Jordan Peterson and The Rise of a New Deism
Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson is a pop culture phenomenon. His books sell millions of copies. His public lectures are attended by thousands and viewed by millions via online streaming. Interviews, conversations, debates, and podcasts featuring Peterson are consumed by a voracious audience that is hungry for his message of personal responsibility, the inevitability of suffering, and the striving to find meaning within that suffering.
His ideas feel new. Fresh. Revolutionary. Maybe even a bit transgressive. They seem to be a pendulum swing away from post-modern thought and the deconstructionism that has characterized the mainstream intellectual movement since the cultural revolutions of the 1960s. His embrace of ancient metanarratives as a way to find meaning, wisdom, and as a starting point for building a stable foundation for life is stunning in that most academics had long dismissed those ancient stories as relics of a less evolved past.
Peterson uses Judeo-Christian language, symbolism, and terminology without being a believer in the tenets of the faith (e.g eternal salvation through belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus). He clearly values the social and civil structures of Western Civilization that were built on the spiritual and philosophical foundations laid down by Christianity and the advance of Christian faith across…
