Culture

Why Do So Many People Listen to Jordan Peterson?

August 30, 2020 by wagraham 6 Comments

Jordan Peterson has left the cultural space that he had inhabited for years. Suffering from a physical dependency to benzodiazepine and most recently coronavirus, he has understandably receded from the limelight.

Yet many have felt his absence—something difficult to achieve unless his presence had already made a deep impression on the souls of many. Evidence of this statement follows from a simple Google search for “Jordan Peterson” and the news articles that result from the query or from social media.

While some readers may have immediately made up their mind at this point about the article and Peterson himself since he represents (according to some) extreme-right views or some other unfavourable position, I would ask you to pause. I am not here to talk about Jordan Peterson nor to analyze his way of being in the world.

I want to talk about why so many people have listened to Jordan Peterson and why his absence has made an impression on so many. While Peterson undoubtedly knows how to speak to hearts, I do not think that alone explains why he affects so many people. The answer is more fundamental.

What he supplies, people feel that they need. [Read more…] about Why Do So Many People Listen to Jordan Peterson?

Why Flattening the Curve Is Important

March 15, 2020 by wagraham 1 Comment

Canada is shutting down right now. My province Ontario may soon shut down everything except grocers, pharmacies, and essential services. Alberta tonight mandated a similar shut down.

Part of the worry is that we will not flatten the curve fast enough to allow our health care system to serve people. Here is what I mean.

How Scholasticism Helps Us to Understand Gender Roles, Orientation, and Transhumanism

July 22, 2019 by wagraham 1 Comment

Evangelical Christians face a threefold challenge concerning sex. First, many evangelicals have split over the issue of women in pastoral ministry. Second, gender identifies and gay marriage have challenged traditional evangelical understandings and caused yet another rift in the church. Lastly, transhumanism promises to soon create another theological chasm: ought Christians to remain in their natural bodies, or can they augment themselves via technology?

Are we stuck in schism and statemate? How might we address these questions? As strange as it might seem, we already have powerful answers to these potent challenges. Scholasticism, a method to understand the truth, has provided us with the framework to understand these challenges and overcome them. Before explaining why that it is, it is worth surveying how the above three challenges typically work out in the church. [Read more…] about How Scholasticism Helps Us to Understand Gender Roles, Orientation, and Transhumanism

Can Christians Use Cultural Ideas without Compromising Their Faith?

July 13, 2019 by wagraham Leave a Comment

Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) transports triglycerides and cholesterol to repair and to provide cells with energy. We know this because modern science has discovered this reality and invented the language (low-density lipoprotein, triglycerides, and cholesterol) to conceptualize how my body works.

We use all sorts of words that our culture has invented and which derive from larger concepts. We engage in a capitalistic, free-market economy. We program with Java and Ruby. And like LDL or other medical concepts, we use these words freely and participate in their respective systems of thought (e.g., the free market, nutrition, etc.).

But can using language and engaging cultural ideas have a negative outcome? Some think so. A group of American evangelicals have used the analytic tools of a contemporary political ideology to describe inequality in American culture. In response, a second group has decried such a method as being incompatible with Christianity. Who is right?

Well, the answer to such questions relies on how we understand cultural words and ideas and their ability to integrate into Christian modes of thinking. Here are some scriptural and non-scriptural examples that will ground our thinking on the matter. [Read more…] about Can Christians Use Cultural Ideas without Compromising Their Faith?

Does My Gender Define Me?

April 19, 2019 by wagraham 1 Comment

In the mid-nineteenth century, European legislators invented a taxonomy of gender to identify various sexual disorders (Blank 2012: 15–21). In this way, legal scholars created the idea of orientation, and new words like heterosexual and homosexual came into use.

As Michael Hannon explains, “Heterosexuals, like typewriters and urinals (also, obviously, for gentlemen), were an invention of the 1860s.” And according to Hanne Blank, “It has, in point of actual fact, only been possible to be a heterosexual since 1869” (2012: xiv). It would take about 60 years until these theories made their way into North America.

The straight truth is: heterosexuality is an invention of European legal philosophy. It is neither good nor bad for this reason. And yet we seriously need to question the validity of such gendered-identities. Especially now, since gendered categories have made their way into popular social paradigms.

[Read more…]