In this series of blog posts, I am attempting to convict and admonish my fellow brothers in respect to our blindness toward the idols of our culture and their unfortunate presence in the household of God. These false idols are destructive aspects of  culture which must be purged from within God’s people. My goal in writing is to stir up a bit of introspection, self-evaluation, and repentance. I struggle with these idols as much as anyone, and I want my brothers to hold me accountable. Here is my second post.

 …God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
-1 Peter 5:5 ESV

Pride is perhaps the most pervasive and starkly unbiblical element of our modern American culture. I cannot think of any other biblical teaching so clear, yet twisted to produce a the exact opposite moral value in our society. Somehow, pride has become a good thing; in America, we find it acceptable and proper to worship ourselves. Perhaps “self-esteem” is a more gentle term for our foolishness, but it produces the same results: narcissism, selfishness, and insolence. Sure, telling our children that they’re special and puffing them up with endless compliments seems harmless, but it’s created a culture so “me”-centered that anyone who doesn’t think the world of himself is thought to have some sort of disorder. Oh no, the low self-esteem plague may be creeping into our home. I sure hope someone brings candy. 

Naturally, we’d say there’s a difference between self-respect and arrogance; after all, you don’t need to be a jerk to feel good about yourself. This is very true. And this is also why the idolatry of pride goes unnoticed in our culture; people think high self-regard is okay as long as you’re not too much of a bragger, a showboat, or a whiner. But the gospel tells us something else; we are helpless sinners, evil people in need of mercy. Yes, the gospel should shatter our pride; if you have low self-esteem, it’s still too much.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people misconstrue Jesus’ words, “love your neighbor as yourself,” to say that such a command implies that one must love himself before he can love his neighbor. This is a blatant example of allowing our culture—along with its idolatry—to determine our biblical interpretations. Biblical love is clearly sacrificial in nature (cf. 1 John 3:16). In essence, love always seeks the interest and well-being of its direct object. By loving other people, we put their well-being above our own, even to the point of death. Love of self, then, is the antithesis of loving others; it is completely incompatible with the commandment of Christ. Self-esteem and pride are as about as unbiblical as you can get.

Of course, televangelists and so-called “health and wealth” preachers promote self-esteem because it brings in the crowds (thus boosting their own self-esteem, as well as their pocketbooks). However, the doctrine preached by such men as Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland and the like is downright heresy. These men are sugarcoated fools, effeminate cowards and shameless liars, seeking their own glory and well-being, thereby rejecting the true gospel of Jesus Christ. We cannot allow the pride of our culture to run rampant in our churches, because it necessarily constitutes a refusal of biblical salvation. We are not good. We are wicked and broken. We cannot earn salvation. We  desperately need someone to save us from our destructive ways. Jesus Christ did just that. In this gospel, there is no room for self-esteem (cf. Ephesians 2:1-10). Only humility and repentance will do. 

It’s important to note, however, that just because we are sincerely grieving over our sin does not mean we should be led to utter despair. God’s salvation should bring us great joy. Those who remain despondent often lack a trust in God’s ability to save. In this way, their despair is actually prideful, as they still think it’s up to them to save themselves (as if they have the ability). True humility stemming from the gospel should put man in his place as unworthy and incapable of true good, apart from the saving grace of Jesus Christ. In this grace we rejoice, for despite our depravity, Christ died for us, and God’s love abounds. Our confidence lies not in ourselves, but in Jesus. If this is not the case, we, quite frankly, are not Christians. 

Paul warns that throughout the church age,  ”there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people” (2 Timothy 3:1-5 ESV).

There is no denying that this description fits our self-esteem society quite well. And what’s more is that many of these people “have the appearance of godliness”—they seem to have their crap together and don’t offend others—yet deny the power of the gospel. It will difficult for us to rid ourselves of this idolatry; the church is full of it. Yet the doctrine of high self-esteem must be taken as a lie if we are to believe Scripture. Pride is not a virtue; it is a sin which God hates. It is hard-heartedness toward the gospel of Jesus Christ. We must examine ourselves, repent, and seek God diligently, that He might change our hearts. 

 Love the LORD, all you his saints!
   The LORD preserves the faithful
   but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.
-Psalm 31:23 ESV

This article highlights the product of years of “self-esteem enhancement,” forced upon children from the earliest years of their lives. It’s been taught at home, at school, and (I would suspect) in church. “You are special,” I was told countless times as a child, even into my teen years. I wasn’t even close to my family, but I was still inundated with the message that I was something special and that I needed to have great confidence in myself. I liked it at the time, because it made me feel good. But now, I see that today’s teens and twenty-somethings have been conditioned to become highly self-absorbed narcissists. Arrogance, concealed by such pleasant terms as “self-esteem,” burgeons in our hearts from the earliest days, fueled by haphazard parenting and the merciless promotion of individualism at school. Like Pavlov’s dogs, my generation has been conditioned to the point of self-worship, salivating eagerly when any attention is paid to them.

Reaping What We’ve Sown

It is quite evident that the so-called “Self-Esteem Movement” has led to young people abounding in selfishness and pride. But what sparked this movement in the first place? I would like to suggest that perhaps our culture’s fairly-recent obsession with self-esteem is born of a rejection of the Gospel. We have invented this monster called “self-esteem” out of a misunderstanding of Creation, and its effects have been a misunderstanding of Redemption.

Sowing From a Misunderstanding of Creation…

First, the Self-Esteem Movement seems to be an attempt to compensate for a post-Christian worldview which denies that God created man in His image. If we understood how God created us, there would be no need for “self-esteem.” With a solid understanding of God, a man needn’t think too highly (or lowly) of himself. This is because a proper understanding of who God is is essential to a proper understanding of who we are. Without having a healthy image of God, we cannot possibly have a healthy self-image. If we have a Biblical view of God, we are much more likely to have a Biblical view of ourselves. But if we do not believe that God created man in His own image, then we must find meaning in something else.

So, A Biblical understanding of mankind should greatly humble us, all while giving us confidence not by commending us for who we are, but by bringing to light the gracious God who has both created and redeemed us. Without this Biblical worldview, however, we find ourselves scrambling to take hold of some system of meaning, and instilling self-worship into our kids is apparently the best we’ve got. So, with our misconstrued idea of Creation, we have created the concept of self-esteem to give a sense of meaning to our existence.

Reaping a Misunderstanding of Redemption…

Although the Self-Esteem Movement was built upon a post-Christian idea of the creation of man, its effects have also been a non-Biblical view of redemption. The encouragement of self-esteem has pushed us to “believe in ourselves.” Without God as a source of purpose, we’ve come to the miserable conclusion that we truly are on our own and must do our best to feel good about ourselves in order to find hope. As realists, we recognize the fallen, broken world around us. But without a Redeemer, and with no confidence in others, we have come to rely wholly on our inflated view of ourselves to bring change, as if we were the saviors of the broken world in which we live. This is the goal of self-esteem: to construct a sense of hope in light of a decaying world, hope that is found within oneself.

We all like to think of ourselves as heroes and saviors. I’m sure most men who saw The Matrix (which seems to be nearly every guy under 40 in America) felt the closest connection with Neo, “the One.” Or for those of us who are so obsessed with the Halo video game series, it’s exciting to play the role of Master Chief, the earth’s last hope in a cosmic war. And while these characters are purely fantasy, we cannot help but think of ourselves as someone special, a “savior” of sorts. This is absolutely a false gospel created by the Self-Esteem Movement. Who would have known that such aspirations to be our own savior would have come from our parents continually telling us that we are “special?”

Narcissism is growing ever stronger in our culture. And while most of us claim to be fed up with the self-esteem gospel, few of us have been able to shed the habitual self-seeking behavior it has bound us to. Even now, as a believer in Christ, I find myself subconsciously expecting that I might be some great man, a savior of sorts, who may be idolized by large numbers of people. Thank God that He found me and showed me something far greater than that.

It has been on my heart lately, I think, to post something about the consumeristic, selfish madness that is so evident in contemporary Western Christianity. However, I came across this post by David Powlison, which is far more detailed and pragmatic than anything I could possibly come up with on this topic. So, in the hope that God would be glorified, I’m sharing with you Powlison’s post on “The Therapeutic Gospel.” It’s a pretty long post, but it’s worth the time and effort.

The Therapeutic Gospel

What may be the most famous chapter in all of western literature portrays the appeal of a “therapeutic gospel.”

In his chapter entitled “The Grand Inquisitor,” Fyodor Dostoevsky imagines Jesus returning to sixteenth century Spain (The Brothers Karamazov, II:5:v). But Jesus is not welcomed by church authorities. The cardinal of Seville, head of the Inquisition, arrests and imprisons Jesus, condemning him to die. Why? The church has shifted course. It has decided to meet instinctual human cravings, rather than calling men to repentance. It has decided to bend its message to felt needs, rather than calling forth the high, holy, and difficult freedom of faith working through love. Jesus’ biblical example and message are deemed too hard for weak souls, and the church has decided to make it easy.

The Grand Inquisitor, representing the voice of this misguided church, interrogates Jesus in his prison cell. He sides with the tempter and the three questions the tempter put to Jesus in the wilderness centuries before. He says that the church will give earthly bread instead of the bread of heaven. It will offer religious magic and miracles instead of faith in the Word of God. It will exert temporal power and authority instead of serving the call to freedom. “We have corrected Your work,” the inquisitor says to Jesus.

The inquisitor’s gospel is a therapeutic gospel. It’s structured to give people what they want, not to change what they want. It centers exclusively around the welfare of man and temporal happiness. It discards the glory of God in Christ. It forfeits the narrow, difficult road that brings deep human flourishing and eternal joy. This therapeutic gospel accepts and covers for human weaknesses, seeking to ameliorate the most obvious symptoms of distress. It makes people feel better. It takes human nature as a given, because human nature is too hard to change. It does not want the King of Heaven to come down. It does not attempt to change people into lovers of God, given the truth of who Jesus is, what he is like, what he does.

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