The Danger of Religious Pride

Religious pride is a problem, a major problem. It subtly seeps into our thinking until we are completely absorbed with ourselves.

This lethal gas can fill our hearts before, during, and after religious activities. For instance, after we have gone to church, or prayed, or read the Bible, we can be proud of what we have done. Or before going to church we can be motivated to attend to be seen by others.

Jesus addressed religious pride throughout his ministry. He accused the Pharisees of giving to the poor, praying, and fasting only to be seen by others (Matt. 6). They weren’t thinking about God and his kingdom; their eyes were on themselves as they fulfilled their religious activities. In other words, they were hypocrites or actors.

Defining Pride

What is pride? Pride is essentially thinking too highly of ourselves. In Romans 12, Paul says, “Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourselves with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you” (v. 3). This doesn’t mean we are not allowed to take satisfaction in our accomplishments. Paul also writes, “Each one should take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else” (Gal 6:4). Our downfall is that we are constantly comparing ourselves to others and thinking we are better than them. For example, students brag about their grade on a test to show that they performed better than others. They are not taking “pride in themselves alone.”

Religious Pride

Religious pride is thinking too highly of ourselves in spiritual matters. It is playing the comparison game. Karl Barth (1886-1968) insightfully writes:

Whenever men suppose themselves conscious of the emotion of nearness to God, whenever they speak and write of divine things, whenever sermon-making and temple-building are thought of as an ultimate human occupation, whenever men are aware of divine appointment and of being entrusted with a divine mission, sin veritably abounds—unless the miracle of forgiveness accompanies such activity . . . No human demeanor is more open to criticism, more doubtful, or more dangerous, than religious demeanor. No undertaking subjects men to so severe a judgment as the undertaking of religion. (Galli, 50)

We are prone to take pride in our achievements. How much more so when we think we have achieved something for God? Regarding the study of theology, Barth says:

Of all the disciplines theology is the fairest, the one that moves the head and heart most fully, the one that comes closest to human reality, the one that gives the clearest perspective on the truth which every disciple seeks . . . But of all the disciplines, theology is also the most dangerous, the one in which a man is most likely to end in despair, or—and this is almost worse—arrogance. (132)

The study of God should lead to deep humility. After all, we are tiny humans trying to understand the infinite God. But because all “knowledge puffs up” (1 Cor. 8:1), even theology can result in an arrogant attitude.

Protestant Pride

Anyone, in any denomination, can be arrogant, but Protestant doctrine makes for an intriguing illustration. One of the main mantras of the Protestant Reformation was “justification by faith.” But this too can turn us inward in a boastful way. Paul Tillich (1886-1965) says,

always say, justification by grace through faith. The justifying power is the divine grace; the channel through which men receive this grace is faith. Faith is by no means the cause, but only the channel. In the moment in which faith is understood as the cause of justification, it is a worse work of man than anything in Roman Catholicism. . . . If faith is a human work which makes us acceptable to God, and if this human work is the basis or cause of salvation, then we can never be certain of our salvation in the sense in which Luther sought for certainty when he asked the question, ‘How do I find a merciful God?’ (Tillich, 12-13)

It’s all too easy for us to look to ourselves and boast in our own faith as if that is the cause of our salvation. But Paul’s gospel undermines this type of pride: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph 2:8-9). Our faith doesn’t cause God to love us. God was gracious and merciful before we believed: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). 

Moreover, even if we begin the Christian life understanding this, pride can still creep in later. Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) says, “a righteousness ‘by grace’ may lead to new forms of Pharisaism if it does not recognize that forgiveness is as necessary at the end as at the beginning of the Christian life” (Niebuhr, 105).

Did you catch that?

Even the doctrine of salvation by grace—a teaching that should destroy human arrogance—can turn us into modern-day Pharisees. How so? Because we can become proud that we adhere to that doctrine. Pride is pervasive and it will latch onto anything it can, including pride-destroying doctrines.

Solution

So what’s the solution?

Humility.

In his letter to a believer named Dioscorus, Augustine gives this explanation of the Christian life:

In that way the first part is humility; the second, humility; the third, humility: and this I would continue to repeat as often as you might ask direction, not that there are no other instructions which may be given, but because, unless humility precede, accompany, and follow every good action which we perform, being at once the object which we keep before our eyes, the support to which we cling, and the monitor by which we are restrained, pride wrests wholly from our hand any good work on which we are congratulating ourselves. All other vices are to be apprehended when we are doing wrong; but pride is to be feared even when we do right actions, lest those things which are done in a praiseworthy manner be spoiled by the desire for praise itself. Wherefore, as that most illustrious orator, on being asked what seemed to him the first thing to be observed in the art of eloquence, is said to have replied, Delivery; and when he was asked what was the second thing, replied again, Delivery; and when asked what was the third thing, still gave no other reply than this, Delivery; so if you were to ask me, however often you might repeat the question, what are the instructions of the Christian religion, I would be disposed to answer always and only, Humility, although, perchance, necessity might constrain me to speak also of other things. (Letter 118)

From start to finish, the Christian life is all due to God’s grace, and that should lead to deep humility. It’s hard to be proud when we are constantly receiving divine mercy.