When Wilt Thou Save the People? Oh God of Mercy When?

Why the Obsession with Jordan Peterson and Tom Holland?

What exactly is the intersection of @jordanbpeterson and @holland_tom that obsesses me? @UnbelievableJB mentioned JBP in his recent episode with TH and @AndyOllerton . @EstherOfReilly hits on both in her recent piece.

I think part of it is that they both sort of make visible the invisible church that Protestantism invented. JBP is a therapist that won't go to a therapist or a church. Holland is liminal figure wants to inhabit the story but has doubts. Both waver on the edge.

The Protestant invisible church annoyed and blunted the increasingly toothless tyranny of the Medieval RCC. In the storybook versions I was indoctrinated with it invisibly reached back all the way to Adam through Seth and got ironically quite invisible at Constantine.

This came back to bite Protestants as after the Cold War as more Americans decided invisible was just to their liking when it came to church. You didn't need a church to be a Christian or go to heaven. Anti-clericalism against vestment-free Protestants was fair play.

Realized eschatology, however, abhors an institutional vacuum. A proliferation of platforms, politics and activism rush in to meet the demand to realize heaven on earth, available to those who find the faith of their path.

Pesky @jordanbpeterson just keeps showing up with his "Darwinian" truth that enduring patterns must endure for a reason. The Apostle of Purpose @PageauJonathan illustrates the point suggesting that the freedom of the imagined arbitrary is illusory.

.@holland_tom keeps playing a sort of cruciform "Where's Waldo" pointing out that even "Godless" Communists can't help but plagiarize "the greatest story ever told" even while pridefully demanding the sui generis nature of their vision.

As a Protestant Pastor I like Mary ponder these things in my heart. A child of the 60s and 70s I can't exorcise the cry "When wilt thou save the people, or God of mercy when? When wilt thou save the people. Not thrones and crowns, but men..."

The decaying, pre-gentrified NYC metro area of my youth, the counter-culture clowns, the earnest naivete of second-wave anti-racism. This same locale sets the stage for fellow haunted NYC metro area Todd Phillip's Joker and its "slow ramp-up into insanity".

Can we believe Jesus' adaptation of the Hebrew beatitude? Does the kingdom of heaven really belong to the poor in spirit? Will the meek really inherit the earth? Will those who hunger and thirst for righteousness really be satisfied? Who? When? Where? How?

If an invisible church only yields an invisible kingdom, we won't be satisfied. Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee. When wilt thou save the people? How do we participate? Which world? What make-up?