Truth Unites - A "Vibe Shift" About Religion?

Episode Date: January 19, 2025

Jordan Peterson recently made some comments that are relevant to the interest in religion among young men. Are we seeing a "vibe shift" toward greater spiritual openness? How as the church should we respond?  Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/

Jordan Peterson was recently on a podcast discussing whether interest in religion among young men is increasing. It's interesting what's going on with young men in particular at the moment because it does appear, and I don't have the stats on this in front of me, but it does appear that young men are more and more in search of some type of religion. Yeah, definitely. I think Islam, I think I read Islam's on the rise amongst young men, or it's the dominant religion that young men are being drawn to. But in the context of what we've described, that person who sat on the edge of their age of their... bed. Do they need religion? And I'm being intentional not to say God. I'm saying religion. Well, these are hard things to do on your own, right? I mean, you only have the span of your life and the probability that you can figure out how to live merely as a consequence of consulting

your own limited experience is zero. It's too complicated. That's a very fair point from Jordan. When you think about it, it's kind of ridiculous to think that we would as an individual be able to figure out these massive questions. And I think a lot of young people are realizing that, resonating with that very much right now. I grew up as religious until I was 18. I say religious because the term's difficult to define to me. But my mother's was believed in God. She was Christian. My father's Christian. And at about 18, I started reading a lot of Richard Dawkins' books and other people's books. And I got to this place where I think I was atheist by the definition of I didn't think there was necessarily a God. And now I find myself in this place of,

being agnostic. Now, when I think about the Bible as a compass or as a guide, the part of my brain that's rooted in this, like, I need evidence for everything. Is this just a book that a bunch of men wrote thousands of years ago when they were sat around a campfire or whatever? And if it is, then it's just one person's opinion. As much as any self-help book on a shelf is one person's opinion. Peterson makes some good points in response to this, that even if you don't think the Bible is divine revelation, it's still not just one person's opinion, it's an accumulation of a massive amount of spiritual wisdom, more on Peterson's views at the end of this video. But what really interested me was this comment from the podcaster, Stephen Bartlett, and this sense of spiritual

openness, which does feel in some respects indicative of the times we live in right now. Two things stood out to me from his comment. One is the transition from atheist to agnostic. The other is the transition from the influence of Richard Dawkins to an honest and and sincere consideration of, could the Bible be a kind of compass or guide? And the question that I've been thinking about recently is, to what extent is that general change? People are talking about a vibe shift right now. Is that indicative of the times in which we live? And I know this language of a vibe shift can mean a lot of different things. When I use that phrase, and when I hear that, I'm not mainly going to politics or culture wars, though it affects those realms. What I'm experiencing,

and what I'm wondering about and wanting to put out there and reflect upon is, is there a greater amount of spiritual openness right now, especially among the younger generation? It does seem like there's a generational dynamic here where a lot of younger people like Gen Z, for example, seem more open. 20 years ago in 2005, it felt like there was a lot more reaction against Christianity and faith generally, whereas today in 2025, it feels like there's just less to react against. A lot of young people have grown up without religion, and I think they're feeling its absence, and I think a lot of people are genuinely searching, and I think there's a lot more openness right now, which is tremendously exciting. I think technology is a factor here. The rise of the

internet, and especially YouTube and podcasts, it causes people to be exposed to a lot of different ideas right now. There's downsides to that. There's also upsides. So even if we don't see mainstream culture, like where I live in the United States, becoming really positive about Christianity, the way information is happening is such that a lot of people are being exposed to the faith. Joe Rogan has the number one podcast in the world. It has a real cultural influence upon people. And so for Wes Huff to go on recently and give such a compelling and articulate expression of Christianity, and for this to be received with an open mind by Joe Rogan from what we can observe, that's really cool. And this is why I'm so passionate about using these mechanisms carefully, YouTube, podcasts, and so forth,

to try to see what, with all the dangers they have, to see what we can do with the gospel and getting the gospel message out there right now. So here's a question to think about just very briefly, what, if there is greater spiritual openness right now, if there is a kind of vibe shift happening right now, which I'm not a sociologist, I don't have all the answers, but it seems like to some extent that is happening. If that is happening, what should we do? Those of us who are followers of Christ, what should we do in response? And I just have four quick thoughts just in the mix of the conversation here. I'm sure there's more we can say. I want know your thoughts too in the comments. Number one, re-centralize the gospel. There is a huge difference

between affirming the gospel and making the gospel functionally central to your life and your ministry day to day. Right now we are in a time of tremendous upheaval and disintegration. We feel that from every direction, and people are looking for something solid to land on from which to face the chaos of the world, and that is what we have in the gospel. We have the food for which the world is perishing in hunger. The gospel is that solid rock that we can cast our lives and our eternity, our eternal fate upon. The gospel is the hope that rises above the despair of the world right now. The gospel is the peace that can quench anxiety like a blanket calmly covering you. Do you've never experienced, if you, I know this might sound a little mystical, but if you

experience the love of Jesus Christ, there's no words for that experience. It will, there's no darkness that it can't penetrate into and bring light into and healing and peace into. The gospel brings forgiveness of sins. It makes the stains that are scarlet as white as snow. The gospel really is the epitome of good news. It's enchanting joy like in the Narnia books, when Lucy walks through the wardrobe into Narnia and there's magic. That's what the gospel feels like. Because in the gospel, you get God and you get heaven. And to get that, all you have to do is surrender your life to Christ and follow him and receive it as a free gift. And 2025 is a time to mobilize afresh around that gospel message. Sometimes we affirm the gospel, but then something else is really what's driving us,

energizing us, exciting us, where we build alliances and what we focus on is kind of our strategy for the world's problems. And all I'm saying is something very basic here, that the gospel needs to be that strategy that is mobilizing us right now and to commit ourselves afresh to that. One of the dangers is focusing on the fruits of the gospel, like cultural and political influence, rather than the gospel itself. Cultural and political influence is so important. But we have to let Christianity shape the cultural and the political

rather than the political and cultural shaping our Christianity. Christianity is first and foremost about knowing God. All of the fruits for society flow out of that as that touches hearts. And today, in 2025, is a time to re-gather ourselves around that transcendent message of the gospel itself. That leads to a second point. evangelize the younger generation. Okay. Here's, this is not rocket science, but basic, you know, thinking like a misheologist,

let's state the like shiningly obvious truth right now. If there is greater spiritual openness among young people, let's share the gospel with people. And as obvious as that is, my experience as a pastor and as a Christian and in my own life is it's easy to get distracted from the basics. And it's easy for Christians, you know, I've been reading studies about this, less than half of even very committed Christians actively share their faith. It's easy for us right now to get so focused on the problems of the world. And we get discouraged, we get distracted, we forget to reach out to the next generation. And, you know, this just happens so much. Think of churches right now. Facing so many

challenges, division, fracturing, declension and decline. And it's so easy to just focus on that and try to kind of hang on rather than kind of mobilizing forward to reach the next generation. This is a little bit tricky because we don't want to act like we're going to avoid dealing with real problems and just evangelize instead of that. Like, oh, I'm going to neglect reconciling with my fellow Christian that I'm estranged from. Instead, I'll just evangelize. That's not right. That's not what I'm saying, because part of our witness to people involves how we do relationships, how we love other Christians. John 13, for example. But in terms of the overall priority and strategy and emphasis right now, I just feel it's the time to look ahead.

Three particular strategies here, just ideas to get the ball rolling, you know, trying to be helpful, spark thoughts. For churches, consider changing your budget to give a lot more money towards evangelism and outreach to your community and church planting efforts. not only because the money itself can help. I don't even think the money is necessarily the most important thing. The other benefit is the way it shapes your priorities as a church, and it affects you. I think today is the time in which we need to stretch into mission and evangelism and outreach and so forth. I think about this quote from Emil Bruner all the time. The church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning. This is what's on my heart right now in 2025 for the church. Let's not focus on maintaining past structures.

No, now is the time to lean forward and take godly risks and to be bold and to lean in to the chaos with the hope of the gospel, to trust God with new dreams, you know, new plans, praying big prayers, having fun again. You know, here's a happy thought. What if pastors and church leaders experience 2025 to be a year where ministry is fun? And in the best sense of that, like, oh, wow, people coming to Christ and we're building new things and we're praying big prayers and we're seeing new things happening and so forth. That feels like the time, you know.

What I'm trying to say is that's not just coast from the past. Now's the time to lean forward in evangelism. A pastor I know in respect was telling me about how he's praying for a new family every week at his church. I love that. You know, pray big prayers, lean forward. If you're a pastor and you're dealing with struggles in your church right now, maybe a way to focus.

There's an old saying, it says, if you keep, if you want to keep the sailors happy, give them an oar to row with, something like that. I'm kind of butchering the wording of that. But the idea is put people to work. If you're struggling, what I'm thinking right now is like this, if you're struggling with the current dynamics and there's turmoil and so forth, cast vision forward, right? Help invite people to a cause.

We really need to lean forward with the gospel right now. Second strategy for how to do this is just building relationships with younger people. Again, so many of the things we need to do are not super complicated. But here's what I've experienced many times, as I try, try to help equip churches in discipleship is many older people are hesitant about reaching out to younger people because they're too intimidated, and they wrongly assume that younger people don't want that. In fact, the younger generation is desperately needing spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers, and many of them are open to that. If the older generation goes to the younger

generation in the church and says, are you interested in me discipling you? More often than not, I think the younger generation will say, yeah, I need the help. I'm overwhelmed, you know. And young people right now do need help with specific areas. I think of overcoming anxiety and depression. I think of overcoming pornography and other forms of addiction. I think of how to build friendships and rich community. That's something old previous generations may have some wisdom to really offer the younger folks on, even things like career and how to handle money and practical things like this. I'm not saying we present Christ as a means to these other ends. I'm saying we present Christ and we disciple people with sensitivity to these particular struggles where a lot of young people

have never had a spiritual father or spiritual mother come alongside them and encourage them and instruct them so they don't know how to handle their iPhone. Somebody gave them an iPhone when they were 16 years old and never taught them the skills that actually make it really hard to have that iPhone, not destroy your mental health. And what a joy we have. You know, here's what we have in the gospel. We get to offer people in building relationships with young people, we get to tell them that Jesus can give them total purity and wholeness back. We get to help them discover that they can have a sense of sanctity, even in their body. That's what the gospel can do. It can give you a feeling of cleanness deep in your soul. Jesus can both forgive you and repair you inside to change you.

And more so than we believe, and all it takes is faith to believe he can do it. If you can rise from the dead, he can change you from the inside out, you know. But we get a chance to tell that to people. If we don't tell that to the younger generation, maybe nobody will. The harvest is ripe right now. That's what I'm saying, you know, lean forward and try to speak hope to the younger generation in the name of Christ. A third thing that I'll just say this, I don't know what this looks like fully, but we need to consider what a strategic, miscellological use is of social media and the internet. And believe me, I know the dangers that I'm wrestling with this, but I'll say that. Here's all I'll say.

If you're 25 years old, you think podcasts are really awesome and you want to be a famous podcaster. You probably should not start a podcast. Instead, take those great energies and passions God has given you and deploy them elsewhere. And trust me when I say, you'll be happier in the long run. if you're patient and wise and how you kind of give your life to a cause. Take the good parts of that and just deploy it elsewhere. Wait a little bit, maybe. But if you're 40 and you're a pastor, or you're 55 and you're a seminary professor,

and you look at podcasts and the internet and you kind of feel like, you see them as a little silly and maybe a little, and maybe dangerous, we may need you to come and help us and model a better way. Your voice may be needed. You may be the kind of person that needs to lean forward. a little bit with a miscellological urgency so that the extreme voices have you to balance them out. You know what I'm saying? So look, I know these devices are dangerous, but the fact is, for better or for worse,

social media and the Internet are here to stay, and we've got to figure something out for how we are going to use these devices for the gospel. All right, that leads to a third strategy. This might seem a little surprising, but I think it's important. I'm going to say engage church history, and I'm not just saying this from an academic standpoint, because this is my area of interest. I'll say it like this. The largest expression of Christianity in the United States and recent generations has been evangelicalism. Right now, evangelicalism is, I'm going to use a strong term that I've been reading from a Tim Keller

booklet that I've been reading through with my dad. It's hemorrhaging. It needs an intervention. I mean, Tim Keller is using this strong language to describe the state of evangelicalism. We really need a turnaround. Evangelicalism is, I think even the term free fall has come up. as we're studying the sociology. Okay, evangelical institutions and evangelical influence is fading. Evangelical alliances and partnerships are fracturing, so we have both decline and division. And one factor I think that is contributing to that is a lack of just depth, theological depth, historical depth, liturgical depth, spiritual depth.

We've got a lot of, you know, stuff at the shallow end of the pool where we've not gone down deep, and people right now are aching for rootedness and depth. And so part of a vibe shift is just to ask the question, you know, what would the reemergence of a healthier evangelicalism look like in the mid-21st century if we could dream together? And I believe one factor would be one thing that a healthy evangelicalism in the year 2050 would look like would be an evangelicalism that has humbly listened to the non-evangelical traditions, the liturgical and sacriacal. traditional traditions, even while retaining its own evangelical distinctives. Listening and learning.

Being mindful of the broader church, and that includes church history. Learning about evangelical church history more. Listening to the global church. People are really aching for context right now. This is why I spend a lot of time doing retrieval and triage, drawing from church history and learning how to rank different doctrines, because people are kind of lost right now and they're trying to find their bearings in terms of their doctrine and the church. And church history is just a tremendous resource in meeting that need.

I know this could seem overblown, but I really think this does touch something about the human heart in the year 2025. One of the themes that Jordan Peterson was talking about in that interview is how social human beings are. We ache for community. We ache for connection. And the fact is that the gospel speaks to that need in the human heart. Again, we have the food for that hunger.

and we want to help people experience Christianity in a way that really touches this need for connection and roots and so forth. We have the privilege of saying to people, come be a part of the ultimate cause, the ultimate tradition, the ultimate family, the ultimate movement. Christianity is the most wonderful, enchanting answer to that longing in the human heart. We get to say people, hey, come be a Christian, come get baptized, and join the great story of all time while heaven itself is cheering you on as you get into the baptismal font. Last thing, pray for revival. I pray almost daily for revival. I think about it all the time. I've decided basically what I want to give my life to is to try to contribute to a movement of gospel renewal, of revival and rediscovery

of the gospel, many young people coming to find Christ. And I'm going to make revival a focus of my YouTube channel this year, I'm going to study historic revivals and share about them because I think that can be inspiring for praying for new revivals, even though every revival looks a little different. One of the things that Tim Keller says in this booklet I've been reading that's so encouraging is the Lord has many more revivals planned for his church. If Jesus does not return soon, who knows what God has planned? And so it's exciting to think, let's pray for big things. why not give ourselves right now afresh to seeking a new work of God in our day? Let me leave you with these words from Jordan Peterson and then a final comment.

So you believe that Jesus was God? God. Yeah. I think if you understand what that means that it's indisputable. I'll give you a brief explanation of why. Christ takes the sins. of the world onto himself. That means all the problems that there are are his problems. I don't know exactly where Jordan Peterson is at in his own journey of even what he would mean by those words exactly. But these words are wonderful. Put it like this. Here's the gospel. Jesus wants to take your problems and make them his problems. He wants to take your anxiety, your regret, your sadness, your guilt. He wants to take all of that, even your very death. And he wants to take

all of that and absorb it into himself and bear it on his shoulders on the cross and bear it on your behalf. And then he wants to take all of his righteousness and all of his joy and give it to you and make it yours forever. He wants to do that as a free gift of grace. And all you have to do is humble yourself and basically consecrate your life to him and surrender your life to him. The gospel couldn't be better news. And that is the message that we need right now. and how can the message so happy not speak to the pain of the world right now? Wouldn't it be cool if that message, the gospel, became like went viral and became the focus right now and kind of blew up?

Why not pray for that? Why not give ourselves to that? What better way to spend our lives?