Richard Dawkins and his followers have recycled the theory of evolution not as a biological theory but as a theory of everything – of what the human being is, what human communities are, what our problems are and how they’re not really our problems, but the problems of our genes: we’re simply answers that our genes have come up with, and it’s rather awful to be the answer to someone else’s question, especially when that thing is not a person at all. Nevertheless, people swallow that.
That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic, and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels. After two centuries of Higher Criticism the outlines of life, character, and teaching of Christ remain reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature in the history of Western man.
The more I get to know Jesus, the more impressed am by what Ivan Karamazov called “the miracle of restraint.” The miracles . . . the signs and wonders the Pharisees demanded, the final proofs I yearn for—these would offer no serious obstacle to an omnipotent God. More amazing is his refusal to perform and to overwhelm. God’s terrible insistence on human freedom is so absolute that he granted us the power to live as though he did not exist, to spit in his face, to crucify him . . .
I believe God insists on such restraint because no pyrotechnic displays of omnipotence will achieve the response he desires. Although power can force obedience, only love can summon a response of love, which is the one thing God wants from us and the reason he created us. “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself,” Jesus said. In case we miss the point John adds, “He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.” God’s nature is self-giving; he bases his appeal on his sacrificial love . . .
Why does God content himself with the slow, unencouraging way of making righteousness grow rather than avenging it? That’s how love is. Love has its own power, the only power ultimately capable of conquering the human heart.
Bread Pilled: Jordan Peterson turning young, Western men into Christians Again
God’s revival?
For the past year, lectures by the University of Toronto professor and psychiatrist have gone viral on YouTube and made Jordan Peterson a folk hero among young men on the right across the Western world.
Peterson has won over so many devoted fans not because of his eloquent and persuasive arguments against postmodernism and political correctness — there are lots of pundits and personalities on YouTube that eviscerate and expose these twin insidious systems.
What makes Peterson so uniquely special and what so endears him to his fans is that he is more concerned with turning boys into successful, highly functional men than he is in scoring political points or going viral. He’s a psychiatrist by trade and so many of his YouTube videos are of him giving life advice to young men on how to “sort themselves out” and find meaning. He’s a sort of father-figure for hundreds of thousands in this regard. All you need to do is read the comments on his videos: he has made a profound impact on the lives of so many young men.
Earth is not even earth without heaven,
as a landscape is not a landscape without the sky.
And in a universe without God
there is not room enough for a man.
The more I get to know Jesus, the more impressed am by what Ivan Karamazov called “the miracle of restraint.” The miracles . . . the signs and wonders the Pharisees demanded, the final proofs I yearn for—these would offer no serious obstacle to an omnipotent God. More amazing is his refusal to perform and to overwhelm. God’s terrible insistence on human freedom is so absolute that he granted us the power to live as though he did not exist, to spit in his face, to crucify him . . .
