Jordan Peterson on Christianity: Mythic Truth Messages for Muslims, Marxists and Male Christian Atheists
7 Reflections
In this article we will provide some background context on Jordan Peterson followed by 7 areas of reflection:
1. Needing a narrative
2. Beauty and the desire for the Transcendent
3. Intrinsic Value of Human Life
4. Christ as the Perfect Ideal
5. Dark side of human nature
6. Grace does not dismiss responsibility for actions
7. Climbing to God or God coming down to us?
Subscribe to our free Substack newsletter:
https://streettheologian.substack.com/
Or follow us on Twitter
https://twitter.com/StreetTheologn
The Jordan Peterson Phenomenon
For many who once dismissed Christianity or the Bible as sheer folly, Jordan Peterson reopens the window into faith with a fresh lens. Presenting the importance of being rooted in history and tradition.
Peterson points to the futility of a reductive materialist approach to life, with many finding the nihilistic conclusions of atheism too heavy a burden to bear.
The Virgin Births of Secularism: 10 Impossible Things You Assume Everyday
Do we Need God? The Loss of God and the Decay of Society Under the False Gods of Sex, Status, Science and State. Street Theologian Responds to the Academy of Ideas
In fact, Peterson deems many in his audience to be males who are “Christian atheists.”
For many who are surrounded by people who lack courage or conviction, Peterson presents himself as somewhat of a loving father who is prepared to bring stern correction, yet also offer encouragement, from a place of care.
Encouragement for young men
Not withholding his emotions, Peterson once expressed with tears flowing from his eyes that he has been a source of encouragement to men who otherwise would have received no encouragement in their lives.
Peterson and the Bible
Peterson’s books and lectures are filled with references to the Bible.
Peterson is heavily influenced by Jung who viewed myths as reflecting the collective unconscious.
Myths and traditions should not be readily dismissed according to Peterson for they reveal deep truths about who we are and have remained influential through history for a reason.
How Peterson’s teachings stack up against true Christianity
Yet, how do Jordan Peterson’s teachings compare to Christianity? What are some Christians potentially missing in Peterson’s writings?
Today we will briefly outline some similarities and differences, as well as, attempt to flesh out some of the nuance in Peterson’s work that seems to have been oversimplified by some.
The answer doesn’t start with right-wing politics
Many falsely depict Peterson as a far-right fascist fanatic. This seems to simply caricature Peterson.
While Peterson is a fierce critic of the predominantly left wing, Neo-Marxist ideology, referring to it as “Luciferian” in a video to Muslims, Peterson warns the main enemy or “satanic impulse” lies within.
What is Neo-Marxism (side note)?
Marxism originally focused on a model of the oppressors and the oppressed and applied it to differences in economic well-being and status. Neo-Marxism goes one step further and applies the oppressors and oppressed model of thinking to many other traits or spheres of life.
For Peterson, this idea is dangerous as it prevents us from taking responsibility for the evil within and shifts all the blame to the oppressors, in effect perpetuating a victim mindset.
Meaning comes from responsibility for Peterson.
Peterson on Fascism
Peterson considers the fascism of the 20th century in Maps of Meaning page 22 to have been “terribly wrong.” Peterson warns of excessive government control whether through more right-leaning or left-leaning means.
Marxists and Neo-Marxists who opposed Christianity
Given, the fiercely anti-Christian comments in the writings of Karl Marx and Neo-Marxists such as Antonio Gramsci who, in Audacia E Fede in 1916, described socialism as “precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity”, it is arguably unsurprising Peterson sees a clash between the two.
Marx deemed the notion of Christian socialism to be preposterous, asserting in the Communist Manifesto, “Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat.”
For under one model, the Transcendent values of God are replaced by the role of the State, while in the other the Transcendent is something beyond humanity and political rulers.
The death of God leading to countless deaths in the 20th century
Peterson frequently alludes to Nietzsche’s predictions in the 1800s that the “death of God” would lead to totalitarian governments, millions and millions of people dying at the hands of tyranny, in the 20th century and new gods or sources of meaning being constructed that could be far more damaging than Christianity.
Again.. Peterson is stressing the fight is within every individual first and foremost
Nevertheless, Peterson sternly warns against obsessing about fighting other people or ideologies to the point one is not prioritising fighting the enemy within.
As Peterson warned in his video to Muslims, “the satanic impulse within is the prime enemy.”
In the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in The Gulag Archipelago,
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts.”
Christians can also misinterpret Peterson
On the other end of the spectrum, Peterson’s writings can also be misinterpreted by Christians due to the nuance in his work.
A Gospel Coalition Article noted:
For Peterson, love is ultimately self-serving. We don’t love our neighbours as ourselves. We love them for ourselves.
While the author is correct in noting Peterson’s version of Christianity is not real Christianity and claims to have only heard one lecture of Peterson, I personally find this a bit of an unbalanced critique of Peterson overall.
In a 2023 interview with leading Christian apologist John Lennox, Peterson talked about how through Christ’s example we are completely called to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others and, ultimately, for God.
Peterson has again and again stressed how we need to live for something beyond ourselves rather than live in warped self-centredness.
Moreover, Peterson in the interview with Lennox categorised living for yourself as a sign of immaturity, explaining that a mature person will live for others and for the future. Does this benefit the individual according to Peterson? Sure, but there’s also more to it than that.
For Peterson, there is a sense of duty imbued in us by the Divine.
The benefits which flow to the individual from following this duty, don’t minimise the overarching sense of duty for others and God Peterson emphasises.
Messages to Muslims, Christians and Men
Peterson once got asked why the US church is comprised of 60% females, yet, his lectures that cover the Bible are comprised of roughly 80% males.
In a concerned tone, Peterson offers various explanations for why he thinks this is the case.
Peterson on Protestantism
Peterson considers Protestants to be performing the worst at reaching males compared to their Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox counterparts, expressing that Protestants in particular really need to lift their game.
This is perhaps no surprise given Peterson’s right-hand man, Johnathan Pageau of the Symbolic World podcast is an avid follower and defender of Eastern Orthodoxy.
Is ICON VENERATION Necessary for Salvation? Eastern Orthodoxy Discussed
Replacing Tim Keller with Jordan Peterson
Protestant YouTuber, Paul Vander Klay, recalls how many men stopped listening to Tim Keller and started listening to Jordan Peterson instead.
Peterson on why males don’t go to church but go to his lectures
In answering why his lectures attract more males than churches, Peterson expresses fears, unlike him, many churches speak with no conviction or there is “not enough of a challenge” in their message.
No conviction?
He also fears churches are trying too hard to follow the ways of their culture rather than speak truth into people’s lives. A particular case of this Peterson raises relates to Neo-Marxist ideology. Churches need to be doing more to reach and encourage young males according to Peterson.
Peterson also raises the concern that churches are making a “virtue out of weakness” rather than strength and this is turning males off. This is similar to Nietzsche’s criticism of Christianity being for the weak.
Is Christianity for the weak?
Yet, Christianity is about God reaching the marginalised, the outcasts, the broken and the poor. Christ proclaimed this as his mission (Luke 4:18).
However, in Christ, Christianity also calls people to strength in Jesus, self-sacrifice (Luke 9:23), perseverance through trials (Romans 5:3–5) and suffering leading to character transformation as empowered by the Holy Spirit (1 Peter 1:2).
The White Oppressive Origins of Christianity
Christ the Source of Strength, not ourselves
This type of courage has empowered martyrs through the ages who may have been physically weak, broken or poor. Christ is the Source of this strength according to Christianity, not ourselves.
The Apostle Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 12:9 God’s Power is “made perfect in weakness.”
Christianity recognises God is the Giver of all good gifts (James 1:17) and without Christ we are nothing.
As Christ himself expressed to his disciples in John 15:5, “without me you can do nothing.” This is an area I find Peterson’s criticism lacks appreciation for nuance.
As AW Tozer highlighted in the Pursuit of God, in ourselves we are nothing, in Christ everything.
Peterson to Muslims
Peterson also addressed Muslims amongst whom he also has a large following. He urged Muslims to “stop fighting” both amongst each other in the division between Sunnis and Shiites and against Christians and Jews known in the Quran as “people of the Book.” If you claim to follow God, then “act like it,” Peterson pleads with Muslims.
This seems to miss some fundamental differences between Christianity and Islam such as Surah 4:157 in the Quran claiming Jesus wasn’t killed or crucified or Surah 5:116 that implies some people thought Jesus asked people to take him and his mother as gods besides Allah which does not match the Christian view of the Trinity.
Did Constantine INVENT Jesus as God?
Is Jesus GOD in Matthew, Mark and Luke? 20 Key Considerations
Now to the 7 areas of reflection
1. Needing a Narrative
Throughout his lecture series on Genesis, Peterson emphasises the importance of narratives in life. Ancient narratives show us who we are at a deep level. It is foolish to dismiss these narratives as simply irrelevant myths.
Peterson in 12 Rules for Life emphasises the crucial importance of having meaning in life:
“The purpose of life, as far as I can tell… is to find a mode of being that’s so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant.”
Bringing meaning to suffering. Providing motivation to press on. A story that connects the day-to-day to the Transcendent.
Iain McGilchrist, who is a prominent psychiatrist, raises a similar concern in The Matter with Things:
“People who report being happy but have little or no sense of meaning in their lives have the same gene expression patterns as people who are enduring chronic adversity, such as loneliness, bereavement, or poverty.”
Narratives as nourishment
Humans need narratives to function. Atheism fails to provide a narrative that provides substantive meaning to life. Nietzsche astutely recognised this and proposed to surprised we have to create our own meaning.
Creating your own meaning under atheism
Yet, if atheism is true, such meaning is fanciful and constructed. In the end, you’re a bag of meat here for no reason fizzing away to chemical reactions on a large land mass populated by other accidents that have no real meaning or purpose.
Atheism and a meaningless life
As Harari purports in Sapiens p.438, “human life has absolutely no meaning. …Hence any meaning that people inscribe to their lives is just a delusion.”
Harari’s Hackable Animals and Fictional Human Rights
Peterson taps into the importance of narrative and that is something with which Christians can agree.
The Christian narrative model of creation, fall, redemption (through Christ) and restoration shapes our view of everything in life.
It accounts for both the beauty and flourishing of human life as well as the dark, twisted, cruel depths of human depravity.
The Virgin Births of Secularism: 10 Impossible Things You Assume Everyday
2. Beauty and the desire for the Transcendent
In Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life, Peterson urges readers to “Try to make one room in your home as beautiful as possible.”
Peterson, evidently has an appreciation for beautiful pieces of literature, art and music. As does his right-hand man Johnathan Pageau who delves into artistic beauty in his Symbolic World podcast.
Beauty as a trick on the mind under atheism
Under atheism, there is nothing transcendent. The idea that beauty can transcend the localised chemical reactions from a bag of flesh in Sweden to a bag of flesh in Sudan is preposterous.
Beauty, if anything, is a trick on the mind to aid with survival.
For Peterson, however, beauty is something deeper and richer.
Peterson again and again refers to the ancient Greek concept of Logos or divine order that Christians applied to Jesus.
The Gratitude Myth: Affirm goodness but forget the Source?
Peterson, Lennox and Dawkins
In his interview with Lennox, Peterson alludes to work from atheist Richard Dawkins concluding that creatures are a microcosm of their broader environment.
Peterson extends this conclusion to reflect on how we as humans who prize logic, love and relationships must be part of a universe that ultimately has a Being of love, and order and Who seeks relationships behind it.
Left and right brain
Iain McGilchrist in The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World partly blames a reductive-materialist approach to the world as a reason for people failing to engage their right side of the brain properly in appreciating the beauty of life. This impacts both Christians and non-Christians in our culture.
Under Christianity, beauty in the world makes sense for beauty stems from the Ultimate Beauty in the Divine.
Logos and beauty
Christ as the Logos reflects Divine Transcendent Beauty.
3. Intrinsic Value of Human Life
On April 4, 2022, in front of 1500 Franciscan University students, Peterson expressed his thoughts on the Christian notion of intrinsic human worth:
That we are all of the same intrinsic worth despite our variability — is a hell of an idea.
No intrinsic value to human life under atheism
In contrast, regarding human rights, Harari in Sapiens alters the “most famous line of the American Declaration of Independence” (p.122) to “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure” (p 123).
Some humans are smarter than others, some more physically fit, some possess better qualities for reproduction, others possess undesirable traits for reproduction and so on.
Humans in God’s image
Under a Judeo-Christian worldview, humans are made in God’s image (Gen. 1:27).
Christianity broke the social divide between male and female, slave and free, rich and poor (Gal. 3:28–29). For Christ himself plunged into the lowest most excruciating, most humiliating depths of human experience for the sake of those with heads swelled up, twisted and drunk with pride.
4. Christ as the Perfect Ideal
On this note, Peterson warmly alludes to Christ as the “Perfect Ideal.”
Time after time Peterson describes Jesus as Logos (the Word) as “the Ideal human” of “Universal love and truth in speech” and “by definition the best a man can be.”
Failing to meet the Ideal
For Peterson, the greater the Ideal, the more “severe the judgement” and this is a consequence of failing to meet Christ’s level.
What Peterson misses is that if Christ is truly Transcendent, none of us can reach his level and we are doomed for severe judgement. We are doomed for a tortuous existence of continual failure.
The good news of Christianity is that Christ became sin for us to reconcile us to God (2 Cor. 5:19–21).
Does this mean it’s about magic words in professing Jesus and not caring how we act? Absolutely not, we’ll get to that soon.
The cross of Christ and the existential longings of humanity
There is no narrative that strikes a deeper chord at the existential nerve than the cross of Christ. A refusal to compromise on truth for the masses. Self-sacrifice for those who opposed him. The Perfect taking on the burden deserved for abject darkness.
The story of Jesus resonates.
Jung and Jesus
Even Jung noted as much in his work Alchemical Studies:
The imitation of Christ might well be understood in a deeper sense. It could be taken as the duty to realize one’s deepest conviction with the same courage and the same self-sacrifice shown by Jesus.
Mythic truth
Yet, for Peterson, like Jung, this is somewhat of a mythic truth.
Peterson in an interview with Eastern Orthodox YouTuber, Jonathan Pageau, expressed that Christianity would be “too terrifying a reality to fully believe.” For if Christianity is true, “the narrative and the objective [worlds] can actually touch”.
Nonetheless, Peterson still thinks this concept is “oddly plausible”. John’s Gospel describes how the “Word (Logos) became flesh” in John 1:14.
Christ as an archetype
When pressed on if he believed in the historical resurrection of Jesus by Sam Harris, Peterson suggested he would need 40 hours to unpack the question.
This demonstrates for Peterson, at least at the time of debating Harris, Christ presents an archetype of Perfection in a world of darkness rather than a person who literally rose from the dead in history.
The world is so fallen, so deceitful, so cruel, so distorted that a Perfect figure who speaks truth faces death as the “price of existence.” That is the terrifying reality of life according to Peterson.
Facing fears as the path to greatness
Yet, Christ encourages us to face that terrifying reality head-on. No escaping the pain. In fact, facing pain and fears is the path to greatness according to Peterson.
When you willingly take on and expose yourself to your fears, your struggles, your trials, resurrection and new life become possible. You gain strength through adversity and become a whole new person according to Peterson.
For the Christian trials can also beneficially shape character when embraced with the right perspective (Romans 5:3–5, James 1:2–4, 1 Peter 1:6–9). However, this is made possible by the transformational work of Christ.
Christ as Judge
Peterson alludes to the fact Jung believed Revelation was an add-on to the Gospels to complete Christ’s archetype as the Perfect Figure. For the Perfect Figure must not only be loving but also a judge.
However, this goes against the multiple clear instances in the Gospels Christ is presented as Judge such as Matthew 7:21–23, Matthew 24:27–31, Matthew 25:1–46, Mark 14:60–64, Luke 6:46, Luke 17:20–37, Luke 21:25–28 and John 5:24–30 to name a few.
When Beauty meets malevolence
Nevertheless, Peterson paints a deep picture of what type of malevolence upright moral character will face in this fallen world and that bring us to our next point.
5. Dark side of human nature
Among Peterson’s top 15 book recommendations there is a recurring theme- terrifying reads on the dark side of human nature.
Ordinary Men
The list includes books such as Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning which outlines the horrors conducted by ordinary men and women as part of Nazi Germany.
Gulag Archapelago
The Gulag Archapelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn covers the devasting impacts of socialist rule in Soviet Russia.
Interestingly, Peterson alludes to the fact Solzhenitsyn noticed only people who had a religious faith had a proper grounds for objecting to totalitarian rule.
In Solzhenitsyn’s 1983 Templeton Address he purported, “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this happened.” For Solzhenitsyn, godlessness paves the way for tyranny and oppression.
Rape of Nanking
Peterson’s list also includes the Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang which details the horrors performed by ordinary Japanese men in China.
Dark and twisted acts such as breast slicing, raping women in front of their husbands, causing men to rape their daughters, dismembering male bodies for bayonet practice and so forth.
Reflecting on your own darkness
In his famous interview with Helen Lewis which now has nearly 70 million views, Peterson, expressed how he reflects on the dark potential of human nature to straighten himself out.
For Peterson, each and every one of us is capable of far more evil than we could imagine and that is what the story of Christ who was tortured, bloodied and bruised reminds us of.
The concept of the dark side of human nature is by no means foreign to Christianity. The human heart is deceitful above all (Jer. 17:9) and the whole head sick (Is. 1:5).
Nonetheless, this darkness is so pervasive, so potent that it is the very reason why Peterson’s archetypal application of Christ does not add up. We are fallen beyond an ability to repair ourselves to the level of the Ideal.
Even making progress in life, while a good thing, cannot be separated from our intrinsic desire to idolise ourselves and give ourselves more credit than we deserve.
As Peterson noted, failing to meet the Ideal results in judgement.
We need outside help
The point of Christianity is you need outside help- a filthy rag cannot wash itself.
Your darkness is too deep for you to make it as an associate of the Transcendent in and of yourself.
Peterson rightly recognises the Otherness of God in that if humans try and play God they destroy society, yet seems to fail to recognise our inability to be our own saviour before the Transcendent.
In his interview with Lennox, Peterson expressed his fears how humans trying to play God in and of themselves through transhumanism may lead to calamity, yet fails to realise how trying to obtain Christ’s standard in our strength with no Transcendent help is also a recipe for calamity.
Only Christ can save us from failing to meet the Ideal
That is where Christ comes in to take our place. His perfect life covers our sin and shame.
The gifts you have been given
Even the gifts and resources we are given in life to help us make progress are gifts from God. You didn’t decide where you are born or into which family.
You didn’t create your own first breathe. You didn’t generate the sun that gives you sunlight. You didn’t form food systems or oxygen supplies or water. You didn’t formulate the specifications of your own brain before you were born.
This leads to the question however, do we take no responsibility for our actions given we can’t ultimately help ourselves?
6. Grace does not dismiss responsibility for actions
Peterson repeatedly references Christ’s call to take up your cross daily. This, for Peterson, represents a call to responsibility:
Life has meaning with responsibility. The more responsibility you take on the more meaning your life has.
Interestingly, this conclusion is strikingly similar to that of Holocaust surviving psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, whose book Man’s Search For Meaning also makes the list of Peterson’s top 15 recommended books.
Becoming a Christian through special words with no heartfelt sorrow for sin?
Continuing on this note, Peterson expresses a fear that people think they become Christians because of a few words and their actions don’t matter.
While there are undoubtedly Christians who cheapen sin, this portrayal of Christianity does not do justice to the biblical narrative nor to those who faithfully preach the Gospel.
To cheapen sin is to cheapen grace
For to cheapen sin is to cheapen grace, that is, to cheapen Christ’s work.
Being a Christian involves taking responsibility for your sins. It means falling at the foot of the cross admitting all of your wrongs and all of your fallenness. It’s not about shifting the blame to someone else or thinking you’ve never really done anything wrong before God.
God’s unmerited kindness towards you (grace) only means something when you realise you have fallen short and how the Light has overcome darkness.
However, it doesn’t end there.
In Christianity, Christ took on responsibility for a burden we could not bear alone.
Covering the weight of the world on your shoulders is pure hell, yet Christ did it for you.
Through his perfection, he was able to do what we could not. Truly man and truly God he, as a sinless human, brought the Divine down to the deep dark pits of human existence.
Christ as Transcendent
That is something Transcendent. Something other. Something we cannot achieve.
Peterson ironically speaks of God as Transcendent, yet fails to note how Christ’s transcendent love for humanity is something we humans are completely and utterly in capable of achieving ourselves.
It is transcendent, other to us. Something we need to connect with the Transcendent. The same Source of objective moral values and logic is also the Source of transcendent love through Christ Jesus.
Taking no responsibility for actions?
Does this mean Christians can now take no responsibility for their actions? Absolutely not.
For in the Bible, the words of professing Christ as Saviour aren’t meaningless words detached from the heart but a wholehearted call for Christ to be King.
To take genuinely take responsibility for one’s sin and to say one is genuinely sorry is to recognise a wrong. That is what leads to true repentance.
One comes to the cross with nothing to offer God, yet asks him to take over their life. Christ said he came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10).
You take responsibility, admitting your wrongs before God. Yet, Christ has already borne the consequence. The most severe judgement Peterson speaks of reserved for those who fail to meet the Ideal was borne by Jesus in your place. This saving act sparks new life and transformation.
Taking up one’s cross
Jesus’ call is a call to believing loyalty. A call to take up one’s cross (Mark 8:34) or be prepared to die for the King.
A willingness to aim to become more and more like Jesus each day, while knowing it is not our work that saves us but we follow the path of the one who has already saved us.
Saved, yet being saved
We are saved by the cross of Jesus (Matt. 20:28), yet being saved (1 Cor. 1:18) as his death also empowers and transforms us day to day. This is the now and not yet model of the New Testament.
Taking responsibility for their sins, recognising the futility of their own ability to reach the Transcendent, the Christian falls at the foot of the cross and says to Jesus “Take me and all that I have I am yours.”
Living in gratitude to Jesus
In gratitude to Christ for his marvellous work on the cross and through the power of the Holy Spirit, character transformation follows as a fruit of the work of Christ.
True repentance leads to transformation. A willingness to take up one’s cross transforms someone only because Christ himself has already done the work and made it possible for people to connect with the Transcendent.
Does it happen overnight? Are there no hiccups? No for the life of the Christian is filled with challenges. However, you’re promised you won’t be alone even if all the humans around you turn against you.
We are called to imitate Christ in living sacrificially but we can only do so because he has first done the work for us. We can’t act as Saviour of the world or bring ourselves to God’s level so it’s time to stop pretending we can.
7. Climbing to God or God coming down to us?
In a similar note to how Peterson uses Christ as an example of what humans are capable of achieving, Peterson refers to Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28 as exemplifying how humans can try and climb up to heaven. For Peterson Jacob’s ladder, spirals upwards and upwards.
Christ as the True Ladder
Yet, as Glen Scrivener points out, Genesis 28 is about God coming down to humanity (Gen. 28:13,16) in a foreshadowing of Christ to whom Nathanael applied the imagery of Jacob’s ladder with angels ascending and descending on him as the True Ladder( John 1:51).
Despite Peterson referring to various traditions in his lecture on Genesis 28 of “climbing” the ladder to heaven, Christ is the True Ladder according to John’s Gospel, the connection from fallen man to the Transcendent.
Aiming for heaven and creating hell
By contrast, in Genesis 11, when humans tried to reach heaven alone the result was utter chaos. It was an attempt at an illegitimate union with heaven as Scrivener notes.
Humans trying to reach heaven leads to hell on earth.
The Heart of Christianity
This is the heart of Christianity. As Peterson notes we are capable of far more evil than we could imagine.
The Transcendent exists. Any attempt we make to create morals or order will lead to chaos. Chaos like the socialist and fascist tragedies of the 20th century Peterson warns against.
However, for this very reason, we need Christ. Christ is what we could not become ourselves. He completed a job and task too big for us to ever complete. We strive to be like Christ yes, but this is empowered by his saving work on the cross (1 Cor. 1:18, 2 Cor. 3:18).
Carrying an impossible burden
If we try to be like God, however, without the saving work of Christ as our basis, we will create hell for ourselves by carrying a burden that is impossible to carry.
Christ’s death and resurrection is the “true myth” that is also rooted in history. Christ’s death on the cross is deemed an incontrovertible fact of history by Christian and non-Christian scholars alike. The events surrounding his resurrection cannot be feasibly explained by any other alternative.
Yet, this story is more than history. In Christ, the narrative and objective worlds meet. A brutal bloodied beating meets that dark devilish depravity of humanity.
Did Jesus REALLY Rise from the Dead? Your Comprehensive Guide
6-Minute Case for the Resurrection
Are the Gospels based on eyewitness accounts? 10 key considerations
Wilful public humiliation meets our ever-present willingness to hide from ourselves and from God. An empty tomb satisfies the existential longing of countless souls through the course of a reshaped history.
Christ became a slave for us. Someone marginalised and neglected much like the people Neo-Marxists claim to try to protect.
We can look back on our past, our fallenness, our limitations and keep trying to chase the wind in striving for perfection or the Ideal in and of ourselves.
Or we can leave it all at the foot of the cross, before Christ the Transcendent and True Ladder to the Ideal, and ask Christ to start shaping our lives for us.
That is the transcendent, true myth of Christianity that is nonetheless interwoven in true history.
Will you crush yourself with a burden too heavy to bear or lean into the Transcendent One that was already crushed for you?
Not all LOVE STORIES end well: Why the Gospel strikes at the heart
Hurt People Hurt People: Is it possible to break the cycle with love and forgiveness?
Robert Greene Meets with Andrew Huberman: The Search for God is Real
Do we Need God? The Loss of God and the Decay of Society Under the False Gods of Sex, Status, Science and State. Street Theologian Responds to the Academy of Ideas
The Virgin Births of Secularism: 10 Impossible Things You Assume Everyday
Why Did Jesus Come Into The World? Our articles on the Gospels, Jesus’ divinity, death and resurrection
Subscribe to our free Substack newsletter:
https://streettheologian.substack.com/
