Speak Life Podcast. Sharing Jesus in everyday life. Well, hello everyone and welcome to another podcast from Speak Life over the summertime. Apologies that this wasn't out last week. Every one of us was away in some way, shape, or form. And so there was no one actually to get this out to you. So we're getting this out to you now, and you'll probably get another one dropped pretty quickly tomorrow in order to keep us on track. Now, if you've been following us over the summer, you'll know that we've been reusing some of the videos that we've done over the year and putting them into audio form. And we're continuing on that track today. We've got Glenn in an interview with Esther O'Reilly. And Esther is a writer over at Pathios, amongst other places. And the kind of catalyst for this discussion was an interview with Jordan Peterson that was done by Dennis Prager. Where Peterson told Prager that he didn't want to claim to believe in God because who could bear such a burden as that? And Esther wrote an article in response to that, where she explained that faith isn't a burden, it's trusting the one who lifts our burden. And Peterson even retweeted that. He's retweeted a number of her other articles as well. And so Glenn got a chance to speak to her earlier in the year, and we'll leave you with this audio in full now. Enjoy.
SPEAKER_03So I am joined by Esther O'Reilly, uh Christian humanist. She's been dubbed the kid's sister of the intellectual dark web. Great to have you on the live cast.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for having me, Glenn. It's a pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER_03Who gave you that title, the kid's sister of the intellectual dark web?
SPEAKER_01You know, it's one of those things like it's like the calculus. Several people independently came up with it. And so you know, uh and then and then Paul Bandriclay sort of jumped onto bandwagon, and now that this is, you know, it's his his his thing now. But I don't actually honestly remember the very first person, but a couple different people have have claimed it, I think.
SPEAKER_03And who who is staking out the membership of the intellectual dark web anyway? I mean, who who's actually in this group?
SPEAKER_01I don't even know anymore. And you know, people are already saying that it's it's like dead, like it's not even a thing so much because there's been some infighting and you know the the various members are beginning to kind of go their own separate ways, and so it's it's already like a super 2018 thing, you know? Right. Um it's funny because um I I was I was commissioned to to write an article about the IDW for a new the launch of a new Christian magazine called Permanent Things. It it'll be coming out uh this month, I I guess, by Owen Strand. And it was months ago that he commissioned it, and at the time it's like, ooh, we'll get like a Christian cultural perspective on this hot new thing. And now I now I'm looking back at the article, it already feels a little bit dated, you know, but that's that's the church. We're always like about a year behind everything.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's right. I'm I'm thinking of my next fidget spinner video just to just to really engage with the kids.
SPEAKER_01I know, I know exactly. But if you want to, I mean, people can find. I did an unbelievable episode with uh with James Croft, which was it was kind of a weird hodgepodge where we went all over the place, but you know, Justin asked me to talk about the IDW. So you can get like that's a little time capsule of my thoughts at that time, which it would have been like around fall of last year.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Would you say it's it's kind of classical liberals who've had enough of the left going too far?
SPEAKER_01Like how would you sure you could sure you could put it that way. You could also say it's you know it's it's a it's a bunch of twos yakking in Dave Rubin's living room. You know, you could say like yeah, I I I I think that's I think that's fair. I I I talked a little bit in my second unbelievable thing I did with Neil Shenby and James Lindsay. I I said that I saw guys like Brett Weinstein as sort of old school liberals, where you know, they're progressives in a sense, but they're like, wait, wait, wait, this isn't what I had in mind. Like, what's what's going on here? I this is wait a minute, kids, we're taking this too far. Um, you know, and there's an interesting sociopolitical argument that could be had about whether Brett Weinstein may have sort of set set the table with with the with the knives that were used to s to stab him. Um but you know, I I just I viewed him as like a just a good bloke who was just doing his job and being being a good teacher, and then just got blindsided by this. And now the way that he and Eric both have sort of described it is that they've got like a little PTSD from how the left sort of uh treated them. And so it's not that it's not that they're conservatives exactly. And I wouldn't even call Jordan Peterson a conservative. Like I've seen some people say that. I'm like, uh not really. I see Peterson is still still relatively liberal, but he's you know, he's ticked off with leftism, you know. Um so that's that's where I think a lot of these guys are. I think you've got people, so like Douglas Murray, who's not American, and so he gets sort of left out of these conversations because the British political landscape is just a different ball of wax from the American political landscape. Um but I've been I think more interested in Murray than maybe some other commentators have been. Um just because I I think his ideas are really interesting and uh and in some ways because he's a neoconservative, which has a certain meaning, I guess, in the British political landscape. Um which which means that some of his ideas somewhat align with with mine as an American classical conservative, but in other respects we might diverge. And so I definitely plan to be doing some more writing on his stuff one day. My dream is to is to debate him, maybe, maybe on one of Justin's episodes.
SPEAKER_03Um on what topic? What would you what would you take on Douglas Murray on?
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness. I suppose um can we still believe? Which is sort of the problem that's been kind of haunting him, I guess, because you know, he's a sort of if you've read the poem Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold, um is this sort of very romantic uh ode to lost faith. And so Murray is that sort of he's like this classic archetypal 19th century romantic deconvert. You know, he's so like while Stephen Picker is going, Enlightenment now, enlightenment now, are you coming, Douglas? Douglas is like, no, I have a very important poem to recite on to me.
SPEAKER_03I need to look off to the horizon and wistfully.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Well that's the word, I think, wistful is and and I think he'll be he's writing a new book that'll be coming out this September, and I expect he'll be expanding more on this. But uh, you know, Douglas wants he's like he feels like something has been terribly and irrevocably lost when Christianity and Christian faith was lost. And he's a humanist at heart, and so he feels very strongly about human dignity and human value, and he sees these disturbing things like right to die legislation and whatnot. But he realizes that there's no real way to ground that outside of a Judeo-Christian framework. And so he's in this liminal space where uh you know the best that he can do is be a sort of a a Jeremiah type um you know figure. But he himself still feels like he can't believe because, oh, you know, Darwin and Strauss and higher criticism and and all that. So, you know, of course we can't be rational believers. That's all Ben had done, blah, blah, blah. And you know, that's that's partly where I can come in because it's like, well, er, no, actually you missed a spot. But that's another story.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. And and do you get the same sense with Jordan Peterson as well?
SPEAKER_01That's although I think Peterson may be more optimistic than Murray, uh when I when I sort of look at the two of them, because I think Murray is sort of well, he's a journalist, and Peterson is an academic. And so um Yeah, so so Peterson I think still has he's he's still trying to cling to this optimistic view that's like, well, yeah, but it it we really can we can make the world a better place, and maybe we can't save the world, strictly speaking. Like he's not a utopian in that sense, but we can we can put the world together. And you know, God only knows what we can do.
SPEAKER_03One individual at a time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And he'll he'll keep saying, you know, you're you're unbelievably there's more light in you than you know, and God only knows what we could be or what we could do if we lived up to our full potential. Um, that's the city on the hill that we're striving for.
SPEAKER_03Striving towards, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Oh, it's sort of like, you know, the the maximization of virtue, I suppose, is is his utopias, where where virtue is maximized to its greatest possible extent, and and virtue and truth-telling, you know. But I don't know. Well, it's it's that it's that Pelagian satiriology plus Augustinian anthropology that's kind of clashing there, you know.
SPEAKER_03Right. Right. Yeah, very good way of putting it.
SPEAKER_01Uh I stole it from Paul.
SPEAKER_03Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. So Paul Van der Clay, he's been uh who who got onto Peterson first, Paul Van der Clay or you?
SPEAKER_01Paul did. Uh he he got it to Peterson because of the the Bill C16 stuff, which I wasn't really aware of at the time. Um and then I separately saw the Kathy Newman interview when it went vi went viral, and that sent me down the rabbit hole. So that was and then like later after that I I found Paul and began enjoying his commentary.
SPEAKER_03So okay. And and so where where do you see so Paul Vanderclay has a has a phrase about uh Jordan Peterson, the the status rocket has gone up into the stratosphere. Yeah. You know, he's unreachable now. Um so it is quite the phenomenon. Um I guess I've got a few questions around that. Like, like what is it, what does it tell us about the culture, first of all, that Jordan Peterson could become a YouTube phenomenon.
SPEAKER_01Culture spends way too much time watching YouTube. Um I don't that's a very good question. Um I think this is a generational thing to some extent. Um but I think it may it may also say more about certain pockets of culture possibly than culture writ large, because you know, I I'm part of the you know the extremely online community, right? You know, and so to some extent that puts a bit of a filter on what people think is important or what people are really into. So um you know, there is there is still like a huge chunk of culture, so to speak, that has no idea who Jordan Peterson is or who who any of these intellectual dark web kind of guys are. So I think that the Peterson phenomenon can can tell us something about certain specific demographics. So I think it can tell us something about younger guys, um specifically younger guys who are of a more sort of intellectually curious or restless bent. Um and more specifically younger guys who are in professions like like IT or tech, for example, who have a lot of time to listen to things while they're working on whatever they do. Um that's a phenomenon that Paul has kind of noted and just his sort of canvassing of the types of people who reach out to him. That's kind of the professions that they come from. And they'll say that's how they got hooked on Peterson's. They had all of this sort of uh dead time in a sense in their coding or whatever. Gotta find something to listen to. And then, okay, there's here here's this interesting character who's who's talking in a sort of a fun, mysterious way about archetypes and psychology and stuff. Um so that's a demographic that the that the church hasn't always been uh you know necessarily done a great job of reaching because it can be a demographic that has ADD when it comes to you know regular churchy type things. Um they could be sort of turned off by jargon um or turned off by you know like small group church culture, that kind of thing. So they kind of tend to sort of drift off and poke around and and find stuff on their own that that seems to seems to resonate better.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, so it is important to say that the IDW is is a dark web phenomenon. So it's it's not the greatest name. Yeah, yeah. So it's it's kind of a counterculture. Um but it it is interesting in that it taps into what people might be thinking in the house next door to you. Um when you've got mainstream media saying this is the agenda, this is this is right think. We all know what wrongthink is, and nobody who's you know in their right mind thinks that. Um and probably pretty much your neighbor probably probably is disagreeing with that right think, actually. But you definitely like the IDW that comes along and just names um, you know. I mean, I it it it strikes me that one thing that would kind of unite the IDW, and there aren't there aren't millions of things that would unite the IDW, but but one thing would be, you know, just just to say something like um giving hormone blockers to a nine-year-old, that's kind of child abuse, wouldn't you say?
SPEAKER_01Right, exactly. Yeah, and so the the trans issue in general, it's been really interesting to watch the how you know e even people who sort of like slept through Obergafell or slept through the you know the the advance of gay marriage are suddenly waking up with the trans agenda going, wait, no, what what just happened? What is this? Excuse me, wait, no, no, no, no, no. And like even even like gay men are are saying that, or lesbian women are like, wait, wait, wait, stop, stop. This is it's sanity. And um, you know, like I as a conservative Christian might say, yeah, well, okay, but there's there is then kind of a conversation to be had going back to the gay and lesbian stuff. But hey, you know, for now, yes, absolutely, we can agree, we can find common ground on this. So, like, you know, Douglas Murray is is a gay man, um, but he's he's bang on when he talks about the the trans agenda, the transit sanity, you know. Um and so that's right, naming the madness, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes. So that even if the IDW is not particularly well known, even if even if your average person hasn't heard of Dave Rubin, um nevertheless, um it it at least shows that there is a platform and there is an audience for people just standing up and saying, wait, no, this is this is this is crazy.
SPEAKER_01Um Right, exactly. And it and the other important thing too, and I tried to emphasize this back in my unbelievable chat, but I think my point was it made me lost and my opponent. But um specifically, there I think there's an audience of people who actually aren't particularly political, um but who just sort of naturally in the privacy of their own minds um feel like this is just common sense. Um and and now these these new norms are being forced on them where it's like, well, you're a terrible, hateful, bigoted person if you don't go along with this. It's like I I didn't think I was a hateful bigoted person. I thought I was just going along my own business being being a regular kind of, you know. Yeah. Um and so that I think that's a misconception about the kinds of people who who might be attracted to what the IDW is saying is that, oh, they must be like these reactionary, alt-right type people. But actually, no, a lot of times they're just they're just regular people who'd like to be able to be left in peace to believe common sense things about stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Yeah, I mean I it really struck me. I don't know if you um picked up uh about John Cleese. Um so John Cleese put out a tweet just last week saying um uh I've often opined that uh London is not a particularly English city, and all my sort of overseas friends have agreed with me that that is indeed the case. London is not a particularly um English city. Uh and I also note that London was strongly voted to remain within the European Union. And like, what is what on earth is controversial about that? Like and yet it's had 11,000 retweets and people just like losing their minds over this and seeing racism everywhere in in this in this.
SPEAKER_01Because they think that it's he's implicitly saying something about Islam?
SPEAKER_03Or uh race. Like like he's he's saying that London isn't particularly English. He must mean it's not particularly white. Um we must be able to discern his motives, which are impure, and therefore we're gonna convict him of a thought crime on the evidence of there's no evidence. But you know, we're gonna we're gonna impugn his motives and and you know here we go. Here we go, and and we're gonna excommunicate him and and it's kind of frightening because he's an incredibly famous, popular comedian um who's now 79, and like not even he's safe from just being totally written off.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, not at all. Like comedians in general are well, yeah, Peterson will kind of talk about this, that comedy is an endangered comedians are an endangered species, maybe, at the in this particular landscape, because you know, supposedly what's so great about comedy is that you could you could say more or less anything and make a joke out of it, and that's your job, right? Um But that that now because you know people are incapable of of um taking a joke, that's it's you can't you can't do it. So that's why you know Titania de Grasse has her her audience, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I often say, you know, we like ethics and virtue used to be about cultivating a big heart, and now it's about cultivating a thin skin.
SPEAKER_00And it's just a race.
SPEAKER_03It's a race to be out outrageous, uh out outraged um from everybody else. Yeah. Crazy. And so the IDW is a kind of a uh a community that even if it's not broadly known, um yet it does say that there is a mood.
SPEAKER_01It's a mood. They're capturing capturing a feeling, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Um and and what why I brought up the John Cleese thing is that um in in um survey after survey, um, English people are sort of asked, um, are you happy with the direction that this country is going in? And do you think that things have changed for the better, for the worse? And and consistently, something like 65, two, you know, two-thirds of people say, No, I'm very worried about this. The moment that anyone says that out loud, yeah, with any kind of platform, and they are instantly derided as as bigoted and yeah, Islamophobic or racist or whatever else it is. So maybe that's one thing that the the the ascent of Jordan Peterson says about our culture. Is there anything else about the culture you think that he's putting his finger on or tapping into?
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, a lot of things that that have been talked about at length elsewhere, I think. I think fatherlessness is a you know a major, a major piece in this. And you know, a number of the conversations that I'll I'll hear Paul having will be with young guys who either either their father died when they were young or the father was distant or they didn't have a great relationship with their father. So um you know, uh Doug Wilson put it, he he said, N North America needs a dad. Uh and or as Eric Weitstein put it, we have an uncle shortage. You know, it's like you need the the strong authoritative male figure who can come along and sort of put the hand on on the guy's shoulder and say, Hey, you know, you you gotta you gotta pull yourself together here. Um the way I like to think of it is it's it's sort of like you know, the the mom says, Hey, clean your room. And they're not gonna clean the room when when mom says it because mom always says it. That's mom's job. But Jordan Peterson comes along and says, Hey, clean your room. Oh my gosh, wow, clean my room. I never thought of that before. What a great idea. Um is like, that's what I would say. Um and so I think it's it's sort of like the the analogy that I like to think of is a young kid who's you know, maybe maybe kind of a delinquent, sort of rebellious type, and then he's got that one teacher in school, or maybe that one coach who really cares. And you know, he cares enough to sort of take the kid aside and say, hey, you know, you're you you you gotta pull yourself together and you're You are not fine the way that you are. You are not fine the way you're you are, you're you're you're talking smack to your mom, and that's not cool. Um come on, seriously, you know, buck up, bucko. And so Peterson is that way. There there was a there's a young comedian like radio personality named Theo Vaughn, I think his name is. Um he did an interview with Peterson and he said, I I feel like you were the guy you were the guy who who came along when when our when our mom when you know it's like dad had run away and and you were like the stepdad who comes in and actually cares about our mom. Uh which I I thought was a really uh a a sweet, profound psychological kind of insight. It really kind of resonates on on a a big level.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so so what do you what do you think the Peterson phenomenon says about the church then? Because you know, we've been banging on about some of the Things. Anyway, we we talk about Father Hunger and we talk about the Father in Heaven. Yeah. Why have we not gotten across in the same way that he has?
SPEAKER_01You know, I think uh yeah, it's a multivariate problem. There there are so there's so many factors here, and it's it's so hard it's so hard to talk about the church as if it's a the a monolithic entity when it's so not, you know. There's there's so many different factions. And so I mean I I think that I think the Peterson phenomenon it could sort of speak to different kinds of things that different parts of the church may may have been getting wrong. Um and so it's like on the one hand, I I want to say, yeah, there's probably some things that the that the church could have done better, but on the other hand, I also want to say I don't know that I don't know that this could have been like helped exactly or or or predicted, because certain things about Peterson's appeal are just sort of like in the nature of Peterson and aren't and aren't exactly in the nature of the church to provide. I mean, so like Peterson, like the fat the fact that he's not a Christian, I think honestly is a big part of the appeal is that he's uh he's the other, you know, he's intersect different, he's not just the same old, same old. Um and so obviously no no church person or Christian person can can be the other, otherwise they would no longer be a Christian. So um so that's difficult. And I mean I think evolution is a big sort of elephant in this room that a lot of people are sort of going around or tiptoeing around because it's sort of exhausting debate that people don't people don't want to have, and a lot of people have sort of given up on it. Like, oh come on, can't we all just can't we all just agree with the scientific consensus and move on? And you know, if and a few of us annoying maverick types are like, eh, yeah, consensus consensus. Uh you know, I'm not really not not super big on that. But I think that is part of the draw, is that you know, Peterson comes along and he's you know a very sort of classic evolutionary thinker. Um, and so he's like, well, okay, how can I try to key the Bible stories into an evolutionary framework and see if I can create some kind of grand unifying theory and make it all you know, synthesize this all together and make it make sense. Because I think a lot of people, even if they've walked away from the church because they feel like, oh, it's too dogmatic or constraining or fundamentalist or whatever, um, there's still like something about the biblical stories that might haunt them psychologically. And so Peterson was tapping into that haunting power of the Bible in that sort of fresh psychological way. And so that people feel like, oh, well, maybe there's there can be like a reconnecting worlds here, like maybe this is how I can, you know, I can really understand and tap into the deep well of biblical stories and what that does to me psychologically, um, without having to contradict science and whatnot. And so that I mean the idea of like what the science says or what the scientific consensus says, which of course we all know this is how it is and this is what we have to work with, and everything that we do has to be measured against that. I mean, that's a that's a very, very deeply embedded presupposition in the academy, and then trickling down from the academy to the culture at large. So that I mean, a lot of people just take it for granted now. Um and so then I think that part of the attraction of Peterson is that it's like, hey, you don't have to leave this taken for granted framework, but maybe you can have all this other stuff too. And that's another thing where I mean, like somebody like me, if I'm being honest, I have to say, well, except I think there there actually are objectively problems with the evolutionary paradigm. I I don't even think actually that it's it's solid science. So I I like can't honestly offer that to people. And you know, that might cause people to say, oh, well, in that case, never mind, see you later. And that's you know, that's up to them, of course. But but so I mean, yeah, I I would I offer that as one aspect of Peterson that maybe maybe people haven't talked about as much, but that I think is is part of it. The thing is though, that I mean, what to me what makes Peterson most compelling and what I think most people find compelling about about him, the way he talks, like when he talks about human nature, um like none of that, I think I think none of that really actually makes a whole lot of sense within an evolutionary framework. Because I think there's there's like a duality there. Um because like one moment he'll be saying, yes, yes, you know, we're we're cousins of apes, and we used to be these primates years ago and yakkity yak. And next moment he's talking about like, you know, you you have the power to choose good or evil and and you're this. These are not meshing at all.
SPEAKER_03Um those two stories sit uh apparently comfortably um within many Christian minds, too. In terms of the cousins of oaths in the spark of divinity.
SPEAKER_01I'm I'm sorry to say it, but I I think way too many Christians have not actually thought through very carefully the all all the implications of the evolutionary paradigm. A massive debate, of course, a massive representation.
SPEAKER_03And you you you would describe yourself as sort of an old earth creationist?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that I think I think that would be yeah, that that's sort of where I would place myself. I don't I don't claim to have a a sort of step-by-step paint-by-numbers guide, like, okay, here's the exact order in which uh God pr um had his his bouts of creativity, you know, and he made this first, and then he made that, and this is connected to the other thing in this way. But I don't feel like I have to. You know, I'm I'm content with a certain amount of mystery in um precisely how all of that came together. And I disagree with the idea that that I need to come up with a step-by-step model to present as like a countermodel to the evolutionary model. I just, in terms of the philosophy of science, I don't I don't think that's true at all. Um so but I do think part of the problem, and this gets into you know how this might speak to the problems in the church, what's happened to the church that I see is a sort of radical split between people who are like all in with the young earth creationism and the answers in Genesis type school on the one hand, and then on the other hand, people like the main mind denominations, for example, who are just like completely buying into the evolutionary paradigm of like, oh come on, why can't you stupid Bible thumping, fundagelical, science phobic whatevers, just get on board and catch up? And so that's an incredibly bitter um divide in in the church. And um and so I think a lot of young people growing up never even really learn about possible third ways because all that they know of are these two radical binary options. And so then, you know, as they grow up and they kind of drift away from church and they go to college and their professors are you know presenting them the one-sided view of the evolutionary paradigm, that's what they'll sort of then drift towards. And it's very hard, I find, for them to come back from that because they'll feel like, ah, you're just trying to, you're just trying to sell me something and you're just desperate and you're just grasping at straws and you're fighting a losing battle, and I've seen the truth now. The, you know, the blinders have been removed. And so what I would really like to see would be more people in the church uh, you know, helping to educate kids and give them kind of a savvy perspective on the debate when they're much younger, so that they have the tools to go out and engage the debate in a in a nuanced way.
SPEAKER_03This is interesting. Uh we weren't gonna go here, but but um let's let's steer away from scientific arguments against it because that that could be a whole series of of videos. Um but I I take it that scientific arguments against Darwin are important to you. But let's let's focus on theological arguments against Darwin. Um give give me give me a couple of like bullet points on why theologically we can't go with the neo-Darwinian synthesis.
SPEAKER_01Oh well, I think the problem of human exceptionalism is enormous here. Um so yeah, I mean, there's really there's no non-anthropologically disastrous way that I can see to uh to build a model where we have material continuity with the rest of the animal kingdom. Um I just I just don't see it. You know, and and I'll hear I'll sometimes hear people say that they they they accept common descent, but maybe God guided it. And I quite honestly I have no idea what they mean with when they say that like you know, was was God like the the fairy godmother turning turning the lizards into the footmen?
SPEAKER_03You know, that's what I mean about the spark of divinity and we're cousins with apes, this this spirit sort of existing in people's heads. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. And and you know, um one one way around it that I'll hear some some Christians you know pontificating about is oh well, you know, like we we aren't our bodies, we are a soul. Um my body is just a highly advanced primate. And I even heard William Lake Craig saying that, and I was like, oh no, gently takes Mike away from William Lane Craig, you know, because it's like no Bill, no, no, no. Um but they'll they'll have this idea that you know we really could have been this sort of soulless hominid walking around, and then one day God sort of beams down a soul into the soulless hominid, and bippity boppity-boo, we're we're people. And I I really have a problem with that because I think it's in the nature and essence of man to be an embodied being. Um I am a Cartesian dualist, but I still I still believe that that man is in essence a body and soul creature. Um and so I I I'm very concerned theologically speaking, I think we need to reconnect with the sanctity of the body. Um Nancy Pearcy has a great book on this called Love Thy Body, which I'd highly recommend. Um so yeah, that's I think that's a a big, big problem. Um let's see, I could probably I could probably think of think of others. Oh, well, you know, the question of the question of the fall or the of Adam and Eve. And this is a a major confusion that I that I see because so many people will sort of link together a young earth with a historical Adam and Eve. Like that you have to have those two together. Um but I you know, I I disagree with that. I mean, like I I tend to think that the evidence favors an old earth, but I don't see that in contradiction with Adam and Eve being the very literally the first two human progenitors. Um and yeah, I think that um I think in order for the redemption to make sense, it it really has to go back to the first Adam and Eve falling to kick off the fallen redemption arc. Um and I've also seen people try to come up with alternate ways around that, like, well, maybe there were other people outside the garden um before Adam and Eve, and but then when they sinned, their sin had like a trickle-down effect or something, something. And I mean it just it turns it into a theological mess of pottage, as far as I'm concerned.
SPEAKER_03Right. So the place of Adam and yeah, it be it becomes incredibly arbitrary to say that Adam is related to Aboriginal cultures, you know, that are 12,000 miles away. Um God's uh God kind of zaps and imputes fallenness to them on behalf of this this man who, you know, stated them. Right.
SPEAKER_01Right, exactly. So that those those two, I think, it's the first being human exceptionalism. What does it mean to be made in the image of God? Um what does it mean for body and soul together to be stamped with Imago Dei? I think that gets lost to the evolutionary framework. And then secondly, the framework of fall and redemption, I think, unravels uh without a historical Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. How do we get here? But um no, it's it's I think it it is important because I I I think one of the ways that I often describe Jordan Peterson is yes, he's Jungian, I think he's even more deeply Darwinian. Um and and and therefore that kind of tempers the kind of hope that I have for him, because I have I have a lot of hope for him, and I pray for him to come and and uh come to know Jesus. But um it does seem to to me that he's such a bottom-up thinker. Um and he he gets that from Darwin. That's uh like how how do you bridge that gap from being bottom-up, bottom-up, bottom-up to actually receiving the greatest. It's difficult.
SPEAKER_01It's difficult. I have a a good buddy of mine that I've been chatting back and forth about this with for about a year now. I like the way he puts it. He said it's like Peterson is one inch away, but there's a hundred-foot wall in between, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But you know, we were originally what we were gonna talk about was um was some of my my writing, because you know, he has been has been reading my stuff, and so maybe that's shows that there's hope for him, I guess.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, I mean, he he had this uh kind of conversation with Dennis Prager. Um Dennis Prager kind of waxed lyrical in the introduction and said, you know, you're not just a bright man, you're also a good man. And then Jordan Peterson did the thing that we love Jordan Peterson for, which Bless his heart. Bless his heart, and I guess I guess he's learnt this from Dostoevsky. Who's he learnt this from? But he he knows how terrible he could be. He has a real doctrine of sin, a real doctrine of fullness and depravity. Uh and he's just the most open kind of public speaker, Christian or not, yeah, that I know on that issue. And he just wonderfully kind of took all the air out of that kind of introduction.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I mean like going back to what is it about his appeal, what does it say about the culture? I I've said this before, but I think Brett Weinstein put this beautifully when he said there's a void of authenticity in the culture right now. And Peterson brings authenticity in space, so that like even at the moment when he's being like so highly complimented, he's just like, Yeah, I'm not gonna go for that. I'm not I'm not actually gonna take that compliment right now, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And I've seen videos before where kind of he and Ruben and Ben Shapiro have been on the show, and Ruben has sort of said, you know, what what are your major weaknesses? And and actually, and they all go around the room, and and Ruben and Shapiro's weaknesses are uh relatively shallow things, and it just bears his soul about I could have been a prison camp guard, I could have been I probably would have been.
SPEAKER_01I was a would-be school shooter, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um so that yeah, that massively endears us to him, but then he wants us to you know stand up with our shoulders back and clean our rooms. And I've often thought about Peterson that I I wonder what it will do to the buckos, to those who you know hear his message and and do clean up their rooms, where they will be in two years' time.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_03When they realize there's only so much you can do by cleaning your room, and you know, I'm still left with me, and I'm still left with this bundle of contradictions. And so I I have been worried about those who listen to Peterson. More recently, I've been worried for him himself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I had thought that Peterson was such an exceptional human being that it would be okay for him to preach a Pelagian message to people because he could he could do it. But he himself is realizing he can't do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But actually, that's a good thing, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is a good thing, right. And I mean, of course, multiple factors there, and most recently his wife's illness, which I is just really heartbreaking. Um, and I'll tell you a quick quick little story about this, which I I think it just reflects so well on on the man and also on his wife, that we have a little Facebook group for women who support Jordan B. Peterson. And there's a it's a quite lively group, let me tell you. Um there's there's a lady of the group who's a journalist, and she'd had like a little bit of email contact with Peterson in a sort of journalistic capacity. And so she like went around collecting you know messages from from the group good wishes before Peterson's wife had her surgery. And like within hours, both Peterson and his wife separately responded in person to say thank you. And I mean, my gosh, just such such great, great people. But yeah, that's that's an enormo been an enormous strain on him, I think, emotionally. And so he's just he he seems to be running running down. Um and I I don't know where that's gonna lead. But then but then also, yeah, and this this was what what I touched on in the article that he that he shared out and what he then went into when he was making a writer is the the the the the burden of one's own nature. Um and well that's that's the burden that all humanity bears. That's that's the burden of being, um, is knowing what you are and not being exactly sure what you can do about it uh in your own strength. But just try just trying to do the best you can and hoping that that will be enough.
SPEAKER_03And he's realizing that it's not. That's right. That's right. And and probably get asked that question that keeps getting asked him, you know, you say you don't believe in God, you act as though he exists. And and Peterson probably it's the most raw I've seen him in answering that question, in in sort of saying, uh who could possibly say they believe in God? Because to say you believe in God is to say that you aim for the highest, even though you know you're embroiled in malevolence and blah blah blah. Um who could possibly say they believe? And and for him, believe just came across as this crushing burden that he wants to distance himself from. And so yeah, your article was just just um beautiful. We'll put links to it. Um uh Jordan Peterson and the unbearable task. Um and and let me just read a a a little bit of how you how you close out that article. You say, what is the unbearable burden of being the unbearable burden? Is it the pain we carry carry or is it the pain we force others to carry? Is it our suffering or our malevolence? And if it is our malevolence, how then shall this burden be lifted? How shall the damned spot be wiped out? How if we try if we try very hard, as hard as we can, to tear off the dragon skin and find more dragon skin beneath? I will pay, you say. I have paid, I am paying, and I will pay, except you can't, because someone else already paid. Boom, and here comes the gospel Esther. You know, your sorrowing parents and grandparents already paid, your wife already paid, your brother and sister already paid, the unborn child who uh who is not here already paid, so you well, here's the here's the law, right? Our hand has rent the fabric of reality, a hand not ours must mend it, our hand has stained the foundations of the earth, a hand not ours must wash it clean. Here is the great good news. This is beautiful law and gospel. Here we go. Not that we can pretend that we can undo the deed, not that we can pretend that we can forget even as we are forgiven, but still we are forgiven. Beneath this cross, how can we dare to stand? Before this throne, how can we dare to come? Shall we tarry till we're better? Shall we ever come at all? I believe. I believe I cannot manage. That's beautiful. I I cannot manage the unbearable task. I cannot bear the unbearable burden. I can only bear the burden that is left when the hand, not mine, has lifted it. And I believe that is enough. That's beautiful stuff, Esther. That is beautiful.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Thanks, thanks, man.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and then Jordan Peterson tweets it out and said, I did he say I really liked this?
SPEAKER_01He just said I I I liked this column. Yeah, I get kind of curious.
unknownYeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I liked this column. And uh when I when I saw him say I liked this column, I I just thought to myself, you know, if he ever did convert, that is the kind of thing he would say in order to signal it.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, to be honest, we you know, we we writers think about these things, you know. So I yeah, I had I kind of had that in mind because I I was sort of thinking of because the part of what sort of attracted me to him was how the the way that he speaks, you know, he speaks with this complete lack of cynicism about him, where he's just sort of like all in, and he'll talk about good and evil and and the and the struggle. Um and and so I wanted to I want to meet that, you know, I kind of want to to match that. Um and because it's like, yeah, this is a game of good and evil, this is a game of life and death, and you have to use this kind of language when you speak about it. There's there's no way around it, you know. Um But yeah, that is that is the gospel, you know. And I mean when when he talks about like who well who could say who could say I believe, he what he wants it's like he wants a cross, you know. There's there's an old an old hymn, uh, Am I a Soldier of the Cross? There's a a a verse that says, Um, Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease while others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas. And Peterson is like, Where's the bloody sea? Like where Where is it? God damn it. I want to it's like he wants a bloody sea to swim across. Like he he wants a cross, he wants a a a task, you know.
SPEAKER_03He wants to be Christ.
SPEAKER_01Well, in a way, right, exactly. And so he he kind of understands that there's the Christian idea of following Christ or picking up your cross, which there is, that's true, but it it has to be placed within the gospel framework because there is still a particular cross that Christ bore, which we cannot in our nature bear. But there is still a cross, and there's another old hymn called um, Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone? And the the verse goes, Must Jesus bear the cross alone and all the world go free? No, there's a cross for everyone, and there's a cross for me. Um so that's that's what I hope Peterson can realize is you know, like the gospel, it the gospel is not about like, oh, hooray, Jesus did all the work, so I don't have to, yay, you know, we're done here, going home now. It's like, it's like, no, there is still work. You know, like what does Bonhoeffer say when God calls a man, he bids him come and die. So don't it's like, don't worry, Jordan. It's there's still work for you to do. There's still a cross that you have to bear, but you don't have to bear this cross. You really don't. It's really okay, you know.
SPEAKER_03In some ways, he's already got a kind of uh that understanding in that he will talk about the gratitude that we ought to have for, you know, the lights are on and civilization is functioning. Right, right. It's a bloody miracle that we you know, here we here we are. Um so he kind of does get this sense that there is a grace that sets us on our feet and that impels us to engage with the wildness of the world out there. Um but I I guess he just needs a more robust Christian theological sense of you know the grace that actually sets you on your feet, not to zap you up to paradise, but to actually you know help you to engage with the struggle and the fight that Christ wants you to you know to have in this world. What would you what would you say to Jordan if you you know if you if you paid through the neck to have more than 90 seconds? Imagine you had 90 minutes with him. Um I don't know how we'd crowdfund enough money for you to do that.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh. Well, it's yeah, it's the status rocket again. He's he's the theoretive down here. You've been retweeted by him, so you are so that's my that's my ticket, man. That's that's about the the best I can do. Well, I mean, I would say everything I said in that article, but I already said it to him, so that's great.
SPEAKER_03Like, you know that's amazing, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um I think that I what I would try to help him understand is that the statement of well, the statement of belief, like like what it means to say I believe well you know, sp expanding more on what I was getting at at the end of the article is it's it's belief in God the way that the child believes in a parent, you know. Um it's like I I believe that this loving father loves me and and has my best good at heart. I believe that I believe that he has sent Christ to be the perfect sacrifice, and I I believe that I I cannot but love him back, you know. I I cannot but serve him as best I know how, knowing that it will be an imperfect offering because that's all that I have to give. You know, it's sort of like um okay, here's this debt that you can't possibly pay. God will pay it for you, but you have this penny jar, you know, and it's it God says, No, bring your penny jar. It's really it's actually really good and important that you bring your penny jar. And it's not so much about the pennies per se, but about like what it does in you to bring the pennies, you know. Um and so I I think I think what I would say uh to Peterson is that he can he can do all that he's been doing um but if he does it to the glory of God, then there will be a freedom in that, there will be a liberation in that, that the heavy weight has has been lifted. And it, you know, it's like he doesn't have to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. Um and he's that sort of that sort of wounded doctor, you know. Um and it's like Jordan, the position has been filled. Yep the position has been filled.
SPEAKER_03That's the trouble, because he's always psycholog psychologizing the Bible and therefore the Christ figure is me.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. That's I know, I know, but that's so that's the difficulty. I think I would also what you know what else I would say to him is I would try to I would try to convey the hope of the resurrection, you know, the resurrection hope, because that's I think that you know the best that you can get out of Jordan Peterson's system is is a really good death, you know. Um that the okay, well, at least you die with some nobility, with some dignity, and the family is gathered around it, they're not they're not fighting and they're you know, they're honoring the memory, and then I mean that's that's it. And the and the other the ones left standing carry on, and that's the best that you can do. And it's like, oh no, there's gotta be more than that. There is more than that, and that's the thing. That's that's Christ Christ at the same time weeping with Mary and Martha, uh yet also raising Lazarus, you know.
SPEAKER_03But he does seem addicted to the tragic view of life, and and I think even in the Prager video, he he kind of talked about once you embrace the tragic view of life, you can actually be happier because you know you you expect the the suffering. Um whereas actually in his biblical lectures, in the in the very first one, he said um the Bible is a comedy, which is strange and is remarkable that you know you've got this these 66 documents written over 14, you know, 1500 years by 40 different authors, and somehow they tell one plot line and it ends on a high. It ends with it ends with a happily ever after. I I would I would love him to do some more thinking on why it why it is he thinks that the Bible is a comedy, but he thinks life is a tragedy.
SPEAKER_01You've got a really you've got a great point there. I think you know he would say, Well, I don't I don't know what it all means.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's like he doesn't he he doesn't understand what the resurrection means. And I I kind of like so I did pay through the nose what uh one time last year, and I did get like a quick question in and where I was sort of trying to get at this, like, you know, where's do you think that do you feel like your project really offers as much hope as the Christian story fully embraced, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and he kind of danced around it and sort of landed at the place that he felt like he would be, you know, he felt like he would be talking above his pay grade if he said more at this point in time, which which I fully respect. You know, and I and I fully get. Um but yeah, I he's he's he's gotta do some more thinking. And you know, if if he does if he does come to Christ, it will probably be as a sort of Kierkegaard leap, you know, a sort of uh you know, a leap across across the depths, you know, or the or the fathoms. Which, you know, I I I feel like ideally the heart and the mind should be should be united, you know, should be in sync. I think that's how we were created to be. Um but but everyone's different. And Peterson kind of has to to find his own path. But I just I long I long for him to feel to feel Christ's hand on his shoulder, you know. Um because that's it when you're when you're like Mary Magdalene and you're and you're weeping outside of the of the tomb on on Sunday morning and then Christ calls your name.
SPEAKER_00Mary.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_01Mary. That's like for for me, for my money, the the most beautiful moment in in the whole of scripture. It's just that moment he calls her Mary that she says re Raboni. And that's oh that you cat that you catastrophe, man. That you catastrophe.
SPEAKER_03So how did he come across your article?
SPEAKER_01Like you just oh oh well I've been spamming his email. No, not really. So the it's it's it's very mundane and uh but Pathaos, the big platform that I I write for, um, they kind of work with Google, I think, so that um if if if somebody writes an article, for a few days it will kind of show up as a news headline along with other headlines if you do a search for the keyword. Um and so you know, if you search Jordan Peterson, then like for the first couple of days after I wrote that article, it would have been floating around as news having to do with Jordan Peterson in a Google search. So either, you know, either he himself or somebody who works with him every day, you know, goes through those kinds of headlines, probably also checking to see if there are any new hit pieces that he's to respond to, you know. Um and then they pull those out and he calls through them and clearly personally reads them a lot of the time, and then if he likes it, he he reshares it.
SPEAKER_00Amazing.
SPEAKER_01Um and it's it's funny uh because he's done this with three of my articles now, actually, all from my personal blog though. And I've written articles about him for places like Killette and The Federalist, which have way wider readership than my little blog. But it's funny, like for whatever reason, he hasn't picked up on those, but he's picked up on the ones from my blog, which I'm not complaining with because I get paid per view on Pathios. And so, you know, when when I get a Peterson spike, it's like, oh boy, you know, here we go. I'll finally be able to afford Girl Scouts. Happy meal tonight. Exactly, exactly. I can actually say yes when the Girl Scout cookies come to my door.
SPEAKER_03So what's been the response? I mean, uh so you you paid for one kind of c chat with Peterson.
SPEAKER_01Have you had any other like Yeah, I mean it wasn't it wasn't really a chat. It was the you know the VIP thing where you take a hand and and you get a question and Q ⁇ A.
SPEAKER_03Um so what by response, you mean like from other other readers or Peterson fans or Yeah, I mean so he he hasn't been in touch at all, or you you haven't got any access to the man up in the stratosphere. No.
SPEAKER_01Nope. I I don't have access to to the man himself. Um but what has been really nice is seeing over over the past months or so how how other people who like Peterson have responded to my writing, including people who aren't Christians. At those I am always kind of trying to pay attention to those reactions and trying to figure out what I did right. Um you know, not which which might sound like, ooh, what's what's the magic formula? Okay, better write that down, do it again, you know. But it's you know, it just trying to try to keep my finger kind of on the pulse. And and I've been really gratified to see, you know, atheists and skeptics and non-believers who say, you know, I'm still I'm still a skeptic, but this this really touched me, or this really made me think, or wow, this this like the the way one guy put it with with this this latest one, he said, Well that that broke it down and uh and I had to go take a walk. And now like after after after reading.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01There was a different guy who emailed me after the thing I wrote on Liberty University, um, which Peterson actually tweeted that one twice, which he must have really liked that one. Um which was such a heart-rending moment when that young man rushed up on stage and and made his sort of plea for help. Um so I wrote my thing on that, and then I got a nice email from a skeptical guy who said, you know, I have a master's degree in classics, and I've been sort of taught to tear religion up one side and down the other. Um but after reading this piece, I wonder if I should, you know, um because that really sort of touched something in me deeply. And so I was like, Cool, man. I mean, if you know if you like what I'm doing, then keep going. And so yeah, I mean, I I'm not here to say that I have this all figured out in terms of like, aha, okay, church, here's how I did it. Now you go out and do this exact thing. Because I don't have a thing, you know, I don't have a formula um or a recipe. I feel like I feel like it, you know, outreach can't work that way because once people try to make it into a formula, then it's like obviously detectable that you're trying to use a formula. Um that's that's counterproductive. Um but I hope, you know, I'm glad for the work that my writing has done. I'm glad that it's finding an audience, and I I hope that it can I hope it can continue to help, and it can continue to do so. And I I think I can help, I might be able to help pastors somewhat. So this federalist piece that I wrote. Um, Jordan Peterson isn't anti-Christian, he's a noble pagan. So I I was responding to this piece that a Lutheran pastor had written, which was a sort of somewhat cranky piece where he's like, Well, you know, Peterson is he's like the head pastor of First Church YouTube, and he seems like a sort of a would-be Gnostic prophet type, and you know, he wants to lead people away from the church, and it's like I really think that's a misread, you know. And so I tried to kind of go through and engage with this guy, but I think I think part of the problem is that pastors a lot of people have limited amounts of bandwidth time to listen deeply to Peterson because I mean they're pastoring, right? And I get it, you know, they've got a life, they've got stuff to do. Um but it might be helpful if they if they could listen to people like Paul Vanderclay or maybe you or people like me who are like, listen, listen, I have listened in depth to this guy. I have talked a lot with his fans, and I think this isn't quite getting it right. Here's some ideas. And so I wrote I did write something, Five Lessons Jordan Peterson has taught the church, that I think might could be a beginning place to start to talk through some of these things. So for whatever it's worth, hopefully it's worth something. I put my stuff out there and hope it finds an audience.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, let's put a link to that as well. So what's what's next for Esther O'Reilly?
SPEAKER_01What's what's next? Oh my gosh. Um let's see. Well um I'd like to write I I'd really like to write some more about Douglas Murray because that's something that I um I haven't touched on as much, but I'd like to write something for the public discourse about um about atheists who are pro-life or or who have a sort of an instinct towards life. And I think Murray is an important part of that conversation. Um I'd also like to write something. So there's a character named John Vervakey, who's a Canadian colleague of Peterson's, and he's sort of like the crazy Buddhist uncle of the intellectual dark web. Um not nearly as as well known as Peterson, but he's been doing lectures on the meaning crisis that Paul's been picking up. Uh and he and he's had some comments about personhood recently that I was sort of picking up on, and I feel like it could open up space for me to kind of lay out some of my thoughts on the danger of divorcing personhood from the idea of a human being. And so I might pitch that to an outlet like art digital or something, which is a spot I haven't written for yet. Um, well, and I'll also I hopefully either later this year or next year, this big anthology understanding Jordan Peterson and Critical Analysis will be coming out, and that's been edited by Ron Dart, who's a Canadian academic. So I've got an essay in there, and uh yeah, I which I'm pretty proud of. I'm pretty proud of, and I I called it I called it um Jordan Peterson as humanist. Um and so that that will sort of unfold my philosophy of Christian humanism and how I think Peterson's work affords an opportunity to dig more deeply into that, like what it means to be a Christian humanist, um top down, so to speak, you know, like a fully, fully integrated humanist. So uh quite excited about that to see what that will do. But there's other nice pieces of that anthology. So Alastair Roberts has written a thing, he's a he's a good egg, he's great. Different people.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, we'll we'll put some we'll put some uh links in the show notes to uh a few of those pieces that you just mentioned uh about how Christians can wrap their head around this phenomenon and uh take advantage of it, depth uh deepen their own understanding of the scriptures and their own understanding of people and how to connect with people as well. Uh because I think that's something that uh Peterson really uh helps us with. But um yeah, no, you've you've really served us uh well in all that writing and speaking that you do, Esther.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, pointing us back to Jesus and just uh yeah, this this article that uh that Peterson liked, amazing that he liked it. Uh just uh yeah, just a textbook law and gospel kind of presentation. And uh yeah, it uh it's reminded me to pray for the man and um we shall see.
SPEAKER_01We shall see, all in God's good time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, Esther, it's been great. Thank you for sparing the time.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.
SPEAKER_03God bless.
SPEAKER_01God bless.
SPEAKER_02Well, that was uh Glenn and Esther's uh video from earlier in a year. You can watch the interview on YouTube um if you're that way inclined. Um hope you really enjoyed that. Um and do stick with us for more content coming up uh in the next few days and over the next few weeks. Just a reminder that very soon now, only uh a week or two away, our internship programme, the Foundry, will be kicking off where we've got six interns coming to join us. Uh they're gonna be helping us to develop more evangelistic resources and just get do more evangelistic things, basically. And there's loads of things you're gonna be praying for in these next few weeks as accommodation uh needs to be finalised, and for some of them there's still issues just sorting out visas and things like that. So please pray for God's hand to just be on that and to allow these things to come together in good time. Pray for them as they arrive, that they settle in well with us and we with them, and we'd find our feet very quickly in kind of how they can bless this ministry and be used in growing the kingdom. If you head over to speaklife.org.uk forward slash foundry, you can find out a bit more about what we're doing. And there's also an option on there for you to donate towards the work of the foundry. And if you feel you could do that, we'd love uh love it if you could do that. So that's speaklife.org.uk forward slash foundry, and we'd be very grateful for your gift. So thanks very much for listening in today, and we'll see you again soon. Thanks very much. Bye.