It's difficult to avoid being a bit suspicious of a post like this one from a Pastor. It reveals the endless tendency of the church and its leaders to make THEMSELVES the primary requirement of "peace", "faith", "belief", and their endorsement of the rigid requirement of conforming to their simplified religious formula, for the comfort of abandoning your own struggle, which is the only thing they can offer. There is a "Body Snatcher" mentality to promoting the enveloping of the church's, or the "bride's", own formalized structure as a means to "peace", and of course the implicit accusation that the evident difficulties Jordan Peterson faces in life are caused by his failure to join the Body Snatchers.
Many of us resist this dogma, as it seems to fly in the face, in direct opposition, of the profound, difficult, and weighty ideals of Jesus, his solitary existence, his lonely struggles, his victory, and his story.
But, as the Pastor here is only selling "peace" in this post, and not depth, profundity, vitality, struggle, work, or growth, we might be able to take him at his word. If Jordan Peterson were to surrender his own difficult battles, lack of absolute certainty, introspection, and internalizing of religious ideas, and instead chose to embrace the deeply embedded mediocrity, and formulaic "Perpetual Sin, Outsourced Redemption, Self Distrust, and Humble Worship" of Christendom, he might very well feel a sense of "peace", and possibly boredom. It can be astonishing to witness the current, modern, painful mediocrity of Christian sermons, Christian music, Christian art, Christian movies, Christian community, and the church, but I imagine if you simply give up on the difficulties of seeking God, you might feel a sense of enervating, deadening, and flaccid "peace".
The final line of this post, "We want to see rest for his soul", is the most telling. It offers the dubious "we", meaning, I assume, the Body Snatchers of Christendom and the church, with whom the Pastor is immutably aligned, and it also offers the vague, false, cunning virtue of presenting the notion of unconditional "love" and goodwill towards a popular figure like Peterson, with whom the Pastor has no relationship, except that of a weaker parasite attaching to a stronger, more courageous, imaginative, if often scattered religious thinker. Pastor Paul should join the far braver Peterson in pursuit of Christian wisdom, not the other way around.
This is not to denigrate Pastor Paul, who is intelligent, and I think reasonably well intentioned. But, like most religious leaders, he is completely absent of courage and has sold his soul to the mediocrity of Christian formula. This causes his YouTube videos simply to present the same, interesting, repetitive, entertaining, but inevitably fruitless philosophical concepts, and the same sleight of hand to return all ideas to his, and Christendom's, simplified, stripped down, utterly foregone conclusions.
The problem is that there have always been "Jordan Petersons" throughout history, and there are millions of "Jordan Petersons" today, battling, struggling, suffering, questioning, and striving toward our most basic inclinations, coming into a relationship with our lives, the Divine, and the meaning of our existence. I believe if someone like Pastor Paul, who is bright, with life experiences, would only embrace a deeper courage, rather than insisting on the "peace" of formulaic preaching to the Choir of Mediocrity, he could really reach and help some people on their journey.
It's difficult to avoid being a bit suspicious of a post like this one from a Pastor. It reveals the endless tendency of the church and its leaders to make THEMSELVES the primary requirement of "peace", "faith", "belief", and their endorsement of the rigid requirement of conforming to their simplified religious formula, for the comfort of abandoning your own struggle, which is the only thing they can offer. There is a "Body Snatcher" mentality to promoting the enveloping of the church's, or the "bride's", own formalized structure as a means to "peace", and of course the implicit accusation that the evident difficulties Jordan Peterson faces in life are caused by his failure to join the Body Snatchers.
Many of us resist this dogma, as it seems to fly in the face, in direct opposition, of the profound, difficult, and weighty ideals of Jesus, his solitary existence, his lonely struggles, his victory, and his story.
But, as the Pastor here is only selling "peace" in this post, and not depth, profundity, vitality, struggle, work, or growth, we might be able to take him at his word. If Jordan Peterson were to surrender his own difficult battles, lack of absolute certainty, introspection, and internalizing of religious ideas, and instead chose to embrace the deeply embedded mediocrity, and formulaic "Perpetual Sin, Outsourced Redemption, Self Distrust, and Humble Worship" of Christendom, he might very well feel a sense of "peace", and possibly boredom. It can be astonishing to witness the current, modern, painful mediocrity of Christian sermons, Christian music, Christian art, Christian movies, Christian community, and the church, but I imagine if you simply give up on the difficulties of seeking God, you might feel a sense of enervating, deadening, and flaccid "peace".
The final line of this post, "We want to see rest for his soul", is the most telling. It offers the dubious "we", meaning, I assume, the Body Snatchers of Christendom and the church, with whom the Pastor is immutably aligned, and it also offers the vague, false, cunning virtue of presenting the notion of unconditional "love" and goodwill towards a popular figure like Peterson, with whom the Pastor has no relationship, except that of a weaker parasite attaching to a stronger, more courageous, imaginative, if often scattered religious thinker. Pastor Paul should join the far braver Peterson in pursuit of Christian wisdom, not the other way around.
This is not to denigrate Pastor Paul, who is intelligent, and I think reasonably well intentioned. But, like most religious leaders, he is completely absent of courage and has sold his soul to the mediocrity of Christian formula. This causes his YouTube videos simply to present the same, interesting, repetitive, entertaining, but inevitably fruitless philosophical concepts, and the same sleight of hand to return all ideas to his, and Christendom's, simplified, stripped down, utterly foregone conclusions.
The problem is that there have always been "Jordan Petersons" throughout history, and there are millions of "Jordan Petersons" today, battling, struggling, suffering, questioning, and striving toward our most basic inclinations, coming into a relationship with our lives, the Divine, and the meaning of our existence. I believe if someone like Pastor Paul, who is bright, with life experiences, would only embrace a deeper courage, rather than insisting on the "peace" of formulaic preaching to the Choir of Mediocrity, he could really reach and help some people on their journey.