I was waiting in line with a woman with a cross necklace and a cane and a group of teenage boys in board shorts. A blind man was led by two other gentlemen past a petite, well-dressed woman in black heels and her date in a suit. As we entered the arena, a toddler held her dad’s hand and we were greeted by the overwhelming smell of funnel cake.
Dickies Arena in Fort Worth can seat up to 14,000 people. As I took my seat, there were bright screens in every direction advertising upcoming entertainment. Disney on Ice, Dierks Bentley, Justin Timberlake.
“So why did you join Jordan Peterson’s tour?” I asked the man next to me, munching on popcorn and listening to the classical music playing.
Go back to your theory class in college and raise your little scared hands and say, “It’s really interesting that Nietzsche said “God is dead,” but how does that hold up in light of the Genesis account?” I wish I had.
“There are some things I want to wrestle with God about,” he said, gesturing to the tour title on the front screen. We wrestle with God tour.
“And the best part is,” he told me.“I let everything ‘cash flow’. No credit cards accepted. ”
He was an Uber driver and had worked overtime to make it through the night, thinking he had to do something for himself.He found Jordan Peterson’s videos online and realized that “a lot of what he was talking about was about my upbringing.”
Live musicians took to the stage. As he played the first notes on his guitar, a new friend next to me leaned over to my husband and said he got off early and went to Buc-ee’s the other day.
“This and Buc-ee’s would make a perfect day.”
His easy-going demeanor and untucked polo shirt defied the typical classical intellectual stereotypes expected from academic lectures. He did not carry a copy of Poetics in his pocket, nor did he try to assert his intelligence by casually mentioning Dostoyevsky’s lesser-known works. He never said “penultimate” or “epistemological” or “a priori,” but instead drank a Diet Coke and tapped his foot to the music.
As more and more people filled the arena, my husband leaned over to me and whispered, “We’re all here to hear what the guy thinks.” We laughed at that idea. A few months later, Justin Timberlake would fill this same arena and bring women to their knees with another rendition of “SexyBack.” But tonight we gathered to hear a lecture about God from a Canadian psychologist.
Jordan Peterson took to the stage with the charisma of a soft-spoken elder who was about to make an important decision for his tribe. He paced with his hand pressed in front of his mouth, speaking in spurts and pausing to think for long periods of time that would make a professional speaker blush.
The question in the lecture that night was, in short, “Why God?”
When Peterson was thinking out loud about women’s attraction to men who can dance (a story worth exploring, in my opinion), I couldn’t help but ask myself: “Why are we here?”
So what was it about this 61-year-old clinical psychologist and what he calls “Theater of Thought” that had Texans calling out in droves Monday night?
Peterson has a reputation as a self-help guru. Even if his 90-minute presentation lacked the drama, flashes of lights, or dopamine-releasing rituals that accompany most motivational speakers.
teeth that why were we there?
Is that why? I was there?
Self-help?
I thought about what the Uber driver said. “Sometimes I want to wrestle with God.”
of course. But figuratively speaking, right? This isn’t really a story about “God”.
No, Mikayla. mistaken.
In fact, I have helped “myself” enough. I took the latest personality test, adopted some “atomic habits,” quit sugar, and tried cold showers. I exercised daily, practiced calming breathing techniques, and kept a well-organized personal planner. But sometimes even a good Pilates session and the power of positive thinking can’t solve the problem.
i wasn’t there self-help.i was there God-help.
Like the man sitting next to me, we weren’t there for the high-octane thrill of brain teasers. We were there because we needed a little practice.
The online portal for submitting questions to Jordan included a way to “upvote” various comments to push them to the top of the feed. Here are some of the questions people have asked us.
“What is the meaning of life? Why should I care?”
“What is the most important verse in the Bible to live by?”
“Was Jesus really who he claimed to be, exactly what we read in the Gospels?”
“Is there any other way to have an absolute moral structure other than religion?”
“How do you forgive something that is considered unforgivable?”
One audience member wrote: “I’m struggling with my sexuality. I don’t want this life. I’m a committed conservative Christian and I don’t know what to do. What’s your opinion?”
He was there to wrestle with God, just like me, like the Uber driver to my right.
Then to my left was my husband.
It wasn’t that long ago that as a teenager he became disillusioned with the church and was drawn to New Atheist leaders like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. For many curious young people, New Atheism was a satisfying, rebellious answer to religion’s seeming inability to address difficult questions.
These same seekers, after some time and deep thought, found that the suggestion of a world without God was absurd and empty.
What was a disillusioned atheist supposed to do next?
Dr. Jordan Peterson has never publicly professed adherence to any particular faith, but he travels the world teaching about Abraham and Moses to packed stadiums as if he were Billy Graham. Masu.
why?
As he said in his lecture that night,“We’re at a point where we have to understand what the stories our culture assumes actually mean.” In his opinion, the Bible is that story, and by it the Bible tells us what it means. have created “perhaps the greatest culture on earth.” …If you want to protect culture, if you want to protect stories, you have to protect God. ”
As I limped out of the arena, carrying a chocolate chip cookie wrapper, I heard a man behind me make a sharp remark. Jordan, a religiously ambivalent man who walked on stage wearing a suit jacket with the face of a saint on it, said: He is more of a Christian than most Christians. ”
I thought back to my husband and the many hours of conversation we had while listening to Jordan Peterson’s series of lectures on Genesis.
We talked about Cain and Abel and the nature of evil, the power of words to breathe life, and the idea that humans are created in the image of God. It was a conversation I had wanted to have ever since we met in college, but I just didn’t know how to start.
I think that’s one of the reasons I love Peterson. Because he gave me the gift of conversation, not just with her husband, but with people everywhere.
Even though Peterson did not claim to take the Bible literally, he did take it seriously. He pursued ancient texts with the kind of vigor that intellectuals typically accorded to Darwin and Freud. For me, his influence shattered the false separation between intellect and faith.
Go back to your theory class in college and raise your little scared hands and say, “It’s really interesting that Nietzsche said “God is dead,” but how does that hold up in light of the Genesis account?” I wish I had.
Having caught wind of Peterson’s Advanced Biblical Analysis, I told all my professors that I was going to take both with my God. and The reason for my class, thank you very much.
But when I waded through the godless waters of academia, there was still no Jordan Peterson.
Now “Jordan Petersons” are popping up everywhere. They’re blowing the dust off the old Bible and saying, “Hey, before we throw all our norms and ethics down the memory hole, why don’t we give this man of God a shot?” . Honestly, what do you have to lose? Or, to be more honest, are there other options?
If there were other options, would there still be a player like Jordan Peterson? Or can people like him be trained only in times like this?
My husband and I were parking at the church down the street. As he opened his car door to let me in, I noticed other audience members passing under the spire. The modest silver cross was barely visible in the dim light of the streetlights.
We drove home talking about God.
