Pride Parade

There is a story out there about a Bible Study at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, that happened thusly:

The Bible study leader stated that pride is a sin.  One of the attendees asked if pride was still a sin if you were proud of your family, proud that they'd turned out so well and how nice they were.  And the leader replied that pride is always a sin.  The end.

It's a good story, right?  You all love it, yes?  Well, perhaps not.  But pride is a confusing thing.  It shouldn't be, but it is.  The reason, I suppose, is that it's like food.  There are a lot of things you can be addicted to that you can always say that you're recovering from.  Alcohol, drugs, whatever.  All that.  Gambling, too.  And once you've revealed that you're an addict, you can never go back to that issue.  You can never go back to drinking socially, because you are an addict, and you always will be.  And it's sort of all or nothing on this stuff.

But with food, it's different.  You can't just go cold turkey on food.  If you stop eating, then you're going to die, so you've got to eat, and you've got to eat in moderation.  You can't just quit. Now, it's the same thing with pride.  Pride is a problem.  It's a huge problem for us, especially as Christians, because we fall prey to it so frequently.  We fall prey to it so easily because it's a natural by-product of doing a good job.  And it's actually a good feeling, and is useful for us.  It's sort of like the mythical runner's high, in that it's a bit of a payoff for doing what you're supposed to do, a nice little treat.  But you'd be a fool if you ran a marathon just to get a runner's high.

So too, the pride that you feel in doing a good job is good.  It's a good feeling, but only when very specifically measured.  That is, pride is good for some things, but absolutely dreadful for others.  And when it crosses over, that's when you've got yourself a problem.

I'd like to claim this as my own, but this is a CS Lewis thing.  He said it best, and I'd like to just parrot what he said, because he got it right.  You see, Lewis' issue with pride is that it exists for its own sake.  Pride is pride on its own.  If you are afflicted with pride (and believe me, we all are to some extent), you want to be the best, bar none.  You need to be better than anyone else, and you can't stand anyone to be impressed with anyone other than yourself.  It is this feeling that kicks in when you're at a party, and everyone else is gathering around someone else who is telling a particularly interesting story in some way, and you barge right in and insert yourself into the conversation.  You can't stand anyone else being the centre of attention.  And you need to have the focus on you.  You need to be reminded of your own greatness.  Now, this doesn't just drive a wedge between us, making it impossible to be happy for someone else, making it phenomenally difficult to have gentle admiration for the achievements of another, but it also makes it impossible to appreciate God in the slightest.

If you're committed to being the best, the best ever, then you'll miss what Christianity is all about.  It's funny, really, because Christianity calls out pride in a way that the secular world does not.  Read through some Ayn Rand for a bit, and you'll get the idea that pride is actually a really good thing.  The great should not be constrained by the small, those who are not as good should admire those who are excellent, and as long as the wonderful are allowed to pursue their goals, then the world will function as it should.  The rich will prosper, and the poor, well, they shouldn't be poor now, should they?

But we Christians are called to be humble, and that's harder to do.  Harder to do, of course, because it's the one virtue that you can't fake. And you know this, because you've seen people try to do it.  And it fails every time.  That insincerity, that fake attitude, that piety, all that is poorly hidden conceit.  As though you know you're better than anyone else, but you have to pretend that you're not so they don't catch on.  But it always ends up smarmy and horrible, because you really have no time whatsoever for that other person.  Why?  Because it's a competition in your own head, one in which you invariably end up winning.   Because pride style, you have to be the best.  And the more into the church you get, the more of a problem this becomes:  It becomes more of a problem because your sins are forgiven, and you know what you should and should not do.  And so you begin to judge.  And you become very proud of who you are.  And it's dreadful, because it focuses attention on yourself as the shining example.

Why is that so bad? Because you're not as good in real life as the trailer you present to the world.  You have flaws.  Have you ever wondered why people get as divorced as they do?  Because we are good at presenting to others something they want to see, but after a while of living with you, they'll find your faults.  You can't hide them forever. And what's the best way to deal with them?  The way we rarely do.  To repent, to be humble, and to apologize.  How are we to accomplish this most difficult task?  Concentrate less on us, and more on each other, and more on God.  And it's tough to do, I admit that.  But without getting that done, there's never going to be a way out.  We'll just end up as a perpetual people focused on ourselves, in the way that Ms Rand would love.  But Christianity pushes you further past that, telling you that the best way to live is to live for one another.  In doing so, we end up living the way we knew we were always supposed to, but always fell short.  And the most perfect thing about Christianity is not that it tells you to live for others, but it gives you a way out when you mess that up.  It's not just having an ideal and falling short.  It's having and ideal, falling short, and being pulled up from it again.  You can struggle with pride your whole life and never overcome it, but it's a sin like any other, like theft, like adultery, like coveting.  What do you do with those?  Then what do you do with pride?  Same thing.  Always.  It's just harder to do with pride, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.  Turn it over to Christ like you do everything else.  He'll take it away.  The only thing you have to lose is the burden of your false perfection.

PJ.