Jordan Peterson doesn't go to church and won't be pinned down on what he believes about God, much less the resurrection.

So he seems like a strange choice to have inspired the headline in a Christian magazine, "Is Jordan B Peterson the saviour of Christianity?", among many other think pieces about what the church can learn from him.

And yet, while that particular suggestion was obviously tongue-in-cheek — the job of Christianity's saviour having been taken since the beginning — many believers have nevertheless found a kindred spirit and welcome cultural alliance in the psychology professor from Toronto.

It's less surprising when you consider their common ground: Dr Peterson's popular videos on YouTube and his bestseller 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos are full of biblical references and spirited defences of what he sees as the Judeo-Christian values of the West.

It also hasn't gone unnoticed that Dr Peterson's message about individual responsibility has been remarkably successful with young men, a demographic the church has had a harder time at reaching recently.

But his message isn't without controversy — he's as known for his attacks on political correctness and identity politics as anything else — and Christians have very different views on that.

It wasn't Dr Peterson's views on religion that brought him to prominence

Google searches show he was basically an unknown in Australia before 2016:

So what happened to change things?

October 2016 — Dr Peterson first came to public attention for his opposition to Canada's now-legislated Bill C-16, which prohibits discrimination and hate speech based on "gender identity or expression" (in a panel discussion at the time, Dr Peterson said, "I'm not using words that other people require me to use, especially if they're made up by radical left-wing ideologues". He later told ABC's 7.30 that his objection was not to using transgender people's preferred pronouns, but rather what he saw as the government making it a "compulsion")

— Dr Peterson first came to public attention for his opposition to Canada's now-legislated Bill C-16, which prohibits discrimination and hate speech based on "gender identity or expression" (in a panel discussion at the time, Dr Peterson said, "I'm not using words that other people require me to use, especially if they're made up by radical left-wing ideologues". He later told that his objection was not to using transgender people's preferred pronouns, but rather what he saw as the government making it a "compulsion") January 2018 — Dr Peterson's book 12 Rules For Life was released (selling over 3 million copies) and an interview in which he was challenged about his views on the gender pay gap on Channel 4 News in the UK went viral

— Dr Peterson's book 12 Rules For Life was released (selling over 3 million copies) and an interview in which he was challenged about his views on the gender pay gap on in the UK went viral February 2019 — Dr Peterson was one of the guests on ABC's Q&A

An article in Canada's Globe and Mail from October 2016 noted that Dr Peterson had 10,000 subscribers on YouTube and 20,000 followers on Twitter.

Those numbers have since grown to more than 2 million and 1 million respectively, with Dr Peterson's debates with other prominent intellectuals like Sam Harris and Slavoj Žižek now taking place at venues more used to pop concerts.

But even though Dr Peterson came to fame as "something of an anti-PC culture warrior", it's his religious beliefs that have caught the attention of many.

Among Dr Peterson's high-profile encounters with Christianity have been his lecture series on the psychological significance of biblical stories, his speech to students at the evangelical Liberty University in the US and his invitation (later rescinded) to be a visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge's Faculty of Divinity.

Patheos blogger Esther O'Reilly documented the reaction of Christians earlier this year in her piece 5 Lessons Jordan Peterson Has Taught The Church:

"It seemed that they either really, really liked Peterson or really, really did not like him. "There were some enthusiastically confused Christians who tried to 'claim' Peterson as One of Us. There were other Christians who made it their job to write ponderous blogs and articles on why Peterson was definitely NOT one of us and in fact was A Threat to the Church."

It's hard to narrow down exactly what Dr Peterson's religious beliefs are

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While Dr Peterson draws on many ancient religious traditions for their lessons on finding meaning — he frequently refers to the yin and yang of Taoism, for instance, when talking about finding order from chaos — it's Christianity from which he borrows most liberally.

As just one of countless examples in his life advice book 12 Rules For Life, he refers to Jesus's comment in Matthew 25:29 — "to those who have everything, more will be given; from those who have nothing, everything will be taken" — when talking about the winner-takes-all world of lobsters.

"You truly know you are the Son of God when your dicta apply even to crustaceans," he adds.

The point that Dr Peterson is arguing is that lobsters have "350 million years of practical wisdom" when it comes to the benefits of having good posture, so you feel more capable of taking on the world and so people start to treat you better.

He waxes lyrically on that point in very biblical terms:

"To stand up straight with your shoulders back means building the ark that protects the world from the flood, guiding your people through the desert after they have escaped tyranny, making your way away from comfortable home and country, and speaking the prophetic word to those who ignore the widows and children."

And yet, despite sharing a lot of their language, Dr Peterson isn't a Christian in a way that would be familiar to most Christians.

"I would definitely describe myself as a religious man, yeah, I think that's fundamentally true. The devil's in the detail," he said in a debate on Premier Christianity.

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He says as a Westerner he is "conditioned in every cell" by the Judeo-Christian worldview and tries to live his life as though God exists:

"That's the fundamental hallmark of belief. It is how you act. It's not what you say about what you think you think," he said.

Later in the debate, when accused by his debate opponent Susan Blackmore of avoiding a question about whether he believes Jesus is divine, and asked more specifically if he believed Jesus did miracles, he quoted Jesus's famous teaching, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's."

"That's a miracle," he said. "That's the separation of church and state in one sentence."

But for Christians, the miracle claims of Christianity go much further than that.

Nevertheless, John Anderson says many Christians have embraced his message

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The former deputy prime minister, who describes himself as a "believing and practicing Christian who happens to worship in an Anglican church", has firsthand experience of the Peterson phenomenon, having introduced him at one of his lectures in Sydney, spoken with him on a podcast, and spoken about him at a conference at Melbourne's St James Old Cathedral in March on the topic "What can we learn from the Jordan Peterson Phenomenon?".

Former National Party leader John Anderson in June 2016. ( Four Corners )

He says he's seen the reception of Dr Peterson's message about personal responsibility from many Christians, and he doesn't see any contradiction.

"His very succinct message that redemption will not be found through the political process but at the level of the individual aligns perfectly with a Christian view," he said.

Mr Anderson summarises that message as follows:

"His message is hardly soppy or somehow sentimental. It's hard. You're not the person you know you ought to be. If you're honest and look at yourself properly, the more you look at yourself, the more you realise you fall short. "Go back to your bedroom, tidy yourself up, work yourself out, find the best accommodation you can, and go out into the world and be as noble as you can. Don't try to fix the world until you've found your own grounding."

Mr Anderson says the audience at the event he introduced was "overwhelmingly" younger and male, and that they gave Dr Peterson three standing ovations — the first when he walked in, the second after he'd spoken for 90 minutes, and the third after he'd taken questions for 30 minutes.

That's something Christians are looking at given the religious gender gap in Australia:

Mr Anderson says another reason he believes Dr Peterson's message is resonating with Christians is that he's speaking out against "empathy culture".

"I'm not saying there's a problem with empathy at all. It's a virtue. But I am saying that when it squeezes out reason and proper debate, and becomes a vehicle whereby unless you agree with a self-identified victim, you're not only failing to affirm them, you're hating them, is actually playing out very badly for us," he said.

While acknowledging that Dr Peterson doesn't talk about the truth claims of Christianity like a Christian, Mr Anderson believes, "everything he says paves the way for a powerful reminder that we do need to consider those claims."

Mr Anderson says he's thankful that Dr Peterson has opened up that debate.

"If there's a truism about the culture as I observe it around me, it's that it is fiercely rejecting Christianity without actually knowing what it is," he said.

But others also see departures from Christian belief — and the risk of division

Justine Toh, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity, says while she's seen a resonance with Dr Peterson's message among Christians, she's also seen the opposite reaction.

Justine Toh was one of the hosts on the documentary For The Love of God. ( Centre for Public Christianity )

She says one of the things these Christians might take issue with is Dr Peterson's borrowing of the Christian idea of picking up your cross and carrying it (taken from the gospel narrative in which Jesus goes to his crucifixion willingly).

"Peterson has this secularised version of that which is pick up your own heavy cross, the heaviest load, and carry that, and it will make you strong. He is dealing with a kind of Christian ethic, but he's channelling it into a self-responsibility, self-actualisation message," she said.

Dr Toh thinks this clashes with what is central to the Christian faith: grace.

"[That's] the idea that humans are powerless and we can try to fix ourselves, but we have to do this in our humble mindset, recognising that our efforts are limited and that God is the one who ultimately saves the day," she said.

As well, while she says it's evident that Dr Peterson has a desire for young men to be seen as valued — "I think that's beautiful and I want to honour that" — she can also see how he's potentially very divisive.

"There are probably huge elements of more right-wing elements within his audience that are listening in on his conversations in order to prop up their own ideological convictions," she said.

She says when people like Jordan Peterson talk about "cultural Marxism" — or when figures on the left talk about "the patriarchy" — it shuts down conversation.

"It becomes a way that we just talk to the people who are already convinced by our case, so I resist that," she said.

Dr Toh says the beauty of the church is that it's a broad, and that while Christians should be encouraged to engage with cultural phenomena like Jordan Peterson, they should have a conversation about it and not just "get into our ideological bunkers and rain down hate on the other side".

Whatever Christians' thoughts on Dr Peterson, the church is home to both the left and right

Though he believes "cultural Marxism" is in opposition to Christianity, Mr Anderson says people on the left can still be part of the church.

"One of the things that is incredibly overlooked now in Australia is there was once a thing called Christian socialism that was very real. And many of its advocates and adherents were, in fact, in my view, very nobly motivated," he said.

Dr Toh agrees with Mr Anderson that political beliefs are downstream of core beliefs, but adds that it's also important that Christians' faith shapes and challenges them.