We Are Going Nowhere, But At Least We Are Doing It Together

The most offensive person in our day is the person who is actually better than we are. We can abide the hapless fool, the self-deprecating drunk, the inconsistent Christian, provided that they "keep it real." We will tolerate the most unsavory and unprincipled of people as long as they promote their brokenness in such a way as to allow us to remain comfortable in our own deep and irremediable flaws.

But pride is repugnant to us, and we are so sensitive about it that I wonder if we find it in places where it doesn't exist. Even our celebrities must appear humble, or they will be summarily and unmercifully eviscerated. As it is, we glory more in their humiliation than in their excellence, and that is probably because the simple fact that they possess publicly lauded talents that we don't possess is itself offensive to us.

Culture has bled over into homes, offices, schools and churches as well; for these no longer shape culture. We want our pastors to be not too low and not too high. The same goes for everyone else. In families, everyone brags of their successes, but everyone secretly yearns for the failure of others, and surely we often rehearse those failures behind each other's backs. We also seem to expect boasting to be answered with boasting, and all of it is to be appropriately seasoned with false modesty. Our self-deprecation has become our self-aggrandizement. And here is the point: If a person is imprisoned in such a poisoned psyche, who could be the most offensive person in the world? Not the braggart. Not the vain colleague. Not the competitor. Certainly not the small group of Christians intermittently "keeping it real" while trying to slip in the occasional assertions of individual glory. The greatest threat to another person's pride is someone who is demonstrably better, and possibly in every way.

Think of the women that always complain that the models on the cover of magazines have been worked on for hours and magically retouched to look the way they do. Is it true though? Deep down women know there are more and less beautiful women in the world. They have seen women that are, in reality, and without the help of a staff of cosmetologists, more physically beautiful than they are. They have seen women that are fitter, more vibrant, healthier, and even more intelligent. And that is the great offense; the offense no one ever admits and the offense for which there is no comfort, except the comfort of true humility.

Think of the man with a string of excuses as to why his neighbor is apparently more successful than he is. His parents helped him. His wife is more sacrificial. He is older. He has been lucky. But under it all he knows that the man is simply a more impressive human being than he is. And it is such an offense to his ego that he can never abide such a thought, and so he cannot improve, because his energies are poured into excusing himself for his present stagnation. He promotes himself by degrading others and not by real progress toward excellence.

And to assuage our guilt for lack of progress, we go to the modern church, which is more than willing to accept the vulnerable and inconstant, the listless, and those mired in impulsivity and slothfulness. But we are invited of course to come together to "open up" about it all and "be vulnerable." Secular people just go to bars and make light of their flaws together. Either way, there sure is an incessant chatter about all our flaws. We are going nowhere, but at least we are doing it transparently together.

Why do Christians in particular not feel a sense of shared mission that demands the best of us? There is only the coffee house. We lack the urgency and accountability of shouldering the Christian fight side by side. What we do have is the chatty, linguisticly trendy, accountability group.

And then we wonder what the role of the Holy Spirit can be in the lives of the masses of Christians paralyzed by this psychological state; a state which might best be termed pride. Is the flame of God really at work in the man who spends years taking two steps forward and then two steps back, who today is exactly where he was when he began. Can we really take solace in the fact that he is at least open about it all? He is not like those evil, excellent but dishonest people. He is mediocre and honest.

Here is another point: How is it that we see emerging a Church community in which excellence is met with unease and suspicion? It is not even envy. Envy often motivates people to work toward excellence. But there are people out there that don't even really envy excellent people; they just don't like them and can't feel comfortable around them. Much the worse for the person of moral excellence. It would be better for many people if they never met such a person. Don't you find all of this yet another step toward our total spiritual and cultural impotence? Christians today increasingly feel awful in the company of the excellent and feel at home among the pseudo-humble. The only way we can feel better about ourselves because of some other man's failures is if we are making no progress either, and in our pride we want it to stay that way.

Surely we know we are on our way towards a cure for our pride when we can bring ourselves to admit that certain people are better than we are, and then come to truly admire them. Paul said he was chief among sinners, but he also said "follow me as I follow Christ." I want to know when the modern Church is going to stop saying only the former and start confidently proclaiming the latter? When are we going to see a Church capable of leading us into excellence and not merely comforting us in brokenness?