Jordan Peterson is not far from the Kingdom.

A few days ago, I was lunching alone at a favorite lunch place. I read an article in The Spectator, a British magazine, about University of Toronto Professor Jordan Peterson. By it’s title, “Jordan Peterson and the transgender wars,” I figured that this was just another article about an academic who had run afoul of the thought police. Though it was, there was much more to it. Like the author of the article, after watching a few of Peterson's videos, i was intrigued by the passion he had for his subjects, the intensity of his gaze, and his authenticity.

About human nature, Peterson says, “We are all monsters and if you don’t know that, then you are in danger of becoming the very monster that you deny.”

About why 90 percent of the audience for his online videos is men: “I’m telling them something they desperately need to hear — that there are important things that need to be fixed up. I’m saying, ‘You guys really need to get your act together and you need to bear some responsibility and grow the hell up.’

About the cultural forces impacting men: “The lack of an identifiable and compelling path forward and the denialism these kids are being fed on a daily basis is undoubtedly destroying them and that is especially true of the young men.”

But the part that touches me, that makes me stop eating and pay better attention, is when Peterson himself begins to weep in compassion, as he talks through tears: “Every time I talk about this, it breaks me up,” he says. “The message I’ve been delivering is, ‘Find the heaviest weight you can and pick it up. And that will make you strong. You’re not who you could be. And who you could be is worthwhile.'"

But it might not make you only strong. It might just make you proud. It might make you despise the weak. It also ignores the upside-down nature of the Gospel, that the greatest weight is the lightest burden: the Cross. What Peterson seems to be saying is that there is more to life than pleasure, that there is meaning in life, and that there is work to be done. And yet though he identifies as a Christian, albeit unorthodox, what I have seen of Peterson’s provocative videos fails to give adequate motivation for a meaningful life. Yet there is something in his tears.

He goes on: “They’re so starving for that message. Young men are so desperate for a pathway that they are dying for it. And it’s heart-breaking and terrible that this idea has been kept from them. It is a malevolent conspiracy or ignorance to keep that from young men. Some of the young men who come to my lectures are desperately hanging on every word because I am telling them that they are sinful, and insufficient, and deceitful and contemptible in their current form, but that they could be far more than that, and that the world NEEDS THAT. This presents an ideal that can be approached and life without that is intolerable. It’s just meaningless suffering and that’s true if you have all the cake you can eat and all the girls you can have one-night stands with.”

I look up. The server brings the tab. I pay it through tears.