On Egotism

We must be prepared to set aside our own personal vendettas, our own pride and our own desires if we are to herald the coming of God’s kingdom. There remains even among Christians a great tendency to believe that, now we know the truth, we are above the vices and fallibility that plague others.

On the contrary, we are merely made more aware of them. This problem exists amongst Christians, inevitably more so away from mainstream churches, where suffocating dogma usually frustrates the most independent of personalities.

When one person puts their own ego above the needs of their faith, they invite scorn from those who do act with humility, and risk creating disarray with their agreements. It is therefore desirable that each party in a conflict of the wills be prepared to heed the instructions of Jesus, and step back to consider the greater need for humility and tolerance for the other party, if not their viewpoint. As we are told at Luke 6:42: “Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.”

We can see across history how such conflicts of the wills have torn apart Christian or purportedly Christian groups, be it the Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox churches, the various protestant movements, even the Mormons have suffered schisms, and the apparent lack of unity has damaged their credibility as religions. We cannot permit this to happen, as it will injure our chances of showing more people what Christianity really means for them.

Paul warned us not to claim we are better than other people. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”Obviously he did not mean nobody could ever be better than anyone else, but he was cautioning us against narcissism and prideful boasting, as after all, we are all sinners, flawed and imperfect. Such an attitude damages the position we hold, even if the position itself is very good, it will not gain acceptance if its advocate is arrogant.