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083 - Why Jordan Peterson Is Not A Christian

June 20, 2019 38m 01s Full transcript available
083 - Why Jordan Peterson Is Not A Christian
0:00 / 38m 01s
In this episode, we dissect Jordan Peterson's recent statements about Christianity and why he hesitates to claim belief. We explore the implications of living out one's faith authentically and the challenges that come with it, all while examining the cultural and political landscape surrounding these discussions.
Transcript
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0:31 This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
0:45 All right, guys, before we get into today's subject matter, got a couple of things we need
0:48 to take care of. First of all, I wanted to read one of the latest reviews that we've gotten
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1:03 You can tell that Kyle genuinely cares about the growth and development of his fellow man,
1:07 and he offers a whole new perspective on a lot of current topics both spiritually and socially.
1:12 You'll definitely be challenged by some of the things that he says, but that's the whole point.
1:16 A man can't grow if he isn't challenged. I can't recommend this podcast enough. So
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2:03 few sentences because I promise we look at the reviews and we look to see if people are liking
2:07 it or not liking it or whatever. So that is the end of that. So before we move on again to the
2:12 subject matter for today, we need to do a little bit of an abortion update. So haven't talked about
2:16 abortion in a few episodes. And so there's always seemingly nowadays, there's always stuff happening
2:21 in the world of abortion. So there's a few things I wanted to get you up to date on just in case
2:25 you were not up to date. So first of all, the Democratic front runner for the 2020 ticket
2:31 is currently Joe Biden. Now he is kind of slipping. He's kind of he's kind of finding it difficult to
2:36 to find his footing here in this party because he's trying to put himself as, you know,
2:41 just old Joe, you know, the Joe that you know, and the guy that's been around for 40 plus years in
2:45 politics and, you know, not really going to rock the boat more moderate, you know, more likable.
2:50 He's, you know, Trump's, or he's Obama's best friend, not Trump, but he's, he's trying to be
2:54 that guy. But at the same time, he's trying to be radical because the political left right now is
3:00 incredibly, incredibly radical. And so he flip flopped on something on the abortion debate that
3:07 really was one of the more astonishing flip flops that we've ever seen probably in modern
3:11 politics. And no, I'm not being hyperbolic. Because typically when you see someone flip flop,
3:15 they're flip flopping after a short period of time believing a certain way. You don't really,
3:20 you don't really see somebody with a really, really long political career, think one way,
3:24 and then late, way late in their careers, change their minds on a huge topic. But that's exactly
3:29 what Joe Biden did with the Hyde Amendment. So if you're not familiar with the Hyde Amendment,
3:33 the Hyde Amendment basically bans federal funding going towards abortions. Now the Hyde
3:38 Amendment doesn't exactly do that because if you know this by now, the federal government already
3:42 gives like $500 million to Planned Parenthood every year. And they're saying, Oh, well, that
3:48 can't go to abortions. But it's like, really, if all the money goes into the same pot and some of
3:52 it goes to fund abortions, like really is that not how it goes? But anyway, the Hyde Amendment has
3:56 basically been one of those stalwart things where it's like, basically, if you are in support of
4:01 that, you're fairly extremely left or sorry, if you're anti the height of amendment, rather,
4:06 you are pretty far on the left of the issue of abortion. But the thing about Joe Biden
4:11 is even though he considers himself to be pro choice, right? This is a supposedly Catholic
4:17 individual that says, you know, he basically doesn't want to bring his morality into how he
4:21 helps legislate. But for 40 years that he has been in national politics, he has been in support
4:28 of the Hyde Amendment, which would block the federal funding of abortions. And now,
4:34 all of a sudden that he's running for president, for the crowded democratic ticket,
4:40 he's changing his position on the Hyde Amendment. So it's pretty astonishing. I mean, I would,
4:45 I would have you try to figure out another person that has made such a huge shift this late in his
4:50 career. I mean, this guy's, you know, well into his 70s, right? So I don't really know what exactly
4:56 happened to him, or if he's just playing politics, which it seems like that's what he's doing right
5:00 now. Now also, we have the democratic party that for the 56th time blocked a bill that would stop
5:07 infanticide. So we've talked about this, this bill on episode 64 of this podcast. But basically,
5:14 the democratic party is the party of death and they continue to keep proving it, because stopping
5:18 infanticide, which is basically having a baby be born, like, you know, they're outside the womb,
5:25 and preventing somebody from actively taking steps to make sure that that baby dies.
5:30 That should be pretty easy, right? But the democrats just keep shooting it down. It just doesn't
5:34 fit their narrative. So they're out on it. But I would like to say that that is the craziest thing
5:38 that democrats have done this week, but not to be outdone. The Illinois governor, JB Pritzker,
5:44 I guess is how you say his last name, he signed a bill legalizing abortion up to the day of birth.
5:50 So Illinois joins the latest of several states that are moving towards that direction. And I
5:57 believe if I've got the calculations correct, or if the news that I'm seeing is correct,
6:01 by the time you guys listen to this podcast, I'm recording it a few days before it comes out,
6:05 Rhode Island might be added to that list. There are states that are just rushing to see how
6:10 extreme they can make their laws. The thing about it is though, is how can you outdo yourself when
6:16 you're approving a bill that allows abortion on the day that a woman could potentially give birth.
6:21 And again, they're always saying like, Oh, well, that does, that's not going to happen for no
6:25 reason. It's going to happen because you know what, what happens, you know, if the mother is having
6:29 some major complications. Yeah, you don't need to do an abortion. I mean, you just deliver the baby,
6:36 right? If mom's having complications, you deliver the baby. I mean, C section regular birth, like
6:41 that's just kind of what you do. But apparently if you're on the modern political left, that is
6:45 just a completely untenable position. You can't possibly do that. We want to make sure that these
6:50 women have complete bodily autonomy all the way up until the day that the human being inside of
6:55 them is going to be potentially born, at which point they can decide whether or not they're
6:59 going to allow that to happen. So that's pretty awesome. But it's not all jury and not all bleak
7:04 because Donald Trump, which I've said before, I'm not a huge Trump guy. I'm not a maga maga
7:07 all the time type of guy. But you just got to say it, there has never been a more pro life
7:13 president than Donald Trump. He is so pro life like I'm considering voting for the guy in 2020.
7:19 But it's probably not going to happen. I mean, I'll probably leave the top of my ballot blank
7:24 and we can talk about that later. But here's the thing. Trump has continuously done things
7:28 to take away to cut out the knees of the abortion industry in the United States. And he had a huge
7:33 thing that was announced here recently. He basically unilaterally is stopping the sale
7:38 of pieces of aborted children for medical research. Because there's been a lot of medical research
7:45 that is done using the tissue of babies that are the products of abortion. And there's a lot of
7:51 people coming out basically saying, Oh, Trump's anti medicine. Now he's anti science. He's anti this
7:55 he's anti maybe he's just anti killing babies and profiting off of it. Is that possible? Is that
8:03 plausible on any side of the planet that that's what the guy's doing? Again, Donald Trump doesn't
8:09 have a huge long record of being pro life. He was basically pro life about two seconds after he
8:14 decided he was going to be a red candidate Republican. But at the same time, you can believe one thing
8:19 and then you can act one way. So let's just say in his heart of hearts, he's pro choice. Look at what
8:24 he's doing. Look at the lives that he might potentially be saving. And again, I'm not always
8:29 Trump or type of guy. I'm not the guy that is shouting his praises. But when he does something
8:34 good, I will praise him for it. And when he does something bad, I hope I'm the first person that
8:37 calls him out. But guys, let's go ahead and get into the podcast episode for today. So there was a
8:42 really interesting article that my buddy sent out to me and a bunch of guys that were in a group
8:47 text. And it was titled why I'm not a Christian Jordan Peterson. And so this article is an opinion
8:52 article and I'll talk about it maybe a little bit more here at the end. But basically, there was a
8:56 really big event that was done about a month ago. And so it was the 2019 Prager U summit. So if
9:02 you're not familiar with Prager U, that's Dennis Prager. And it's a very conservative think tank
9:07 type of thing. They put a lot of videos out on YouTube. They've been demonetized from YouTube.
9:12 They're they're basically suing YouTube and all these different things. And so that's not what
9:15 this episode is about. But at the Prager U summit, kind of the main event was this hour long conversation
9:22 between Dennis Prager, who runs Prager U and Jordan Peterson. And so the thing about this is I
9:27 would encourage you. And of course, I'm going to give you the link to this entire thing. I would
9:30 encourage you to listen. It's about a 53 54 minute long video. I want you to listen to the entire
9:35 thing. But there was an unbelievably interesting interaction and answer from Jordan Peterson very
9:41 early on in this podcast, or sorry, in that interview that I'm going to play here on this podcast.
9:46 But Jordan Peterson is constantly asked about his position on Christianity. He is constantly
9:54 asked whether or not he's a Christian. He's constantly asked about the deity of Jesus Christ,
9:59 right? And on Jordan Peterson's YouTube channel, his he has the link to this talk and Dennis Prager
10:06 has one on his. But the title of it on Jordan Peterson's epic or on his channel is on claiming
10:12 belief in God, which is a really interesting way to put it. But essentially, the reason why people
10:17 are so interested in what Jordan Peterson thinks about Christianity is because he spent so much time
10:22 talking about it. So again, he kind of rose to prominence in his reaction to Bill C 16 in Canada.
10:29 But beyond that, he rose to prominence because he did these incredibly lengthy, you know, diatribes
10:36 and deep dives into Genesis and kind of the, you know, psychological importance of some of the
10:44 Genesis stories. And he's going to be doing Exodus here coming and I think it's coming out this year.
10:49 He's going to be doing a deep dive into Exodus. But he's talked so much about biblical principles.
10:53 But there was a very interesting quote that he gives us at a lot of different, a lot of different
10:58 events. So if you hear him speak or you hear him on these panels, he always says kind of the same
11:02 thing. Okay. So what I want to do is as opposed to spoiling it, I'm going to go ahead and let
11:06 Dennis Prager set it up for you. So I'm going to show you this clip. So if you're watching this clip
11:10 from the, I think it's the Jordan Peterson, but none of this would be from the Prager U1.
11:15 It's about nine minutes and 50 seconds in. And then we're going to let it play until about the 14
11:20 and a half minute mark. But I just want you to listen to this interaction between Jordan Peterson
11:24 and Dennis Prager. You, you have said on a number of occasions, and in every, on every
11:31 occasion that I have watched you say it, not a single person in the panel, you often talk on panels,
11:38 not one person has ever actually reacted to it. I totally get it. Nevertheless, it's one of the
11:46 most important things you regularly say, you live as if there is a God. Is that correct?
11:54 Well, people ask me if I believe in God. You know what? I just, I, I'm going to release
11:59 podcast about that because I answered that question for about two hours in Australia,
12:05 because people kept asking me that question, which I really don't like. I don't like that question.
12:11 And so I sat and thought about it for a good while, and I tried to figure out why. And then I thought,
12:17 well, you say, you believe, you say, I thought, who would have the audacity to claim that they
12:30 believed in God? If they examined the way they lived, who would dare say that to, to believe,
12:41 you think, to believe in a Christian sense, to actually, this is why Nietzsche said there was only
12:46 every one Christian, and that was Christ, to have the audacity to claim that means that you live it
12:54 out fully. And that's an, that's an unbearable task in some sense. I just debated Slavojijek
13:05 about a week ago, although it wasn't really much of a debate. It was, it was a strange event,
13:10 but he said something very brilliant. And to me, that justified the entire event, at least from my
13:15 perspective, he talked about Christ's moment of crisis on the cross when he cried out to God that
13:24 he had been forsaken. And what Jijek said was that what that meant was that the conditions of
13:31 human existence are so tragic, that even God himself in human form lost faith for a moment in the
13:41 goodness of being. And I thought that was a remarkable observation because, well, if God himself would
13:48 lose faith under such conditions, what would you expect from normal human beings confronted with
13:55 what we're confronted by? And to be able to accept the structure of existence, the suffering
14:11 that goes along with it and the disappointment in the betrayal, and to nonetheless act properly,
14:17 right, to aim at the good with all your heart, right, to dispense with the malevolence and your
14:23 desire for destruction and revenge and all of that. And to face things courageously and to tell the
14:29 truth, to speak the truth and to act it out, that's what it means to believe. That's what it means.
14:37 It doesn't mean to state it. It means to act it out. And unless you act it out, you should be very
14:46 careful about claiming it. And so I've never been comfortable saying anything other than
14:52 I try to act as if God exists because God only knows what you'd be if you truly believed.
15:01 I mean, if you think about it in some sense, that's the central idea in Christianity, is that if you
15:08 were capable of believing it would be a transfiguring event, a truly transfiguring event. And I know
15:14 people experience that to one degree or another, but we have no idea what the limit of that is.
15:19 And we have no idea what the possibility is within each person if they lived a life that was
15:26 maximally courageous and maximally truthful. You know, because maybe you're running at 60%
15:32 or 70% or 20% and at cross purposes to yourself, God only knows what you'd be if you believed.
15:40 And so, while I act, I try to act like I believe, but I never claim that I manage it
15:51 because it's too it's it's a law to manage properly. And you have to be careful about
15:58 claiming to manage things that you can't manage. And so that's part of the answer to that question.
16:05 It's a great answer.
16:06 So there you have it, guys. Again, if you are much of a Jordan Peterson person,
16:17 obviously you've heard something very similar to this before. And if you're not a Jordan Peterson
16:22 person, obviously just go to YouTube, type in Jordan Peterson, you can get caught up pretty quick.
16:25 Twelve Rules for Life is probably the best-selling book from 2018. So you need to make sure you go
16:30 and pick that up. But the thing about his answer to this question is I felt like it was wholly unique
16:35 to how he normally posits his answer. Right? I felt like it was very different. And it didn't
16:41 have anything to do with Dennis Prager. He didn't really frame it up in any unique way. But the
16:47 thing about Jordan Peterson is sometimes when he's asked this, you can tell he's a little bit
16:50 flummox by the question. And sometimes he's a little bit even just frustrated like, "Man,
16:54 why do I keep getting asked this question?" But you can just tell it's nagging at him and it's
16:58 eating at him and it's also eating at all of his followers. But there's a couple of quotes that I
17:03 want to kind of go into a little bit further from what he said. The first one's a little bit shorter
17:07 and it was from the beginning of his answer. And the second one's a little bit longer because regardless
17:12 of Jordan Peterson's worldview, I think that the way that he answered this question, which in normal
17:17 Jordan Peterson fashion, it was carefully and very forthrightly. But he brings up several questions
17:24 that we have to wrestle with his Christians as well. Okay? So the first quote, I'm going to go
17:28 ahead and give that to you here. Who would have the audacity to claim that they believed in God?
17:34 If they examined the way they lived, who would dare say that? To believe, to believe in a Christian
17:40 sense, to actually, this is why Nietzsche said there was only ever one Christian and that was Christ,
17:46 to have the audacity to claim that means that you live it out fully. And that's an unbearable task
17:52 in some sense. And so the big thing I wanted to focus on here on this quote was this part here,
17:59 to have the audacity to claim that means that you live it out fully. So let's just talk about
18:07 the Jordan Peterson side of that. And then let's talk about the us side of that. So for Jordan
18:12 Peterson, this is obviously a very smart guy, a very accomplished guy. Some people call themselves
18:18 or are called intellectuals and they just aren't. He is a heavyweight intellectual. And you can tell
18:24 that he's wrestled with this question. Now it's clear in some of his answers, this one being one of
18:29 them that he hasn't wrestled with it fully. He hasn't really taken it to ground. But he even
18:36 recognizes as someone that sees himself on the other side of faith, like are not on the other
18:41 side, I guess, on the outside looking in on faith in God or faith in in Jesus Christ or a definitive
18:46 deity or any of those types of things, right, a savior of any kind for the world. He's basically
18:52 saying that if you claim to be a Christian, if you have the audacity to claim that, what you have
18:59 to do, the logical outcome for your actions is to live that reality out fully, which begs the
19:07 question to us, do we do that? I mean, again, I'm not, I'm not putting down any preachers,
19:15 because again, I've learned a lot from preachers. I talk a lot about him here on this podcast,
19:19 but can a preacher really push you in the same way that Jordan Peterson has?
19:22 Because when you walk into a church or you go to some conference or you're watching a YouTube
19:26 video or a podcast with a pastor or something like that, you kind of know their arguments before
19:31 they say them. They might do it in a piffy way or in an interesting way or one of those types of
19:35 things. And you kind of have your style that you like, but it almost takes a guy that's on the
19:39 outside looking into positive in this way for you to be like, geez, he's right. Because he's wrestling
19:47 with this because at the very last thing he says is, and that's an unbearable task in some sense.
19:52 He's acknowledging that it's pretty much impossible. I guess not even pretty much. I kind of put my
19:58 own caveat on there, but no, it's not pretty much impossible. He pretty much said this thing is
20:03 unbearable that it's impossible even to put words in his mouth. So this is where I feel like Jordan
20:11 Peterson is, is maybe missing the point where he maybe hasn't fully wrestled with his question,
20:15 because nowhere does he get to the answer of grace? Because I think he's thinking of it in terms of
20:23 man, this is just a really long checklist of things that I'm going to have to do perfectly.
20:28 And I just don't know that that's possible. So that's what he's wrestling with. However,
20:34 at the same time, he's saying, if you truly believe in Christianity, if you truly believe
20:40 in the Christ, if you truly believe in all that, would you not try and check off all those boxes?
20:47 Not so that you can say, I look, I checked off all these boxes and look how great I am. But would
20:52 you not shoot for that? And something that you can kind of, you know, get from some of the things
20:58 that Jordan Peterson says here is that he's watched Christians and he's watched them not even get
21:04 close to the standard. That's why I feel like he says it in the way that he does,
21:09 to have the audacity to claim that, because a lot of people have the audacity to claim that.
21:14 They claim that they are Christians, that they are followers of Christ, that they are followers of
21:19 the way. That's what they claim. And yet, when you look at the fruits of their life, you don't
21:23 really see it there. So that was a really interesting way for him to put it. But there was a second
21:29 quote that was equally as interesting a little bit longer, but it kind of gets even deeper into what
21:34 you see Jordan Pearson wrestling within his brain on the subject. So let me go ahead and give you the
21:37 quote here. To be able to accept the structure of existence, the suffering that goes along with it
21:43 in the disappointment and the betrayal, and to nonetheless act properly, to aim at the good with
21:49 all of your heart, to dispense with the malevolence and your desire for destruction and revenge and
21:54 all of that, and to face things courageously and to tell the truth, to speak the truth and to act it
22:00 out. That's what it means to believe. That's what it means. It doesn't mean to state it. It means to
22:10 act it out. And unless you act it out, you should be very careful about claiming it. And so I've
22:16 never been comfortable saying anything other than I try to act as if God exists, because God only knows
22:23 what you'd be if you truly believed. If you think about it, in some sense, that's the central idea
22:30 in Christianity, is that if you are capable of believing, it would be a transfiguring event,
22:36 a truly transfiguring event. And I know people experience that to one degree or another,
22:42 but we have no idea what the limit of that is. We have no idea what the possibility is within each
22:48 person if they lived a life that was maximally courageous and maximally truthful. No, because
22:54 maybe you're running at 60% or 70% or 20% and a cross purpose to yourself. God only knows what you'd
23:01 be if you believed. And so, well, I try to act like I believe, but I've never claimed that I
23:08 manage it because it's too, it's a lot to manage properly. And you have to be careful about claiming
23:14 to manage things that you can't manage. I mean, guys, there's so much there. I mean,
23:23 there's so many things to talk about, but one of the things I wanted to kind of pull out of there
23:27 is that unless you act it out, you should be very careful about claiming it. I think that
23:32 that's a great standard that Christians should adopt is that you've got those Christians,
23:40 you know, these by faith, I don't know that I want to categorize people into any type of category
23:45 because everyone, depending upon the denomination that you grew up in, maybe you've got different
23:49 language around it or something like that. But you've always got these different ideas about
23:53 how a Christian should act after they've been saved, even if you use the word saved, right?
23:57 But the thing about it is, is the way that some people act, perhaps they shouldn't claim Christianity
24:04 at all, because you don't see the reality of Christ's death and resurrection in their life.
24:10 You don't see it as truly changing them. And this is, you know, kind of what he talks about again,
24:16 is that if you think about it, in some sense, that's the central idea of Christianity, is that
24:20 if you are capable of believing, it would be a transfiguring event, a truly transfiguring event.
24:26 And guys, there's a lot of you out there that are listening to this that maybe you had kind of
24:31 that overwhelming transfiguring event. Maybe you had that overwhelming experience that, you know,
24:36 heroin needle in your arm, you know, should have died hovering over your body, but you didn't
24:40 die type of situation. But then there's a lot of us out there that didn't have that, right? They
24:45 didn't have that central event that, you know, sounds good inside of an autobiography or, you know,
24:50 in some sort of like crappy movie on TV and or something like that. Like, maybe, maybe we don't
24:54 have that event. But regardless of where your starting point was, the subsequent actions in your
25:00 life should look transfiguring. And that that's why I love the way that he said it, is because if
25:07 there's if this is true, if we really believe that this is true, wouldn't it change everything?
25:13 Like when we read the stories of Jesus in the gospels and we read, you know, what's happening
25:19 with the apostles and acts and things like that, like these were people that were just claiming
25:23 something and then just kind of, you know, fluttering around doing their own thing.
25:27 Like these are truly transfiguring events for these individuals. There was no going back.
25:32 And the thing about it is, is we obviously don't have these these long anecdotes or we don't have
25:38 these long autobiographical stories about these people from the Bible for a lot of these people
25:42 that accepted Jesus. We don't know if if they're faith waned or kind of where they were at with
25:46 all these types of things. But we truly see that it was that transfiguring event. And so
25:53 it's some it's given me a lot to think about. I mean, this is what a five minute clip
25:58 from an hour long conversation. But even just that one part that the transfiguring event,
26:04 I mean, he even repeated himself a truly transfiguring event. Like what would that look like?
26:08 And so again, it kind of goes back to the original question with Jordan Peterson,
26:13 which is why does he decide to act as if God is alive? Like if God is real, that God's a real thing,
26:20 right? The thing is pretty clear to me as to why he does that. And I don't think it's because of,
26:27 you know, he's just trying to hedge his bets just in case, you know, he's going to believe all the
26:30 things he really believes, what he's going to say publicly, he believes in God just in case,
26:33 you know, God won't some item or something like that. I don't really think it's that.
26:36 But I think that Jordan Peterson sees the utility of the Christian worldview. And he also sees the
26:45 logical outcomes of other worldviews, because here's a connection that I don't think Jordan
26:50 Peterson is really made. And I've listened to hours and hours and hours of Jordan Peterson talking.
26:55 And I can see him almost circling the wagons a little bit, but I feel like it's going to hit him one day.
27:00 He keeps talking about it, about what basically happened in the 20th century, how the 20th century
27:06 was the bloodiest century and the most atheistic century that we've seen on record, because of what
27:11 we saw in communist China, what we saw in communist Russia, what we saw in the rest of the Soviet
27:18 Union and what we saw with with Hitler and what we saw with Polpon, what we saw with all these
27:22 individuals, these are all atheistic regimes, right? These are all regimes that had basically
27:28 divorced any type of morality from any type of a deity. And we had the bloodiest century we've ever
27:34 had. And potentially the buddies, the bloodiest century that we will ever have, right? I don't think
27:39 there's a whole lot of people lining up wanting to have a repeat of what we saw in the 20th century,
27:43 which is why it's so concerning for, you know, people that we see on the political left that are
27:47 basically saying they want things like socialism in some of these gigantic Western countries. It's
27:52 just like, guys, we've tried that. Like we tried socialism, literally everywhere it's been tried,
27:57 it's failed. And a lot of the places it's failed with a lot of blood on the other side. But don't
28:03 worry guys, I'm not going to get off on a tangent there about socialism. But the thing about it is,
28:07 is Jordan Peterson just hasn't drawn the connection yet. He hasn't drawn the connection between
28:12 the psychological significance of the biblical stories and of the things that we see in Genesis,
28:18 with the reality of who Jesus is, and the reality of if you follow him and if you truly
28:24 follow the Christian worldview, that you won't get things like what we saw in the 20th century.
28:29 That if the men that were in charge at those times, if they were living a gospel-centered
28:36 life, and we're following the teachings of Jesus, there's no way that that would have happened.
28:40 There's just no way. It doesn't compute. It's like when people like to complain, or they like to
28:46 compare Christianity in Islam, it's just like, well, you have to look at things like the ninth
28:52 Surah of Islam and see what that says. And so you look at that and use that to filter
28:59 basically what you see from Boko Haram and ISIS and al-Qaeda, and you see that, oh, they're just
29:03 doing what their prophet said, right? But then if you look at the teachings of Jesus, you don't see
29:09 that. So there have been plenty of people throughout history that have perverted or, you know,
29:14 unknowingly exegeted the scripture improperly and did some really evil, sinful things,
29:20 but it doesn't jive with whatever Jesus taught, not even close. But again, at this point,
29:26 Jordan Peterson hasn't fully gone there yet. So again, I mentioned it earlier on the podcast,
29:31 but he's done a long, you know, study and dive into Genesis, but he's going to be doing a deep
29:37 dive into Exodus as well. And so basically what he does is he takes one chapter of one of those
29:42 books and then he spends like two hours on it or more, basically lecturing through some of the ideas
29:48 that he's gained from that. But the thing that I think will be the transfiguring event for Jordan
29:52 Peterson is when he eventually does the same thing with the gospels, just any of the gospels.
30:01 Because the thing is, is he's he's finding this psychological significance of these very famous
30:06 books. Even if you're not a Christian, you've heard of Exodus, you've heard of Genesis, right?
30:09 And you've heard of a lot of the stories therein. But it goes way beyond psychological. I mean,
30:14 don't we know that guys? We know that it's so much deeper. And the thing is, is we've got to trust
30:21 that the Holy Spirit can work on a guy like Jordan Peterson, an incredibly high-minded,
30:25 genius level intellect type of person, because it doesn't even require any of those things to have
30:31 faith in Jesus. It just doesn't. But hopefully he can kind of get over some of those hurdles.
30:37 And here's the thing guys, is can you imagine if Jordan Peterson becomes a Christian,
30:41 like a real question, Christian, not like a nominal Christian, like, Oh, well, I'm from the west,
30:47 so I guess I believe in God. No, no, no, like an actual believer. I mean, I know Christians kind
30:53 of get excited. Anytime there's any like quasi D list celebrity that like, you know, says they
30:58 kind of believe in God or they went to church once, we're like, Oh, yeah, we got one on our side.
31:02 But if Jordan Peterson started claiming some of these things and started saying that he believed,
31:07 I think it would be incredible. Like it would be, it would just be earth shattering in a lot of ways,
31:13 because you know, it's kind of easy for some people to dismiss William Lane Craig and Ravi
31:18 Zacharias. It's like, Oh, well, you know, these guys get paid to go around the world and defend the
31:23 gospel and all these different things. And you know, regardless of if they know anything about
31:26 those guys individually, but it would be really, really hard to push back on Jordan Peterson.
31:32 Because here's the thing is Jordan Peterson has basically been living in this milieu of the last
31:37 two or three years of basically being in one controversy after the other after the other after the other.
31:42 And he's good friends with Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan says that he's probably the most misrepresented
31:45 person on planet earth of anybody that he knows. But could you imagine a podcast with Jordan
31:51 Peterson and Joe Rogan across from one another? And Jordan Peterson laying out the reasons for
31:56 why he believes that Jesus is a son of God and why he rose again on the third day to save all of us.
32:00 I mean, like literally I'm getting chills just thinking about that because he's just going to
32:06 continuously be a guy that comes on the Joe Rogan podcast. Every time he writes a book,
32:10 he's going to come on there every time there's a controversy, he's going to come on there.
32:13 Just can you imagine a three hour discussion about that? Because I was listening to the Joe
32:18 Rogan podcast episode a while back. I think it was just one that he was doing with one of his buddies.
32:22 And he asked his buddy across the table, he goes, hey, do you think Jesus actually existed?
32:27 And the answer his buddy gave doesn't really matter. But the fact that Joe Rogan
32:33 could even ask a question like that, a historically ignorant question like that
32:40 was astonishing to me. Because he wasn't being sarcastic. He wasn't being funny. He was honestly
32:45 asking like, Hey, do you think this Jesus guy was a real guy? I mean, I would put it to you this way.
32:52 There's more evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person than that Julius Caesar ever lived.
32:58 That gang is con ever lived that Alexander the great ever lived. And certainly the historical
33:05 and or not the interpretations, but the historical accounts of Jesus's life, we have even more than
33:11 those other guys that I mentioned. We have four accounts, like day by day, like walking with this
33:19 guy accounts of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew, a Jewish carpenter from the middle of nowhere.
33:24 I think that's an astonishing truth. And so to see Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson work through,
33:33 that would be absolutely incredible. And so that's one thing that I'm looking for,
33:38 because I know I've got a lot of buddies that listen to this podcast, that they're not huge
33:41 Jordan Peterson fans. They feel like Jordan Peterson has not done the Christian walk or the Christian
33:46 worldview any favors. And to a certain degree, I can see where they're coming from, right?
33:50 Yeah, people that are listening to Jordan Peterson and not listening to their pastor,
33:53 they're reading 12 rules for life and they're not reading the Bible. And look, I get it. And I
33:57 would probably agree with you on some of those sentiments. But the thing about it is, and this
34:01 kind of goes back to last week's episode when we were talking about Jeff Durban and Andy Stanley,
34:04 and Andy Stanley made the point of, hey, I don't really care what the on-ramp is to Jesus. I just
34:09 care that someone basically gets on it and goes down the on-ramp. Whether they come to it through
34:14 the Old Testament, where they come through it, you know, to it from a spiritual interaction,
34:19 you know, that was of the worldly or they do it at a church camp or they do it at church on a
34:22 Sunday night, like whatever the thing is, they don't really care as long as they get to Jesus.
34:26 And that's the point. And guys, to be honest, that's why we're here. I've told you this before,
34:31 and if you've heard me talk, I talk about this all the time. But part of the reason why this
34:34 ministry is even here is because we feel like there are some more alpha male type guys that
34:39 miss out on who Jesus is because they go to church and the church service and the church
34:44 decorations and the people inside the church, it basically screams, you're not welcome here.
34:48 We did not make this for you. This is for a different type of person. If you want to be a Christian,
34:53 you have to be this type of a guy. And so that's why we're here because we don't think it's appropriate.
34:59 That guys that are more alpha that are a little bit more testosterone filled mess
35:03 miss out on who Jesus is. And I feel like if a guy like Jordan Peterson comes around,
35:07 we're going to get a lot of the intellectual types as well. And look, I'm not diminishing
35:12 the power of God by any stretch of the imagination. But obviously he works through circumstances,
35:17 he works through people. And it would just be an incredible, incredible thing to see Jordan
35:21 Peterson come to faith in Christ. All right, guys, before we let you go,
35:24 we're going to do a quick resilience boost. As you know, by now, we are a men's ministry and our
35:28 mission is cultivating manly resilience. Specifically, we do that by providing content like this
35:32 podcast that for just spiritual, mental and physical toughness. So today,
35:36 just a little rundown of the information that we got for you. We got the two different versions
35:39 of this talk between Jordan Peterson and Dennis Prager one from the Prager U channel and the other
35:44 one from the Jordan Peterson channel. And then I also include that article, which kind of sent me
35:48 down this rabbit hole. And this was a Australian website, I believe. And again, it's an article
35:53 entitled why I'm not a Christian Jordan Peterson and how you might ask him about becoming one.
35:58 And so it kind of gives you a little bit of a rundown of the talk that he had with Dennis
36:01 Prager. But it also kind of gets more into some things that if you were a friend of Jordan Peterson,
36:06 some things that you might bring up to him, that would maybe lead him towards Christ.
36:09 All right, guys, thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you would, please subscribe on
36:12 iTunes, SoundCloud or Google Play and refer your friends to listen. And just like we talked about
36:16 on the top of the episode, please leave us a five star review and a few sentences letting us know
36:20 why you like the content. I'm currently booking speaking engagements for the remainder of 2019
36:25 and the beginning of 2020. So if you want me to come speak to your team on your podcast,
36:29 to your company, wherever you want me to be, just hit me up info at undaunted.life. That's
36:33 the email info at undaunted.life. The website is www dot undaunted.life. You can follow us on
36:39 Instagram and Twitter at undaunted life or Facebook.com backslash undaunted life. Check out our free
36:44 devotionals on the U version Bible app. Just search undaunted life under plans. And as always,
36:48 we want to thank the band August Burns read for allowing us to use their entire music library for
36:52 our content. The entire outro track on this podcast is our song King of Sorrow, which is off
36:56 their latest record entitled Phantom Anthem. The links to all of this are in the description.
37:00 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience,
37:06 keep forging spiritual, mental and physical toughness. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
37:26 [Music]
Key quotes
3
Jordan Peterson
To have the audacity to claim that means that you live it out fully. And that's an unbearable task in some sense.
Jordan Peterson
Unless you act it out, you should be very careful about claiming it.
Jordan Peterson
If you are capable of believing, it would be a transfiguring event, a truly transfiguring event.
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