’s why when Jesus says that the disciples know “the way,” and they respond, “What is the way?” He can respond by saying, “I am the Way”: There is a way to Heaven, it is the only one, and it is clear. But it is Jesus Himself. He is the Way, the very Kingdom of God consisting in Himself.


So you can see why Peterson’s claim is problematic. To so place the responsibility on men to build a ladder to heaven that you jettison that Jesus already has already done so is to replace reverence for him with reverence for us. While such a humanitarian impulse is understandable and even appreciated to some degree, a Christian is one who looks at humanity and sees only cause for poverty of spirit (Mt. 5:3), and then looks to Jesus and meets hope, blessed living hope (1 Pet. 1:3). A Christian refuses to bypass the cross on the way to training men to be responsible men. Truly, without the cross, we only build in vain (Ps. 127:1). 


I hope that if you found yourself saying, “Amen” to Peterson’s points, you were doing so because he was upholding a lot of important points about responsibility, manhood, ministry, etc. which have been minimized in the present day and need to be recaptured. But I hope that if you’re a Christian, you were also able to sit back and say, “See, this is where the limits of my agreement are found.” Because the Christian message is that we don’t recapture integrity, responsibility, or manhood by reaching up and grabbing them ourselves. We recapture them by looking to Jesus who came to give them to us. 


I suspect something, and since I don’t know peoples’ hearts, I could be wrong. But here it is: I suspect that much of the celebration of Peterson’s points stem from a desire among conservative Christians to see these godly priorities recaptured in the public sphere. And Peterson, one of our “cultural allies,” might be one of the most able voices to recapture them. Just remember one thing, believer: If we leave Jesus’ finished work out of our desire for cultural transformation, we are no different than the liberation theology that dominates progressive thinking, with their minds set on earthly things (Phil. 3:19). How are we any different if all we are focused on is things pertaining to this life? But if we start with the cross, a new creation follows (Gal. 6:15), then a new life permeated with peace, blessing, and yet trial, but in the end, eternal bliss with God (Mk. 10:30). I guess I’m just trying to say this: Don’t let cultural allies who don’t have a spiritual mind rob you of yours. It is useless to win the cultural battle but lose your soul. 

Thursday, July 21, 2022

Peter Kreeft, and 10 Lies of Contemporary Culture

What follows is Dr. Peter Kreeft's "10 Lies of Contemporary Culture", delivered as the commencement address at Steubenville's Fransiscan University on May 14, 2022. Kreeft is a Roman Catholic apologist, and I just thought that he knocked it out of the park with this list. You can read the full transcript here, and view and listen to his speech here. Note that Dr. Kreeft's Roman Catholicism shines through throughout his speech, and my sharing of the outline of his speech is not an endorsement of Roman sentiments. I am unashamedly a Protestant and Reformed Christian.** But Dr. Kreeft is extremely astute in his cultural analysis, and he should be taken seriously by all who love the Lord and love the truth. 

10 Lies of Contemporary Culture: 

1. You can be whatever you want. No; we are hemmed in by limits on every side. This is not hard to see though it might be hard to admit.

2. The most important person in the world is you. No; you're very small compared to the grand scheme. Embrace it if you want to find happiness.

3. The world needs you and you can save the world. No; similar to #2, you'll live, die, and the world will continue on without you, with all the same problems (see Ecclesiastes 1). 

4. You need education in creative thinking, ie, the ability to create new realities. No, you cannot create realities, only organize God's reality. The most creative of us are only creative in a limited sense.

5. You need education in critical thinking, ie, not to seek positive truth but to cultivate a negative skepticism towards anything claiming to be truth. But this leads, as Lewis said in Abolition of Man, to so seeing through everything that you end up unable to see anything. You end up like Pontius Pilate: "What is truth?" (Jn. 18:38)

6. All peace is good peace. Is it? To say so is to say that there is no place for war, and that includes war against Satan, sin, the flesh, lust, greed, pride, etc. Kreeft notes that the Bible uses the word "enemies" 272 times. How can all peace be good peace if Scripture says we have enemies? Even God has enemies (see Psalm 2:1-3). 

7. If you want peace, seek justice. How has that worked throughout world history, and how is it working in the world currently, especially in angry revenge-driven America now? 

8. The end of all ends is open-mindedness and tolerance. Kreeft notes that an open mind is a good means but a bad end. It is a good means to learning truth, but it is disastrous if it is the end of all learning, ie, just having an open mind. Then what is true? Again, we're back to Pilate. If you have too open of a mind, everything in it will fall out. Eventually your soul will be empty, too.

9. All you need is love, sweet love, and no truth. Such "love" clearly refers not to God's love, which is defined Scripturally as that which God finds lovely (see 1 Jn. 5:2-3), but as a feeling. So the feeling of love is exalted. Thus "if it feels good, it must be right." Kreeft notes that that's what Hitler felt. 

10. Freedom is an end, not a means. That is, our being free is is the end of all pursuits of justice. But freedom for what? Scripture says freedom is the means to the end of serving God (Rom. 6:22). If we have freedom, it will be, as Bob Dylan said, to serve somebody. We'll either serve ourselves and the world, or God. But freedom is never an end; only a means. 

Kreeft then notes what holocaust survivor Victor Frankl said about how America should balance the Statue of Liberty in New York with a Statue of Responsibility in San Francisco. (Can you imagine?) But, as Kreeft concludes, to do so would violate the current day's Ten Commandments, which state: Don't be 1. Judgmental, 2. Repressive, 3. Dogmatic, 4. Intolerant, 5. Uncompassionate, 6. Unfeeling, 7. Insensitive, 8. Narrow-minded, 9. Hypercritical, or our new f-word, 10. Fundamentalist.

But regardless of the strength of the lies, truth will remain. Like John the Apostle said, darkness tries to strangle the truth, and it always has, and, until the end, it always will (Jn. 1:5). But it cannot and will not win. As Luther wrote of Christ, "He must win the battle." So be truthful and faithful, and, as Rod Dreher's recent book was entitled, Live not by lies. 

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**For an interesting case that Protestants should, on the basis of the Apostle's Creed, use the word "Catholic" to refer to the global gospel-preaching church, because otherwise we let the Roman Church hijack the word, creating the oxymoronic "Roman Catholic" term, see R. Scott Clark's article "Catholicity, Confusion, and a Corrective," here. Clark cites Puritan William Perkins as well as other Reformed confessions to show that Protestants have historically refused to cede the term "catholic" to the Roman church, because the term, contrary to their own historical narrative, far predates them. Protestants who have the gospel are catholic in the original sense of the term. But a protestant cannot say that the Roman Church is catholic, because their message has changed from the original Apostolic church.