http://members.aol.com/etb700/psychology.html
The concepts of self-love and self-esteem have been greatly misunderstood; and on
both sides. When critics of psychology think of "self" love or esteem, they think of a negative, sinful sense, in which you put yourself before others and think you are "good", even to the extent of thinking you are better than others and perhaps not even a sinner. This is what they condemn when they criticize Christian psychology. But even though many secular people may act like this in practice, this is not what these psychological concepts mean. What they mean is a sense of
worth. The Fundamentalist psychology critics emphasize that rather than "feeling good about ourselves", we should "hold up the mirror of God's Word and graphically reveal to man what he really looks like in the sight of a holy God...his exceeding sinfulness and lost condition" as BDM puts it. True, except that we are talking about
Christians here. They are already declared righteous through the blood of Christ, so why should they keep thinking of themselves as "unholy sinners"? But the whole irony of this is that
these psychology critics themselves do not seem to be walking around thinking that they are no good and worthless. [that's basically what "low self-esteem" is!] And they definitely do not seem to think of themselves as sinners anymore, or even admit that they could be in error. Far from it. There is
very little humility in these ministries that spend all of this time denouncing just about every single leader in the evangelical Church as "false teachers".
Many of these fundamentalist leaders thus do have high "esteem" of themselves (even though they wouldn't
call it this, of course)! Do they not take pride in their ministry (their "service to the Lord"), advocating "excellence" in our profession (and their appearance; it's been pointed out how fine the suits they wear are) and believe that what they are teaching is right? Isn't it like the attitude in very scriptures they often use, such as "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Phil. 4:13), and that "we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us" (Romans 8:37)? This is all psychologists call self esteem, (even though many would say that Christ is just a "crutch", or just [SIZE=-1]
A[/SIZE] way to tap the power within, etc).
If the "Biblical Counseling" advocates, Psychoheresy hunters or BDM leaders, etc. were counseling someone and the counselee kept saying "I can't overcome this sin!", "I can't do anything for Christ!", "I'm no good for Christ", or kept denying who they are in Christ despite what the scriptures say, would the counselor accept this? Would they see it is "true humility" even?
Of course not! So, it seems a lot of this issue regarding esteem is semantic.
On the other hand, many contemporary Christians also get the concepts mixed up. Even though I am clarifying the true meaning of "self worth" against the mistaken claims of psychology critics; I am
not justifying the emphasis some have put on it, where it has a prominent place in "Christian growth". I actually agree with the critics here, to some point. Much of it is what is called "pop" psychology, as opposed to just plain psychology. I know of brethren who will adamantly insist that "Matthew 22:39 teaches" that you must "love yourself"
before you can "love others". (And this is almost a cliché among liberals and even non-Christians!) So it's like you have to embark on this growth process toward self-love in order to even be able to obey the scriptural command. But we're reading a
MODERN psychological concept into an ancient text. What is meant by "loving yourself" here is the assumption that a person automatically "loves himself" in the natural selfish way. The context justifies this, because Jesus is referring to something that the average person already has, not something one must 'develop'. In this vein, Ephesians 5:28, 29 says "he who loves his wife loves himself. For
no one ever hated his own flesh..." Here once again, the idea is to love an "other" (your wife) as you [naturally] love yourself. (Behind this, is the teaching of other scriptures that she
is "your flesh").
So the psychology critics rightly oppose such bending of scriptural meaning. Self image is neither the starting point, nor the goal of Christian living. The goal of the Christian life is for God to shape our lives for His glory, and as we mature, we will more be more able to truly love others, and our view of ourselves will be in its right (and healthy) perspective: sinners, yet redeemed.
