24AR29-18

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AR 29:18 - Jordan Peterson critiques the Pope's climate "fixation"

In this issue:

CLIMATE CHANGE - trading "saving souls" for "worshiping Gaia?"

SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER - "Makes Hate Pay" by wielding its $700M endowment

WITCHCRAFT - Classic history text gets modern update, goes paperback

Apologia Report 29:18 (1,659)
May 1, 2024

CLIMATE CHANGE

"Worshipping Gaia" by Donald DeMarco (Crisis, Mar 7 '24) -- reports that "the redoubtable Jordan Peterson sat down with reporter Colm Flynn of EWTN (the Eternal Word Television Network <ewtn.com>) to discuss a variety of topics, including ... Pope Francis' 'fixation' on 'climate change.'

   "The term 'fixation' is a word used by psychologists to indicate a mental abnormality. Dr. Peterson <jordanbpeterson.com> is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Toronto. He taught at Harvard, where he was nominated for the Levenson Teaching Prize. He understands the meaning of the word 'fixation.' He does not lack the boldness to speak what he perceives to be the truth of things.

   "Concerning climate change, Francis advocates for a powerful global government <www.tinyurl.com/2jubz8at> that is not subject to changing political conditions. Such a measure, he remarks, would 'achieve the beginning of a new process marked by three requirements: that it be drastic, intense, and count on the commitment of all.' If this view does represent a 'fixation' for a person who is the spiritual head of the Catholic Church, it certainly represents something that is draconian and unrealizable."

   DeMarco (professor emeritus, Saint Jerome's University; adjunct professor, Holy Apostles College and Seminary) adds that in Peterson's words: "I don't see for the life of me what the Catholic Church has to do with the 'climate crisis… Just the formulation is wrong; the priority is wrong; you save the world one person at a time." Peterson "stressed the more important function of the leader of the Catholic Church as 'Saving souls … not by worshipping Gaia.'"...

   "In an earlier episode on EWTN, Larry O'Connor, host of O'Connor Tonight on the Salem News Channel, spoke 'of the green energy religion in this country where people have replaced God with the environment. They are going back to pagan days, worshipping trees and the sun, and it is ridiculous.' While the word 'worship' may be overly theatrical, his comment is not without merit. Michael Crichton, the late science fiction writer, outlined an environmental religion which is purportedly an answer to our primal parents' banishment from Eden and our subsequent fall from grace:

   "We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe."

   DeMarco continues: "The movement from theology to ecotheology is very real. The Jesuit magazine America has dubbed environmentalism 'an American heresy.'

   "Jordan Peterson, in effect, is asking what many would regard as an impertinent question: Is Francis the Pontifex Maximus of the Catholic Church, or is he the pope of 'the church of the environment?' ...

   "Peterson is not a Catholic, although he credits the Church for getting many things right. Peter Kreeft [Philosophy, Boston College] surmises that Peterson's final obstacle to entering the Church is a simple faith that is not part of philosophical probing. Some have assumed that the final obstacle is Pope Francis himself. 

   "Another Francis, the one from Assisi, is the patron saint of ecology. He was formally given this title by John Paul II in 1979. ... To attend to nature without a sense of responsibility to God is tantamount to treating nature as a god (gaia). The Christian religion does not neglect nature, therefore, but subordinates it to her Creator. Peterson's words will not have fallen on deaf ears." <www.tinyurl.com/zm9k5tec>

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SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER

"The SPLC Seeks to Profit Off of Alleged Hate" by Jerry Newcombe (Real Clear Religion, Feb 8 '24) -- "Tyler O'Neil of the Heritage Foundation wrote the book on the SPLC. It's called Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center.  <www.tinyurl.com/4sk6ur7h>

   Newcombe, executive director of Providence Forum, a division of D. James Kennedy Ministries, begins: "I've had the privilege to interview O'Neil about the infamous work of the SPLC. He told me, 'The Southern Poverty Law Center <www.splcenter.org> is a morally bankrupt organization with upwards of $700 million endowment. And they make their money by demonizing people who disagree with them.'

   "Just last week, O'Neil wrote, 'The SPLC, which has weaponized the program it used against the KKK in the 1980s to attack mainstream conservative and Christian organizations, in June added parental rights groups to its so-called hate map, among them Moms for Liberty, Parents Defending Education, Purple for Parents, and Courage Is a Habit.'

   "This is scary. America is in the midst of a crisis of education, and a crying need for more parental involvement in their children's education. But according to the SPLC, if they are parents with a conservative point of view, then they're bigots. ... 

   "That may seem preposterous, but my employer, Coral Ridge Ministries (also known as D. James Kennedy Ministries) has been labeled as a hate group by the SPLC. ...

   "The Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Tom Parker, once told our viewers in a television interview that the SPLC is basically a gigantic fundraising machine: 'They have been able to squirrel away overseas while they continued to purport to represent those in poverty and in need.

   "Parker made an interesting suggestion when we were making a documentary on the SPLC. He said we should take our TV crew and go across town, to the other side of the tracks, and get some footage of some of those still experiencing Southern poverty that the Southern Poverty Law Center doesn't lift a finger to help." <www.tinyurl.com/zw5kv9mc>

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WITCHCRAFT

Spiritual Counterfeits Project co-founder Brooks Alexander let us know that a new edition of Jeffrey Burton Russell's classic, A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics and Pagans, has a publication date set for June 18. <www.tinyurl.com/9x3yvavp> This third edition includes new material covering the modern Witchcraft movement by Brooks (whose name now also appears on the cover). It's a 240-page mass-market paperback for the first time with Brooks' portion covering chapters 9, 10 & 12.

   The promo on Amazon reads: "An authoritative and concise history of witchcraft from the ancient world up to the present day.

   "Witchcraft has always been a fluid and intriguing belief system that has enchanted and sometimes terrified humanity. Now in its third edition, A History of Witchcraft has established itself as the authoritative history of witchery and the occult. Beginning with magic in the ancient world, Jeffrey B. Russell explores the definition of witchcraft in its many diverse forms, from the worship of the Greek goddess of magic, Hecate, and the witch crazes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to the development of modern witchcraft by Aleister Crowley and Gerald Gardner in the early twentieth century.

   "Brooks Alexander analyzes the development of witchcraft and neo-paganism in the present day, charting the dissemination of modern witchcraft through media and the tensions that arise when a secretive cult becomes an open and recognized religion. This updated edition features a new chapter exploring the challenges that witchcraft has faced in the past decade, including the rise of social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, the COVID-19 pandemic, and new neo-pagan groups. (20 color illustrations)

   Brooks adds: "Chapter 11 features Russell's own reflections and ruminations on how and why Neopagan witchcraft is making a resurgence in contemporary society at this point in our cultural history."

   The contents page includes:

    Part I - Sorcery and Historical Witchcraft

     1 Sorcery

     2 The Roots of European Witchcraft

     3 Witchcraft, Heresy, and Inquisition

     4 The Witch-craze on the Continent of Europe

     5 Witchcraft in Britain and America

     6 Witchcraft and Society

     7 The Decline of Witchcraft

    Part II - Modern Witchcraft

     8 Survivals and Revivals

     9 Neopagan Witchcraft: the Sources

     10 Neopagan Witchcraft: the Movement

     11 The Role of Witchcraft

     12 Witchcraft Today

   Brooks also reminded us "this is history ... it is not a Christian treatment of modern Witchcraft. For that, you can consult my first book, Witchcraft Goes Mainstream" which is now available at no cost here: <www.tinyurl.com/Witchcraft-Goes>

   Last, the term "pagan" is also increasingly being applied with a growing range of meaning. The April 30 Tucker Carlson Uncensored show featured an interview <www.tinyurl.com/e2xrmt37> (paywalled) with John Daniel Davidson, a senior editor at The Federalist <www.tinyurl.com/292hbu4x> and author of the new book Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come <www.tinyurl.com/45c3ec4p> which describes a mostly non-occultic, secular/cultural paganism which Davidson predicts will bring on the wholesale persecution of the church and eventual enslavement of Christians in America. (The rest of the interview was much more wide ranging, including UFOs and "spiritual beings".)

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