Pride and Truth
Jun 03, 2010
We’ve talked at length about the suffering and evil dilemma, so I am moving to a new topic, near and dear to my heart—Christian pride! If you’ve interacted with Christians for long, chances are you’ve come across your fair share of men and women claiming to be Christians while yelling offensive language over a fence, berating a “pagan,” preaching high morality, etc. Nietzsche once said that “all truth claims are power plays,” meaning that the only reason people claim to have real ‘truth’ is so they can feel superior and control those who disagree. This is why many Christians are so angry, i.e. they know they know the truth and yet so many disagree with them, live differently, and even flaunt Christian ethics.
As our culture has shifted further and further toward secularism, the cultural battles have become more intense. But what Nietzsche failed to see was that his own statement was a truth claim. He could not see that a world bereft of truth leaves the field wide-open to power plays. Without a truth claim, Martin Luther King Jr. would have never changed our country—he appealed specifically to the Christian truth that oppression and injustice were products of and rooted in sin, and therefore should be overturned. Without truth, the powerful become the truth, the weak and poor are run down and trampled under foot. We all agree that we are tired of the bickering, anger, pride, and divisiveness, but ridding ourselves of truth will only open the door to a new tyranny, a more dangerous one because with truth dead, there will be no weapons to battle it. So, how can we have peace and harmony while still loving truth? Let me give you 3 quick resources that Christianity possesses, resources that are unique to Christianity (though I admit sadly that Christians have taken the Gospel seriously in this respect):
First, the Method of Christianity leads to humility—In every other religion, you’re saved by performance, meaning that superiority abounds, but the Gospel says you’re not saved by your performance; you’re saved by God’s unmitigated grace. This leads us to expect that people who don’t believe as Christians do might very well be better than us. We’re not saved b/c we’re wise, good, virtuous, or performing the truth; we’re saved because Jesus performed the truth. Thus, many who don’t believe with us can easily be better people. The Gospel humbles us before others with whom we disagree.
Second, the Purpose of Christianity leads to service—Every other religion says that this world doesn’t matter and all that does matter is going to heaven while the world is destroyed or escaped (if not heaven, then some other escape from the physical world). But if Biblical salvation is a physical and renewed “new heavens and a new earth,” where death, poverty, and disease are gone, then Christians are called to work for the peace and renewal of this world. At its inception, the Greeks marveled that Christians took care not only of their poor, but all the poor, not just their children but every child who needed a home.
Third, the Origin of Christianity leads to love—When Christianity began to grow in the earliest days, they lived in a world of what looked like inclusive, pluralistic religion—everyone had their own god! Christians came along and said, “Jesus is Lord of all.” It seems that this would create division and anger but it actually created the most inclusive society ever known. Greeks didn’t mix rich and poor, but Christians did. The Jews didn’t mix the races but the Christians did. The reason behind this is that ultimate reality is visible in Jesus Christ, and this ultimate reality is always about a man on a cross loving people who don’t love him, forgiving people who abuse him, and sacrificially serving people who oppose him. The empire of Jesus is not coercive for it is built on the sacrificial death of its king. The truth we proclaim is not a function of coercive power but of sacrificial love. If that’s ultimate reality, how can Christians be cruel, coercive, or condescending to anyone? We can’t.
