Unpacking Peterson's Urgent Appeal to the Churches

It is rare to find in a ten minute video someone articulating so precisely the spiritual crisis of the age.   I found myself deeply moved by the latest YouTube offering of the controversial Canadian psychologists, Dr Jordan Peterson “A Message to Christian Churches.” Where those of us in Christian ministry seem to flounder, Dr Peterson raises the bar. Indeed, even though he is not a churchgoer per se, he seems to be doing the job of evangelisation for us. His sympathies lie with psychological practice but nevertheless he has attracted near rockstar status among many Christians and concerned intellectuals.  He has written two bestsellers, Twelve Rules of Life, and also a successor to this, Beyond Order. 

Though I have never met Jordan I have been privileged to know a number of Christian thinkers close to him.  We all share the same frustration, namely why are the upper echelons of our denominations writing off Dr Peterson when he attracts millions of followers and encourages them to seriously open the Bible? 

I would personally attribute to Jordan the recent implosion of New Atheism. I know dozens of young people who have “come to Christ” from hardline atheism in the last couple of years and point to Jordan Peterson as a starting point. This presentation of Christianity was not a conscious decision on his part. Jordan’s emergence in 2016 kicked off with his sense that young men and boys are being demonized by the relativist culture and urgently needed to reclaim the compelling vision of what it means to be a courageous moral agent in the world. They need to find their spiritual mojo.

The legendary viral video that surrounds this psychologist is being interrupted by a student protestor in a lecture who delivers a litany of obscenities and objections.  Jordan asks the young mom man “Is your room tidy?” Confused, the protestor protested further at the supposed irrelevance of the question. Peterson’s reply became almost a mantra for his supporters.  “Go clean your room first Bucko before you have the audacity to tell any of us how to order the world and its problems.” 

“Getting your own stuff in order first,” is a key theme in his talks and resonates a lot with the Sermon on the Mount and the Christian idea that we can all too easily talk in the low resolution generalities of this or that and forget the obvious tasks around us. Achieve what you can, do well what is before you, and gradually you will climb up the hierarchy. “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” (Luke 12.48) It reminded me of speaking to a young organic farming intern recently who is a fan of Peterson and has also come to Christ. He observed that the other interns were endlessly on their smartphones posting their political rage to the point where they were too exhausted to do the ordinary jobs around the farm. Dishes were left unwashed, yards unswept, and seed bags remained full. 

The message to the Churches videos challenges us as congregations to reach out to the demoralized youth with a challenge. In his view we as ministers are to take note that historical guilt has become weaponized as a new form of secular original sin. This has sucked the spirit of upcoming generations, and particularly young men. “Although anything that devastates young men will eventually do the same to young women.” Picking up similar themes that CS Lewis in (Abolition of Man essay) Jordan sees our cultural controllers working in the same vein as Dolores Umbridge (Harry Potter) - that is seeking above all a docile consumer. 

Surrounding this Peterson argues that this “group think” produces three questionable accusations.  

(1) That Western culture is at every level a form of oppression, dominance and theft, from politics to marriage.

(2) Human activity, particularly in the West, is a planet destroying enterprise. The human race is a threat to the planetary utopia that could hypothetically exist in our absence. 

(3) That the prime contributor to problem 1 and problem 2 and is raw male ambition which is at its root selfish, power mad, and exploitative. 

In his view men are now catechised from boyhood upwards to believe that their innate impulse for adventure (even the adventure to find a woman for marriage) is nothing more than an animalistic malign impulse. Jordan calls out these three accusations as “untruths” theologically, psychologically and scientifically.  

“The Christian Church is there to tell young men that they have a woman to find, a garden to walk in, a family to nurture, an ark to build, a land to conqueror, a ladder to heaven to build, and the utter terrible catastrophe of life to face stalwartly in the face of truth . This is to be done devoted to love and without fear.”

The video ends with a challenge for churches to say to this new generation of men, “If no one else wants what you have to offer - we do. We want to call you to the highest purpose of your life.  We want your time and energy, and your good will. We want to work with you to make things better, to produce a more abundant life for you, your wife, your family, and for your country, and the world. And we have our problems in the Christian Church. We are moribund, and sometimes corrupt.  We are outdated as are all institutions. We have our roots in the dead but still often wise past. So join us. We’ll help fix you up and you can help fix us up, and together we’ll aim UP.” 

“And here’s a message to those young people skeptical of this message. What else do you have? You can abandon the churches in your cynicism and disbelief. You can say to yourself narcissistically and solipsistically, ‘The Church does not express what I believe properly!’ Who cares what you believe? Why is this about you? Do you even want it to be about you? What if it was about others? What if it was about your duty to the past and the broader community that surrounds you in the present. What if it was incumbent upon you, even to live, to rescue your dead father from the belly of the beast where he has always resided and to restore him to life?”

Peterson encourages the churches to ask MORE rather than less to those we are inviting.  “Ask more than anyone ever has.” In doing this he says churches will remind these young people who they are in the deepest sense and help them become that. He concludes with a powerful challenge -“Attend to souls - that’s your holy duty - do it!”