Wake Up, Look Up

hello everyone thanks for listening to

wake up lookup a podcast where we

connect events happening in real time to

the Gospel of Jesus Christ I'm Zach wck

and in today's episode we're asking the

question should we listen to Jordan

Peterson if you don't know Jordan

Peterson is a Canadian thinker his

background is in Psych ology but really

now he presents himself as an

intellectual someone who's taking on the

larger questions of society questions

about the role of government questions

about education philosophy uh the

decline of masculinity lots of things

that he is just kind of waxing eloquent

about he's got a huge following social

media YouTube the lecture circuit I mean

he actually will go on tour like a rock

band just giving intellectual talks that

you can pay money to see that lets you

know how good he is even if you've never

heard of him because you couldn't have

imagined probably 5 years ago someone

paying to go to a lecture but they do

and he is a compelling speaker obviously

a very smart guy who with a breadth of

knowledge and a depth of something to

say and a lot of people are listening

including and especially Evangelical

Christians that's because a lot of what

Dr Peterson has to say is close to what

the Bible says he has a lot to say about

what it means to be a man about

government overreach about the

importance of religion and so he's

becoming a prominent kind of cultural

touch point a prominent uh spokesperson

of two and sometimes for Evangelical

Christians he which he I think

understands so his most recent book aims

at theology it's called we who wrestle

with God and a lot of what he has to say

in the book is compelling and

interesting and even most L right he

talks about the importance of

understanding the idea that human beings

are made in the image of God for example

and how important that is from a

societal standpoint versus other ways of

assigning value to human life he talks

about a culture that does away with

Christianity or maybe more appropriately

does away with a kind of judeo-christian

worldview is one that will slowly his

words not mine descend into hell at

least to kind of hell he he is a big

believer that the biblical worldview at

least elements of it are necessary for a

healthy Society I like a lot of the

things he has to say but he's also a

little dangerous and what I mean by that

is he will wander into theological

territory where he says things like

Abraham is mostly mythology the Bible

has stories designed to inspire but is

not necessarily hard fact of course this

is counter to the biblical self-

understanding which Roots these accounts

in actual human history which is

important for us because we either have

a God who deals in mythology and who

loves us mythologically who will save us

mythologically or a God who deals in

reality the Christian belief is that

there was a man named Jesus who was the

son of God who lived in died and rose

from the dead he was Flesh and Blood the

same way Abraham was or Moses or Jonah

by the way all three stories that Jesus

himself affirmed as factual and historic

in the gospels and and so the question

should we listen to Jordan Peterson is a

mixed bag answer and I'm using Dr

Peterson here by the way as a template

for other similar thinkers sometimes the

most dangerous thinkers are the ones who

are close enough to the truth that we

let down our guard there are other

thinkers out there who are saying things

that are so blatantly not true and

blatantly not biblical that we know to

tune them out it's the candyco poison

that gets you it's the stuff that sounds

good and sounds right laced with the

things that aren't true should we listen

to Dr Peterson in some ways I want to

say absolutely I think we're the better

for having intellectual conversations I

think he's raising some really good

questions and making some really good

points I'm not sure we really ever

benefit by putting our hands over our

ears and closing our eyes and saying na

na na na na na n we should listen but we

shouldn't listen to him on areas that

he's not an expert like theology

discipleship happens in the local church

led by pastors who have given their

lives to the study of God's word who

exist within the tradition of Orthodox

Christianity should we listen to Dr

Peterson about Society yeah should we

listen to him about education sure

philosophy sure we should chew the meat

as the saying goes and spit out the

bones find the truth and celebrate it

and get rid of the parts that aren't

squaring with scripture but I don't

think we should be asking him to

disciple us and that of course is a key

distinction there are other voices out

there podcasters writers thinkers

YouTubers that you will find interesting

stimulating it will make you go deeper

and think harder that's incredible you

should do that but make sure that the

people you're listening to about the

Bible about Jesus are people with the

same confession the church has had for

2,000 years there are a lot of men and

women who can help us think

theologically in a way that is honoring

to Jesus let's let them do that and

let's let Dr Peterson sticking his L hey

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