An Antidote to Chaos

Despite the fact that I voted this book pretty low during my own selection process, 12 Rules for Life made it to our Top-Ten list for this year’s Siblings’ Book Club. That’s a pretty remarkable feat for any book, especially one written by a Canadian! More seriously, it’s remarkable, because this is a humanist’s self-help book for a better life and a better world. It’s a remarkable choice, at least for our club’s crowd—which means I had to try reading it.

Truth be told: I hated this book. You can tell, of course, because I gave up on it after my requisite 59+ pages (I think I made it to 75). In this post, I hope to expound a bit on why I disliked the book so much.

Many readers will disagree with my reasons, of course, claiming that I haven’t given Peterson a fair shake, but I believe I have. I’ve listened to his speeches on various topics for hours, and the initial chapters of this book only convinced me further of the opinions I’ve garnered from his teaching. To those readers who think I’m so off-base in my conclusions, I also remind you this is a Christian book-review blog, so my opinions stem from a worldview completely opposite from Peterson’s. Note that, please, before you respond.

Jordan Peterson, the Poser

For starters, I think that the current rendition of Jordan Peterson is a poser. Yes, he’s gifted and articulate. Yes, he’s a got a mind for philosophy and now a platform to share it. Yes, he’s challenged many of us to think critically about our political beliefs, etc. But he also sets himself up as a spiritualist—and he speaks so often of the Bible that you’d be tempted to think he actually believes it. But he doesn’t. He’s posing, and I think a lot of Christians and even more seekers have been deceived.

Peterson’s a popular dude among Conservatives (thank you, Daily Wire, I guess). As such, he’s also quickly becoming a favorite among the Evangelical Far Right, as if “he’s one of us,” simply because he knows the jargon and how to speak the language (with a thick Canadian accent, eh?). It’s so reminiscent of how Donald Trump has been welcomed into the fold, in fact, that it’s a little uncanny. Since Followers of Christ are to know true/false “prophets” by their fruit (I think we can read “leaders,” “brothers in Christ,” etc. in Matthew 7:15-20), I think it behooves us actually to look at their fruit! In Peterson’s case, his fruit are his words, and they’re pretty telling.

Like any influencer, Jordan Peterson got noticed at the right time in the right medium, and already—after just a few short years—he’s become almost a household name. Prior to this, Peterson was simply one of thousands of godless professors spewing drivel to his college students. His voice of reason (probably not his accent) struck a nerve, though, because it was different and (admittedly) highly logical. Conservatism does, after all, make sense, and Peterson’s been able to articulate it when I think we need it most. With poise and utter shamelessness, he speaks to anyone who will listen about the global and existential challenges of our times, and on the surface, his words do sound convincing, almost biblical.

Christians with just a pinch of discernment, however, ought to see Peterson’s agnostic philosophies as nothing more than thinly veiled humanism (a.k.a. Atheism, a.k.a. definitely not Christianity!). Note for example his views of the Bible and of Man.

View of the Bible

Despite the fact that Peterson loves quoting, pointing to, and talking about the Bible, his methods of doing so show that he actually doesn’t believe a word of it. Instead, he considers it nothing more than an ancient book of Hebrews stories and myths that describes the human condition in the most creative way possible. He loves it—not because it’s God’s Word, but because it’s the very best of man’s. While Peterson’s chapters confirm this again and again, one faces it immediately in the Foreword of this book, provided by Dr. Norman Doidge, MD:

The old Hebrew story makes it clear how the ancients felt about our prospects for civilized behaviour in the absence of rules that seek to elevate our gaze and raise our standards. One neat thing about the Bible story is that it doesn’t simply list its rules, as lawyers or legislators or administrators might; it embeds them in a dramatic tale that illustrates why we need them, thereby making them easier to understand. Similarly, in this book Professor Peterson doesn’t just propose his twelve rules, he tells stories, too. (5) … The brilliance of the book is in [Peterson’s] demonstration of how rooted this situation is in evolution, our DNA, our brains and our most ancient stories. And he shows that these stories have survived because they still provide guidance in dealing with uncertainty, and the unavoidable unknown. (11)

Doidge and Peterson both also have a tendency to twist biblical vernacular to peddle their own humanist thinking. Take these two statements for example:

Cultivating judgment about the difference between virtue and vice is the beginning of wisdom, something that can never be out of date. (17)

What a perversion of Scripture! And what a bold attempt to rip God from His throne! See Proverbs 4:7 and Proverbs 9:10 for what the Bible actually says about “the beginning of wisdom.”

Thus emboldened, you will embark on the voyage of your life, let your light shine, so to speak, on the heavenly hill, and pursue your rightful destiny. Then the meaning of your life may be sufficient to keep the corrupting influence of mortal despair at bay. Then you may be able to accept the terrible burden of the World and find joy. (64)

There’s too much here to unpack, but his twisting of Matthew 5:14-15 is blatant. Peterson might as well have quoted Henley and been done with it: “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” Forget the whole “glorify God” thing! You alone find purpose in life; you alone prevent mortal despair from corrupting you; you alone can find joy in this difficult world—of which we humans are the sole killers or saviors.

View of Man

Peterson the Humanist fills his book with his views of man, so to quote them would simply be to copy his book in its entirety. Not doing that. Instead, I’ll just quote this one, telling passage about how the fate of the planet is in our human hands:

Through the elevation and development of the individual, and through the willingness of everyone to shoulder the burden of Being and to take the heroic path, we must each adopt as much responsibility as possible for individual life, society and the world. We must each tell the truth and repair what is in disrepair and break down and recreate what is old and outdated. It is in this manner that we can and must reduce the suffering that poisons the world. It’s asking a lot. It’s asking for everything. But the alternative—the horror of authoritarian belief, the chaos of the collapsed state, the tragic catastrophe of the unbridled natural world, the existential angst and weakness of the purposeless individual—is clearly worse. (31)

Add this opinion to his view that God is nothing more than a convenient myth who helps us personify our own inherent woes and virtues as ever-evolving human beings, and you’ve got Jordan Peterson in a nutshell. And he’s supposed to tell us Christians how to live life? No, but thank you.

Conclusion

Does Jordan Peterson have some useful tips about how one can live his life better and to a fuller potential? Sure. Like any secular self-help book, there’s plenty of ideas here from which I could learn to improve my day and take better advantage of my time and abilities. Forcing myself to dredge out those few ideas from hundreds of pages of godless, Bible-twisting muck though just isn’t a task that’s worth my time.

If Jordan Peterson ever stops trusting in himself for joy and the survival of humanity but instead recognizes his own irreversible depravity and puts his trust in Christ, then I’ll start reading him with pleasure. Until then, I’ll have to leave him on the shelf with all the other false-religion peddlers and find better ways to fill my time and mind.

©2024 E.T.