Irrationalist

 

It is perplexing and irritating Christians, that Jordan Peterson quotes Christ and the Bible all the time, exhorting and cajoling young men to “take up the cross” and assume as heavy a moral burden as they can sustain, and yet he will not answer a simple question, requiring a simple answer, are you a Christian or not.

 

I am below going to speculate freely about how I think Jordan views God, and why he is cagey in committing himself to declaring that he is a Christian or not.

 

Peterson likely knows the answer to that question, but he refuses to answer it, and I think he should and is obligated to do so, because he, as a public speaker, has gained lots of attention, approval, and money from millions of admiring Christians. He owes them an explanation, even if it is something like I believe in God, but the specific face, personality, name, and doctrines of a specific deity like Jesus are signifying a deity that I cannot worship at this time, or perhaps never.

 

Peterson also will not answer this question because he does not like being pigeonholed or owned by any group. If you accept a group’s label, accurate or not, then you must start conforming to standard, prescribed views, actions, and expectations consistent with their view of how to worship their deity. They mean well, but their group anticipations about proper individual member conformity in behavior and speech, restricts personal freedom, something cherished by an iconoclast like Jordan.

 

Peterson, the rational scientist and psychologist that believes in God, but is likely very uncomfortable with evangelical Christianity requiring him to surrender his whole being and will to Jesus. This communal, emotive, public expression of church feeling and group expressiveness is just something he is repelled by, and that is fine, for there are several paths to take to worship a good deity like Jesus.

 

Peterson is so aware of how important words are, so he uses them carefully. Still, he is overly cautious about declaring that he is a Christian or not.

 

I also see him as an existentialist, and there is an irrationalist and noncognitivist element in Jordan’s thinking that makes him believe and live as if the only honest and actual connection to God cannot be expressed in meaningful, logical, linguistic, declarative speech, but can only be declared as an authentic moral agent of good will acts out his faith ethically be behaving as nobly and dutifully as he can, fighting evil directly, personally, constantly.

 

This is what God and/or Jesus does and is, and by emulating such heroic, unselfish ethically ideal behavior by the worshiped divinity, in a small but solid fashion one does pure good, and that and that alone is one’s statement that one believes in God and follows God.