You were wondering the type of substack your readers were looking for, this is the type of stuff I love!! Another Great One. Something I’ve noticed a lot from your writings, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but have you ever thought that Pope Francis had a similar experience as you in his mid forty’s, because he was also extremely conservative as a young man, but something broke in him and changed him, he has a quote, “gay marriage is the work of the devil” so he was a real man of the right, every Jesuit knows this, they pretend now that he wasn’t, and for him it led him to this place that God is all merciful even with the contradictions that would bring, your comments recently on otherwise good people damned to hell made me think that
That’s so interesting, because I didn’t mean you should end up with his conclusions, but I also noticed a desire in Francis that candidly might not be a good idea for a Pope but he has the same desire you mentioned to just pursue the truth with no hang ups
Oh my God! Three of my favorite personalities and commentators on our insanely precarious lives were in a room together not even ten miles from my house. God has a distinct sense of humor as I did not even hear of Peterson coming to Providence until after it happened.
I have tried for days to answer the question in your last post. What do I want? Where should your postings and those of the folks following this thread go? In my mind I knew the answer but could not put it into words. What you have written today is why I am here.
“Reconverted” fifty years ago to Jesus, and to a belief in the Eucharist. I have spent a lifetime wandering in the enormous and treacherous wreckage of a Church and society that both seem intently committed to nuking themselves into oblivion. In retrospect, much of my life has been spent trying to guide myself and my family out of the path of direct hits. Hoping that the fallout would not do us in even after all my maneuvering.
The McCarrick affair left me almost overwhelmed by disgust and nearly ready to admit defeat. I began a search for answers and meaning in the face of this senseless denial and parody of everything I held to be true and holy. In this search, I wandered into the online world of Traditional Catholicism. At first, I was relieved. Here are folks like me. They believe. They seek the truth. They realize how insane the society and much of the Church has become.
My relief became another discouragement. I realized that I could never be part of the club. I would not commit to giving up my orthodox but novus-ordo parish. I would not decry Vatican II as the work of evil interlopers. Receiving the Eucharist in my hand (Even though it is a profoundly powerful statement to me as to how much God and Jesus love me by allowing sinful, miserable me, to hold the Word, the Lord, creator of the universe in my palms) would only be seen as a mortal sin on my part. I could taste the pharisaical disdain from many Trads. The over scrupulous thoughts that drove me from God in my youth began to return.
You, Steve, did not dismiss me in the way many others did. We had some back and forth in the comment section of 1 Peter 5. We never came to full agreement, but you did not dismiss me as a recalcitrant failed Catholic and Christian. I admired your willingness to address topics which others dismissed as unworthy of discussion because they already knew the answers.
I loved podcast 76 with Kale and since then have sought anything of him I can find on the web. In the past couple of years, I have followed Jordan Peterson and James Lindsay as well. They have much to say about the contrived world in which we move. So much of it is unreal. So much is constructed from or on lies.
I want to have open and frank discussion, exchange of ideas, with people who seek to make sense of our condition. I do not have all, or maybe even any, of the answers. I want to converse with people, like me, who struggle to understand and accept the present situation of the Church and our society. I want to deal with people who realize we may never know the answers, but who still see the search as something valuable and positive.
That is why I am here. Reading this over I guess there were a few words I had to say. I just needed the correct trigger. Keep up the search. Keep up the work.
Reading this right after your request for suggestions from subscribers tied something together for me. In my too long and rambling comment there I mentioned the way everyone, right, left, and trad, wants their ideas in a sealed tamper proof box, intellectual eclecticism of the most conservative kind makes it hard to be accepted and trusted in the traditionalist community. Now my eldest son has been a Jordan Peterson admirer for a long time, and converted me, he follows him along with Rod Dreher and the others you mention as the IDW. My daughter, who is a very devout Catholic also reads Dreher. It is this mixing of ideas that complicates fitting in, yet there is no real conflict here, only a need for humility. It is a sound observation that many in the traditionalist movement have off loaded, or deluded themselves into believing that they have off loaded, their arrogance onto the Church - She is always right, they are only Her humble supporters.
The vitriol that always shows up when Dreher’s (or anyone else’s) Orthodoxy is mentioned is a case in point. Everyone seems to feel that they can take to the keyboard and prove the Orthodox are heretics. The arguments are often facile, superficial, and unconvincing but they keep coming. Yet Dreher’s perspective on the state of the world and what is to come is extremely valuable. Peterson’s insights are exceptionally acute and add scientific (insofar as psychology can be considered a science), and empirical weight to traditional moral snd societal norms, which can only benefit everyone interested in living well, which should be all of us.
The Brave New World of today does require some modern mapmakers to help us navigate.
Thanks very much, Steve. I was reflecting on the close to zero impact of the variety of Trad Catholic groups. One extreme example (probably not the most extreme) is the Integralist alliance. Jonathan Culbreath's recent contribution on integralism as mystical theology is a superb example of an argument that will reach hardly anyone and convert even fewer.
But at least it forced me to look up "apophatic theology", which had been below my radar for my first 68 years on earth. Apparently one of the Church's most important tasks is to control what can NOT be said about God. I would guess that 99.99% of Catholics are unaware of this task and would not recognise apophatism if it came up and bit them on the leg.
Seeing that the Vatican's website still contains the Abu Dhabi document of 4th Feb 2019, one thing that you cannot say about God is that he is intolerant or exclusive. All religions are willed by God. Or, if you believe Ron Conte's interpretation, only those religions which worship one God. So Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism are not on the approved list. On the other hand, I am willing to bet large sums of money that the Integralists are unhappy with the Abu Dhabi declaration.... Or they might be if any were inclined to discuss such a radical contradiction by a Pope of their whole policy.
Ditto the Orthodox, from Moscow, Athens, Sofia or wherever, who often have up close relations with the Religion of Peace.....yet were not invited to the signing party or the design meetings for the triple-religion site in Abu Dhabi (coming later in 2022).
Much of the chatter I see on the Trad sites looks like a desperate attempt to avoid mentioning Abu Dhabi. Talk about the political arrangements of the New Christendom. Or the evil vaccines. Or apophatic theology. No one has to read it. Least of all anyone outside the purity circle who might be a valuable ally.
I like following Sargon of Akkad, (Carl Benjamin,) for much the same reason. I'd honestly be surprised if he and Peterson don't land somewhere in what CS Lewis called "Mere Christianity" someday, but no one will be able to accuse either of having been dragged in by the hair.
Wow Steve, you have said so many things I have wanted to say since coming back to the church. I was away for 14 years . Jordan Peterson was crucial and someone I came across when I came back into my faith and he explained the human condition better than anyone I had heard before. I remember coming back to the church and diving into every catholic podcast there was and feeling like wow did I even know my faith, but then I became so paranoid that I felt like if I don’t sound like these people I’m listening to was a really a good Catholic? My 16 year old daughter reminded me and often still does, “mom st Bernadette didn’t even know how to read and write or her catechism, God chose her to teach humility to all those prideful people” I had to step back and have had to again follow my own path on this journey of faith not as I was raised as a fellow cradle catholic, but someone having to think for myself, ask questions, and hear not a one size fits all approach. As for the “you’re not on the team” talk, that only made me start to have distain more and more for the faith. I had to take a step back. Even approaching the faith with my kids and allowing them to have free will and even have those very hard discussions on how they feel or get their thoughts. How many parents raise their kids a certain religious way and ask their kids what they think of what they’re being taught or if it even makes sense? My 13 year old is going through the how do we know God exists, or the I hate God I’m angry at Him stage. Instead of beating him over the head with his faith, I listen. How many people actually listen to another human or try to really understand the human heart or struggles. Who remembers being a young kid growing up and going through those hard questions and thoughts in life? Even the way I’ve taught my kids how to pray isn’t beating them over the head with a rosary or devotions, it’s getting to know and love Jesus as a friend. I tell them to just talk to Him like he is your best friend and how much he loves them. How many people feel unloved? Mother Theresa was always a favorite saint because she said, “people are more starved for love than they are hungry for a piece of bread”. 17 years in nursing at the bedside of patients, I discovered Christ in these moments the most. Despite what the rad trad people say about working mothers. No one talks about the human being dying in their bed and sometimes that nurse is the only one to hold their hand and bath them and tell them they are loved before they draw their last breath. Do we live our faith or just get high off of talking about it for clicks and views and wallow in the past and negativity? Anger and fear go hand in hand and the fear that is produced and anger from these catholic YouTube’s is enough to shake your stability for days. Your writings are a breath of fresh air and they are human and raw. Never stop writing ! 😀
Steve, let me first say that, like you, I'm a huge Peterson fan. I saw him speak in Austin in 2018. I paid extra to get VIP access after his speech, which included a meet and greet (photo op) and a separate Q and A session. It was a memorable night.
I got on his bandwagon (so to speak) pretty early on when he hit the scene after the Canadian Bill C-16 stuff. This was only a year or two after I had converted to Catholicism. For whatever reason, I never felt threatened or cut off from his wisdom based on the fact that he wasn't in the "tribe" of Catholicism or traditional Christianity.
I give all of that as background for my main point and question to you, which your essay didn't really address: Do you see any incongruency in the fact that as you fall further away from traditional Christianity, Peterson is undoubtedly moving closer to it? I could point to numerous podcasts and videos since he's returned from his illness supporting that fact (his discussion with Jonathan Pageau a while back stands out in particular). In any event, it is clear he's reached a point where he can't simply dismiss the claim of Christ's divinity as irrational nonsense. I'm sure you saw his tweet yesterday quoting a passage from John's gospel.
In any event, I'm glad he's helped you during your time of darkness.
It's a great question. And no, I don't think it's incongruous. A search for meaning, an examination of existential questions, simply can't be undertaken seriously without a real, profound grappling with Christianity. No other religion has so gripped the imagination and so formed the culture of the world.
From where I stand, I'm reticent to say I'll be a "boomerang," leaving the Church only to come back to it later. I can't see that far ahead, and right now distance is a balm, so anticipating having to wade back in is discomfiting to say the least. But I am well aware of the possibility that my personal house of faith may have been built on sand, and needs to be torn down completely before it can be built back up. I know this is one potential explanation even though right now I don't *want* to know it.
I think we have to follow these paths where they take us. Peterson has encountered something real in Christianity, as most of the people reading this have. And it's not the sort of thing you can walk away from lightly. I respect him for not just jumping in because the way it makes him feel is powerful, even overwhelming. He has objections and questions and concerns, still, and it's good that he has the chance to explore them before making up his mind.
But he just faced death square in the face. The likely death of his wife, the likely death of himself. When it comes right down to this, all of this is academic until that moment. When you really come nose to nose with your own mortality, even if you're still not sure, are you willing to take the risk?
If I'm being honest, I hate that. I hate that my 13 year old son asked me last year, "Dad, there are all these religions claiming to be the true one, and that they're the only way you can get to heaven, but you can't know if they're right until you die, so how are you supposed to decide?" Why does a loving God throw us into a mind game like this? Why are we forced to evaluate competing, exclusive claims without having the knowledge or evidence for a dispositive conclusion? I want to be able to answer my son with real confidence. But the truth is, I can't.
Thanks for the reply. Those are all excellent points that I agree with. As to your last paragraph, I think the Christian apologist (including me up until a few months ago) would say the objective evidence weighs heavily in favor of Christianity. I'm going through a similar dark period as you, but maybe for different reasons. I think it can be easy to forget or ignore that evidence though when the light is dim (or completely gone).
One other question/observation related to all this: I notice that in all your writings and twitter posts about your loss of faith, you almost always put it in terms of "the Church." And I get that given your background and previous commitment to traditional Catholicism. But I rarely, if ever, see you mention Jesus/Christ by name. Is that intentional? It has occurred to me lately that I'm not sure I've ever really loved Christ. And I desperately want to love Him. I just constantly feel let down all the time. Maybe you feel something similar? Anyway, food for thought.
I don't know if it's intentional so much as inevitable. Because no, I don't love him. I'm not even sure why I should. "I just constantly feel let down all the time" is a good descriptor.
At this point in my life, I'm parsing out a lot of "I feel this thing because of X when I should feel Y". So many of my issues are from childhood, and I've got a lot of behaviors that I didn't realize stem from unmet needs or imposed fears from when I was little. At 44, I'm only just starting to see these clearly, identify them, and attempt to deal with those responses. They happen in my human relationships, and it seems to me that with an intangible, imperceptible God, that kind of projection is only going to be magnified.
But for the moment, no, I don't think I love him and I'm not sure I want to. But if he IS loveable and deserving of my love, worship, adoration, etc., then I want to get to a place where I can see that. I've been asking him to help me to see for years, but I get no answer. I pray for almost nothing but faith and love and understanding. I don't ask for material things. Either he is having to forcibly remove the things that are blinding me first, or he's just not there at all. I guess only time will tell.
I've prayed for that too, also with seemingly no answers. But then that begs the question of what would we consider "an answer"? Do we expect to hear a voice? Some break in the laws of nature? Or do we simply expect a change in our behavior that never happens? I don't know. There are times I felt like I got answers to prayer since my conversion, but I can't really tell you how I knew that, other than they were related to reading scripture.
I expect something clear enough that I can understand it. I think that's the least he can do in exchange for demanding my undying love and worship, and the sacrifice of any earthly good for his sake.
Travis is a dear friend of mine and the one who introduced me to your work. I respect the adventure that you are on, to go outside the bounds of the known, the safe, the respectable and to see what you can discover out in that realm of potential/chaos.
A young Catholic woman recently reached out to me to express her frustration with God, her deep anger toward Him, and her inability to ‘love Him as He commands’, given how arbitrary (or worse, sadistic) He often seems to be. This woman has endured real suffering. When one reaches that point–and its a point I see you having come to as well–it strikes me that it is time to let go of that god.
Making that jump takes guts, and I don’t encourage it lightly. It is dangerous. But if God is little more than an all-powerful, arbitrary tyrant demanding fealty at the point of an eternal-suffering-gun, then serving him is at least as spiritually dangerous as rejecting him. No one except a tyrant wants compelled and insincere love. No husband could happily settle for mere flattery, and no wife wants her husband to touch her not out of desire, but out of mere obligation.
Maybe too much has been said about God. We have tried to nail down and fix that which is fundamentally ineffable and mysterious. I just want to say, I don’t believe in the God you are rejecting either. I hope in some small way, this might encourage you to see that leaving a conception of Christ which is unlovable doesn’t mean you are leaving the Logos. Quite possibly you are pursuing the same Logos which Peterson himself has been striving toward, which is True and Good and which loves you.
It seems to me that you have increased in love and understanding, and the fact it apparently came via natural means does not mean it was not ordered by divine providence or fed by grace. "God normally works normally" is an old nostrum I learnt from Pentecostals, ironically.
As for faith, I think you may still be stuck in trad expectations and pseudo-dogma: specifically, the obsession with certitude and harsh condemnation of its absence. Like Newman's claim that true faith excluded any fragment of doubt. Of course, he famously allowed for "difficulties" and pretended the mind with those difficulties can still relentlessly refuse all doubt by an act of will. But it is not surprising he asserted this, since his religious journey involved a desperate search for perfect certitude and authority.
The scriptures are less simplistic, as I have argued here before. If you will grant me the liberty of quoting myself:
"What about honest doubts and fears? Well, the juridical approach is not that of the God of the NT. "Does Jesus not challenge us to faith with rebukes?", one might ask. Yes. But note his pastoral practice. St Thomas the doubting apostle is lovingly reproved and remains one of the 12. St Peter's faith fails after he steps out on the waters, and is rescued by Christ, again with a gentle rebuke. The desperate father who says "I believe, help thou mine unbelief!" gets the healing for his son. Jude 22 demands mercy for the doubting while demanding stronger measures for the deliberately wicked in verse 23. Whatever rebukes Job gets for his near accusations, never mind questions, are put into context by the fact that his friends are the ones said not to have spoken truly and who need Job's intercession. Clearly, in this story, the honest questioner is preferred to the condemnatory, oversimplifying apologists!"
If you have accepted that the Christian God hates and punishes honest doubters (or honest mistakes), then it's not surprising you find it hard to believe in Him (or even believe you believe!), let alone love Him. But He doesn't.
Just don't let angry disappointment that things are not presently as you would expect them to be either within yourself or in the outside world + church make you misread the greater reality. It's not like we weren't warned by Christ himself about how bad things would get, including with wolves in sheep's clothing in the Church. And, after all, you have yourself identified toxic elements in your prior religious practice and environment that might explain why you didn't make as much progress as you would have liked.
I know it's repetitive, but I'll throw in my comment anyway. This is EXACTLY the type of content I am looking for. This is the direction my think has been going only not as organized and well said as this. This morning I listened to Peterson's S4 E82 "The Spiritual Void and the West" (excellent) so this was good timing
I am very confused by Bishop Barron because the heavy intellectual guy who quotes Aquinas and talks to Peterson and the Icon guy (an incredibly deep thinker whose name I’ve forgotten…) is NOT the darling rock star of new church who speaks so glibly on popular topics. They are two totally different men and I find it disturbing.
Thank you, it’s been a while since I watched it. He is amazing. Bishop Barron was frankly amazing and I don’t get it at all. He is dismantling tradition for the masses and presents a very different face in interviews that he knows won’t be seen by many of the faithful.
Yes! The tribe convinced me to avoid Bishop Barron because he is not a self proclaimed trad. But the other day I listened to a discussion between Peterson, John Vervaeke, Bishop Barron, and Jonathan Pageau centered around meaning in the modern era. Barron is well formed in philosophy and literature and well spoken. Peterson and Vervaeke are not Christians, and Vervaeke may not even consider himself a theist (although he rejects atheism). But Barron did not attempt to high jack the convo and push Catholicism but nor did he shy away. To me the whole conversation was an example of the kind of discussions that are sorely needed in our time.
You were wondering the type of substack your readers were looking for, this is the type of stuff I love!! Another Great One. Something I’ve noticed a lot from your writings, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but have you ever thought that Pope Francis had a similar experience as you in his mid forty’s, because he was also extremely conservative as a young man, but something broke in him and changed him, he has a quote, “gay marriage is the work of the devil” so he was a real man of the right, every Jesuit knows this, they pretend now that he wasn’t, and for him it led him to this place that God is all merciful even with the contradictions that would bring, your comments recently on otherwise good people damned to hell made me think that
I have actually had that thought, multiple times. I’m certain the rigorism he encountered in his youth made him into what he is today.
That’s so interesting, because I didn’t mean you should end up with his conclusions, but I also noticed a desire in Francis that candidly might not be a good idea for a Pope but he has the same desire you mentioned to just pursue the truth with no hang ups
Oh my God! Three of my favorite personalities and commentators on our insanely precarious lives were in a room together not even ten miles from my house. God has a distinct sense of humor as I did not even hear of Peterson coming to Providence until after it happened.
I have tried for days to answer the question in your last post. What do I want? Where should your postings and those of the folks following this thread go? In my mind I knew the answer but could not put it into words. What you have written today is why I am here.
“Reconverted” fifty years ago to Jesus, and to a belief in the Eucharist. I have spent a lifetime wandering in the enormous and treacherous wreckage of a Church and society that both seem intently committed to nuking themselves into oblivion. In retrospect, much of my life has been spent trying to guide myself and my family out of the path of direct hits. Hoping that the fallout would not do us in even after all my maneuvering.
The McCarrick affair left me almost overwhelmed by disgust and nearly ready to admit defeat. I began a search for answers and meaning in the face of this senseless denial and parody of everything I held to be true and holy. In this search, I wandered into the online world of Traditional Catholicism. At first, I was relieved. Here are folks like me. They believe. They seek the truth. They realize how insane the society and much of the Church has become.
My relief became another discouragement. I realized that I could never be part of the club. I would not commit to giving up my orthodox but novus-ordo parish. I would not decry Vatican II as the work of evil interlopers. Receiving the Eucharist in my hand (Even though it is a profoundly powerful statement to me as to how much God and Jesus love me by allowing sinful, miserable me, to hold the Word, the Lord, creator of the universe in my palms) would only be seen as a mortal sin on my part. I could taste the pharisaical disdain from many Trads. The over scrupulous thoughts that drove me from God in my youth began to return.
You, Steve, did not dismiss me in the way many others did. We had some back and forth in the comment section of 1 Peter 5. We never came to full agreement, but you did not dismiss me as a recalcitrant failed Catholic and Christian. I admired your willingness to address topics which others dismissed as unworthy of discussion because they already knew the answers.
I loved podcast 76 with Kale and since then have sought anything of him I can find on the web. In the past couple of years, I have followed Jordan Peterson and James Lindsay as well. They have much to say about the contrived world in which we move. So much of it is unreal. So much is constructed from or on lies.
I want to have open and frank discussion, exchange of ideas, with people who seek to make sense of our condition. I do not have all, or maybe even any, of the answers. I want to converse with people, like me, who struggle to understand and accept the present situation of the Church and our society. I want to deal with people who realize we may never know the answers, but who still see the search as something valuable and positive.
That is why I am here. Reading this over I guess there were a few words I had to say. I just needed the correct trigger. Keep up the search. Keep up the work.
Reading this right after your request for suggestions from subscribers tied something together for me. In my too long and rambling comment there I mentioned the way everyone, right, left, and trad, wants their ideas in a sealed tamper proof box, intellectual eclecticism of the most conservative kind makes it hard to be accepted and trusted in the traditionalist community. Now my eldest son has been a Jordan Peterson admirer for a long time, and converted me, he follows him along with Rod Dreher and the others you mention as the IDW. My daughter, who is a very devout Catholic also reads Dreher. It is this mixing of ideas that complicates fitting in, yet there is no real conflict here, only a need for humility. It is a sound observation that many in the traditionalist movement have off loaded, or deluded themselves into believing that they have off loaded, their arrogance onto the Church - She is always right, they are only Her humble supporters.
The vitriol that always shows up when Dreher’s (or anyone else’s) Orthodoxy is mentioned is a case in point. Everyone seems to feel that they can take to the keyboard and prove the Orthodox are heretics. The arguments are often facile, superficial, and unconvincing but they keep coming. Yet Dreher’s perspective on the state of the world and what is to come is extremely valuable. Peterson’s insights are exceptionally acute and add scientific (insofar as psychology can be considered a science), and empirical weight to traditional moral snd societal norms, which can only benefit everyone interested in living well, which should be all of us.
The Brave New World of today does require some modern mapmakers to help us navigate.
Thanks for this.
Thanks very much, Steve. I was reflecting on the close to zero impact of the variety of Trad Catholic groups. One extreme example (probably not the most extreme) is the Integralist alliance. Jonathan Culbreath's recent contribution on integralism as mystical theology is a superb example of an argument that will reach hardly anyone and convert even fewer.
https://thejosias.com/2022/01/17/integralism-as-mystical-theology/
But at least it forced me to look up "apophatic theology", which had been below my radar for my first 68 years on earth. Apparently one of the Church's most important tasks is to control what can NOT be said about God. I would guess that 99.99% of Catholics are unaware of this task and would not recognise apophatism if it came up and bit them on the leg.
Seeing that the Vatican's website still contains the Abu Dhabi document of 4th Feb 2019, one thing that you cannot say about God is that he is intolerant or exclusive. All religions are willed by God. Or, if you believe Ron Conte's interpretation, only those religions which worship one God. So Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism are not on the approved list. On the other hand, I am willing to bet large sums of money that the Integralists are unhappy with the Abu Dhabi declaration.... Or they might be if any were inclined to discuss such a radical contradiction by a Pope of their whole policy.
Ditto the Orthodox, from Moscow, Athens, Sofia or wherever, who often have up close relations with the Religion of Peace.....yet were not invited to the signing party or the design meetings for the triple-religion site in Abu Dhabi (coming later in 2022).
Much of the chatter I see on the Trad sites looks like a desperate attempt to avoid mentioning Abu Dhabi. Talk about the political arrangements of the New Christendom. Or the evil vaccines. Or apophatic theology. No one has to read it. Least of all anyone outside the purity circle who might be a valuable ally.
I like following Sargon of Akkad, (Carl Benjamin,) for much the same reason. I'd honestly be surprised if he and Peterson don't land somewhere in what CS Lewis called "Mere Christianity" someday, but no one will be able to accuse either of having been dragged in by the hair.
Wow Steve, you have said so many things I have wanted to say since coming back to the church. I was away for 14 years . Jordan Peterson was crucial and someone I came across when I came back into my faith and he explained the human condition better than anyone I had heard before. I remember coming back to the church and diving into every catholic podcast there was and feeling like wow did I even know my faith, but then I became so paranoid that I felt like if I don’t sound like these people I’m listening to was a really a good Catholic? My 16 year old daughter reminded me and often still does, “mom st Bernadette didn’t even know how to read and write or her catechism, God chose her to teach humility to all those prideful people” I had to step back and have had to again follow my own path on this journey of faith not as I was raised as a fellow cradle catholic, but someone having to think for myself, ask questions, and hear not a one size fits all approach. As for the “you’re not on the team” talk, that only made me start to have distain more and more for the faith. I had to take a step back. Even approaching the faith with my kids and allowing them to have free will and even have those very hard discussions on how they feel or get their thoughts. How many parents raise their kids a certain religious way and ask their kids what they think of what they’re being taught or if it even makes sense? My 13 year old is going through the how do we know God exists, or the I hate God I’m angry at Him stage. Instead of beating him over the head with his faith, I listen. How many people actually listen to another human or try to really understand the human heart or struggles. Who remembers being a young kid growing up and going through those hard questions and thoughts in life? Even the way I’ve taught my kids how to pray isn’t beating them over the head with a rosary or devotions, it’s getting to know and love Jesus as a friend. I tell them to just talk to Him like he is your best friend and how much he loves them. How many people feel unloved? Mother Theresa was always a favorite saint because she said, “people are more starved for love than they are hungry for a piece of bread”. 17 years in nursing at the bedside of patients, I discovered Christ in these moments the most. Despite what the rad trad people say about working mothers. No one talks about the human being dying in their bed and sometimes that nurse is the only one to hold their hand and bath them and tell them they are loved before they draw their last breath. Do we live our faith or just get high off of talking about it for clicks and views and wallow in the past and negativity? Anger and fear go hand in hand and the fear that is produced and anger from these catholic YouTube’s is enough to shake your stability for days. Your writings are a breath of fresh air and they are human and raw. Never stop writing ! 😀
Thank you for sharing all these thoughts! Glad you've found something of value here.
I hear you and understand how you came to this crisis of faith. I am going to pray for you daily.
Steve, let me first say that, like you, I'm a huge Peterson fan. I saw him speak in Austin in 2018. I paid extra to get VIP access after his speech, which included a meet and greet (photo op) and a separate Q and A session. It was a memorable night.
I got on his bandwagon (so to speak) pretty early on when he hit the scene after the Canadian Bill C-16 stuff. This was only a year or two after I had converted to Catholicism. For whatever reason, I never felt threatened or cut off from his wisdom based on the fact that he wasn't in the "tribe" of Catholicism or traditional Christianity.
I give all of that as background for my main point and question to you, which your essay didn't really address: Do you see any incongruency in the fact that as you fall further away from traditional Christianity, Peterson is undoubtedly moving closer to it? I could point to numerous podcasts and videos since he's returned from his illness supporting that fact (his discussion with Jonathan Pageau a while back stands out in particular). In any event, it is clear he's reached a point where he can't simply dismiss the claim of Christ's divinity as irrational nonsense. I'm sure you saw his tweet yesterday quoting a passage from John's gospel.
In any event, I'm glad he's helped you during your time of darkness.
It's a great question. And no, I don't think it's incongruous. A search for meaning, an examination of existential questions, simply can't be undertaken seriously without a real, profound grappling with Christianity. No other religion has so gripped the imagination and so formed the culture of the world.
From where I stand, I'm reticent to say I'll be a "boomerang," leaving the Church only to come back to it later. I can't see that far ahead, and right now distance is a balm, so anticipating having to wade back in is discomfiting to say the least. But I am well aware of the possibility that my personal house of faith may have been built on sand, and needs to be torn down completely before it can be built back up. I know this is one potential explanation even though right now I don't *want* to know it.
I think we have to follow these paths where they take us. Peterson has encountered something real in Christianity, as most of the people reading this have. And it's not the sort of thing you can walk away from lightly. I respect him for not just jumping in because the way it makes him feel is powerful, even overwhelming. He has objections and questions and concerns, still, and it's good that he has the chance to explore them before making up his mind.
But he just faced death square in the face. The likely death of his wife, the likely death of himself. When it comes right down to this, all of this is academic until that moment. When you really come nose to nose with your own mortality, even if you're still not sure, are you willing to take the risk?
If I'm being honest, I hate that. I hate that my 13 year old son asked me last year, "Dad, there are all these religions claiming to be the true one, and that they're the only way you can get to heaven, but you can't know if they're right until you die, so how are you supposed to decide?" Why does a loving God throw us into a mind game like this? Why are we forced to evaluate competing, exclusive claims without having the knowledge or evidence for a dispositive conclusion? I want to be able to answer my son with real confidence. But the truth is, I can't.
Thanks for the reply. Those are all excellent points that I agree with. As to your last paragraph, I think the Christian apologist (including me up until a few months ago) would say the objective evidence weighs heavily in favor of Christianity. I'm going through a similar dark period as you, but maybe for different reasons. I think it can be easy to forget or ignore that evidence though when the light is dim (or completely gone).
One other question/observation related to all this: I notice that in all your writings and twitter posts about your loss of faith, you almost always put it in terms of "the Church." And I get that given your background and previous commitment to traditional Catholicism. But I rarely, if ever, see you mention Jesus/Christ by name. Is that intentional? It has occurred to me lately that I'm not sure I've ever really loved Christ. And I desperately want to love Him. I just constantly feel let down all the time. Maybe you feel something similar? Anyway, food for thought.
I don't know if it's intentional so much as inevitable. Because no, I don't love him. I'm not even sure why I should. "I just constantly feel let down all the time" is a good descriptor.
At this point in my life, I'm parsing out a lot of "I feel this thing because of X when I should feel Y". So many of my issues are from childhood, and I've got a lot of behaviors that I didn't realize stem from unmet needs or imposed fears from when I was little. At 44, I'm only just starting to see these clearly, identify them, and attempt to deal with those responses. They happen in my human relationships, and it seems to me that with an intangible, imperceptible God, that kind of projection is only going to be magnified.
But for the moment, no, I don't think I love him and I'm not sure I want to. But if he IS loveable and deserving of my love, worship, adoration, etc., then I want to get to a place where I can see that. I've been asking him to help me to see for years, but I get no answer. I pray for almost nothing but faith and love and understanding. I don't ask for material things. Either he is having to forcibly remove the things that are blinding me first, or he's just not there at all. I guess only time will tell.
I've prayed for that too, also with seemingly no answers. But then that begs the question of what would we consider "an answer"? Do we expect to hear a voice? Some break in the laws of nature? Or do we simply expect a change in our behavior that never happens? I don't know. There are times I felt like I got answers to prayer since my conversion, but I can't really tell you how I knew that, other than they were related to reading scripture.
I expect something clear enough that I can understand it. I think that's the least he can do in exchange for demanding my undying love and worship, and the sacrifice of any earthly good for his sake.
Steve,
Travis is a dear friend of mine and the one who introduced me to your work. I respect the adventure that you are on, to go outside the bounds of the known, the safe, the respectable and to see what you can discover out in that realm of potential/chaos.
A young Catholic woman recently reached out to me to express her frustration with God, her deep anger toward Him, and her inability to ‘love Him as He commands’, given how arbitrary (or worse, sadistic) He often seems to be. This woman has endured real suffering. When one reaches that point–and its a point I see you having come to as well–it strikes me that it is time to let go of that god.
Making that jump takes guts, and I don’t encourage it lightly. It is dangerous. But if God is little more than an all-powerful, arbitrary tyrant demanding fealty at the point of an eternal-suffering-gun, then serving him is at least as spiritually dangerous as rejecting him. No one except a tyrant wants compelled and insincere love. No husband could happily settle for mere flattery, and no wife wants her husband to touch her not out of desire, but out of mere obligation.
Maybe too much has been said about God. We have tried to nail down and fix that which is fundamentally ineffable and mysterious. I just want to say, I don’t believe in the God you are rejecting either. I hope in some small way, this might encourage you to see that leaving a conception of Christ which is unlovable doesn’t mean you are leaving the Logos. Quite possibly you are pursuing the same Logos which Peterson himself has been striving toward, which is True and Good and which loves you.
“Behold, I bring you tiding of Great Joy”
It seems to me that you have increased in love and understanding, and the fact it apparently came via natural means does not mean it was not ordered by divine providence or fed by grace. "God normally works normally" is an old nostrum I learnt from Pentecostals, ironically.
As for faith, I think you may still be stuck in trad expectations and pseudo-dogma: specifically, the obsession with certitude and harsh condemnation of its absence. Like Newman's claim that true faith excluded any fragment of doubt. Of course, he famously allowed for "difficulties" and pretended the mind with those difficulties can still relentlessly refuse all doubt by an act of will. But it is not surprising he asserted this, since his religious journey involved a desperate search for perfect certitude and authority.
The scriptures are less simplistic, as I have argued here before. If you will grant me the liberty of quoting myself:
"What about honest doubts and fears? Well, the juridical approach is not that of the God of the NT. "Does Jesus not challenge us to faith with rebukes?", one might ask. Yes. But note his pastoral practice. St Thomas the doubting apostle is lovingly reproved and remains one of the 12. St Peter's faith fails after he steps out on the waters, and is rescued by Christ, again with a gentle rebuke. The desperate father who says "I believe, help thou mine unbelief!" gets the healing for his son. Jude 22 demands mercy for the doubting while demanding stronger measures for the deliberately wicked in verse 23. Whatever rebukes Job gets for his near accusations, never mind questions, are put into context by the fact that his friends are the ones said not to have spoken truly and who need Job's intercession. Clearly, in this story, the honest questioner is preferred to the condemnatory, oversimplifying apologists!"
If you have accepted that the Christian God hates and punishes honest doubters (or honest mistakes), then it's not surprising you find it hard to believe in Him (or even believe you believe!), let alone love Him. But He doesn't.
Just don't let angry disappointment that things are not presently as you would expect them to be either within yourself or in the outside world + church make you misread the greater reality. It's not like we weren't warned by Christ himself about how bad things would get, including with wolves in sheep's clothing in the Church. And, after all, you have yourself identified toxic elements in your prior religious practice and environment that might explain why you didn't make as much progress as you would have liked.
I know it's repetitive, but I'll throw in my comment anyway. This is EXACTLY the type of content I am looking for. This is the direction my think has been going only not as organized and well said as this. This morning I listened to Peterson's S4 E82 "The Spiritual Void and the West" (excellent) so this was good timing
Good to hear!
Trads like to talk down to bishop Barron, but he is seriously engaging with Peterson's ideas.
I am very confused by Bishop Barron because the heavy intellectual guy who quotes Aquinas and talks to Peterson and the Icon guy (an incredibly deep thinker whose name I’ve forgotten…) is NOT the darling rock star of new church who speaks so glibly on popular topics. They are two totally different men and I find it disturbing.
The name you're looking for is Jonathan Pageau.
Thank you, it’s been a while since I watched it. He is amazing. Bishop Barron was frankly amazing and I don’t get it at all. He is dismantling tradition for the masses and presents a very different face in interviews that he knows won’t be seen by many of the faithful.
Yes! The tribe convinced me to avoid Bishop Barron because he is not a self proclaimed trad. But the other day I listened to a discussion between Peterson, John Vervaeke, Bishop Barron, and Jonathan Pageau centered around meaning in the modern era. Barron is well formed in philosophy and literature and well spoken. Peterson and Vervaeke are not Christians, and Vervaeke may not even consider himself a theist (although he rejects atheism). But Barron did not attempt to high jack the convo and push Catholicism but nor did he shy away. To me the whole conversation was an example of the kind of discussions that are sorely needed in our time.