Regardless of whether you are a Jordan Peterson fan or foe, you will surely agree that he is always interesting and gets you thinking. I am currently working my way through his latest tome, We who Wrestle with God, and will probably write more about it when I’m through. Having read several negative reviews of the book I had decided against purchasing it, but then heard Peterson talk about it in a fascinating two and a half hour podcast on the Diary of a CEO that touched on just about everything. God was woven lightly into the first half of the podcast, and then took up most of the airtime in the second. Agree or disagree, there was more than enough in that podcast to keep you pondering for a very long time. And so I changed my mind and purchased the book.
From many take aways, there is one I have kept coming back to – Peterson’s description of the God of Abraham as the God of Adventure, and his claim that the story of the transformation of Abram from the tribal chief into Abraham the heroic patriarch is representative of the call to each of us to become a hero and to embrace the adventure of life. While theologians might place their emphasis on this story differently (usually as a story of faith and obedience), it is interesting to hear a psychologist give his take. Peterson is well equipped to unpack the moral and psychological sense of the biblical stories and to help us to see how the biblical narratives are valid accounts of the universal human quest to rise to the challenges and temptations of life. I’m reminded of Jonathan Sacks‘ insistence that we should seek out the 70 faces of each biblical account, and his warning that when we try and colonise a single meaning for each passage, we do an injustice to the depth, breadth and beauty of the biblical stories. While theologians might tell us what these stories say about God, Peterson helps us to understand what these stories say about us as humans. It is most interesting.
So what does the call of Abraham as a call to follow the God of Adventure have to say to us?
Perhaps in the first instance it reminds us that this is probably how Abraham experienced his call. His father had almost embarked on the same journey, but for whatever reason had shied away from it (Gen 11:31). Abraham goes where his father had not been able to go. And how often that is true. Many undertake the studies their parents wish they could have enrolled for, and the regret of dreams not met is often passed to the next generation. Naturally there is risk in this. I remember chatting to a student who dropped out after 5 years at medical school realising that his father’s disappointment at not being a doctor was not an adequate reason for him to take that route. Whatever, Abraham’s father Terah had set out from Ur to go to Canaan, but had settled in Harran instead. For Terah, it was mission aborted, but it is continued by his son Abram.
Abraham’s call is adventurous in its vagueness. He is to leave the known for a land he was yet to be shown. If he obeyed, the reward would be that he would be the father of a great nation, through whom every nation in the world would be blessed (Gen 12:1-3). For a married but childless 75 year old, this is a fair challenge. Yes it is certainly a call to adventure, and Abraham rises to it.
The adventure part is real. At times it leaves Abraham compromised. Twice he passes his beautiful wife Sarah off as his sister to save his own skin (Gen 12:10-20; 20:1-18). The passage does not dwell on how she felt about this. Abraham and his nephew Lot and their servants fall out over scarce resources and go separate ways (Gen 13), but then Abraham has to rescue Lot and his household from captivity (Gen 14) – a fair drama to be sure. Abraham and Sarah’s journey away from childlessness is tense. We read the account of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar and the birth of Ishmael with twenty-first century eyes and shake our heads in disbelief. Truly it was another world, and morality was defined differently. The one theme we now notice is the tender care God shows for the oppressed Hagar. “You are the God who sees me” Hagar announces in astonished relief (Gen 16:13).
And there is more… a new name and a covenant of circumcision (Gen 17:1-27), the destruction of Sodom and Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt (Gen 18:16-19:28), the birth of Isaac against every odd (Gen 18:1-15; 21:1-7), the near sacrifice of Isaac and all that teaches (Gen 22:1-19), the death of Sarah (Gen 23), plus many other suggestive snippets along the way.
Abraham’s adventure has a tangible, albeit delayed, outcome. In time, and after a miraculous exodus out of Egypt, a new nation is born. Abraham was promised that all the world would be blessed as a result (Gen 12:1-3). Has all the world been blessed as a result? Well you can argue that in many different ways (and I am conscious of the truly terrible conflict in the Middle East, and the many, many injustices that have been inflicted), but one little nugget you might like to consider is that of the 965 individuals who won Nobel prizes between their inception in 1901 until 2023, 216, or 22%, were awarded to people with at least one Jewish parent. What % of the worlds population is Jewish? Less than 0.2%. Think that through… 22% of the prizes we award to those who have made the greatest contribution to humanity come from an ethnic group that make up 0.2% of the worlds population. You can’t just brush that statistic aside. Seems to me that God’s promise to Abraham that the nation he fathered would bless all the people of the world should be treated with some respect. And of course I’ve not even mentioned that Jesus was Jewish. Put that together and you can certainly argue that Abraham’s adventure changed the world.
Is Peterson right? Is Abraham’s call to adventure in some way representative of the adventure that God (or life – the lines between the two sometimes blur in Peterson) puts to each of us? I think so. And in an over anxious and often under challenged age, I wonder if we don’t need to hear this again. Yes, there are challenges out there. And yes, part of being human is to rise to the adventure of those challenges, and to do that with God, and in response to the invitation of God. And let’s make sure those challenges are worthy ones…
Nice chatting…
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