It’s one of the strangest phenomena in modern life. You see it everywhere, but nobody wants to talk about it. You’ve got figures like Jordan Peterson, who has spent the last decade painstakingly deconstructing the psychological necessity of the Bible and Joe Rogan, currently the world’s most famous seeker of truth, sitting in pews on Sundays for years. They’re quoting the Gospels. They’re taking the teachings of Christ more seriously than half the bishops in the Episcopal Church.

And yet, when you ask them the simple question “Are you a Christian?” they freeze. They pivot. They launch into a fifteen-minute dissertation on the definition of the word “is.”

We’ve all seen Peterson dance around the word.

But why? What is that?

If you’re over the age of thirty, you know exactly what’s happening. For decades, the American ruling class, the people who run the media, the universities, and the HR departments, have been running a very specific script. They’ve told us that being a “Christian” isn’t about seeking the Divine or finding a moral bedrock. They’ve told us it’s about being a moralizing scold.

The archetype of the finger-wagging hypocrite is burned into our brains. The person who uses the Cross uses it as a shield to hide deep, dark, genuinely creepy secrets. If someone on tv wears a cross, someone should probably check if they have someone chained to the furnace in their basement. We’ve been conditioned to think that the moment you put on the “Christian” label, you aren’t joining a faith; you’re joining a club of judgmental bores who hate fun and love repression.

There’s an “ew” factor. It’s a social toxin. For a public intellectual, calling yourself a Christian is socially radioactive.

But there’s something deeper than just social embarrassment. To call yourself a Christian is to submit to something you didn’t create. In a world that worships “personal branding” and “living your truth,” Christianity is the ultimate “No.”

You no longer get to decide what is true based on how you feel on a Tuesday morning.

You are suddenly grouped with every “cringe” televangelist and every judgmental aunt in history.

If you call yourself a Christian and then act like a jerk, you aren’t just a jerk; you’re a hypocrite.

That’s a heavy lift. It’s much easier to say, “I find the archetypal significance of the Resurrection to be psychologically foundational.” It sounds smart. It keeps you in the driver’s seat. It avoids the “ew” factor of the local Bible study.

We’ve reached a point where people are more comfortable talking about DMT or Jungian shadows than they are about the fact that they might actually believe Jesus is Lord. We’ve been bullied into a state of spiritual bashfulness.

Most of all, I suspect that it’s a driver’s seat problem. Take Rogan and Peterson for example. These are very accomplished men who succeeded in life because they’re smart, capable, and disciplined. They’ve been in control. They’ve been the pilot. When you accept Jesus, you submit to Him. That can be difficult.

Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan aren’t “dodging” because they’re dishonest. They’re dodging because they live in a culture that has made the most important label in human history feel like a social death sentence. We’ve traded the awe of the Creator for the fear of being mocked by a blue-check on X. And that should tell you everything you need to know about the state of the modern world.