Jordan Peterson, an intellectual change agent 

Why would a relatively obscure Canadian university professor suddenly become a world-renowned speaker of rock-star status with millions of YouTube subscribers? After his questioning Bill C-16’s criminalization of misgendering in 2017, the world started listening to this unknown Canadian.  The New York Times describes Jordan Peterson as “the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now.”  His bestseller Twelve Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaoshas sold over six million copies so far. With over three and a half million YouTube subscribers, his videos have been viewed over six hundred million times.  His recent Biblical Series, exploring the intersection of psychology and the bible, has been viewed by millions.  

A change agent

Peterson is a gentle, very Canadian, revolutionary, which means that he doesn’t look like one.  In Social Work jargon, he is a true change agent. He affirms a balance that has to be maintained between tradition and transformation, between order and creative chaos.  In his optimistic desire to fix things, particularly for young men, he strangely reminds one of a modern-day Lord Baden Powell who taught scouts to DYB, DYB, DYB (Do Your Best).  Peterson similarly recommends that young people start by cleaning up and beautifying their own rooms. In an age when human rights are emphasized, he encourages a simultaneous accepting of personal responsibility and giving one’s best at work. Through aiming at something higher in meaning and purpose, Peterson enables people to find direction in their lives.  Countless young people have written to him, saying that this emphasis helped them move out of their parents’ place, find a stable job, and even enter a satisfying marriage.

Over a year ago, Peterson disappeared from public view because of a severe akathisia illness which was treated in Russia and Serbia.  A reaction to anti-anxiety medication benzodiazepine had left him in extreme pain, with an inability to sit.  

Family health issues

At the same time, his wife Tammy was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  During this time, she had a spiritual breakthrough, saying “As far as I am concerned, I died and came back to life. Spiritually, I have been reborn. I think that I understand what reborn means now.” The Petersons now say grace at dinner.  Jordan says: “I actually think in some ways it is the best part of my day, strangely enough, though that is not saying much.” Prayer has become a big part of Tammy’s life.  She believes that her miraculous recovery from cancer, after two surgeries, is rooted in prayer: “All the prayers that came through people that Jordan and I met on tour, I breathed in those prayers, the night before my surgery, I breathed in gold prayers to myself (…) I still pray every day…My intention is always ‘thy will be done’.”

Significantly, Jordan dedicated his newest book Beyond Order: Twelve More Rules for Life to his wife, saying, “To my wife, Tammy Maureen Roberts Peterson, whom I have loved deeply for fifty years, and who is admirable, in my estimation, in all regards, and beyond all reason.”

An encounter with God?

Is Jordan, like Tammy did, edging towards an encounter with Jesus? His last two books contain many scriptural references.  For many years, he has publicly said that he acts as though God exists.  On March 1, he said that “The deepest questions are religious questions, and the Bible is the best answer we have, and if you don’t like that, well fine, do better. Good luck. There is wisdom in that book that is unbelievable.” Jordan holds that the most fundamental stories of the West are to be found, for better or worse, in the biblical corpus.  Through his books and videos, many younger people are rethinking the potential value of the Bible, with a number attending church for the first time.  Could Jordan be functioning, perhaps inadvertently, as a modern-day John the Baptist, pointing people to Jesus the Lamb of God?

Three years ago, Jordan told Roman Catholic author and podcaster Patrick Coffin that he needed “three more years” before he could say whether he believed Jesus rose from the dead. What might happen to Jordan if the meaning of the finished work and physical resurrection was revealed to him?  In his newest book Beyond Order, he comments that the cross, for its part, is the burden of life. It is a place of betrayal, torture, and death. It is therefore a fundamental symbol of mortal vulnerability. In the Christian drama, it is also the place where vulnerability is transcended, as a consequence of its acceptance. This voluntary acceptance is also equivalent to victory over the dragon, representation of chaos, death, and the unknown. By accepting life’s suffering, therefore, evil may be overcome.

Surrender to God?
“The deepest or highest of meanings” for Jordan is the God idea which both attracts and terrifies him.  Surrender to God seems to be drawing him in the midst of great ambivalence. In a recent podcast with Icon maker Jonathan Pageau, Jordan welled up in tears when speaking about Jesus.  He commented to Pageau, “The problem is, I probably believe that. And I am amazed at my own belief and I don’t understand it…I still don’t know what to make of it, partly because it’s too terrifying a reality to fully believe. I don’t even know what would happen to you if you fully believed it.”

Jung or Christ
His Jungian default both makes him curious about spirituality, while simultaneously collapsing the objective other into merely subjective, subconscious urges. Who will be the ultimate master in his life: Carl Jung or Jesus Christ?

In a recent podcast with Dave Rubin, Jordan commented: “This is one of the mysterious things about Christianity that is so remarkable about it, there is the Christ who is eternal, the Word of God, that is a representation of something absolutely transcendent. But it is married to the particulars of one particular time and space.  Obviously, critics of Christianity view it as one of its major flaws, that there is this idea of God who was a carpenter in some-out-of-the-way place and time…”

God is searching for the lost, including Jordan Peterson.  Will you join with us in praying that, like his wife Tammy, Jordan will become reborn?  Perhaps he might become a Canadian CS Lewis, bringing other lost people to Christ.