Pride and Self-Esteem
When I was in grade school, we sang a song in music class with the lyrics, “I am proud of who I am, proud of what I am, proud of where I’m going, proud of what I’m doing. My life is my life; I have the power to be.” The purpose of this song, apparently, was to encourage children to be proud of themselves, no matter what. Clearly, our culture believes that pride is a good thing. For example, the best way to show love to hurting and marginalized members of the LGBTQ community, we are told, is to celebrate gay pride, and the term “pride” has become strongly associated with the celebration of homosexuality. This is just one prominent example of how our society seeks to counteract people’s low self-esteem by encouraging them to have pride in themselves.
It is thus something of a surprise to many to learn that Christianity teaches that pride is a sin, in fact, a very serious sin (Prov 8:13, 11:2, 16:18, 21:4, 29:23; Mk 7:22; 1 John 2:16). How, our culture asks, can we get rid of people’s harmful low self-esteem if we do not encourage them to have pride in themselves? God’s word does not teach people to have low self-esteem. However, neither does it condone pride. For people who have nothing transcendent in which they find their identity, pride or low self-esteem seem to be the only two options. Christians, on the other hand, find their identity in Christ, and not in their own qualities and accomplishments. This means that Christians can counteract low self-esteem, not by affirming every quality that they have (good or bad), but by knowing that, whatever qualities they have at the moment, they are beloved children of God. Christians’ positive view of themselves comes not from being proud of their own character and accomplishments, but from finding their identity in Christ. Rather than promoting self-esteem, Christianity teaches “Christ-esteem.”[1]I borrow this term from Ed Shaw, Same-Sex Attraction and the Church: The Surprising Plausibility of the Celibate Life (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2015), page 38.
Because Christians find their identity in Christ, they must seek to live out this identity by growing in Christ and being conformed to His image. A central aspect of this is abandoning the sin of pride and developing the virtue of humility (2 Sam 22:28; Psalm 18:27, 147:6, Prov 3:34; Matt 18:4, 23:12; Luke 14:11, 18:14; James 4:6, 10; 1 Pet 3:8, 5:5-6). Humility does not mean thinking less of ourselves (i.e. having low self-esteem); humility means thinking of ourselves less. “Don’t think you are better than you really are,” writes the apostle Paul, “Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves” (Rom 12:3). We should not have an inflated sense of how good we are, but neither should we try to pretend that we don’t have the positive qualities that we do have; instead, we should be honest in our self-evaluations. But if we do have positive qualities, we should not think that this makes us better or more important than anyone else. Instead of desiring honor, prestige, praise, and glory for ourselves, we should, in humility, be focused on loving and serving others with whatever gifts God has given us.
Christians simply cannot agree with the idea that “my life is my life.” Rather, we must say, “my life is God’s life.” While secular efforts to increase people’s self-esteem are well-intentioned, Chistians must regard them as incipiently demonic insofar as they lead people to affirm and feel good about their own qualities and actions, without any reference to God and His will for their life. In response to this false narrative of self-affirmation and self-esteem, Christians must hold fast to the story of the Gospel, which leads us to humility, not pride in ourselves.
Pride and Humility
The sin of pride is based on the lie that I am the center of the universe. Since each human being can only experience reality from their own, individual perspective, each human being naturally tends to think of reality in terms of its relation to their own, individual self. This can easily lead each of us to tend to live our lives in a self-centered fashion, as if I am the center of the universe. We may not explicitly say this, but we have an innate, prideful inclination to live as if this were true. Human beings naturally have some instincts of empathy and compassion that can counteract this tendency to some extent, but even these can be enfolded within a prideful attitude if we come to view those we have feelings of empathy and compassion for (those who are important to us) as being more important than other human beings.
When someone becomes a Christian, they deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Jesus. This requires them to reject viewing reality from the perspective of their story of their own life, and instead to start viewing reality from the perspective of the story of the Gospel. Instead of living their life on the basis of the lie that they are the center of the universe, they come to see themselves merely as playing a bit part in the grand story of God bringing redemption to all of His creation through His covenant people, the body of Christ. This is the basis for the repudiation of all pride. Once we see ourselves from the correct perspective, as creatures, servants of God created to serve His purposes in His creation, then we will repudiate all prideful assertions of our own will and desires in rebellion against God’s loving Lordship. And we will repudiate all prideful attitudes of superiority towards our fellow human beings, knowing that each human being is equally valuable in God’s eyes, and that God desires us to love and to serve them.
Of course, in our sinful, Fallen state, Christians will continue to experience the temptation to think, speak, and act in prideful ways. Pride is the most insidious of sins, as it can crop up in any aspect of our lives, including becoming prideful with regard to our own holiness and righteousness. One can even start becoming prideful about one’s humility! So, how do we rid ourselves of the treacherous sin of pride? We do not become humble by focusing on developing the virtue of humility within ourselves. Rather, we develop the virtue of humility by focusing outside ourselves. The more we focus on loving God, loving our fellow human beings, and serving our purpose in God’s Kingdom, the less prideful and the more humble we will become.
The Source of All Sin?
The sin of pride has often been understood in the Christian tradition as the worst sin, in fact, the source of all other sins. Since sin is rebellion against God’s will, many Christians have argued, it seems that all other sins are merely the symptoms of an initial, prideful rebellion against God’s authority, and this is the foundation of all other sins we commit. Recently, some theologians (especially feminist theologians) have criticized the idea the pride is the root of all sin, arguing that telling oppressed people not to be prideful is counterproductive and contributes to their continuing oppression; instead of telling oppressed people that pride is sinful, we should instead tell them that it is sinful for them not to stand up for themselves.
While this critique has some merit, there is no support at all in Scripture for the idea that refusing to stand up for oneself is sinful. Both Jesus and the apostles clearly teach that Christians should love their enemies (Matt 5:44), not resist evildoers (Matt 5:39), and patiently endure unjust suffering (1 Pet 2:18-25). The cross of Jesus Christ stands at the center of Christian ethics, and Christians know that following Jesus on the way of the cross might mean that they will experience suffering at the hands of their oppressors, as Jesus did. In humility, members of the body of Christ can see their suffering as meaningful and redemptive, even when they are tempted to lose hope that they will be able to influence their oppressors to repent and believe the Gospel.
Nevertheless, it does seem problematic to say that pride is the root of all sin. Very often, sin does not take the form of a Promethean defiance of God; rather, it takes the form of allowing our animal nature to pull us down and not to live out our identity as spiritual beings created in the image of God. Sloth and lustful or gluttonous addictions are not usually the result of pride; they are usually the result of failing to live up to our potential. Pride is the source of many other sins, but it is probably wrong to try to find a single sin that is the source of all others. Rather, we should see sin as moral disorder brought about by our separation from God, which manifests itself in various ways, not all of which are necessarily dependent on one sin. Pride is a very serious sin, one which Christians must be very careful to avoid, but it is not necessarily the source of all other sins.
Notes
| ↑1 | I borrow this term from Ed Shaw, Same-Sex Attraction and the Church: The Surprising Plausibility of the Celibate Life (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2015), page 38. |
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