When I find Christians that do admit that there is nothing obligatory about church in any form, one of the first things they claim is that there are still benefits to the traditional Sunday church model, like social connections and emotional encouragement. The theological core of church is the uniting of these things with an honest, accurate exploration of Christian doctrines. But when it comes to spiritual growth, are churches generally useful? Organized churches are not the best option, in many cases, for cultivating such a thing. Many people who think otherwise mistake shallowness for a fulfilling relationship with God and other humans.
Anyone sincerely pursuing knowledge, consistency, thoroughness, and justice will find many churches not only unhelpful when it comes to pursuing these things, but will also likely find it to be counterproductive. The deepest conversations, bonding of souls, and spiritual growth will likely occur in one-on-one relationships as they are conducted outside of a church building (or in small groups of close people). It is with a small handful of close friends that I find myself spiritually rejuvenated and free to share intellectual discoveries, many of which are too controversial or precise for most churchgoers to either understand or care about. It is with these friends that I can talk openly about important issues without the possibility of the average churchgoer overhearing and objecting.
If you want to find intellectual and spiritual growth of the deepest kind, you will almost certainly not find anything like them in churches. Instead, look to intimate relationships with close Christian friends who take rationality, exegesis, and honesty seriously. The deepest Christian growth involving anything of a social nature will very likely result from such relationships. Friendships like these can be rare because the people worthy of them are rare; the people necessary for them to exist are by no means common, yet relationships with them are often the mechanisms by which the deepest spiritual growth occurs. In a world of shallow sociality, these friendships blatantly stand out.
Hey Cooper!
ReplyDeleteSorry this has nothing to do with your post, but T remember you talked about how self-love is important and commanded by the bible a while back. Recently, I got into a little bit of a heated argument with someone about self-love and how some degree of it is necessary. They disagree and say that shouldn't be "self focused" and this is one of the articles they sent me in support of that argument.
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/do-you-love-yourself-enough
I don't know about you, but I feel like right off the bat, the article paints a caricatured definition of what self-love actually is. "An introspective prioritization of self". The definition of prioritize(at least according to Google) is treating something as more important than other things. Which obviously, when you put it like that, is selfishness. To me, I feel like the argument only works when you conflate self-love with vanity. Because one can self-love AND love other people. Selfishness leaves no room for that.
It also implies to think that self-love means "accepting your sins". The person I know isn't even arguing against narcissism or vanity, but seems to be arguing against ANY self-love whatsoever because it might lead to selfishness (obvious slippery slope fallacy). Anyway, I just wanted to know what you think and how you respond to the article!
Hey! It’s always great to see comments from you Sean! Sorry it took me so long to reply. Because there’s a limit to how many words I can put in one reply, I think I’ll have to reply twice.
DeleteYikes, Desiring God is often a bastion of illicit arguments and Biblical eisegesis, and that article is no exception. There’s a lot of false assumptions and misrepresentations of concepts here. You described the exact nature of the difference between selfishness and self-love: one excludes the love of others by its nature, or at the very least severely diminishes one’s desire or capacity to rightly love others, while the other goes right alongside the proper love of others. The author does not make that distinction at all.
Near the beginning, he describes self-love as not being able to stand negative thoughts about oneself. But Biblical love of others is concern for their ultimate wellbeing, and applying that definition of love to ourselves does not mean that we will or should avoid all negative thoughts about ourselves. While a refusal to acknowledge our value as bearers of God’s image is a negative thing that should be avoided, there is nothing contrary to self-love about admitting one’s moral flaws to oneself or others. In fact, if I care about my ultimate spiritual wellbeing, I will certainly not intentionally overlook sin in my life. If I love myself I will be honest about my own nature and will thus not only focus on the positive things about my heart.
Caring for the ultimate spiritual, moral, and general wellbeing of other people is what the Bible commands of us. We are to hope for their redemption and treat them justly, and this is all that Biblical love is. Others have the same moral obligations towards us that we have towards them. Certainly accepting one’s sins in the sense of excusing them is not a part of actual self-love, though the article does heavily imply this. To do so would indeed be selfish, but selfishness and self-love are simply not synonymous. If I love myself--if I care about my ultimate wellbeing--I will not wish to remain in sin. On the contrary, I will flee from it, because sin is contrary to my ultimate spiritual wellbeing!
The article also completely trivializes the fact that even fallen, unredeemed humans still have immense value simply by nature of being humans. Since even the unsaved bear God’s image and are still the recipients of God’s love, to treat all unsaved people as inherently unlovable is Biblically unsound. When the author gets to the part where he references 2 Timothy 3, he only continues his confusion about what love actually is. If people love themselves but do not love God or others, then of course they are adrift in selfishness! But, once again, he acts like self-love is logically incompatible with love of others and of God, when each one can coexist with and spur on the others.
Also, the author writes that if we honestly look at ourselves then we will find little to love, and thus we cannot find satisfaction in ourselves. What he ignores is that satisfaction with oneself is a subjective matter that has nothing at all to do with sin. A person could be both deeply sinful and aware of that sinfulness and STILL be satisfied with himself or herself. A subjective sense of satisfaction is simply irrelevant to whether or not self-love is good or bad.
DeleteLeviticus 19:18 clearly instructs us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves ourselves, as we are all made in God’s image and all deserve to be treated justly. We should all recognize this about ourselves! The very fact that we all bear God’s image necessitates that it is morally erroneous for individual people to treat themselves as if they have less value than they actually possess. All humans are made in the image of God and I am a human. Thus, if it is wrong to not love other people properly, it must also be wrong to not have a correct view of myself.
Every Christian that condemns self-love lives in a way that is inconsistent with some of the most foundational concepts of Christianity. When we recognize what our nature is, we realize that we should not think of ourselves as not having enough value to justify self-love--and the metaphysical/theological basis for loving ourselves is the same basis for loving others. Desiring God’s article totally ignores that.
Thanks for the helpful response! I had a few extra thoughts.
DeleteI asked another friend of mine about whether accepting your flaws or sin is the same as self-love. What she said agreed with your point, and correctly called what I asked "self-tolerance" rather than self-love. She added that obviously we shouldn't love our sin and that we should love ourselves enough to acknowledge and be honest about our shortcomings and take the necessary steps to improve our relationship with God and others. Because when has being in denial helped?
Christians who believe self-love is sinful because it's the same as narcissism would be tantamount to me saying that drinking any alcohol is sinful, but my idea of someone drinking is raging alcoholism. Drinking alcohol is a necessity to be an alcoholic the same way that to be selfish involves self-love, but we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater just because both have the capacity to be misused. Self-love is not the equivalent to selfishness the same way having a drink isn't equivalent to alcohol addiction. X can't equal Y.
My last thought involved the part about the idea that you shouldn't love yourself because we are sinful human beings. Yes, you may be a sinful human being, but there are also other human beings who are sinful as well, like you. So the question raised is:
"Should you not love somebody because they are a fallen human being?"
I believe asking this question puts the person who agrees with this premise in an indefensible position. Because if you answer yes, you're disobeying what the Bible blatantly commands. If you answer no, the next question to be asked is "If you can love someone despite that they're fallen, then why can't you do the exact same thing for yourself?"
Sorry if I'm being wordy, these have been on my mind for weeks! Thanks again for your response :-)
That’s a great point! Tolerance and love are not the same at all, though they are sometimes treated like interchangeable terms. Anyone who legitimately wants the best for themselves will not try to preserve their sin or hide it from themselves.
DeleteMany evangelical Christians are simply so scared of committing the sin of arrogance that they are forced to make utterly inconsistent, contra-Biblical claims in order to maintain the facade. Pride/arrogance is thinking of yourself your highly than you should, so thinking of yourself as you should cannot be immoral, and thinking of yourself as less than you are would only be the inverse error.
Yes, that’s exactly the dilemma a Christian who condemns self-love lands in! Either way they are denying a crucial aspect of Christian theology! Arguing against self-love because one is sinful, whether the arguer realizes it or not, is also by necessity a direct assault on the idea that ANY fallen being should be loved, which would also have troublesome ramifications for God’s own love for sinful humans. Evangelicals like those who write for Desiring God can excel at creating a vast network of inconsistencies! Recognizing and embracing self-love can be a very liberating thing, and suppressing the positive aspects of our nature can be just as damaging as denying the negative aspects.
You’re welcome! I always love hearing from you!