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By Jordan King
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An exchange between Jordan Peterson and an atheist debater has gone viral after the famous psychologist and author refused to identify himself as a Christian.
Why It Matters
Peterson debated around 20 atheists on the YouTube channel Jubilee, which was uploaded on May 25.
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A small snippet of the video has gone viral on X, formerly Twitter, with one post garnering 3.4 million views.
The person who posted the clip, YungPutin1, wrote: "Atheist wins debate by asking other side if he's really Christian."
What To Know
Peterson, the author of self-help book 12 Rules for Life, would not say whether he was a Christian in a Jubilee debate with a number of atheists.
When a debater who introduced himself as Danny said to Peterson, "You're a Christian," Peterson answered: "You say that, I haven't claimed that."
"What is this?" Danny asked, "Christians versus atheists," referring to the title of the debate.
While the video is now entitled Jordan Peterson vs 20 atheists, it is was originally called 1 Christian vs 20 atheists, according to an archived version of the page on WaybackMachine.
Danny later asked: "Either you're a Christian or you're not, which one is it?"
"I could be either of them, but I don't have to tell you," Peterson said, adding afterward: "It's private."
"I was invited to talk to a Christian," Danny said, "Am I not talking to a Christian?"
He then said: "I think everyone should look at the title of the YouTube channel, you're probably in the wrong YouTube video."
"You're really quite something you are," Peterson said.
"Aren't ?" Danny replied. "But you are really quite nothing, right, you're not a Christian…"
Peterson then interrupted him to say: "OK, I'm done with him."
Newsweek has contacted Jubilee via email for comment.
Peterson has often given nuanced and somewhat complicated answers to whether he is a Christian or not, despite clearly advocating for many biblical values and stories.
In his book We Who Wrestle With God, he writes about the psychological significance of Bible stories.
In a January interview with The Spectator, editor and former U.K. government minister Michael Gove asked Peterson directly if he was a Christian.
"I would say in the deepest sense, yes," Peterson answered. "But I'm not a typical Christian because I'm striving for understanding above all."
"I suppose people might pillory me as agnostic, but that's not true because I don't believe that the proper relationship between this underlying unity and myself would be established as a consequence of intellectual conquest," he continued.
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What People Are Saying
Conservative commentator Candace Owens has criticized Peterson's unclear stance before. In an April episode of her podcast, she said: "Despite the fact that [Peterson] speaks about God a lot, he has never declared himself to be a Christian."
"What does he actually believe?" she asked later. "He has definitely elected himself as an academic leader of faith and that again can register as quite confusing because we don't know what he believes."
Jordan Peterson told The Spectator: "I'm a new kind of Christian. How about that? The manner in which I'm discussing these stories in my work has attracted a wide attention from precisely the people who were most disenchanted with the approach of the classic churches."
What Happens Next
Peterson has not yet commented publicly on the Jubilee debate.
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