The Times of London once asked leading British intellectuals to enter a competition, writing articles that answered this simple question: “What is the biggest problem with the world?”
G. K. Chesterton submitted his essay on a postcard:
Dear Sirs,
I am.
Sincerely,
G.K. Chesterton
Over the last fifty years, a common therapy practice teaches us to hold a “high opinion of our capacities,” and to “like ourselves a lot.” It is a sacred doctrine in today’s spirituality to believe that people with high self-esteem will be socially well-adjusted and those with low self-esteem will tend toward social deviance.
Yet it is just not true. And cracks are forming in the self-esteem creeds. Lauren Slater, a leading psychologist and writer, casts doubt on today’s self-esteem evangelists,
There is enough evidence from 20 years of studies to conclude that people with high self-esteem pose a greater threat to people around them than people with low self-esteem, and low self-esteem is not the source of any of our country’s biggest problems.
(The Problem with Self-Esteem)
Chesterton whole-heartedly agrees with Slater’s observation, that “Low self-esteem is not the source of any of our country’s biggest problems.”
Because we are. You and me. (Though maybe him too.)
The gospel of Self-Esteem
For centuries, people gained self-esteem through great accomplishments. But achievement-based esteem came at a great cost: the snobbery of the talented (“Thank you Lord that I’m not like this tax collector”).
Besides, few of us ever achieve the success we desire. So instead we despair.
Into that confidence gap, the modern faith in self-esteem was born amidst the humanism of the Enlightenment. Its dogmas came of age during the Romantics. In this age, “great thinkers” rejected the idea of original sin and embraced the non-Christian belief that human nature is essentially good.
Instead of relying on personal achievement, from the pulpit of humanism we proclaimed the goodness of human nature. Instead of snobbish accomplishment-esteem (and contrary to all of Scripture), we humbly proclaimed, “I am a good person.”
But the proclamation esteem (“I am a good person”) expresses an eerie echo of achievement-based esteem: self-conceit. A researcher observed,
The fact is, we have put antisocial men through every self-esteem test we have, and there’s no evidence for the old psychodynamic concept that they secretly feel bad about themselves.
These men are racist or violent because they don’t feel bad enough about themselves.
(Nicholas Emler)
Esteemed Humility
The first sin ever in human history happened when Adam and Eve grasped for self-worth. They listened to the temptation, “You will be like God.”
The same temptation faces us: so we scratch and claw for all we deserve.
Yet the gospel has always been God lifting the lowly and never God affirming the highly. The gospel embraces an honest self-evaluation and rejects mere self-publicity. When faced with public slander, Thomas a Kempis gave advice that baffles the modern mind:
Do not take it to heart if people think badly of you and say unpleasant things about you. You ought to think worse things of yourself and to believe that no one is weaker than yourself.
How Did The Gospel Spread?
The growth of the gospel barely touched the high and noble, but it exploded among the poor and marginalized. It flourished, not because these people were excellent and had high self-esteem; it multiplied because they knew they weren’t. And they didn’t.
The gospel is not God affirming the greatness of the great; it is God pouring his greatness into the lowly. The gospel is not God crowning the virile prince; it is God turning the boyish shepherd into a king.
The gospel is not God saving the worthy; it is God saving the unworthy. Who know it.
Only when we let go will we receive. God pours out abundant streams of living water of God-esteem in our hearts. We simply must release our counterfeit claims of self-worth.
In the end, the gospel provides us with the ultimate confidence far outstripping self-esteem. G. K. Chesterton described Christianity this way,
“We become taller when we bow.”
Sam
What Does God Sound Like When We Sin?
Thanks Sam ?
Good piece !!
Jack Narvel
Thanks!
Amen! The human race is both curse and blessing in our present world. Recent examples are how Burmese python, released by owners when they grew too big to manage, were set loose in the Everglades and beaver, imported to Tierra del Fuego, are destroying the native forests that were not designed to co-exist with their proclivities. Place a human being, no matter how “good”, into an untainted landscape and they will ruin it, in some way.
I am always amazed that God loves us and sent His Son to die for us when I observer human behavior, including my own.
Is it REALLY that hard to admit our (many) failings?
Everybody else sees them. Alas.
Thanks
Sam
Well said. I might add, let us not confuse self-esteem, pride from confidence in our accomplishments with self-image, a gift from God. We are his children.
Romans 8:29-30. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
We are his brothers and sisters by our new birth and members of His Royal family. It is important for us to remember that we are worthy, loved, and unconditionally accepted by God. It would be false humility to be stuck under the law in Romans 7, where Paul says what a miserable sinner he is. It is also well-known psychological circles that a person will only live up to the image he has of himself. We initially get that image projected upon us from our parents, caregivers and teachers. That may be good to the extent that it’s healthy, but to see ourselves as God sees us sets us free from those limitations and allows us to become everything that God says we are. Are we perfect in our expression of our royalty? Of course not. But is it not better to live up to the person God intends to be than to climb out of the pit of our identity as a miserable sinner? I am a child of God, a brother of Christ, his Spirit dwells within me. I feel good about myself because I am His and I am loved.
Blessings.
Bob Wood
Hi Bob,
Thanks for commenting. While I agree with much of what you say, some of what you say is influenced by the modern world more than by Scripture.
I wholeheartedly agree with your last sentence: “I feel good about myself because I am His and I am loved [by Him].”
But you begin that paragraph by saying, “It is important for us to remember that we are
WORTHY.” But we are NOT worthy. CS Lewis addressed this when he said:
To decide to forget our unworthiness leads to the very ills our society displays on every corner.
But to remember that “We are unworthy” AND “He loves us and died for us” will give us true Gospel confidence and courage.
Thanks,
Sam
Sam,
I will stand corrected on “worthy”. What I am trying to say is we need to see ourselves as God sees us. He sees us as worth His effort to save us or else he would not have laid down his life for us. It surely is not in our nature. We are valuable in His eyes. It has nothing to do with performance and everything to do with being His children. I know that my natural man is unworthy but I will not dwell on that. I will celebrate the person He is making me into. Proverbs 23:7 “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he”
Bob
Hi Sam.
I find the topics of worthiness and esteem to be one of those paradoxes that our God seems to be so good at. Or perhaps it’s just that the human mind is not big enough to comprehend, or not ready to sit comfortably with “unresolution”.
Scripture clearly says that we are uworthy, unrighteous, and beyond any help. It also teaches that God loves us, that he values us immensly, and is perfecting the saved into the fullness of Christ. So I am left to hold two paradoxical thoughts. At least they are paradoxical to me.
1. I am worthless
2. God says I have immense worth.
The humanist tradition that you speak of tries to resolve this apparent conundrum by creating a third (or middle) position that I have self-worth in my own efforts, and thus miss both boats.
Personally, I have tried to stay with the paradox. After all, paradoxical thinking (at least in human terms) is only one of the things I don’t (yet) understand about God.
Regards,
Barry.
We have worth because we are created in His image.