Tag Archives: Social Ethics

Christianity and the Social Order (Part 4)

Leave a reply

In the first three parts of this series, I argued that Jesus and his apostles addressed their moral teaching to individual believers, not to institutions. I examined three different ways people attempt to apply this moral teaching to the social/political order and pronounced them all failures. Does Jesus’s moral teaching, then, have no relevance to the order and conduct of society? Must Christians keep to themselves and “Let the dead bury their own dead” (Luke 9:60)? Or, is there a way Christians can participate in political society without distorting Jesus’s moral teaching?

No Easy Task

I acknowledge that this is a difficult and controversial subject. I have no illusions that I can resolve issues that have been debated since the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire. Additionally, Christians find themselves living in vastly different societies in every country and among every people in the world. I cannot presume to understand their situation well enough to answer their questions. They must think through their own situations. My thought is stamped with the fact that I was born in the United States of America and have lived there my whole life. The best I can do is methodically think through the question, given my experience. Perhaps I can shed a little light even for those who live in other nations.

Indirect Influence

Unavoidable

The first thing on which to get clear is that Christians cannot avoid having some influence on the society in which they live. To live in a society, we will have to participate in the market place and the workplace. We will relate to the state, at least passively, by abiding by laws and regulations, paying taxes, and many other ways. We will interact with family, neighbors, fellow workers, store clerks, doctors, and many others. As those shaped by the moral teachings of Jesus—if we truly are his disciples—even our ordinary interactions with people will witness to our faith. People will notice our “good lives” and perhaps ask why we live this way (1 Peter 2:12). And some may awaken to the moral law written on their hearts long buried by social corruption.

Good Works

We will exert influence not only by being law-abiding, peace-loving and helpful people but by doing good things beyond what we must. Jesus explained to his disciples:

You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:14-16).

From the beginning, Christians have engaged in ministries to the poor, widows and orphans, founded hospitals, build schools, helped with famine relief, and braved plague-ridden cities to care for the dying. Christians don’t do these things to exert social and political influence; yet by displaying true virtue they gradually, indirectly transformed the moral ideals of whole cultures.  And these moral ideals gradually influenced the laws, order, and policies of nations.

Evangelism

Jesus imposed on his disciples a mandate for evangelism. Jesus said,

 All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you (Matthew 28:18-20).

As is obvious from these words, evangelism combines the call to believe the good news, to be incorporated into the church and to adopt the way of life Jesus had taught his disciples. Evangelism speaks a message to the world: repent, believe, receive baptism and learn how to live as a disciple of Jesus. Even though the evangelistic message is not a direct attempt to influence social policy or the individual morality of the general public, it may have an indirect influence toward those ends. The evangelist aims to convert people to Jesus Christ and won’t be satisfied with “making the world a better place.” Nevertheless, the good news of Jesus and the call to a life of high morals may indirectly have this effect.

Next: In part five, we will ask if some political orders, systems of laws and social policies are more compatible with Christian faith, morality and practice than others. If so, can a serious disciple of Jesus actively seek to bring about the order most compatible with Christianity?

Jesus and the Politicians

Leave a reply

In the previous instalment I argued that Jesus and Paul did not address their moral teachings to institutions, such as the state, corporations, professions, or clubs. Only individuals can obey Jesus’s moral commands. On what grounds, then, do advocates invoke Jesus’s moral teachings to justify their public policy proposals? And what are their motivations for wanting Jesus’s support?

I think these strategies fall into three categories.

Thoughtless Clichés

Some politicians, social media junkies, and political pundits quote the teachings of Jesus, the apostles or the prophets without any attempt to justify using them in contexts and for purposes alien to their original settings. Examples are abundant: one often hears Jesus’s words “Do not judge, or you will be judged” (Matthew 7:1) quoted to deflect criticism of immoral acts. Or, it is argued that we should support a universal right to government funded healthcare because Jesus said that God “has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18; quoting Isaiah 61:1-2). Again, should not government act as a counterweight to the rich and powerful and take the side of the poor, because, in the language of liberation theology, “God is always on the side of the poor”?  Jesus’s words are often quoted as proof of this liberationist thesis:

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God…But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort (Luke 6:20-24).

And James says,

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? (James 2:5-6).

Misapplication of the Old Testament

Another group, composed of Christian socialists and Black “prophetic” preachers on the left and so-called “Christian nationalists” on the right apply the Old Testament’s moral and social teachings to the United States of America and other Western democracies to very different ends. But neither left nor right take into account that the Old Testament law was given to the ancient people of Israel, which was a theocratic state governed by a specific covenant with God. The covenant laws—religious as well as moral—were binding on all the people within the realm. In contrast, the New Covenant announced by Jesus (Luke 22:20 and 1 Corinthians 11:25) is based on faith and obedience to Jesus, not on national or ethnic identity. This community is the new covenant people of God; it is not a political entity with sovereignty over all people within its borders—Christians, atheists, moral and immoral. To apply the OT laws given to ancient Israel or the moral instruction given in the NT to the disciples of Jesus to the United States (or other modern states) without due consideration for the differences is a misuse of Scripture and a case of flawed ethical reasoning. The United States of America is neither the Old Covenant nor the New Covenant people of God.

Academic Abstraction and Transposition

In my experience, most academic Christian ethicists understand that the moral teaching of the Bible should not be applied to modern societies uncritically. They are well aware that OT moral teaching was addressed to the ancient covenant people and the NT moral teaching speaks directly to Christians only. Moreover, they understand the point I made in the previous essay in this series, that is, that Jesus’s and the apostles’ moral teaching asserts a strict unity between the inner condition of the soul and external behavior. Good works without love are worthless (1 Corinthians 13). And one who claims to love but does nothing to help others is a liar (1 John 4:20).

The United States of America and other modern states concern themselves for the most part with external behaviors that significantly affect the peace, security and general welfare of society. They do not make policy based on the moral teaching of First Corinthians 13. Jesus said the greatest command is to love God with all your being and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:34-40). No state has ever enshrined these teachings in law—not even in Calvin’s Geneva, Cromwell’s England or John Knox’s Scotland—nor could they be policed if they were. Additionally, modern states find it prudent to allow some external behaviors to be practiced that are clearly taught to be immoral by Jesus and the apostles. How, then, do Christian ethicists develop a Christian political/social ethics for a society that is religiously diverse and contains significant numbers of atheists, agnostics, nihilists, libertines, Marxists, anarchists, and others?

Admittedly, there are a variety of ways Christian thinkers go about developing “Christian” social ethics. But all of them have one strategy in common. They all abstract principles or rules they judge to underlie the moral teaching of the Bible, remove them from their original setting in ancient Israel or the early Christian community and transpose them into a modern secular setting. As one example, as a graduate student in a course in theological ethics I studied the ethics of Reinhold Niebuhr. In his book An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (1935), Niebuhr argues that the Christian ideal of agape love (First Corinthians 13!) cannot be realized even in the life of an individual, much less in political society. But accepting universal love as a moral ideal can inspire us to work toward the closest approximation possible in this world, that is justice. Hence Niebuhr’s theory of ethics is called “Christian Realism.” But is “Christian Realism” Christian in any meaningful sense? The abstract concept of justice as “giving to everyone their due” (Aristotle) is common coinage in all the great ethical systems. What do we gain by calling it an “approximation” of Christian love? How can you have Christian ethics without faith, hope and love, that is, without Christ? Something else is going on, but I won’t take the time here to pursue that issue. I will just say this: Niebuhr’s Christian ethics resembles Roosevelt’s New Deal socialism more than it does Jesus’s radical discipleship ethics.

Liberation theologies—Latin American, Black, Feminist—are also examples of this third type of distortion of Jesus’s and the Apostles’ moral teaching. Liberation theologies latch on to the biblical theme of liberation exemplified most dramatically by God’s liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery in the Exodus and taken up in the NT as liberation from sin, death and the devil. Political liberation becomes the total focus of this theology. Liberation theologians adopt the persona of Moses when he said to Pharoah, “Let my people go.” But of course, modern states are neither ancient Egypt nor unfaithful Israel. And liberation theologians are neither Moses nor Amos. Something else is going on here also. I will just say this: Just as Niebuhr channeled Roosevelt’s New Deal socialism, liberation theologians have more in common with Karl Marx’s utopian communism than with Jesus and Paul.

Next: You may be left with some questions: Do Jesus’s moral teachings have nothing to say to political society? May Christians not bring their faith and moral convictions into public policy discussions? Are there ways to bring our faith to bear on the great issues of the day while avoiding the three mistakes I just outlined? In future essays I hope to address these questions.

Christian Stoic or Social Justice Christian?

Leave a reply

The Stoics

Like all philosophical schools in the ancient world—Platonists, Epicureans, Academics, et al—the Stoics sought the truths, attitudes and conditions that would facilitate a good human life. They observed that such negative emotions as fear, desire, and anxiety are generated by thoughts about attaining or avoiding that over which we have no control. Clearly, these negative emotions are incompatible with the good life. The best life is one of undisturbed contentment with the gift of existence in our inner being wherein we are always in the immediate presence of good things that cannot change. For the Stoics, there is only one thing and one place over which we have control, that is our own free will. It is the only thing that we can have purely by willing it. The external world, including our bodies, operates under other laws over which we have no immediate control and to which we must adjust. And the free will of other human beings is completely beyond our control because it is totally under their control. To banish negative emotions, we must refrain from desiring to control that over which we do not have immediate and total control. Stoics determine to accept the flow of the events that happen in nature as their lot. These external events cannot threaten or even touch the inner world of free will unless we allow it to do so.

Social Justice Christians

There is a kind of Christian ethics that in effect proposes that we ought to remain in a state of discontent and outrage until we right every injustice done in the world. And because we cannot accomplish such radical changes in the world by appealing to the free will of others by doing good, speaking truth, and setting good examples, these same Christians resort to using force: intimidation, insults, rudeness, disruption, legal action, and, yes, even violence.  Apparently, these social justice Christians think that the coming of the kingdom of God depends on our human efforts to establish their ideal political order that includes everybody, believers and non-believers, saints and sinners. They turn the Stoic understanding of a good human life inside out. What matters most are the external conditions of life: equal access to bodily pleasure, equality of material goods, equality of social respect, and equality of external freedom. Because this level of control over the external social, political, and natural order is impossible, these social justice Christians ensure that everyone is angry, unhappy, fearful, and offended all the time. Not a happy life.

The Christian Stoic

There are, of course, great differences between Stoic metaphysics, cosmology and theology and the Christian view of God, creation, salvation, and providence. Jesus’s teaching concerning God’s providence and against the need for anxiety, however, bears some resemblance to the Stoic doctrine of limiting our concern to the place where we have immediate control, our free will. Jesus tells us to trust and align our wills with God’s will. Also, neither in Jesus’s teaching nor in the rest of the New Testament is there the slightest hint that Jesus’s disciples ought to seek to remake the world into a social justice paradise by political means. That day is an eschatological hope dependent completely on God’s power. To attempt to control the world in the name of God in a way only God can produces only tyranny and rebellion. The only community in which there is a little hope for an approximate realization of the kingdom ethics taught in the Sermon on the Mount is the church, that is, the community of those truly converted to Jesus Christ in their inner being. But history demonstrates that this kingdom community has never become a concrete reality even in the church, the community divinely commission to become such. Much more is it a vain dream that it will be realized in a society of the unconverted!

What is the Christian Stoic to do? First, we must understand that apart from God’s grace in the Holy Spirit our free will is not free in the most radical sense, that is free to know and love the true God above all things. Only God can make God present to our minds so that we can know and love him in this way. But given God’s grace, we can love God in return for his love for us. In loving God above everything else we live free from anxiety about all those things over which we have no control. Moreover, we know that the God who loves us possesses power to control all things for our good.

Christian Stoics know they cannot right every wrong and transform the world into a social paradise. This task is not under their power and therefore is not their job. Their main job is, with the help of God’s grace, to allow themselves to be transformed into the image of Christ. From that transformed inner world they can turn outward to do good, speak truth, and love neighbor and enemy. God may use their good works and words to transform others.

Christian Stoics refuse to be unhappy because the external world does not submit to their control. We have come to know that our primary task in life is purification of our own souls. That in itself is a dauting task and the work of a lifetime.

Is Liberation Theology Christian?

Leave a reply

I am taking a break from my essays on higher education to ask, “Is Liberation Theology Christian?” A few years ago, I would have answered this question, “It depends.” Perhaps that was because I knew it only from books. But now my first impulse is to say “No!” because I find myself surrounded by “liberation” theologians, and I know firsthand where they are coming from. It does not matter what they focused on in graduate school—biblical studies, church history, systematic theology or practical theology—everything is about liberating the oppressed. They’ve multiplied like rabbits. It seems that within the past 10 years, every theology graduate program in America decided that the only subject worth studying is oppression and liberation. Everybody is a social ethicist and a political activist. And you advance your academic career by discovering new classes of oppressed people and ever more subtle ways oppressors oppress their victims.

Before I go further into my complaint, I should probably define liberation theology. Liberation theology is a general term for any system of theological thought that privileges “liberation” as the lens through which it views all the topics usually studied in Christian theology. It evaluates every theological utterance by its tendency to oppress or liberate some group of people. There are no neutral theological statements! Everything is political, and everyone has an agenda. The purpose of liberation theology is to critique theologies that justify oppression and construct theologies that justify the efforts of designated oppressed groups to liberate themselves. It is not to listen to the word of God, repeat it to the church, and obey it.

What kind of oppression does liberation theology have in mind? Not sin, death, and the Devil! These three are the classic oppressors of humankind from which traditional Christianity sought liberation through the gracious saving action of the Father, Son, and Spirit. In liberation theology, the oppressors are human beings and the social structures they create. Liberation theologians work to expose and critique the capitalism, patriarchy, white racism, homophobia, colonialism, transphobia, etc., that they see permeating American society. Liberation theology focuses on political liberation. And it draws on the socio-political analysis of Karl Marx and his contemporary followers often called neo-Marxists. They divide the world into the oppressor classes and the oppressed classes. It’s a very simple analysis of a very complicated world. And from this simple analysis liberation theologians derive a simple theology that divides people into good and bad, guilty and innocent based on group identity. The oppressors can make no defense and the oppressed can give no offense.

What gives these liberation theologies the appearance of being Christian? The simple answer to this question is that they argue that the God of the Hebrew prophets and Jesus Christ always took the side of the oppressed. Liberation theologians select such prooftexts as the Exodus story, some of Jesus’s statements, some of his interactions with the poor and rich, and a few other isolated statements in the Old and New Testaments. They sprinkle these quotes within an already complete system of social and political thought derived from Karl Marx and lead the reader to leap to the conclusion that the whole system springs from the essence of Christianity. But Christianity is completely superfluous to the doctrine. It is added to tickle Christian ears and, frankly, to deceive them.

Why do I say that liberation theology is not Christian? (1) Read any liberation theology you please—feminist, Black, womanist, gay, queer, and Latin American—and you will always find that the subjective experience of these groups is considered a divine revelation as authoritative, if not more so, than Scripture. No reading of Scripture, no matter how obvious to the ordinary reader, will be allow to subvert the “truth” of the subjective experience of oppression. But in any theology worthy of the designation “Christian,” Scripture must be acknowledged as the norm of all theological doctrine and ethics, and to reject this norm is to cease to be Christian. To continue posing as Christian is to lie and deceive. (2) Liberation theology selects one theme within Scripture—liberation—and subordinates everything else to it. Liberation theology does not therefore present the fulness of the gospel or the apostolic teaching; and this distortion through omission is a textbook definition of heresy.

Gnosticism and the Gospel of Social Justice: Heresies Old and New

7 Replies

Genesis of a New Heresy

In the course of the past few years I have noticed within my circle of associates, acquaintances, and students, as well as those at a distance, a change in theological orientation. The focus has shifted from heaven to earth, from individual to society, from church to world, from doctrine to ethics, from divine to human action, from conversion to belonging, and from separation to engagement with the world. They’ve not become totally secular. Nor have they adopted one of the historical heresies. They do not deny the incarnation, the resurrection, or the Trinity. They still speak about God and invoke the Spirit; the name of Jesus is ever on their lips. They attend church, quote Scripture, pray, and live good lives.

And yet, in their hands the meanings of traditional Christian words have undergone a subtle change. The words are there: Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, faith, salvation, justice, peace, and love. But the way they are related to each other and appear in the narrative differs dramatically from the biblical order and narrative flow. The priorities, ends, and orienting markers create a very different map of our relationship to God and human beings than that of the New Testament. Some things prominent in the biblical narrative are omitted and others less prominent are given leading roles. God, Christ, Spirit, and other Christian words have been pried loose from their original placement in the Bible and reset in an alien setting. Christian terms are used to legitimate and serve a quite different philosophy, another gospel.

Genesis of an Old Heresy

As I think about how to unravel this tangled web of Christian, pagan, and heretical ideas the work of Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 130 – c. 200) to expose the deceptions of the heresy known as Gnosticism comes to mind. Gnostic theologians commandeered Christian language and set it in their philosophical matrix so that Christian words were given Gnostic meanings. In this way they could present their rational, quasi-mythical speculations as “true” Christianity, intellectually superior to the Christianity of the literally minded common people. Irenaeus’s illustration created to describe the Gnostic strategy applies equally well to the philosophy I am considering:

Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skilful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the ignorant who had no conception what a king’s form was like, and persuade them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1. 8. 1; ANF, 1: 326).

Progressive Humanism

Irenaeus dealt with Gnosticism. What is the name of the contemporary philosophy with which we must deal? I find it difficult to give it a name because it is so eclectic and incoherent. But perhaps “Progressive Humanism” is the least problematic term. It expects the arc of history to bend toward greater and greater liberation of human beings from oppressive forces. It is in this respect a philosophy of history, a secularized version of the traditional Christian doctrines of providence and eschatology. In so far as it views progress toward perfect liberty as inevitable and achievable, it is a utopian vision unattainable under the conditions of history. Within Progressive Humanism two incompatible visions of liberation vie for dominance. One views human beings primarily as individuals and seeks to liberate individuals from all supposedly normative, preexisting political, social, moral, natural, and theological frameworks so that they may define themselves as they please. The other vision views human beings as having primarily a group identity, as members of a class, race, or gender. The goal of this second form of progressivism is liberation of the oppressed group from entrenched, oppressive political and social structures and interests. Clearly, these visions of liberation are incompatible because an individual may be a member of an “oppressed” race or gender but simultaneously a member of an “oppressor” class. Moreover, an individual of any “oppressed” group may find that group itself oppressive to them as individuals if they fail to conform to its expectations.

Progressive Humanism Baptized

The church-going, scripture-quoting Christians I described in the first paragraph of this essay have been converted to the essential ideals and programs of Progressive Humanism. They’ve not stopped talking about God, Christ, the Spirit, and other Christian ideas, but these Christian words have been made subservient to Progressive Humanism. They are no longer of independent interest and authority. They function as metaphysical legitimations for progressive ideals. Under the rubric of “social justice,” the system of Progressive Humanism is breathlessly proclaimed as the gospel of Jesus. And those who are not thoroughly conversant with the whole Bible may mistake the carefully selected quotes from the scriptures and the constant references to Jesus and the Spirit as the proof of the gospel. As Irenaeus observed, those who have no conception of the beautiful mosaic of the king may be deceived to think “that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king.”

To be continued…

Social Justice and The Great-Cause Fallacy

4 Replies

It seems that everyone who’s anyone these days has attached themselves to some great cause. In introducing yourself to another person you give your name, where you work, and the cause that drives you into the streets. You’re nobody if you’ve not founded a nonprofit organization or haven’t been arrested for chaining yourself to the White House fence or at least have “Activist” printed on your business card. You’ve gotta fight for something—for social justice for the oppressed, for the homeless, for the poor, for the trees, for open spaces, for endangered species, for the climate, for gun rights, for gun control, for children’s rights, parents’ rights, for women’s rights…for somebody’s rights! It’s “Up with…” or “Down with…” or “Out with… or “In with….”

No one presents their cause as evil. No one protests, “Down with justice, up with injustice!” Have you ever seen anyone carrying a sign that says, “Tax the Poor!”? No group occupies the halls of state capitols chanting, “Trash the environment!” No. We adopt causes we think are good, noble, and great; or at least causes we can present as good, noble, and great. Perhaps it should not escape our notice that by adopting a good and just cause I demonstrate to myself and others that I am a good and just person. I present myself as a defender of the defenseless and a champion of the oppressed. I set myself in opposition to the oppressors and polluters, the privileged, the greedy, and the selfish. I manifest my love for the beneficiaries of my zeal for whom I sacrifice an evening a week and a weekend a month. And I am righteously outraged at the evil doers who exploit those I love so much, and I am disgusted by those who turn a blind eye to such injustice. If such a self-presentation were a prayer it would go like this:

“God, I thank thee that I am not like other people—greedy, racist, unpatriotic, or lazy! I am a vegetarian, I recycle, I drive a Prius. I stand for the National Anthem and pay my dues to the NRA” (See Luke 18:9-12).

Am I being judgmental? Then let me bring in a witness. What about the great-cause activists’ claim to love those for whom they fight? The letter we know as 1 John has much to say about loving others and loving God:

“Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen” (1 John 4:20).

Many great-cause activists resonate with John’s critique of the religious hypocrite who claims to love God but doesn’t love other human beings. But the reverse principle is just as true. If you claim to love people but do not love God, you are a liar. If you claim to love some people but do not love all, you are a liar. If you claim to love some of the time but do not love always, you are a liar. 1 Corinthians 13 lists many great causes one could adopt and noble actions one could perform without loving God or human beings:

13 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing (1 Cor. 13:1-3; NASB).

Identifying with a great and good cause for which one is willing to give up everything is no sure sign that one loves, that one is a good and just person. In his profoundly insightful book, Søren Kierkegaard reminds us of something we should keep in mind always:

Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between: man-God-man,  that is, that God is the middle term…For to love God is to love oneself in truth; to help another human being to love God is to love another man; to be helped by another to love God is to be loved (Kierkegaard, Works of Love, pp. 112-113).

In our relationship with other human beings, with God’s creation, and with ourselves, God is the “middle term,” that is, we must never try to love anything other than God directly. Nothing can be loved in the right way unless it is loved within the act of loving God and because we love God. If you think you are loving people by championing their rights and fighting against their oppressors but are not helping them to love God, you are self-deceived. You do not love them at all. Indeed you may be making them seven times worse off. If you think you can love yourself by asserting your rights and your dignity directly apart from loving God, you are dressing pride in clothing of justice. The greatest cause is learning to love God. The greatest act of love you can do for others is to help them love God, and the most loving thing anyone will ever do for you is to help you love God.

So, you are looking for a great cause? Be sure that your desire to serve a great cause is not secretly a desire to become great by associating with a great cause. We might begin by learning to pray the prayer of tax collector instead of that of the Pharisee:

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ (Luke 18:13).