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I recently had a fascinating conversation with a Current Affairs reader, Benjamin Howard, who was once a major fan of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, the famous Canadian psychologist and author of the bestselling book 12 Rules For Life. Howard has taken what I suspect is an uncommon intellectual journey. From admiring Peterson and swallowing the professors critique of the woke mind virus, Howard has become so skeptical of Peterson that he is now building a comprehensive website called JordanPetersonIsWrong.com.

I spoke to Howard because I wanted to better understand two things:

Personally, I have little respect for Petersons intellectual contributions. But I dont extend that contempt to his readers and listeners, because I think he offers persuasive narratives to those who feel lost and confused. I have long considered him a charlatan, but I also think you can be a very perceptive and decent person and still be taken in by charlatans. By talking to Benjamin, I wanted to see how Peterson looked not from my perspective (as a left-wing cynic) but from the perspective of someone who had once deeply admired the professors intellect. Ive written out my criticisms of Peterson at voluminous length (they are also available in a book, The Current Affairs Rules For Life). I am long past the point of wanting to rehash them, and Peterson has ducked my attempts to organize a one-on-one debate despite initially agreeing. The question that interests me most now is: Given that I think Petersons apocalyptic black-and-white worldview is incredibly dangerous and delusional, what can be done to de-radicalize his followers and keep them from joining the right-wing mission to eradicate leftism and transgenderism from the world?

Benjamin and I began our conversation by talking about what sets Peterson apart from other anti-woke pundits. Peterson has not just built a following for his critique of political correctness, but for his program of personal self-improvement. His 12 Rules For Life is not really a political book at all (although a couple of its rules have political implications, such as his view that you shouldnt criticize the world until you set your house in perfect order). Instead, Peterson offers his answer to the question What are the most valuable things that everyone should know? He gives a set of maxims ranging from Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient (#7) to Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street (#12). Peterson explains that people need ordering principles because chaos otherwise beckons. The rules are his attempt to counter chaos so we can stay on the straight and narrow path.

For Benjamin, the fact that Petersons self-help principles are so prescriptive, and he doesnt offer affirming and uplifting messages, is part of the appeal. Benjamin explained:

Theres certain kinds of self help where it feels like theyre just telling you what you want to hearYou shouldnt feel bad about yourself, this kind of positive thinking. And Peterson was straightforwardly against that. [His take was more like] just, if youre not doing well, you should feel bad about yourself and you should want to improve yourself and if you dont, then somethings wrong with you.

Now, to me, this seems pretty horrible (Im much more of the Mr. Rogers you are special school so hated by the right). But Benjamin says the approach was actually inspiring because Peterson has a way of speaking [where] it feels very deep in his heart that he wants you to do better for yourself. For Benjamin, what may look to other people like obvious and paternalistic advice can feel very useful to certain people at certain points in their life:

Ive heard some critics of Peterson say, well, his self-help is all just obvious. They dont even get why anyone would listen to his self-help or enjoy itHe says clean your room, doesnt everyone know that? But theres a certain point in your life where you dont know that or you do know it, but you dont care about it, or you dont see why you should do itHe gives an explanation of why its important. And you might want to look up his clean your room speech. Its very interestingHe kind of has a habit of making everything feel really profound and super meaningful. Thats part of what makes it motivating. And so if yourelacking in motivation, then someone comes along and sort of slaps you in the face and says, Hey, this is really important, clean your room, then youll actually do it.

Benjamin himself, when he first heard Peterson on the Joe Rogan podcast in 2018, was at a point in his life where this kind of message spoke to him. As he explains:

At the time that I encountered Peterson, I wasnt where I wanted to be in my life. I had graduated high school, and then I didnt go to post secondary immediately after. I was trying to do writing, and I was just working part time at a furniture warehouse. Theres kind of that vacuum after going to high school. In high school, you have all these friends and everythings decided for you. You know exactly what youre doing. Youre being graded, so you know if youre doing it well. And then one year out of high school, its like, what do I do now? At first youre like oh, I have all this freedom. For the first two months or whatever. And then a year goes by and its like Oh, Im still not moved out of my parents house, which I thought I would haveThat waswhere I was at when Jordan Peterson entered. And when youre in that kind of place having someone whos coming along with this very confident, inspiring message of Heres what you need to do to fix your life, thats really valuable. I still dont credit him for helping me to change my life or something. But maybe a little bit.

There are plenty of people who do credit Peterson with changing their lives (just read the YouTube comments sections or the Amazon reviews of his books). Benjamin did get to where he wanted to be in his life, enrolling in college to study computer science, and when his life changed, his interest in listening to Jordan Peterson started to wane, because he no longer felt he needed to hear these tough love messages about getting his act together.

Peterson is not just a self-help guru, though. Hes also a demagogue who pushes reactionary talking points about how transgender people and socialists pose a threat to the social order. Benjamin and I discussed how Peterson combines the how to fix your life message with regular attacks on woke culture. Benjamin concedes that at the time he first encountered Peterson, he enjoyed hearing him going off against political correctness, and thought he had done it in a way that was very unique and intelligent. When Peterson explained the sources of what was wrong in the world, Benjamin describes the listening experience as:

Oh, now I understand. Everything clicks into place. It makes it almost addicting to listen to him. You feel like youre really learning something deep about the whole world, like how everything is really working.

(Incidentally, that feeling of being told the secrets of how everything is really working is part of the source of QAnons appeal, too.)

In trying to explain why Peterson is so compelling, Benjamin points to his confidence, charisma, and his seemingly genius ability to combined eclectic insights into a giant unified theory:

Hes also able to weave in a lot of different topics together, where hes got the self-help, hes got religion, hes got psychology, and then the politicsIf you listen to one of his lectures where hes in this lecture hall talking for an hour, two hours, hell go across all these different topics and weave them, like hes trying to give the impression that theyre all unified together. But its this hodgepodge of different things that maybe arent related. It gives this feeling of Wow, this guy knows about everything, and hes just so knowledgeable, and hes giving this profound insight that other people just dont have. I think there is definitely an impression that youre getting genius insights from this person. I think thats what leads to over-trusting of his information, because if hes a genius, then why look into anything he says? He must just be correct.

I think Benjamin is right about the impression Peterson gives. In my own writing, I dissected some of the tricks Peterson uses to convey the impression that he knows more than he actually does. But what I was really interested in was the question of why Benjamin left Peterson behind. What broke this mans spell?

It wasnt reading Current Affairs. Or at least, that was only part of it. In fact, Benjamin told me that the first time he encountered my article about Peterson, he hated it. He rejected its analysis and thought I was just a hater launching unfair attacks. Other things had to happen before Benjamin would be open to hearing such a sharp critique.

Ive mentioned one of the things that happened, which is that Benjamins life circumstances changed when he went to college. When he was there, he took a couple of courses that opened his mind. First, he took a course on ancient Greek and Roman religion, which he says pushed him toward being an atheist, because he saw how these societies decided things based on religious ideas that seem loopy today. Things were decided just based on What do the gods want to do? I just realized Whoa, they did a lot of crazy stuff back then. Critically analyzing these ancient societies allowed Benjamin to see parallels with our own.

Second, Benjamin took a critical thinking course. (For some reason, we dont mandate critical thinking in schools, but we should!) This taught him to spot outright errors in the thought of the genius psychologist:

I was still very much into Peterson at that time. But I noticed the naturalistic fallacy. Thats something that Peterson actually does very frequently. Or appeal to tradition. And so you notice, Oh, okay, there are some problems here.

But Benjamin says that a crucial eye-opening moment came when he heard Peterson make a remark he just considered totally off the wall and transparently wrong:

I really enjoy art and fiction and music. And Peterson said, without religion, there would be no art, there would be no poetry, and there would be no music, no anything. And I went, Whoa, that is so not true. What about all these atheists? People that made great things. So for me, that was the part that was like, Thats crazy.

Seeing that someone seemingly profound was not right about everything led Benjamin to take a more critical approach to Petersons thinking, at which point a lot of his faith in Petersons genius began to crumble. (The central role of college courses in changing Benjamins thinking helps us explain why the right hates college.) He noticed that Peterson exaggerated and misrepresented the Canadian law that was supposedly going to throw him in jail for misgendering people. He noticed that Peterson was not interested in accurately or fairly representing the postmodern neo-Marxists he criticized. Benjamins disillusionment started slowly, and then happened all at once. It was only then that he re-read my article in Current Affairs and found himself agreeing with a lot of the criticisms I made. I hadnt persuaded Benjamin, but I did confirm a lot of what he had started to figure out on his own. Now, as I say, Benjamin is so critical of Peterson that hes building a whole website laying out the flaws in Petersons thought. I think this is a valuable project, because there are a lot of people who remain fans of Peterson and have yet to undergo the process of disillusionment that Benjamin has been through. I hope he can help them.

There are a few interesting insights to be found in Benjamins story, if were thinking about how to keep people from turning toward hateful reactionary thinking. First, and Ive said this before, we need to have faith in peoples ability to change their minds. I find Peterson repellent, but I dont find it helpful to call his listeners fascists or even transphobes. Many are young men like Benjamin who are simply in a tough place in their lives and susceptible to the messages of charismatic figures who promise to explain the world, identify your enemies, and help you fix your life. (Thats not to say that Peterson himself is not transphobic; he is, and its extreme, toxic, and frightening.)

We can also see that even though people can change their minds, the process takes time. It doesnt happen because someone presents you with a set of arguments that own and destroy a certain position. Changes in our thinking come from experience, not just pure reason. My article on Jordan Peterson did not snap Benjamin out of his fandom. He had to figure things out bit by bit, with different bricks slotting into place. Studying ancient societies made him critical of religion. Studying critical thinking gave him the tools to see when Peterson was wrong. And so when Peterson defended religion using arguments Benjamin knew didnt make sense, the genius suddenly seemed a bit, well, stupid.

I was encouraged by my conversation with Benjamin. As we see reactionary politics getting more and more aggressive in this country, with would-be dictators like Ron DeSantis clamoring for power and legislatures around the country embracing anti-LGBT legislation, we need more urgently than ever to figure out how we can talk to people and keep right-wing movements from attracting new followers. It can be done. Its not easy, and its not just a matter of handing people copies of Responding to the Right and buying them subscriptions to Current Affairs (although you should of course do both). Sometimes, peoples lives have to change in order for their minds to open, and you cant really affect that. We can, perhaps, give them the kind of inspiration they are looking for in dark times, so that they will be less in need of the messages someone like Peterson offers. We can perhaps show them that while having a clean room is nice, a lot of our problems must be addressed through collective political action. But first and foremost, we have to have some empathy and patience. I have confidence that there are many people out there like Benjamin who can eventually come to see through the lies and misdirection of demagogues and join the project of building a better world for all.

Help us to help more people see through Jordan Petersons deranged ideology by donating to Current Affairs and subscribing to our beautiful print magazine.

Excerpt from:
The Process of Leaving Jordan Peterson Behind Current Affairs - Current Affairs

Sometimes I wonder what its like to be a blissfully ignorant white man, unaware of the limitations of his own capabilities, but then I look at said type of idiot and I realize that those idiots are the worst. Which brings me to todays topic: Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson (who, as far as I can tell, has made a name for himself as having the thinnest skin possible, and then crying about it, literally) are on Twitter calling for anyone who provides trans kids with gender-affirming care to go to prison. Hey everyone! The mediocre white men are here to tell us all how to live, so gather round and listen to what they have to say. Or dontI recommend you dont because theyre hateful morons, but Im going to tell you about the s*it they were spewing anyway:

OK, so first and foremost, Musk and Peterson are deeply stupid in the worst way. Its clear they think they are thought leaders and very erudite (Elon, Jordan: if youre reading this and we know you are because you most definitely have Google Alerts set for your name, erudite means having or showing knowledge that is gained by studying.) From the way that Musk worded his bestest boy in the world proclamation, the braces I got as a child would be illegal under his fantasy billionaire rule because guess what? Those braces made irreversible changes to me that were deemed medically necessary by my dentist (I had to get bottom teeth pulled to fit my jaw, and those suckers are long gone.) However, we all know thats not what theyre talking about. They just want to be cruel bullies for no reason because it gets them the attention they so desperately crave. And, just as importantly, gender-affirming care for children doesnt impact them at all, so they can have nasty opinions on it and it doesnt affect them.

Like the sad weirdo who said something mildly funny in class, Musk got a laugh and then decided to double down on it by responding to hate accounts and agreeing with their stanceslike this random BS, where he agrees that Pride month needs to be about LGB and take out the TQ+.

Any asshole can create a Twitter account and talk shit online. This is the internet; there is a high likelihood that youll be able find hateful people who agree with your ignorant opinions. Its incredibly depressing. Remember, Musk is a man so desperate for approval and attention that he created a burner account and kept begging for more followers. There is something wrong with him, but unfortunately, his mega-wealth shields him from consequences and gives him an international platform to continuously punch down on other people. In this case, thats anyone who actually cares about the well-being of trans kids.

Naturally, when the manbaby tyrant who bought his way into Twitter and the crybaby who got kicked off the platform for deadnaming Elliot Page (until Musk let him back into the clubhouse) decide to talk about things they know nothing about, other people notice and are there to call them out on their terrible, harmful takes:

This is exhausting. Neither Elon Musk or Jordan Peterson have a medical degree. (Peterson has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, which is a liberal arts degree. Its also fun to note, because Im sure it bruises his ego, that he is not listed as a notable alumnus from McGill University where he got his BA and PhD. You suck, Peterson! Everyone knows it but you!) These two are just assholes with cruel opinions.

First and foremost, what constitutes a necessary medical treatment is between a patient and their doctor. We all know that conservatives are desperate to insert themselves into that equation, and unfortunately, they have been relatively successful so far. This is not about saving the children because if it actually were, they would want to make sure no child ever goes hungry and would be lobbying Congress to reinstate the monthly Child Tax Credit. Which, of course, they are not. Conservatives just want to terrorize children and anyone who cares enough about them to give them the care they need. Calling for the imprisonment of anyone who actually provides care to children is much easier than reading a peer-reviewed medical study. Its also extremely fascist.

If youre looking for actual statistics on gender-affirming care for children, journalist Erin Reed from the Tweet above breaks it down for you, per Erin in the Morning:

Gender affirming care for transgender youth is lifesaving and has proven to lower their suicide rates by 73% according toa landmark study in 2022published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. There are several other studies that have found similar positive impacts of gender affirming care, such asa studyin the Journal of Adolescent Health showing a reduction of 40% over the last year. A recentreport published by the Louisiana Department of Healthstudying Louisiana Medicaid recipients stated that regret rates for gender affirming care were less than 1% and that the care significantly improved the mental health and suicidality of trans youth. The science is so overwhelmingly in favor of gender affirming care that theUniversity of Cornell publisheda listing of over 50 articles that prove the positive impact of this care.

Predictably, neither Musk nor Peterson can justify their stance with a reason other than they simply dont like it, and I guess no one taught them to mind their own business?! These two are bullies with a pulpit, and their opinions are horrible and harmful. But when has that ever stopped them, or anyone like them? To summarize: Musk and Peterson remain awful, and gender-affirming care for trans kids saves lives.

(featured image: Michael Gonzalez, Getty Images)

Have a tip we should know? [emailprotected]

See more here:
Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson Are Being Transphobic Online Again - The Mary Sue

Matt and Sam explore the crisis of masculinity in America through books on the subject by Senator Josh Hawley and Harvard political theorist Harvey Mansfield.

Know Your Enemy is a podcast about the American right co-hosted by Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell. Read more about it here. You can subscribe to, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher, and receive bonus content by supporting the podcast on Patreon.

Many men in this country are in crisis, and their ranks are swelling, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said at the National Conservatism Conference in 2021. And thats not just a crisis for men. Its a crisis for the republic.

Some version of this sentimentthat men are in trouble, adrift, or falling behindis shared by writers and thinkers across the political spectrum. Its nearly impossible to open a magazine without finding an article about the state of manhood in America. Brookings Institution scholar Richard Reevess 2022 book Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It is a bestseller. Figures like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate attract huge audiences, serving as reactionary self-help gurus for young people eager to be told what a man is and how he should behave. One doesnt have to accept the rights framing of the problemnor any kind of gender essentialismto acknowledge the statistics: boys and men are falling behind in education, in workforce participation, and succumbing to drugs, alcoholism, and suicide.

Hawleyapparently having stewed on the topic for two yearshas just released a book on manhood, which advises a revival of biblical virtues to guide the aimless young men of twenty-first-century America. To pair with Hawley, we read Harvey Mansfields 2006 book on manliness. Putting Hawleys evangelical Christian preaching in conversation with Mansfields Straussian philosophical playfulness proved very constructive. Along the way, we talk about our own relationship to manhood and try to decide which (if any) of the virtues associated with maleness are worth preserving, defending, or even advising young men to embrace.

Sources and further reading:

Harvey C. Mansfield,Manliness(2006)

Josh Hawley,Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs (2023)

Josh Hawley, Americas Epicurean Liberalism,National Affairs (2010)

Becca Rothfeld, How to be a man? Josh Hawley has the (incoherent) answers,The Washington Post (2023)

Phil Christman, What Is It Like to Be a Man?Hedgehog Review (2018)

Martin Amis, Return of the Male,London Review of Books (1991)

Martha Nussbaum, Man Overboard,New Republic (2006)

Idrees Kahloon, Whats the Matter With Men?New Yorker (2023)

Zo Heller, How Toxic Is Masculinity?New Yorker (2022)

Lisa Miller, Tate-Pilled: What a generation of boys have found in Andrew Tates extreme male gospel, New York Magazine (2023)

Originally posted here:
Know Your Enemy: Whats Wrong With Men? - Dissent

I recently received the following e-mail:

To: Gary Beatty From: ************** Thu, Jun 1 at 12:28 PM

Mr Beaty

While researching I came accross your online post titled An educational failure on a website for a Colorado newspaper so i looked you up and found a website that has a lot of articles you wrote and a lot of them critcze education and teachers. Why do you hate education and teachers. The bio at the bottomof your articles says you have a doctorate so you have benifitted from education. whats you problem

A proud teacher

Setting aside that its obvious A proud teacher apparently does not teach grammar or composition (or maybe does which is scarier!) he/she/whatever asks a legitimate question.

What exactly is my problem with current public education?

I normally dont respond to such unsolicited comments on my columns, but in this case I did. Ill share my response:

Dear Proud Teacher,

Thank you for the question! I obviously dont hate education or teachers since (as you so astutely point out) I am both educated, and a teacher. You make the common mistake now-a-days of confusing hate with legitimate criticism.

Since I have no basis to doubt you are, as you claim, a teacher, I will make certain assumptions based on my life experience. You attended college, and at some point took classes in a education department of that college since that is the usual path to becoming a teacher.

Having been educated about education in such a department you are no doubt familiar with the writings of John Dewey, the so-called father of modern education theory. At the core of that theory is the idea that the role of teachers is to be, as Professor Thomas Sowell observes, agents of social change, not simply transmitters of a heritage of knowledge.

It is that core which I challenge.

Dr. Jordan Peterson describes our current education system as it has evolved since the early 1900s as a miracle of stupidity a sentiment I share based on my own experience in the post-WWII American public education system. I attended primary and secondary school in the 50s and 60s; undergrad college in 60s and 70s; then law school in the 80s.

I had a child in the public education system during the 70s, 80s and 90s grandchildren in the 2000s and now a great-grandchild in a public school. Thats over a half-century of participation in, and direct observation of, the miracle of stupidity which is getting progressively (no pun intended) worse.

The older I get, the more I realize with the exception of law school how little which is actually useful my public education taught me that I couldnt have learned through reading on my own. And how much more Ive learned from reading since.

I was fortunate that, by the time I was in the third grade, I was able to read well enough to begin to expand my knowledge of the world beyond what my teachers were telling me. Thats when my true education began.

My father, a self-employed plumber, only briefly attended college in the mid-1930s. My mom, an English war bride from WWII, had only the equivalent of the 8th grade education working class girls of her generation were given in the UK. I did not come from an academic upbringing.

As an adult, I learned from my parents that when I was in third grade, the school system decided that because of my working class background I should be put on track to learn a trade, like my father because that would be the limit of my intellectual capability. My parents trusted that the educators who decided my fate were experts who knew best.

Apparently the fact I could read several grade levels above my actual grade was an aberration because well there is no way my teachers could be wrong in their assessment of my intellect. They were professional educators after all.

Then in the 6th grade, when I got the highest grade in my class in reading comprehension, my fate was changed. The educators advised my parents that college was in my future, if I would simply learn to apply myself because they had determined I was an underachiever! (It apparently never occurred to these experts that they may have had something to do with that.)

So in the 7th grade, I was one of six students selected to be taught to speed read. This was during the Kennedy presidency. He could speed read so it became the latest fad among educators. ( I can still read very rapidly though not as well since Ive aged and have to deliberately slow down when reading for work or about very technical subjects.)

From that point on the educators told me in effect that if I didnt get into college I would be a failure. After all, they had all gone to college, so they knew best. But I continued to confound them.

Between being the class clown, and never turning in homework on time, the educators decided their first assessment of me as being limited intellectually had been correct after all. They told my parents so. But when my father asked why I was able to get As on exams the experts had no explanation. Nor were they able to explain how I scored in the top 95th percentile on the SAT.

By then my parents had figured out the educators didnt know their asses from their elbows, and told me to be whatever I wanted to be but if that meant going to college I needed to pay for it myself. The GI Bill took care of most of it. Working while going to school covered the rest, but it limited the time I had to devote to study.

It was my ability to read well that got me through both undergrad, and law school. The public schools taught me to read, but little else beyond the basics of math, history, geography, and science, etc. Everything else Ive learned about those subjects I acquired myself through reading.

Im living proof that if the schools simply focus on teaching reading skills, the rest of education can take care of itself. What I know, and write about, comes from my own reading NOT from what I was supposedly taught by educators.

Most of what I hear nowadays from teachers in the public schools (including universities) thats being regurgitated by students, is either politically distorted or flat out wrong. Schools are indoctrinating rather than educating.

So forgive me, proud teacher, if I dont take you (or your system) seriously. It needs to be dismantled and rebuilt from scratch. Its producing narcissists with literacy skills limited to texting, who believe having a smart phone is a substitute for life experience and acquired wisdom.

The system isnt transmitting our heritage of knowledge. But the kids damn sure know which pronouns to use so I guess Deweys modern education theory about teachers being agents of social change can be considered a success by those who believe that nonsense.

As for the rest of us, considering the poor results that theory is producing (based on the low literacy rates of our current crop of students and young adults) were curious what is it you are so proud of?

Too damn many of them cant read well enough to educate themselves as I was able to.

But if the goal is to produce functionally illiterate serfs ignorant of even basic history geography, and certainly biology who can be kept compliant by the government through social media then I guess you have every reason to be proud.

I hope that answers your question.

Gary Beatty

Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.

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A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW: My Problem with Current Public ... - Pagosa Daily Post

Catholicism has always considered creation to be the place of Gods saving activity, but the Churchs eschatological vision has often focused on an otherworldly destiny that forgets the importance of this world. This otherworldly escapism still lingers in some Christian descriptions of salvation: the individual human soul is saved for heaven. An example of such an escapist eschatology is Dr. Jordan Petersons recent More-Christian-Than-The-Pope tweet Redemptive salvation is a matter of the individual soul directed at Pope Franciss prior comments on social justice. For the doctor, There is nothing Christian about #SocialJustice.

Within the Catholic Church, the escapist view of salvation envisioned by Peterson has become less prominent during the last century. While pre-conciliar eschatology sometimes focused on the Last Things as a postscript to the Christian Faith, now there is a different eschatological focus: the Church does not exclusively seek salvation from Earth but also salvation for Earth. The Second Vatican Council helped to re-emphasize an authentically Christian eschatology in which creation and eschaton belong together in which the world is even now being called to its final fulfillment. This new eschatological focus is not really new but rather a harkening back to the biblical and patristic teaching that, in Christ, creation waits with eager longing for its full restoration (Rom 8:19). For early Christians like the second-century Irenaeus of Lyons, Christ came that He might draw all things to Himself (Against Heresies 3:16:6). The salvation brought by Christ includes the recapitulation and fulfillment of the entire creation.

What accounts for the change? The Churchs re-evaluation of its role in the world and a renewed biblical hermeneutic of salvation history were major factors in this shift. Additionally, the natural sciences have necessitated a new consideration of the entire cosmos in Gods plan. Ultimately, this renewed eschatological vision provides a thoroughly Christian foundation for concern for this world in the here and now. Our attempts to build up the Kingdom of God through the pursuit of social justice have a solid theological foundation.

Whereas we may have once thought of the Church primarily as a haven a collection of the saved from the world, the Vatican Council reminds us that the Church is for the world. As the sacrament of salvation (Lumen Gentium [LG] 48) the Church is the mediating presence of the Spirit, who forever creates the world anew. It is true that as an institution, the Church is often as messy as the world around it. But precisely as sacrament, the Church is the designated locus of Gods saving activity. Just as Christ was the Kingdom of God in person, so the Church continues to incarnate the Kingdom in the world.

That the Church is for the world for its sanctification and transformation means that the Church is active. The Church can never be turned in on itself. Christ indicated as much when he designated his followers as the light of the world (Matt. 5:14).

Now, no Christian will find any of this particularly surprising. Since the Church exists in the world, every believer understands that the Church must have some sort of role to play within it. Yet we still slip into an otherworldly Christianity whenever this role is posited as a mere project of gathering-the-saved. This truncated eschatology does not fully appreciate the Churchs relationship to the world. Precisely as the means of the worlds sanctification, the Church assists the world in its eschatological journey. Christs identification of the Kingdom of God with a mustard seed suggests as much. The seed will grow into the largest of plants so that even the birds come to dwell in its branches (Mt 13:32). Likewise, the Kingdom grows within the created order, ultimately becoming home for all creatures. The Church is for the sake of Gods great gathering of the world.

Echoing the image used by Christ, Vatican II identifies the Church as leaven in the world, the means by which it is gathered into Gods family. As leaven, Christians must build a better world based on truth and justice (Gaudium et Spes [GS] 55). This only makes sense if the church is sent into the world so as to sanctify and transform it from within. The eschatological vision renewed by the council is clear: Earthly progressis of vital concern to the Kingdom of God (GS 39).

The councils renewed interest in the primacy of Scripture in theology also enables a revived eschatology of a creation-in-progress. In particular, the councils framework of salvation history places the work of God in this world, here and now. Creation, covenant, sin, redemption, judgment, resurrection all of these elements comprise one united telling of exitus-reditus, of creations proceeding from and returning to God.

This kind of identification of the world as the locus of Gods promise is apparent throughout the Bible. Genesis situates Gods relationship with Adam and Eve in the garden in the world. Their very purpose is to be priests of creation in its praise of the Creator. Humanitys sin does not change this fundamental anthropology. Rather, from Abraham onward, the divine project of salvation involves the restoration of creations purpose. The completion is yet to come, when God will establish the New Heaven and New Earth (Rev 21:1). Even so, salvation history means that the eschaton takes place in history rather just at its end.[1]

The history of salvation culminates in the Resurrection of Christ. Recovery of the centrality of the Resurrection means the recovery of an authentically Christian eschatology, for belief in the Resurrection means a belief in the eschaton in history. Indeed, the Resurrection concerns the very goal of the entire cosmos. Christ is but the first fruits, as Paul says.

Because the Resurrection is not just a past event but a vital power which has permeated this world (Evangelii Gaudium [EG] 276), the Church is called to mission. Christians who evangelize, says Pope Francis, are instruments of that power (EG 276). Lest one thinks such evangelization is a mere promulgation of propositions for ones individual salvation, one need only read Franciss Evangelii Gaudium to better appreciate the social implications of the Gospel. For the Holy Father, evangelization and human advancement are two sides of the same coin.

As an instrument of the power of the resurrection, the human endeavor for justice inspired by the Gospel is a means of re-creating the world anew in advancement of the Kingdom. All Christians, continues Francis, are called to show concern for the building of a better world (EG 183).

The findings of science within the last few centuries have also motivated Catholic thinkers to stress the importance of creation and its connection to the eschaton. In the context of surveying modern trends in science, the council acknowledges that the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one (GS 45). The entire cosmos is on a journey. The Catechism declares that the universe is moving toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained (CCC 302).

If the universe is ever advancing to its goal in Christ, then one can no longer make a strict distinction between creation and the eschaton. Though yet to be fully realized, creations aim is the eschaton. In his book Resting on the Future, theologian John F. Haught explores the implications of an unfinished Universe for eschatology. Rebuking both naturalistic pessimism, and otherworldly optimism, Haught advances what he calls cosmic hope.[2] Such a hope recovers that Abrahamic truth: Namely, creation is seeded with the divine promise of the future.

This anticipatory vision is not a type of escapism, for it includes the entire story of creation. It hopes for the redemption of all of cosmic history. The Catechism likewise says that God guides his creation to that definitive sabbath rest the very reason for which he created heaven and earth (CCC 314). Clearly, then, the Universe is not a mere stage for the salvation of individual souls. An eschatology that takes science seriously admits that the entire Universe is in a state of journeying toward its ultimate salvation.

This kind of identification of the here and now with the eschaton as well as the present responsibility of humanity do not result in a mere equivalence between the current order of things and Gods ultimate plan. Nor does it mean that the destiny of creation is reducible to human effort. Nevertheless, the new eschatological emphasis imbues all of creation from the smallest molecules to the entire cosmos with the transforming power of the Resurrected Christ.

Perhaps the most manifest indication of the Churchs new emphasis on the eschatological impact of human activity is the heightened call to ecological responsibility. In his environmental encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis unfolds the eschatological vision that identifies the now with the new, the present with the eschaton. The encyclical depicts creation as moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival (LS 83) thereby envisioning human cooperation in creations consummation in Christ.

With this new eschatological outlook, the Christian Faith can never imply detachment from the world. Contrary to the unfortunate even if unintentional impression given by pre-conciliar eschatology, then, belief in the Kingdom of God does not imply waiting around for the worlds betterment at the second coming. In fact, human persons play a central part in the ultimate destiny of all things for by their labor they are unfolding the Creators work (GS 34).

As can be discerned from the above contributions, an authentically Christian eschatology is synonymous with the Gospel message: Namely, in Christ, salvation has come to the world the entire world soul, body, and cosmos. It is this truly Christian eschatology that is the basis for social justice for making a positive difference in the world, here and now. Taking all this into consideration, it would seem that authentic Christian eschatology that is to say, authentic Christianity has little to do with the individual soul and very much to do with #SocialJustice.

[1] Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 171.

[2] John F. Haught, Resting on the Future

Image: Lawrence OP. The apse of St Barnabas in Oxford has an image of Christ Pantocrator (Ruler of all) blessing the cosmos. Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0). Via Flickr.

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