Category: Encouragement

Broken People: How the Flaws of the Bible Patriarchs Turned Jordan Peterson toward the Bible

Why are some people successful, while others fail? Beyond work ethic, why do some seem to have a natural ability to connect with others, negotiate, identify the right path forward, and succeed? Meanwhile, others struggle just to get through the day?

What is truth? How can we learn through scientific process the answers to these questions?

Such has been the life’s mission of Jordan Peterson, a psychologist who teaches courses at several universities including the University of Toronto, who’s also written several books and is currently hosting a podcast series for the Daily Wire.

Peterson rose to fame while doing a BBC interview about one of his books, in which the interviewer repeatedly asked pointed questions in an attempt to be able to discredit him as a misogynist or a racist. His fame continued to grow as videos of his college lectures, his public lecture series, and a podcast series on the Bible began to go viral online.

While the controversial BBC interview launched him to fame, the logic, academic approach to psychology and human nature, and the conclusions he articulates have kept him in the spotlight, so much so that he took a sabbatical and no one noticed due to the ubiquity of this content online.

Peterson looked to the Bible for psychology. He looked to the Bible to learn behavioral patterns, learn lessons, and map out a framework for how to tackle life’s challenges, taking object lessons from the Old Testament patriarchs. What he found was truth. Moreover, Peterson found that all truth is preconditioned on the Bible.

He went so far as to say, “Without the Bible, there can be no truth.”

So, how does an atheistic psychologist who preached secularism come to a faith in the truth of the Bible, and go on to a faith in the existence of God (per his statements in his videos)?

In a video lecture before a university audience, the question was posed, “Do you believe that the Bible is true?” To which Peterson responded, “If not the Bible, then what is true?”

Peterson went on to make the case that, in reading the Bible, you read about the lives of the patriarchs, and the scriptures include not only their stories of victory, but also their failures.

Peterson noted how many of these failures were major, and some of the patriarchs were rotten people, and did rotten things. He pointed out that for religious texts, this is unusual.

In this video, which I can no longer find on YouTube, Peterson said that most religious texts portray the good side of the founders of the religion, and hide their flaws and failures. The Bible, on the other hand, showed the patriarchs of the Christian faith for who they were, including their frailties, failures, and brokenness. The result was an honest, transparent representation of the Christian faith, and furthermore, an amazing demonstration of God’s power.

God was able to work through the brokenness of man to accomplish His will. That resonated with Peterson, who began to explore the Bible more, and has now embarked on a podcast series to explore the Bible more deeply.

As a result of God working through the brokenness of man thousands of years ago, you have a secular professor exploring the Bible, going so far as to declare that it is the precondition for all truth, and calling on people to turn to God or face His wrath. While his views and doctrine may not line up with ours, I believe that, for the sake of the Gospel, we can see how a man whose primary audience includes college students and intellectual leaders can benefit the Kingdom of God greatly through his scholarly presentations of scripture.

Students today are generally guided away from the Bible, away from God, and toward their own subjective perceptions of truth, which the intellectual left seeks to shape through media, entertainment and education. Peterson, on the other hand, is leading students to go back to the Bible as the foundation of all truth, if not the very foundation of our society itself.

And his journey down this road began when he discovered how God worked through the brokenness of Abraham, Jacob, David, among others.

God works through broken people, and He is glorified through His work through the lives of broken people. He is glorified in that His name is made known, His power is shown, and people are faced with His undeniable truth.

God works through broken people. So we need not be discouraged when we find ourselves struggling with brokenness, neither do we need to be disillusioned when those whom we admire fail. God works through the brokenness to bring about His glory, and the blessings He has promised.

The Jesus Revolution’s Frisbee Problem

Let’s face it… for fans of The Chosen, Jonathan Roumie sold The Jesus Revolution. Roumie’s portrayal of Jesus in The Chosen has earned him a following, a ministry, and has contributed to a national conversation about Jesus, leading many to seek the truth about Jesus, and many have professed faith in Christ as a result.

So, it comes with a bit of irony that in The Jesus Revolution, Roumie portrays a young Lonnie Frisbee, whose emotionally compassionate outreach and charismatic preaching sparked The Jesus Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, thus sparking a national conversation about Jesus which led to many salvations.

Neither man (Roumie or Frisbee) is without controversy, as is neither character portrayed. Jesus was controversial in His day, and remains so to this day. And with a resurgence of post-morten fame on the heels of Jesus Revolution, Frisbee finds himself in the middle of controversy as well.

At the center of Frisbee’s controversy are his theatrical antics, and his struggles with homosexuality. Critics point to the former to discredit his ministry, and they point out the latter to discredit Christianity in general.

To their credit, the filmmakers of The Jesus Revolution were open about the character flaws of each of the leaders of the movement. Smith was a bit opportunistic and judgmental, and struggled with seeing the church blossom under someone else’s leadership. Laurie struggled with drugs early on and struggled with faith toward the end of the movie.

Frisbee demanded the spotlight, neglected his wife, and stormed out in a hissy fit when the spotlight was taken away. Yes, his struggles with homosexuality were omitted from the movie, but were not an issue during the time portrayed in the movie.

Frisbee was raped as a child, and as many who endure that atrocity do, experimented with homosexuality during his adolescence and early adulthood. Frisbee reported coming out of that lifestyle when he came to know Jesus, but relapsed in the 1980s. Frisbee confessed that his behaviors were sin, and were as sinful (but no more than) other sins.

When confronted, Frisbee confessed. He prayed for forgiveness. He tried to help others find forgiveness. He did not cling to the lifestyle, and did not advocate that others live the lifestyle.

It would be sinful and unproductive to try to determine Frisbee’s salvation status, or whether his faith was real, and his ministry motivated by faith and a genuine heart for the Lord. We leave the judging of the living and the dead to God.

However, a quick internet search into Frisbee’s life reveals a struggle with sin which is not unlike the struggle with pornography, addiction, anger, gluttony (I confess that!), hate, covetousness or dishonesty.

As Christians, we often find ourselves easily ensnared in sin that rapidly gets out of hand and gruesome pretty quickly. Sometimes we deceive ourselves into thinking that our sin isn’t that big of a deal, but it is.

And we can usually find a worse sinner to point out to make ourselves feel better about our sin. And in this case, that worse sinner is Frisbee.

However, the political fireball surrounding his sin neither discredits the Bible, the Gospel, nor the film, because all three uphold the fact that God works through the broken, and through weakness we are made strong.

Frisbee struggled with homosexuality, but Abraham committed adultery, Jacob was a crook, Judah hired a prostitute, King David committed adultery and murder, and Solomon dabbled in idolatry. Yet, Scripture holds those men up as patriarchs of the faith, and some even wrote scripture.

Scripture does not affirm their behavior, but God used them in spite of their brokenness, and God uses us in spite of our brokenness.

Why would God do that? He does that because the premise of the Gospel is that the broken can be healed, the sinner can be cleansed, and the condemned can be redeemed. Further, this all happens not because of how great the person is, but because of how graceful and powerful God is.

And that’s the power of the Gospel, that the death and condemnation of our sins was placed on Christ when He hung on that cross, and when He died, that death and condemnation were sent to Hell instead of us.

And because of that redemption, because Jesus took it all on our behalf, we can go free. We can place our faith in Him and make ourselves available for God to use to do big things… or maybe small and simple things. Either way, it’s a blessing.

So I’m not offended that one of my favorite actors portrayed a man who struggled in homosexuality, and I’m not discouraged that such a man was a key figure in a national revival, because I have routinely seen God use broken people, including myself, to lead others to redemption and healing.

God uses the broken to advance the Gospel, and He is glorified in it. Or as the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3, “For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?”

So let’s review. God is good. Redemption is real. The Gospel saves. The Jesus Revolution is a good movie. And God has used the broken to spark a national conversation about Jesus. Let’s have that conversation, and point people to the redemption in Christ Jesus that is found at the cross, and not let ourselves be distracted by one man’s sin from 40 years ago.

Who through Faith…

Why do we think of faith as an abstract? And why do we doubt the power of faith?

It makes no sense to downplay the importance of faith, nor does it make sense to doubt its power, not with so many tangible examples of how faith has changed our nation.

Today, our nation honors the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who through his faith forever transformed our nation from a society of systemic racism and segregation to a nation that aspires to live up to its founding principles.

It would be naive to say that we live in a post-racial America, and I believe that there is still much to be done to achieve the racial healing and reconciliation of which Dr. King dreamed.

However, it would be self-defeating to fail to recognize the progress that has been made, and the cause of that progress.

Dr. King was motivated by a dream, a dream built on the foundations of his core convictions, which were born of his faith.

That faith was in the God almighty, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To deny this is to deny the sermons Dr. King preached at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, or his belief in the power of Agape love to not only bring about racial equality, but reconciliation as well.

To deny Dr. King’s faith as his motivation is to deny an entire paragraph of his “I Have A Dream” speech, which states, “This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with.

“With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

“With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”

To deny the faith of Dr. King and to deny the scriptures as the source of that faith is to deny the Biblical imagery that defined his speeches, whether the carving of the stone of hope from the mountain of despair, to the mountaintop Dr. King said the Lord took him to, allowing him to see the promised land.

To deny the faith of Dr. King is to deny his optimism, fully communicated in his speeches, which came from his belief that God would bring his dream to fruition, even if not fully realized until the coming of the Lord.

Dr. King’s legacy of racial equality, national repentance, and racial reconciliation cannot be denied. Neither can the faith be denied which moved him to lead this national transformation. Faith in the Lord brings amazingly great things.

Hebrews 11:33 says, “Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, and stopped the mouths of lions.” Hebrews 2:20 says that faith without works is dead. In other words, faith motivates action, and when faith motivates action, great changes happen.

As we remember and celebrate the accomplishments of Dr. King, and the transformation he led America through, let us not forget the faith that birthed it all.

Furthermore, let’s remember that the next great advancement in our society, whatever it may be, will not be born from a desire for significance, a desire for change, or a change at the ballot box. The next great advancement will come when the people of God act on their faith and carry God’s amazing message to the people.

With this faith… we advance.

Stay or Hit, The Risk Remains

Few people realize that the success of the Houston Astros was birthed at the Blackjack tables of a Lake Tahoe casino before Billy Beane employed Moneyball to save the Oakland As.

Working as a dealer at the table, an engineering student majoring in statistical analytics noticed a pattern. Whenever blackjack players “hit” when they already had a score of 17 or more, they almost always busted (exceeded 21, thus losing). However, if they hit on 16 or less, they often got close to 21, sometimes winning, sometimes losing.

This student watched as players lost hundreds, if not thousands, by making emotional decisions, hitting on 18, or staying at 16. To consistently perform well, this student concluded that 17 was the magic number. Stay if more than 17, hit if 16 or less.

From this experience, the student learned the value of rational decisions that are data driven. That same student went on to develop the analytics program of the Houston Astros, which was instrumental in the development of the roster that won the 2017 World Series.

That program analyzed prospective players not only by their stats, but also by their experiences and physical characteristics, using patterns identified by analyzing the prior 30 years of MLB draft picks.

The book, Astroball, by Ben Reiter, outlines how the Astros built a perennial winner out of a team that was built and developed, not bought.

Despite the success of the Astros, their trek was not without failures. The Stros often released players who went on to brilliant careers, and retained players who flamed out.

Despite all the data and direction offered by a sound analytics program, the Astros were unable to eliminate risk from the equation when it came to analyzing prospective players.

Which takes us back to the blackjack table. Even if you religiously follow the data-driven wisdom of when to hit, and when to stay, sometimes you bust, sometimes you win, and sometimes the House wins.

Obviously, as The Chaplain’s Corner, this blog is not about how to win at the card table, and I’ve never been successful as a sports writer. Seeing the intersection of cards and baseball, however, I do see some life lessons.

In either of those situations, there is risk. There’s risk in action, and there’s risk in inaction. There are consequences for taking the leap, and there are consequences for staying put.

The Astros took a risk in spending millions to pioneer a new form of analytics for player evaluation. Had it not worked, the team would have wasted a fortune to stay in last place. But it worked, and the evidence is right there on the field.

Had they stayed put, they may have still built a winning team, but they’d likely have overpaid, the way they did in 2005.

In blackjack, taking the hit can win the hand, or it can bust you. Staying will keep you from busting, but it may or may not win the hand.

And in life, you have choices. To change careers. To relocate to accept a promotion. To start a business, invest in the stock market, or to buy bonds.

Maybe the business succeeds, maybe it fails, or if you don’t start the business, maybe you miss an opportunity. The stocks rise, the stocks fall, or maybe you don’t buy and you miss an opportunity. You buy the bonds with a guaranteed yield, but inflation negates your gain.

Risk is inherent in every decision, every opportunity, and every moment in life. Stay or hit, the risk remains.

Fear and avoidance of risk is futile. The reasonable thing to do is to evaluate risk, choose the risk with the maximum upside and minimum downside, and hedge against losses.

But losses will happen. So will successes. The key is to live life, to move forward (even if that means staying) and to glorify God in the process.

So the choice is yours. Stay, or hit?