Examined Christian Faith 'The Sin of Sins' 3.7 What is Christainity

I have heard more people than I can count (almost daily) admit that they have a bad temper, or that they have a hard time not lusting after women, or that they have a drinking problem / drug problem and even a few who admit that they are cowards.  Yet I do not think I have ever heard anyone who is not a Christian accuse him or herself of this vice.  Most have no idea that they could be guilty of such a thing.   There is however no fault that makes a person more unpopular and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves; ironically the more we have it in ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

The vice I am writing about is PRIDE and Self–Conceit; and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals is what we call humility.  According to Christian scholars, the essential  vice. The utmost evil is Pride.  Anger, greed, lust, drunkenness, adultery, and all the rest  are mere mosquito bites in comparison; it is through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: if is the complete anti-God state of mind. 

In my opening paragraph I pointed out that the more pride one had, the more one disliked pride in others.  In truth, if you want to find out how proud you are, the easiest way is to ask yourself, “How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, ignore me, patronize me or show off?”   the reason is, that each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s  pride.  Pride is essentially competitive  by its very nature, while the other vices are competitive only.  By accident Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having MORE of it than the next person.  We say that people are proud of being rich, or cleaver, or beautiful; but in truth they are proud of being richER, cleavER and MORE beautiful. If everyone was equally rich, smart and beautiful there would be nothing to be proud about.  It is the comparison that make s you proud , the pleasure you derive from being above the rest. 

Here is the point, nearly all evils in the world that people attribute to greed, selfishness, weakness, and the like, are in reality just the symptoms of the result of PRIDE.  For it is power that Pride really enjoys, there is nothing that makes a person feel so superior to others as having some sort of power over them.  What makes a beautiful woman spread misery wherever she goes by collecting admirers (even after she is married)? Pride!  What is it that makes a political leader or a entire nation go on and on and n demanding more and more and more? Pride yet again.  If I am a proud person then as long as there is another person who is more powerful, or richer, cleaver, beautiful, or more desired then I, he is my enemy and my rival.  

Other vices may sometimes in a sad way bring people together: drunks hang out with drunks, addicts with addicts,  adulterers and liars with other adulterers and liars.  However Pride always means hostility or mutual hatred and not just between man and man, but between man and God.  Because in God you come up against something that is in every singly respect immeasurably superior to you, and thus you are nothing in comparison.  As long as you are proud you can not know that, you cannot know God.  A proud person is always looking down on others, and of course as long as you are looking down you cannot see something above you. 

This then raises a horrible question.  How can a person who is quite obviously consumed with pride, say they believe in God and appear to be very religious?  The only answer is that they are worshiping an imaginary God.   They in theory admit to being nothing in the presence of this phantom God, while really imagining how much He approves of them and thinks them far better than other people. 

Luckily God has provided us with this simple test:  Whenever we find our religious life is making us feel that we are  good-above all, that we are better that someone else – we can be sure that we are being acted on, not however by God, but by the Devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you see yourself for what you are, as a small dirty object., or you have progressed to forgetting  about yourself completely (which is the goal).

Make no mistake about this, there are many who claim to be spiritual, who claim religion, who claim forgiveness, who claim that they are a Christian. There are many who have simply out of their own pride invented a imaginary God (not the one who talks to us through the Bible)  To these the Devil laughs, for while other sins come at us from our animal nature, it is pride that comes directly from hell, and to those who embrace pride, hell will take them back.  To these I believe Jesus addressed when He said that many will claim him, however  “Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”  Matthew 7:23  Pride is THE spiritual cancer – it eats up the very possibility of love, faith, hope, contentment, honor, loyalty, courage, commitment,  repentance and forgiveness, honestly or even common sense. 

Previous Posting in this series : "Forgiveness"

Next Posting in this series: "Charity" 

Examined Christian Faith 'Forgiveness' 3.6 What is Christainity

I believe that without question, the most unpopular of all Christian Virtues is the one I am going to address today: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”.  Because Christian morals mean that “your neighbor” includes “your enemy”, thus we are pushed up against this terrible duty of forgiving our enemies.   Nearly everyone you ask will tell you that forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.  Then to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with distain and anger.  It isn’t that people think forgiveness is too high and difficult a virtue; it is that they think it hateful and contemptible.   Most of who are reading this have already decided to ask me “I wonder how you would feel about forgiveness if you had a family member inside the World Trade Center on September 11^th, or if your spouse had betrayed you with cold and calculated malice. 

So do I: In answer to the first question I wonder very much, in answer to the second it is a battle I fight each and every day.  Christianity tells me that I must not deny my religion to save myself from death or torture, I wonder what I would do if it came to that point.  Do not mistake me for one of those who writes a book telling you that I have mastered the Christian doctrine of forgiveness – I am simply telling you what Christianity is.  I did not invent it, yet right in the middle of it, we find “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”  It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we will not be forgiven.  There are no two ways about it.  So what are we to do?

It is going to be hard, but I think I there are at lest two things we can do to make it easier.  First, just as when you start learning math, you did not begin with calculus, you began with simple addition (1+1=2) In the same manner, if you really want to learn how to forgive (but you have to really want to forgive) perhaps you should start with something easier then those things that repulse everyone with any morals, those things that there can be no justification for.  Start instead by forgiving something someone has said this week, and continue to build on top of that.

Second, I think we should try to understand exactly what loving your neighbor as yourself means. I have to love him as I love myself?  Then exactly how do I love myself?  I can only speak for myself but I have not exactly got a feeling of fondness or affection for myself.  Nor do I always enjoy my own company.  So apparently “love your neighbor” doesn’t mean “to feel fond of him, or to find him attractive” Do I think I am good, think I am a nice person?  Honestly, sometimes I do (and those are no doubt my worst moments).  But that is not why I love myself, in fact it is the other way around: my self love makes me think myself nice (thus those who argue that they are a good person are without doubt the most narcissist of all) but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself.  So if you extend that, that loving your enemies does not mean thinking they are nice either.  Which at least to me is a great relief as forgiving my enemies does not mean that I have to say they are not such bad people, when it is quite plain that they are.

Taking that one step further, in my most clear sighted moments not only do I not think of myself as a nice person, but know that I am a wicked one.  I can look at some of the things I have done with horror, which apparently means that I am allowed to hate some of the things my enemies do.  Remember Christian theology teaches that we are to hate the evil person’s actions but not the evil person.

For a long time, I thought that was just hair splitting, how could you hate what the person did and not hate the person?  However, with time it occurred to me that I have been doing this all my life – namely with myself.  I might dislike some of what I have done, yet I went on loving myself.  In fact the reason I hated the things was because I loved the man.  Because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of person who did those things.  Consequently Christianity does not want us to reduce our hatred we feel for cruelty, treachery, deceit, and self-fishiness.  We should hate them, but we are to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves.  Being sorry that the person could have done such things, yet hoping that somehow, sometime, somewhere, someway, he or she can be cured and mad human again. 

 

Does loving your enemy mean not punishing them?  No, for loving myself does not mean that I should not subject myself to punishment for my sins.  If one had committed murder, the right Christian thing to do would be to give yourself up to the police and accept your punishment, even if that meant death.  Thus what is the Christian thing for a thief to do, or an adulterer, an unscrupulous businessman?  The modern church has removed punishment, (JUSTICE) from its teachings.  But I do not think God has suddenly, due to popular demand ceased being JUST.   It is therefore in my opinion perfectly right for a Christian Judge or minister to deal swiftly with perpetrators, demanding justice for both the perpetrators and the victims.   Mercy is measured by Justice.

Some (more often then not those who are guilty of things that repulse the average moral Chrsitian) will say “if one is allowed to condemn the enemy’s acts, and punish him, what is the difference between Christian morality and the secular view?”  All the difference in the world.  Remember, Christians think man lives forever.  Thus what really matters is those twists on the central inside part of the soul which are going to turn it in the long run into a heavenly or hellish creature.  We may punish, if Justice is necessary, but we are not to enjoy it.  The ‘feeling’ of vengeance must simply be killed.  

Even while we punish we must feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves – to wish that he or she were not bad, to hope that he or she may in this world be cured; thus in fact to wish him or her good.  That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing for your enemy good, not feeling fond of him or her, nor saying he or she is nice and a good person when they are not.

I admit that I struggle with this myself, because it means loving people who have nothing lovable about them.  But then again do I have anything loveable about me? I love me, simply because I am 'me'.  God intends us to love all “ME’s” in the same way and for the same reason.  I find it easier to do, when I remind myself of how He loves me.  Not for any nice, good attractive qualities I think I have, but because I am me.  Because really there is nothing in us to love: we are creatures who actually find hatred pleasurable, and that to give it up is like giving up alcohol or cigarettes. 

Previous Posting in this series "Marriage" 

Next Posting in this series; "The Sin of Sins" 

Examined Christian Faith 'Marriage' 3.5 What is Christainity

If your faith can not save you from your own self-centeredness, your own selfishness, then it will not save you from Hell.  

No where is it more obvious and painfully clear to both those who claim Christianity and those outside the faith to readily see the true nature of a person’s heart, then by observing their response to the Christian viewpoint on marriage.  Christ’s teachings on this matter are clear and absolute; as a result this is where pretenders and hypocrites are sorted out, where the wheat is separated from the chafe.   This is where those who are a ‘good person’ and a ‘nice person’ have their selfish, self-centered, self serving heart exposed.

These next sentences are critical to those who claim the Christian faith.  The Christian idea of marriage is based upon Christ’s words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single creature (one-flesh), and that Jesus was not expressing a sentiment, but rather a fact – just like a lock and key are one mechanism.   When God created humans, He created them in two halves, the male and the female, they were made to be combined (joined together) not just on the sexual level, but totally combined.  The monstrosity of sexual “relations” (as we like to call it) outside marriage is that those who live that lifestyle are attempting to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which are intended to go along with it and form the complete union.  

As a consequence, Christianity teaches that marriage is for life.  There are no if’s, and’s or but’s.  Divorce plus remarriage, equals adultery.  You will hear a lot of ‘Christians’ who will take issue with that statement, but it does not alter Jesus’ teachings on marriage.  He was crystal clear and left no wiggle room.  Christians and all Christian churches following Jesus’ teachings, regard divorce as something like cutting up a living body, as a kind of surgical operation that is so violent that it cannot be done.  That divorce is more like having both of your legs and arms cut off with a rusty dull saw, than it is like dissolving a business partnership.  Christians follow Jesus’ teaching that disagrees and condemns  the modern viewpoint that divorce is a simple readjustment of partners, to be made whenever someone feels they are no longer in love with the other, or when either of them “falls in love” with someone else. 

One must not forget to consider this in relation to another virtue that I wrote previously about, “Justice”.  Justice as I mentioned in a previous posting includes keeping promises. Everyone who has been married in a church has made a public solemn vow to stick to his or her partner until death.  The duty and responsibility of keeping that promise has no special connection with sexual morality: it is the same as any other vow or promise.  If as some would have us believe that the sexual desire is just like all other desires; then it should justifiably be treated like all our other desires; and as our other desires are controlled by our promises, so should this one be.   If it is as I believe, it is not like all our other desires, but is rather one that is morbidly inflamed, then we should be especially careful to not let it lead us into dishonesty. 

Now I freely admit that there are those who make this promise as a mere formality and never intend to keep it.  Who were they trying to deceive, the groom, the bride or the in-laws, or just the public?  If so their words and heart is treacherous.  Or perhaps he or she is trying, when they make the vow to deceive God, if so they can only be counted among the foolish, the very - very foolish.  These individuals want the benefits and the respectability that is attached to marriage without ever intending to pay the price that is required.  They are imposters, they are liars, they are cheaters and God calls them adulterers.  If they remain contented to be a liars, and adulterer, then I have nothing to say to them (pearls before swine’s), who would urge the high and hard duty of chastity on someone who has not yet desired to be merely honest?   However if they have now removed the blinders from their eyes and truly want to be honest, then their promise, already made constrains them.  This then comes under the heading of Justice.  

The idea that some have that “being in love” is the only reason for remaining married, leaves no room for marriage as a promise at all.  If love is the entire thing, then the promise can add nothing, and if it adds nothing then it should not be made.  The curious thing is that lovers know this while they remain really in love, better than those who talk about love.  The Christian law of marriage simply demands what lovers already know, that they should take seriously something which their passion impels them to do.  

Of course, the promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to my beloved as long as I live commits one to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions.  No one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way.  You might as well promise to never have a headache or to always feel thirsty. 

Being “in love” is a glorious state, and in several ways is good for us, it helps us to be generous and courageous, it opens our eyes to beauty, and it conquers lust.  No one would deny that being in love is better than common sensuality or self-centeredness.  Being ‘in love” is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. It is a noble feeling, but it is till just a feeling, no feeling can be relied upon to last in its full intensity or even at all.  Principles can last, knowledge can last, habits can last; but feelings… they come and go.  However, ceasing to be “in love” need not mean ceasing to LOVE.  LOVE as opposed to “being in love” is not merely a feeling, rather it is a deep unity, maintained by will and deliberately strengthened by habit, and grace.  This LOVE can be kept even in those moments (hours, days, weeks, months) that you do not like each other, just as you love yourself even when you dislike yourself.  This LOVE can be retained even when each other would easily if they allowed themselves, to “be in love” with someone else.  “Being in love” is what moves one to a promise of fidelity until death, “LOVE” enables you to keep that promise.

This is one little part, I think, of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies.  Far too few people understand that if you decide to make thrills (being in-love) the definition of love, then over time the thrill will get weaker and weaker, fewer and fewer, until you at last end up a bored disillusioned old man or woman. However if you let the thrill go- let it die away- go on through that period of death into the happiness that follows (Love, honor, commitment, loyalty, faith, hope)- you will find that you are living in a world of new thrills all the time.  It is because so few people understand this that you see husbands and wives destroying themselves, their spouses, their families, their faith, when they are at the very point when new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all around them. 

As I said in the beginning - If your faith can not save you from your own self-centeredness, your own selfishness, then it will not save you from Hell.  

If you honestly desire to fully understand Christian Divorce and Remarriage, you might want to consider my book   "I am an Adulterer"

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