Jordan Peterson is not doing well physically, and his daughter has announced that the cause is A, the cause is B, or maybe even spiritual warfare. Then predictably, she says "Boy is sure looks like spiritual warfare," because that's how people introduce the topic. As a 70s Jesus Person, and early evangelical culture observer from the 80s, I have heard lots of people claim that their troubles come from spiritual warfare. I came to reflexively reject that, even though I do believe in spiritual warfare. No, your parachurch ministry is going down because you have increasingly become grandiose and see yourself as the center of Last Days preaching. No, you are being attacked because you have not exercised control over your staff (or yourself), and accusations of infidelity and even abuse are hitting the news. You have promoted your idiot wife/children into positions of authority. You are not exempt from the law of averages on trials and tribulations, dude. Or more generally People are calling you a loon because you are, in fact, a loon. I liked Peterson's first book, whatever that was, for its inspirational quality for young men not to feel beaten down but to display confidence and proudly do the little, character-building things brick-by-brick.
But I was uncomfortable with his Jungianism, which I believe is an attractive set of ideas that somehow always leads people away from the faith into a mystic, symbolic interpretation of life. I think it is good as a dessert, but not as a meal. It is nutritional only by accident.
So he is a food faddist and increasingly alt-health, but he is failing because of...spiritual warfare. I will be a bit snarky here and say that perhaps Satan would be more likely to go after an actual Christian, rather than someone who believes the Bible is remarkably fascinating and unfairly criticised but has a host of symbolic lessons to teach us. I wish him well despite my disagreement with him. I think I have mentioned him only twice here, both times positively but with some reservations.
1 comment:
If he was saying "spiritual warfare" himself I'd be very surprised.
The devil might find it expedient to put obstacles in the path of someone coming to Christ in the first place. I don't know if that qualifies as "spiritual warfare" the way people usually think of it (when they do).
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