Saturday, 10 November 2007
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There is one kind of “sharing” which makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little.
While I am sure it happens across all demographic groups, it seems especially prevalent among Asian American college students. Tell me if you’ve been there yourself:
It’s sharing time. Perhaps it’s the weekly college fellowship meeting, or it’s the annual college fellowship retreat and everyone is gathered around a campfire, sitting silently, waiting for someone to break the ice and start sharing. After awhile, an intrepid soul stands up, shares. Then another. And invariably, there will be some guy or gal who stands up to share and you just know what's coming next.
He doesn't want to share this, he says by way of introduction, with firelight dancing dramatically across his somber face, but God really wants him to share. God has been teaching him a lesson this year, a lesson about . . . (drum roll please) . . . pride. Pride over his grades, pride over his achievements, pride over other things, too (read: looks, popularity, athleticism, ability to come off as spiritual).
This kind of sharing really bothers me because this “confession” of pride is often nothing more than a thinly-veiled advertisement for how wonderful this person is. He has so much to be proud about. His intellectual success…check. His athletic prowess…check. His popularity ranking…check. Weighed down by the trophies of so much success, he has befallen the temptation of pride, and now he would like the world to know about how bad he feels about his intellectual spiritual athletic brilliance pride. For make no mistake: this is the kind of (seemingly) self-deprecating sharing that is wholly self-congratulatory and self-promoting. It is also the kind of confession from which the confessor comes away with an enhanced spiritual reputation – oh, what a humble man of God! – rather than with true dust-and-ashes contrition and repentance. And so this paragon of brilliant success has just found a way to become a paragon of spirituality in one fell swoop.
There are some confessions/sharings that are meant to be made in the public forum, e.g. when a public sin has occurred. Then there are some confessions which, if true, are done in solitude, on knees and tear-stained faces, dealing solely with God, just you and God alone. The confession of pride falls in the latter category. Anyone sharing a public confession of individual pride has some other agenda at work.
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Comments (9)
True. If the sharer has so much going for him, he should just be thankful that God has blessed him in such aspects of his life. And he should express his gratitude either privately or publicly in a manner that conveys humility and thankfulness to God. Should he have issues with pride, he should take them up personally with God instead of using a public forum to toot his horn while pretending to be suffering.
i really like this - you bring out a very interesting point.
needless to say it makes me really wonder about my own peers who publicly confess these things to everyone - i see it more often in small group sharing time.
but yeah - i totally get where you're coming from
something on the issue of pride (at least for us younger people) should be dealt with privately - or i think at least with someone they trust, and someone that understands them. that way - it voids that kind of agenda.
dare ya to tell it to his face next time. then tell me what he says.
Genius. I'm not Christian, though I've gone to church for many years and really struggled with trying to be Christian, not being really Christian, etc. A lot of university church groups have characters like this, and I know exactly what you mean...
my weaknesses? well. i'm an over achiever. a perfectionist. and i suppose i cause a lot of women to lust because i'm so damn good looking. i'm working on all of them.
don't know about the lack of sincerity, however the point is made.
if you are to make a confession like that, talk to your pastor, not your college fellowship.
that's why i hate the idea of public displays like that. i think your entry takes note of that which is often either the case as it is with the person, or the public perception of such a display of contrition. in either case, for the sake of those looking out and those who are looking to confess, do it in private... people, including any honest confessor, will sleep easier...
in all honesty, the biggest complaint i have with those types of sharing time is the fact that they take so darn long to get over... really people... get over yourself and seek some help from your pastor, that's part of his job in being a shepherd, counselor, and mentor of the faith.
i think i've fallen prey to that type of confessional boasting in the past. good point, cutting.
Very insightful! Although I don't think it's always bad to confess about this even publicly, I'm sure for many their confessing in their pride may be motivated by pride, and/or most likely results in more pride. It definitely is a very tricky area to confess publicly. I, personally, would veer towards the private confession.
One time, I was at a retreat and this new convert just gave his testimony. He was into drugs, gangs and all that sort of bad stuff. He had a radical conversion. For some reason, we started talking about pride at the dinner table after his sharing. I mentioned(without any intention to connect to his testimony) that sometimes in our most seemingly humbled state, we could be self-exalting; boasting in our weaknesses can often really be boasting in our strengths. He had this deathly look on his face like God just spoke to him and said, "I think I just did that."
Pride is so deceptive and even when we're talking about how bad we were, how we were abusing drugs and involved with gangs, or whatever other bad things, we could be secretly prideful about how radical our conversion is compared to the other Christian. Or we feel that we gave up a lot to follow Christ. Sometimes it's easy to say, "I went out to the missions field but I had to give up my $250K job." Now, that's not necessarily prideful because it can be a testimony of God changing that person's heart and the person honestly wants to share the goodness of God but the person could also be looking at his sacrifice to go to the field as a more worthy sacrifice than the jobless 20 yr old kid.
Basically, pride's so bad. Pride creeps up everywhere. And it's probably the trickiest to tackle because it can come out of the most "godly" statements. If you're not constantly fighting it and evaluating your heart, it has probably already consumed you. Great post!
i'm an over achiever. a perfectionist. and i suppose i cause a lot of women to lust because i'm so damn good looking.
Being a perfectionist is not in the same category as those.