What is up with millennials? Tropes of these avocado-toasted enthusiasts upending cherished American institutions abound; their disinterest can often signal a terminal crisis. One U.S. institution feeling the pain of a millennial exodus is the Catholic Church, and those in charge, the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, are seeking new ideas on how to stop the hemorrhaging.
At the U.S.C.C.B. spring general assembly in Baltimore, the attrition of churchgoing youth was the focus of a June 11 address by Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron of Los Angeles, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis. But the bishop stepped into a social media hornets’ nest after he cited another media-savvy public intellectual, Jordan Peterson, among “signs of hope” for engaging America’s “nones”—that millennial cohort of the religiously unaffiliated, whom Bishop Barron called the “second greatest crisis” facing the church.
Mr. Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and bestselling author, has enjoyed success with young, mostly male, millennials. With a no-frills approach to self-help, he lectures on themes from the incursion of “political correctness” and “postmodernism” on college campuses to the “Psychological Significance of Biblical Stories.” The latter topic has garnered Mr. Peterson a follower in Bishop Barron, who has examined the professor in articles and podcasts prior to the spring assembly.
“One of the reasons why Barron likes Peterson,” Bill McCormick, a Jesuit in formation, who has written on Peterson’s appeal for America, said, “is that Peterson is this great example of someone who is attracting people, intellectually, the way Bishop Barron thinks that we need to be attracting people to the church.”
But many on social media were dismayed that the bishop’s reference to Mr. Peterson seemed to disregard what some contend is the misogyny and bigotry spouted by the professor. One week after his remarks, Bishop Barron responded with an article reflecting on this reaction by the “commentariat.” In it, he describes an “overheated response from some on the far-left end of the spectrum,” whereby “the mere mention of the name Jordan Peterson is enough to send some into irrational conniptions.”
In an interview with America conducted over email, Bishop Barron said that “the preoccupation with my brief reference to Jordan Peterson is disproportionate,” adding that he “was not really interested in the content of Peterson’s thought,” but rather that Peterson’s “intellectual approach was proving so efficacious on social media.”
In fact, Bishop Barron has previously called Peterson’s Jungian dissection of Scripture a product of the “Gnosticizing tendency to read biblical religion purely psychologically and philosophically and not at all historically.”
“The recovery of all sense of the Scripture would be useful in the Catholic conversation today,” Bishop Barron said. Mr. Peterson “gestures occasionally to what I would term the metaphysical or supernatural sense, but he leaves this mostly undeveloped. It’s also not entirely clear that he believes in God in the traditional sense of the term.”
Bishop Barron said that he “was not really interested in the content of Peterson’s thought,” but rather that Peterson’s “intellectual approach was proving so efficacious on social media.”
“Obviously,” Bishop Barron continued, “I find his method inadequate—which is why it is flatly wrong to say, as some have, that I am ‘basing my apologetics’ on Peterson.”
Bishop Barron is the founder of Word on Fire, a media ministry aimed at renewing the church. His presence on- and offline extends far beyond Word on Fire and has included a Reddit AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) and presentations to tech giants like Google and Facebook. An engagement with the digital sphere of Catholicism, a realm that tends to attract younger cohorts, has uniquely positioned Bishop Barron to discuss how to encourage this population back into the fold.
His address to his fellow bishops in Baltimore began with sobering statistics: Half of those aged 30 and under who were raised as Catholics have left the church, and “one out of six millennials in the U.S. is now a former Catholic.” He called the emptying of pews a “bitter fruit of the dumbing-down of our faith.”
“Please don’t take this as a one-sided endorsement of Jordan Peterson,” Bishop Barron told bishops before discussing what he termed the “Jordan Peterson phenomenon.” Mr. Peterson, according to Bishop Barron, has attracted the attention of millions of young people who are listening to “a very mild mannered, high level speaker discussing our book [the Bible].”
It is not obvious how the “Peterson phenomenon” would fare as a model for the bishops to adopt. How might the church tap into the fervor that surrounds Peterson, and is this a worthwhile approach to engaging with the “nones”?
Many did not think so. At a press conference following the address, Bishop Barron was asked about those who regard Mr. Peterson “as an icon of the anti-political-correctness movement” and “as anything up to and including a white supremacist,” characterizations Mr. Peterson resists. Bishop Barron said his “message to the bishops was not go out and read Jordan Peterson,” rather, it was “that we too should be able to speak at a high level about our own great text, the Bible, in a way that young people will find compelling.”
Those who have experienced the “Catholic internet” have glimpsed the various camps that are regularly at odds with one another over the finer points of liturgy, doctrine and, yes, Jordan Peterson.
During the press conference at the bishops’ meeting, Bishop Barron said that Mr. Peterson’s insight is “close to what the church fathers would have called the ‘moral sense of Scripture.’” In other words, Mr. Peterson stresses the moral and practical takeaways of biblical narratives while largely ignoring the Bible’s spiritual and historical realities as taught by the church. But is the professor’s moral-narrative approach to the Bible something that actually contributes to his success with younger populations? If that were the case, what good would the bishops’ potential attempt to adopt Peterson’s style be?
“It’s not clear to me what a Peterson strategy would look like,” Mr. McCormick said. “A Peterson strategy for the church is also somewhat mysterious because what Peterson is doing is profoundly individualistic and even lonely. The church seeks communion and unity with God and among people. I am not sure Peterson is interested in that.
“What Bishop Barron might say is that any strategy for attracting the ‘nones’ needs to be a conversation oriented toward beauty and listening to other people,” Mr. McCormick said. “Peterson himself is not exactly interested in those things. A lot of the reaction against Peterson is that he tends to be combative, polemical and unsympathetic to those he opposes.”
The polemics are not limited to Mr. Peterson and his critics. Those who have experienced the “Catholic internet” have glimpsed the various camps that are regularly at odds with one another over the finer points of liturgy, doctrine and, yes, Jordan Peterson.
In his blog post, Bishop Barron deplored this “polarized and ideologically driven” online environment where “the most elementary distinctions aren’t made and the most broad-brush analyses are commonplace.”
“I dearly wish that people would actually listen to what their interlocutors are saying,” Bishop Barron told America. He suggested that “in the manner of Thomas Aquinas” those seeking engagement on social media should refrain from a “straw man” approach that purports an easily defeated position but should “‘steel-man’ their opponents’ arguments” in the interest of true dialogue.
“To seize on a name or a phrase or a slogan and then use that to categorize someone or put them in a camp gets us precisely nowhere,” he said.
Jordan Peterson is not a Christian. He espouses a very moral philosophy based on human nature/natural law and emphasizing personal responsibility. The left hates him because he makes a farce of equality as a desirable goal.
That aside, the Catholic Church is imploding because it provides no reason why anyone should be a Catholic. The Church committed suicide at Vactican II.
JORDAN PETERSON — AN ANONYMOUS CHRISTIAN?
J Cosgrove says that “Jordan Peterson is not a Christian. He espouses a very moral philosophy based on human nature/natural law and emphasizing personal responsibility.”
However, neither Plato nor Socrates nor Aristotle were Christians, having lived several hundred years before the coming of Christ. Yet some of the greatest Christians scholars of all times sat, so to speak, at the feet of these ancient Greek philosophers, and listened to their words of wisdom: scholars like St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, Duns Scotus and most of the Scholastics.
I don’t hesitate to call Jordan Peterson an anonymous Christian, or an implicit Christian, if you will. He may be bringing more Millennials to Christ than all the Scribes and Pharisees put together.... For sure, Plato helped bring St. Augustine to Christ.
I am sure Jordan Peterson was brought up a Christian. He is too familiar with biblical stories to not have been. His philosophy of personal responsibility and treating others fairly resonates with Christians and is worth emulating. I know nothing of what he says that is inconsistent with traditional Christianity.
“That aside, the Catholic Church is imploding because it provides no reason why anyone should be a Catholic. The Church committed suicide at Vactican II.”
This is exactly right. The Church now is either committing suicide, or trashing its (formerly) Sacred Tradition, or erupting in scandals, or behaving in some other equally idiotic way. It embraced the spirit of the age - and the spirit of the age has moved on, leaving the CC reeling, devastated, haemorrhaging members, the missions obliterated, the Roman Liturgy destroyed, with former “other Christs” and “brides of Christ by the thousands, churches sold and night-clubs or houses or shops…… The Catholic Church is a bad joke. It is not even possible to leave this sclerotic, rotting and purulent carcase. Millions of its members are Catholics only in name - and yet it is deluded enough to think that Catholics who regard Christianity as utter garbage are fit and able to spread the “New Evangelisation” ! How can people who lack faith in Christ share with others a faith they do not have ? Only in the Catholic Church is such asinine lunacy regarded as sane and wise.
The sooner the CC dies and is no more, the better for everyone. Then, and not before, it may have the opportunity to be raised again. It is not as though God is powerless to save unless assisted by the CC. It is not necessary, and has often been an obstacle to the Gospel. It is as special as God makes it - and no more.
I'm interested in knowing why you believe the Church committed suicide at Vatican II.
It stopped teaching/giving a reason to be a Catholic.
That’s an ambiguous answer, plz be more specific.
It’s not ambiguous. Answer the question why should someone be a Catholic. No Jesuit or the Pope has ever given a reason other than if feels right. Vatican II essentially said all religions are equally valid. Nothing special about being a Catholic so the young have not been given any reason to stay. It’s all emotional and emotions do not provide a long term solid foundation if there’s not a rational underpinning.
You and others who attack Vatican II are the ones driving the young out of the church. Plus, of course, the church's teachings on sex. Serious surveys have shown that the young abandon Catholicism mostly becuase they find some of its teachings both not credible and obnoxious. The sex scandal is driving mostly older people out of the church.
Well if we go by what reliable surveys tells as to why millenials and all others have told us why they left the RCC below is the list:
Priest/bishop child sexual abuse crisis
RCCs unwillingness to ordain women the same as men and treat them the same
RCC's LBGT oppression
RCCs sexist and oppressive, unrealistic, scientifically debunked, non-scripture based and hypocritical teachings on human sexuality and so called natural law
RCC's demonization of abortion and birth control
Many Nones don't feel a need to attend a worship ceremony with others to feel they have worshipped God still.
Many ex-Catholics feel our leadership and religion are too conservative politically
Many would like to see a church with greater lay responsibility both during liturgy and outside of it but feel the ordained will never stop hindering this so another words to much clericalism.
Many have felt our churches are lonely and unwelcoming and unchristian in many ways.
In order to help explain the mass exodus from mainline religion one only has to look at the failure of the liberal church to strongly position itself in opposition to the radical Christian Right, which is so very destructive to the family, values and public space. The church’s near silence on evangelical hucksters and dark radical distortions of the centrist values has not gone unnoticed by everyone and by staying silent instead of taking an activist stance, people now tacitly associate mainline religions with radical right wing Christian extremism. Why has the church not taken a strong stance against Christian radicalism?
You make an excellent point.
A parallel failure of the Church (especially of the previous two popes) has been to encourage the radical right in Catholicism, both by putting such people into power (e.g. +Burke to name one of many) and never opposing their extreme views.
I submit that young people leave because they find no resonance with church teachings derived not so much from who Jesus is and what Jesus said, but from a medieval world view, constantly and forcefully pushed by unyielding radical pre-Vatican II minded Catholics.
+Barron is therefore wrong about the need for deeper catechetics. The need is rather for bold and updated catechesis that is in step with scientific realities. But in order to do this, the Church would have to admit that it is sometimes wrong. It was wrong to suppose that the levying of interest would eternally be sinful; and that slavery was tolerable. It is currently wrong in its about homosexuality, women priests, and a host of other matters relating to human sexuality.
Ha ha, so is are young people attracted to men like Cardinal Danneels or Archbishop Chaput? Do they show up for World Youth Day when we have popes like Benedict and JPII or a pope like Francis? Of course the numbers are waaaayyyy down for vocations with men like Daneels compared to Chaput and the numbers are likewise way down for world youth days with a pope like Francis compared to Benedict and JP II. The Wednesday audience numbers are likewise way down for Francis compared to Benedict.
So, how is having corrupt men like Daneels, Francis, and Cupich going to help the exodus?
pews are not being emptied because of a “dumbing-down of our faith.” They are being emptied because the VPs like Barron have proven to be so corrupt and untrustworthy. The one good reason for RCC to adopt the rhetoric of Peterson is to cut thru PC crap and seek a lost sense of authenticity, rather than harp away about sin and conformity to rules. That is never going to attract anyone, let alone millenials.
exactly!!!
Bravo!!
Conservative Bishop Barron is enamored of an alt-right pseudo-intellectual who is also adored by Fox. Barron thinks the church can use Peterson's methods to turn young disaffected white males into pew potatoes (or priests?). What could go wrong?
Crystal, stop your anti-Trump screed. You can’t hide. You got your fingerprints all over your submission: — “conservative Bishop Barron,” — “Fox,” — “disaffected white males.”
Well- Peterson did appear on Fox & Friends( trump's favorite morning TV show, correct?)arguing that the left is primarily responsible for increased polarization...
Not hiding - for all the world to see, I'm anti-Trump.
Me too! All the way - It is time to get a real president like Elizabeth Warren in!
My own millennial kids think of him as a creepy, anti woman guru, with a strong bent towards authoritarianism- and their thinking on organized religion isn’t much different.They want nothing to do with either..
Children abandoning organized religion. I think that's called winning at parenting.
This is why men like Pope Francis can only succeed in transforming the Church through totalitarian means. Their fans have so little genuine faith that their children won't remain.
wow! you just won the Stereotype-Slinger-of-the-Year-Award. Next time why don't you watch one of Peterson's lectures and learn how to use carefully crafted and well-thought-out arguments articulated in eloquent language, then come back and talk to us, ok?
If anyone wants to learn more about Peterson, try this Guardian article - "How dangerous is Jordan B Peterson, the rightwing professor who 'hit a hornets' nest'?" ... https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/how-dangerous-is-jordan-b-peterson-the-rightwing-professor-who-hit-a-hornets-nest
I agree with Crystal Watson. If Barron believes, after the child sexual abuse and other sexual scandals of the clergy, the cover up by bishops and cardinals and, yes Popes (Bernard Law being shielded and HONOURED BY John Paul II and Bernard XVI) the hypocrisy over sexual issue that was exposed in that scandal, the financial scandals, the obscenity of some of the worst canonizations in the modern history of the church, the hollowing out of the church by church closures, even very old, very well attended and active parishes, the misogyny of the official hierarchy, etc. to blame people fleeing the Church on "dumbing down" as even Good Pope Francis is attacked by the likes of Raymond Burke and a conspiracy of right wing bishops and cardinals, with, perhaps, the participation of the likes of Ganswein, etc. etc. etc. has got to be about the dumbest of dumbed down diagnoses in the history of crisis management. And this is the guy that the USCCB puts in charge of evangelization? I'm not going to the new "parish" which is two towns away from where my church was shut down, I'm thinking of getting people who no longer go to mass together to form an intentional Eucharistic community. I've had enough and I'm no millennial. I still love the Church but the hierarchy doesn't seem to love The People of God or serve them.
Crystal, I'm disappointed with your comment/screed. You can point to nothing that Peterson has said or done that would justify your characterization, so why make it?
As someone who has listened to hundreds of hours of Dr. Peterson (and has the intellectual chops to work at a National Lab and publish in scientific journals), I can attest to the fact that Dr. Peterson is the real deal when it comes to attempting to tackle the great questions of life in a truly intellectual manner. Very few public intellectuals have read as broadly or as deeply as he has in the areas of psychology and literature, and he has the ability to communicate that in a way that the common man can understand. Because of his emphasis on the psychological meaning of the Scriptures, he has unique insights to offer that millions of people find helpful.
What a shame, though, that he exists outside the religious traditions and believes more in the power of psychodelic drugs than the literal resurrection. A hundred years from now, he will be a forgotten blip on the screen because he has no community to pass his ideas on to.
I mentioned elsewhere an article about him in The Guardian that will help explain what I don't like about him ... "How dangerous is Jordan B Peterson, the rightwing professor who 'hit a hornets' nest'?" ... https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/how-dangerous-is-jordan-b-peterson-the-rightwing-professor-who-hit-a-hornets-nest .. He may be smart, although I wasn't impressed, but even if he is, that's not as important as being good.
Danny Collins, I pointed out the deficiences of Peterson's "science" in a comment to you below, please read it, especially the point about Peterson's use of "lobsters" (as I recall his "scientific" pronouncement using them to explain human behaviour was insufficient enough that he didn't name which species of lobster he was using) and the implications of such "science" that I'm sure Peterson and the male-pack of his would be Alpha followers would find rather disturbing. Psychology is, as someone else pointed out, a pseudo-science, as the replication crisis and other scandals in that academic department prove.
Oh Crystal, please. I reserved comment on JP until I had viewed 400 hours of his classroom lectures (among many others) and read both of his books, as I did with Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. I dare say sister you are quite uninformed. Moreover, references to the Guardian only implode your obvious mission. God Bless you and yours.
You seem quite unfamiliar with Peterson and Barron -- I am most of the way through the Peterson podcast, and it is very interesting and no pseudo-intellectualism present. Peterson is helping some people get their lives together through assuming responsibility for themselves, for their actions, and for their family. I don't know if Peterson will provide a means toward evangelizing non-Catholics, but I don't think he will cause any harm.
If you think Peterson is worth listening to, you've proven yourself an idiot. He's unbelievably superficial and opportunistic. He's like the Alt-Right's version of Deepak Chopra.
Pick someone like Charles Taylor, the Canadian Catholic philosopher, to promote. He's really Catholic in the original sense of universalist and seeking the good in opposite points of view and authentically integrating them. His radio interviews are brilliant and lovely to listen to. His books are genuinely intellectually challenging, not just a superficial stylistic performance of 'intellectual' like Peterson's b.s..
totally disagree!
He's an ignorant person's idea of an intellectual
Says someone who's never published in a single scientific peer reviewed journal...
Seriously, those of us who have done so and compare our breadth and depth of publishing, reading , and thinking have a very different view of his intellectual chops. Dr. Peterson is a former Harvard professor who taught one of the most popular classes before leaving to be closer to family at the University of Toronto. It's dangerous to dismiss him in such disingenuous ways. People who actually take the time to listen will know that people like you are speaking from ignorance and hatred rather than open-minded inquiry into what kind of person he really is and what he actually teaches/believes.
First, how do you believe you know anything about my publication history?
Second, if you mean any publications that Peterson has had in such journals of the behavioural sciences, have you ever heard of the publication crisis in which, when studied, rigorously, the claims of up to 90% of such papers could not be confirmed through replication and many were found to have other, glaring deficiencies that refute their status as science or even deserving to have such publication? The field of psychology, especially "evolutionary psychology" in which Peterson works has been a scandal for their entire history. The antisemite who inserted his antisemitism into evolutionary psychology, Kevin MacDonald was the editor of several such journals, a full professor at a prestigious university, given professional honours for his work which, when he became notorious as the one and only witness David Irving called to support his Holocaust denial, was clearly and blatantly antisemtism inserted into "science" in exactly the same way that other forms of racism have been. That is all entirely documented as another scandal of psychology as "science."
Peterson's proclamations on the alleged limits and differences between human females and males, based on his descriptions of the behaviour of lobsters is entirely absurd and displays a shocking ignorance of evolution and the vast differences in the identity of gender in two very distantly related species, the genetic basis of sex differentiation, alone, being quite different.
Most hilariously, if he wants to claim our common ancestor with lobsters, from about a half a billion years ago, passed on common traits relevant to modern lobsters and human beings, we share that same ancestor with preying mantis and black widow spiders, the sex roles of which include females pulling off the heads of males trying to mate with them and eating them or otherwise killing them. Peterson's "scientific" declarations on that were so absurd that it calls into question everything else he says "scientifically".
Correct and accurate. Thank you sir. Ignorance = Contempt prior to investigation (and investigation takes a long long time.)
Ok - This description alone is hilarious and I never even heard of this Peterson guy -
He's like the Alt-Right's version of Deepak Chopra.
I can't begin to envision what kind of creature that would be describing. LOL !
booooo to barron!!!! he criticizes the political/philosophical divide....and then contributes to it by blaming the 'left.' he is not helpful and needs to spend more time on the ''front lines'' of christianity.
Agreed
Attempting to attract anyone—millennials or baby boomers---with an intellectual appeal to the Catholic Faith would be a welcome approach after the feel-good, dumbed-down, empty baloney that has passed for evangelization and catechesis in Catholic schools and pulpits for the past 40+ years.
"We need an intellectual appeal to faith ..."
Because Jesus was all about intellectualizing the good news? Because Jesus would never have served dumbed-down emotional appeals to a bunch of uneducated villagers and fishermen? Because faith works better when you can keep it at an emotional distance? Maybe instead of "God is love" we could have "God is like a really smart person"?
How much have any of you researched this topic? Aren’t you just stating your biased opinion based on your own experiences? Bishop Barron has done his research on why young adults are leaving the church. And most didn’t like his results. People are upset cause the truth clashed with their reality.
How much have any of you researched this topic? Aren’t you just stating your biased opinion based on your own experiences? Bishop Barron has done his research on why young adults are leaving the church. And most didn’t like his results. People are upset cause the truth clashed with their reality.
I did read some articles about Peterson and watched a bit of his videos. And I've been familiar with Barron for years. Young people leave the church for many reasons, but there's one basic reason that can't be fixed with Peterson's secular intellectualizing .... they aren't convinced God exists. That can really only be fixed emotionally and personally by experience. Or so I think.
they aren't convinced God exist
This is one of the few things you have said I agree with. However, I disagree with the second part of it and disagree that it only can fixed emotionally. The evidence is overwhelming that there is a creator and that scientists are continually lying about the universe, life and other related issues. Why do they have to lie and distort?
If we don't start with shared facts, it's hard to discuss stuff. I don't think scientists are lying to us about the natural world.
Of course they are lying. Name a textbook that discusses the fine tuning of the universe or the origin of life problem or one that points out the absurdity of Darwin’s ideas. Instead they all promote unlikely speculation as if it were fact. Name your shared facts.
Shared facts it is then dear Crystal. Would you agree or disagree with Mr. Peterson's vehement pro-life position and disdain for abortion. Lets start there. One word will suffice.
VERY FEW ATHEISTS IN THE FOXHOLES OF LIFE
Crystal says that young people “aren’t convinced God exists.” You’re wrong, Crystal. The vast, vast majority of our young people are not atheists. Some of them might say they are. But they really aren’t. Most of them just don’t give the matter much thought. Just wait till they grow up, mature and have a family and some kids. Crystal, there are very few atheists in the foxholes of life.