The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, said this week that he identifies as a “cultural Christian.”
In an interview with Jordan Peterson that aired on Monday, Musk acknowledged that he’s “not a particularly religious person” but is drawn to the teachings of Jesus.
“The anguish that Musk and others like him feel about the sick ideology of this culture will not disappear through mere tradition, but through surrender to the risen Christ.”
“I believe that the teachings of Jesus are good and wise, and that there is great wisdom in turning the other cheek,” Musk said. Said.
“This idea of forgiveness is important,” he added. “I think it’s essential because if we don’t forgive, I forget who said it, but an eye for an eye will blind everybody.”
“I’m a passionate believer in Christianity,” Musk explained. “I think Christianity is a very good thing.”
Musk, who was born in South Africa, was baptized at an early age and raised in the Church of England, and despite a religious upbringing that included attending a Jewish kindergarten, he told Peterson he experienced a “crisis of faith” at a young age.
Still, Musk believes religion, and faith more broadly, is good for society, and that abandoning it puts society at risk.The views Musk expressed in his conversation with Peterson are consistent with his previous public comments. Including his support Without Christianity the West would “perish.”
But how should Christians respond to Musk’s comments?
It is true that Jesus of Nazareth taught that his disciples must submit completely to him and follow his teachings. road He taught that this is the way to heaven and eternal life. There is no middle way.
But Andrew Walker, a professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said there was some upside to Musk’s comments, and his repeated public allusions to his childhood faith.
“We should see this as an opportunity for cultural apologetics. Musk has increasingly borrowed Christian moral capital in his recent public stances, and it is right and good that he associates those stances with the coherence of a Christian worldview. We should be grateful for the civilizing force that Christianity has had on our culture (hence my fan of ‘cultural Christianity’),” Walker says. explanation.
“Yet we should promote something more: proselytizing Christianity,” he advised.
“The anguish that Musk and others like him feel about the sick ideology of our culture will not disappear through mere tradition — important and valuable as those are — but through surrender to the risen Christ,” Walker said.
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