Featured Self-righteousness in Christianity

It's no different than self-righteousness in Phariseeism.

You just find out what your movement considers "righteousness" in behavior and you seek to project yourself as superior in that thing.

For many Christians it is this "buy the world a coke," "cumbaya," "can't we all just get along," "humble-pie" stuff.

And so self-righteous people in that genre go around projecting themselves as better than someone when it comes to gentleness and meekness and desire for unity. They don't outright SAY IT mind you- they PROJECT it. They are sneaky- so much that they sneak their twisted motives past their own notice.

But that is no different than the self-righteousness of the Pharisees. You can be just as self-righteous about LOVE as they were self-righteous about LAW.

We don't have many LAW Pharisees today, but our churches are OVER-RUN with LOVE Pharisees today.

Self-righteous people are concerned about being thought of by others and especially by themselves as morally superior. So they snootily lecture others about their inferiority as pertains to spiritual maturity and behavior.

They are self-aggrandizing people who are primarily concerned with occupying the moral (whatever the morality whether law-based or love-based is irrelevant) high ground and constantly PROJECTING to others that great level of maturity and moral superiority which they possess over the ones they lecture.

But here's the thing:

The very fact that appearing this way and projecting that image is so manifestly important to them is unequivocal proof that they are actually the OPPOSITE of the very thing they try to project.
Humble people are not constantly trying to APPEAR HUMBLE!!!
Love does not VAUNT ITSELF!!


I'm afraid that many, if not MOST people in our churches and seminaries are there because they are driven to maintain this image of themselves of being such great spiritual, wonderful, moral, humble people. Their attendance in spiritual institutions is meant to make themselves and others think of them as superior. It is that desire that is the reason they are there.

The proof of that is what often happens when you point it out. They become OUTRAGED, INFURIATED and could seem to wish you dead. Isn't that what the "law" pharisees in Jesus' day were like when he pointed out THEIR TYPE of self-righteousness?

 

Neither does it follow that it is NOT rampant on this site.

Could it be?

Could I be right?

It is not courageous to take a majority opinion in the midst of an entire culture that agrees with you.

This culture hates polemics in Christianity and seeks to strip that tool from our hands.

To take a stand WITH the majority opinion will not make one LESS liked or thought of LESS highly. It bolsters one's opinion of himself and the opinion which others have of him.

So, yes, it is possible, but not probable, in my opinion.

I'm not running for office. Baptist board is just one tiny place. If I wanted I could find thousands upon thousands of people who agree with my op and my passion for polemics. But truth is not based on a majority of people in one tiny place in one brief span of time.

Mocking the prophets of Baal and withstanding Peter to his face may not be in vogue but there are still plenty of Christians who believe in it.

I do not deny it. Not for a second. But the question is, in the midst of my motives tainted by my Adamic nature- is there TRUTH?

COULD IT BE that rebuking people sharply is called for OFTEN on this site and in this culture and people who HATE it have swallowed the lie of this culture.

Could it be that we really DO live in the age of Joel Osteen instead of the age of Jonathan Edwards and therefore the tendency is to be pusillanimous not over-aggressive? And therefore one who is appropriately aggressive is viewed as over-aggressive in this age that is so heavily influenced by hippies and liberals and political correctness?

Look, don't misunderstand me. I really do believe in gentleness. I really do DESPISE the "ministry" of Fred Phelps. I really do repudiate preaching like that of Phil Kidd. I really do.

And I do think that on the meter of appropriate harshness my needle does cross the line often.

BUT I ALSO think that the tendency of the age is to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to aggressiveness- because there are some who hammer the nail too deeply lets throw the hammer away and try to drive nails with handfuls of posies.

Do you see?

Once again, I do not deny it.

And I do think that some introspection is better than none. So perhaps that statement in quotes IS representative of how I feel. I am not above being that self-aggrandizing. I know it well.

But I did not see ANY introspection on YOUR PART. Did you do any? Did you stop for one SECOND and say, "Luke, though he may be as guilty of it as ALL of us are, might have a point. My idea of what is Christian may indeed be heavily influenced by this politically correct, Joel Osteen ruled religious culture,"?

Did you do that?

 

Yet another drive-by post.

Pop in, insult somebody, make a claim without a warrant and run for the hills.

Do you think this is ok?

Do you think it is noble?

It is exactly what you repudiate in me... BUT ON STEROIDS.

 

SHOCKING!!

:laugh:

You're funny. I thought I'd show myself laughing here taking a page out of your own book.

Picking a fight is often the BEST way to cut through the crud and get the truth to come out.

That's what Stephen did. It is what Paul did. Jesus picked a fight with the Pharisees in his first sermon!

And it seems pretty obvious that YOU do it all of the time when it suits you.

 

You didn't "point" anything out.

You just made a claim without a warrant.

You didn't do the work of posting quotes of mine in their context and showing how what you claim is true.

Not only is what you do simply inflammatory nonsense and childish- but it is lazy as well.

Besides it is EXACTLY what you criticize me for doing.

I love the hypocrisy of people who ATTACK people for ATTACKING people!

It is hilarious!

People who TROLL for TROLLERS!

It is hilarious- it truly is.

Attack me if you will- but have the character to MAKE A CASE FOR WHAT YOU CLAIM.

It is trashy not to.

 

First of all we need to define the term "fight." I don't mean ad homenem. I mean the ability to have your views sharply scrutinized and criticized while fiercely criticizing and scrutinizing the views of others.

I'm no stranger to Puritan board.

Fights break out there all of the time.

HOWEVER, the extremes don't exist on Puritan board so fighting is going to be less severe and less frequent than what is called for here.

On Puritanboard you don't have ANYBODY who thinks that God DID NOT KNOW exactly what future would take place before he made the world.

On Puritanboard you don't have people saying nonsense like "God is so sovereign that he is not sovereign over billions of things that happen every day in this world."

On puritanboard you don't have the disdain for education that you find with so many on here.

On Puritanboard you don't have many people like Winman who will say, "I don't NEED any man to teach me. I don't care what the whole history of the Christian church has believed about a particular passage or doctrine. GOD SPEAKS TO ME!"


Do you see?

 

We've been over and over and over this.

You are not my congregation. Yes, I know, you thank God for this- and so do I.

I do not talk to my congregation the way I talk to my CHILDREN either.

I do not talk to my congregation the way I would talk to Richard Dawkins in a debate either.

It is silly to think that because one should converse with one group of people in a certain way that he should always have to converse with EVERYONE that same way.

This is a different relationship- it requires different means of communication.

Do you talk to your fellow church members the same way you talk to your children when they rebel?

Are you as insulting to any of your fellow church members as you are to me often?

 

Yes.

Fighting is AN approach depending on how you define "fighting". If you mean balling up fists and pounding one another- that is rarely acceptable.
If you mean calling each other names- that is rarely acceptable.
If you mean obliterating wrong ideals held in stubborn arrogance that are harmful to the Kingdom work- yes. This is AN approach that is acceptable to take.

Why does that change the dynamic?

Doubtful.

I promise you I would. Would you like to meet?

And the same is true of you. You are not lacking in your reception of rebukes either.

You may get less because you stay in the pocket less when you debate. You tend to just drive-by insult posters with whom you disagree with a snotty little feigned superiority and then flee for the hills. But even so you get plenty of rebukes yourself.

Besides, I'm not running for office- are you?

 

Why do you say you are so far beneath them?