Perhaps you, like me, as a Christian, pay attention to certain celebrity conservatives, who take many of the same or similar viewpoints as you. You know there are differences. Where is the overlap?
In diagnosing a worldview, there are various components to understanding it, as some people have or might put it, to see the map of the world. Some of them are knowledge, ethics, purpose, and epistemology, but among the others, I want to explore two of them, reality and truth, as they relate to celebrity conservatives versus true Bible believers. In general, very often true Bible believers are interested in the celebrity conservatives without their being interested in them. Part of their “fan base” are Christians, who listen to their podcasts and watch their shows.
One of the celebrity conservatives, Jordan Peterson, the famous PhD professor, author, and public intellectual and speaker from Canada, doesn’t even call himself a conservative. Celebrity conservatives today might call themselves classic liberals (you can look up classical liberalism). Maybe he really isn’t conservative, but you also shrink your audience if you call yourself one. As well, “liberal” might mean you keep your job and other opportunities. Peterson does resonate with true Bible believers and they listen to, watch, and read him.
When I write, celebrity conservatives, I’m especially saying, Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, the late Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, and Candace Owens. There are many others. There is overlap between their worldviews and the worldview of a true Bible believer.
Before Covid hit and also before he had major health issues, my wife and I and another couple got tickets to hear Jordan Peterson in person in San Francisco, sponsored by the Independent Institute. As I was listening to him, I enjoyed many things he was saying. However, I knew he and I did not have the same worldview. I was glad he could say what he did in public, but it wasn’t nearly enough for me either. The celebrity conservatives like him are disappointing.
In the last week, I was thinking about the difference between the worldviews of celebrity conservatives and true Bible believers. Even as I write this, I think about how a true Bible believer could even be a celebrity in our world. I don’t think it’s possible. The greater the celebrity status, the more you must be doing something wrong, and that includes evangelical leaders who have their own celebrity. They in part got there through capitulation and compromise. Their greater celebrity doesn’t speak well.
The common ground in worldview, I believe, is that there is more proximity between celebrity conservatives and true Bible believers in their view of reality. I would say that they both attempt to function according to reality, even if it means abandoning the truth. The truth and reality do go together. They overlap completely for a true Bible believer, but they don’t for celebrity conservatives. Even actual reality and the reality of celebrity of conservatives don’t overlap identically. To stay a celebrity, like everyone else who isn’t a true Bible believer, celebrity conservatives forsake actual reality and even more so, the truth. Let me explain.
I want to use Jordan Peterson as an example. Jesus either rose from the dead or He didn’t. Jesus can’t be the greatest figure who ever lived if He wasn’t truth and He lied about the resurrection. Peterson says that he’s not sure if he believes Christianity, but he tries to live like one. He’s also saying, he’s not committing to the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, while living like Jesus did resurrect from the dead. He borrows a reality based upon the truth without actually believing the truth. Other conservatives do that, and it’s easy to see.
The world we live in is the real world. Celebrity conservatives more than the mainstream culture try to explain positions according to reality, even if they deny much of the truth or many truths, depending how you want to put that. You may live a reality of Jesus and defend a life that fits His existence and deny the pivotal truth of His resurrection. Peterson does that.
Complementarianism is the truth and celebrity conservatives borrow from a complementarian reality without the truth of complementarianism. Gender fluidity proceeds from egalitarianism. God designed men and women differently. That’s the truth. Celebrity conservatives deny complementarian truth while defending a complementarian reality.
Let me get more simple. Whether you think he’s a conservative or not, let’s consider President Donald J. Trump as if he were a conservative. Trump operates according to a certain Christian reality that results in Christian support, including from true Bible believers. Trump thinks that one thing is better than another. Certain behavior is wrong. He believes that America as a standard of living better than other countries, which can be and should be protected at the border. This is one of the most fundamental conservative beliefs and it is a reality that borrows from the truth.
Former President Trump doesn’t believe the truth, but he functions as though there is truth. He is a realist in that we must have standards. Things won’t be better when we can’t discern the differences of one thing from another. This is a reality according to a Christian worldview. The truth is more important. However, people who eject from reality are much further away from the truth. These either practical or positional nihilists must be rejected for something short of the truth, if that’s the choice. The path to the truth won’t come through their relativism. It can come through someone who at least embraces reality, even if it doesn’t mirror actual reality.
The answer for humanity is still the truth. It isn’t the reality of celebrity conservatives.
Hello, this is totally off topic but I can’t think of another way to contact the page moderators. I was reading Mr. Brandenburg’s bio and noticed that he has written an unpublished book on Dress and Apparel, as well as a 30 week discipleship study and a evangelistic Bible study. I’m always looking for more good material to read and study. The application of Deut 22:5 in our current culture is of particular interest. Are any of these resources available for purchase or sharing? I can be reached at my email.
Thanks, God Bless!
Hi Jed,
My book on dress is done, just not published yet, but we’re working on having it this year. I am in the midst of editing our 30 week discipleship and it should be ready for publication sometime this year too. Thanks for asking.
KB
If anyone holds to truth at all, it goes back to the fact that they’ve been made by a Creator who made them in His own image. Thus, they have an understanding of truth and justice, and an appreciation of truth and justice.
The more they mar that image of God within themselves through their sin and rejection of God, the less their understanding and appreciation of truth.
These celebrity conservatives may not have marred that image of God to the same extent that celebrity statists have, so they are right about a lot of things. But it’s no surprise that many of them drift leftward into further error as time goes on. No one stands still, we either draw towards God or away from Him.
That’s why we can never trust the ungodly, even if they are right about a lot of things. If they aren’t moving towards God, they are going to move further from Him, and as they do, they will often begin to be wrong more and more on things where they used to be right.
Their current “rightness” is not anchored in full acceptance of God’s truth and therefore it is subject to drift. We can still appreciate it, because truth is truth and right is right. But in appreciating it, we recognize that it comes out of their being made in God’s image, and that rather than being renewed in His image, they are still rejecting it, and thus undercutting their own appreciation and understanding of truth and right.
It seems that celebrity conservatives acknowledge reality. They can see that we can’t operate except in the real world that reflects natural laws proceeding from God, who also wrote moral law, that they do acknowledge. They cannot go so far as to receive the truth, maybe because that would require repentance. They are not repentant, hence also do not believe in Jesus Christ. Thanks!
Hello Jed,
A study of Deut 22:5 with some material connected to Dr. Brandenburg’s book, as well as other content, is here:
https://faithsaves.net/deuteronomy-22-5/
I am looking forward to the revision of what he mentioned above as well.