Mankind has always struggled with pride and hubris, but Selfism elevates vice to virtue and packages it as illumined personal discovery. Selfism, a product of the human potential movement, feeds our desire for meaning while stroking our ego. The Self rises as a divine spark. We are each divine selves, masters of destiny and voices of self-authority.

True truth, ultimate meaning, higher purpose; what defines reality has been distorted beyond recognition. Postmodernism has left civilization in a state of confusion, and in this, the tendency to elevate Self acts as a cultural norm. But this, too, is illusionary, for we find ourselves shifting to the demands of new gatekeepers. In the end, we are left wandering in a fuzzy daze.
The following article is an excerpt from my book, Game of Gods: The Temple of Man in the Age of Re-Enchantment.
Fundamentally, Postmodernism was and is a reaction to and rejection of foundational truth claims and the narratives supporting them – first in terms of Modernity, but also the assertions of Christian revelation. Biblical doctrine had been overshadowed by materialist dogma, but now both were being pushed aside. How truth was measured and considered by other generations no longer applied. Past approaches were and are viewed as too narrow and associated with oppression, linking knowledge with power and the placing of gatekeepers to bar the way for others. Therefore, historical truth claims remain as claim only and are treated with suspicion. Grand narratives and their related worldviews are no longer relevant to the post-modern mind.
We are left with questions but no defining answers and no tangible framework to develop a coherent worldview.
The slope immediately becomes slippery. Judgments resting on previously held truth claims melt away. History fades into oblivion. The meaning of language bends. Tolerance without definition becomes the new norm. Inclusion and broad interpretations represent the progressive path, and personal transformation means conforming to ever changing cultural cues. Traditional standards are diluted as society attempts to scrub out reminders of “privileged” exclusivity. What was once virtuous is vilified, and what was morally shameful is celebrated. Truth and falsehood are no longer discernible, and what is known to be factual becomes blurred and distorted – including biology, identity, and sexuality. Higher values are lost in the fuzzy daze of a wandering culture. Does this sound like today?
In such a milieu there is an almost irresistible pull to elevate self. Certainly, self-actualization and experiments in self-identity are lauded within the post-modern context. Our personal reality is fashioned in the image of our felt needs. The psychological cult of Selfism, a “form of secular humanism based on worship of the self,”1 attempts to fill the vacuum of lost value. Yes, mankind has always struggled with pride and hubris, but Selfism elevates vice to virtue and packages it as illumined personal discovery. Selfism, a product of the human potential movement, feeds our desire for meaning while stroking our ego. The Self rises as a divine spark. We are each divine selves, masters of destiny and voices of self-authority.
This is manifestly different from the Christian approach to the individual. Stanly Grenz, author of A Primer on Postmodernism, reminds us that the Biblical position recognizes “God’s concern for each person, the responsibility of every human before God, and the individual orientation that lies within the salvation message.”2 It was also different than Modernity with its tendency to integrate the person into state-directed systems of meaning. The cult of Selfism, rather, is a “horizontal heresy, with its emphasis only on the present, and on self-centered ethics.”3
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 It can sometimes seem as if Christians don’t have permission to be unhappy, to have regrets, to feel broken, to express deep sorrow, or to lament. Which would have been news to the writers of Scripture. The major giveaway being that there is literally a book of the Bible called “Lamentation”. The Psalms – the Bible’s very own songbook – has an entire genre called “Psalms of lament”. There are more psalms of lament than there are psalms of any other kind – in fact, a whole third of them are lamentation of one kind of another.

Like many teenagers who had a lovely upbringing in a safe suburb with kind parents and many friends, I was often miserable.
I spent many evenings with my cassette walkman, just the two of us, listening to doomy  English music like Depeche Mode, and thinking that no one else understood, or could possibly understand, just how deep I was. I specifically recall one of my friends’ mums looking at my miserable face and saying, “Cheer up, it might never happen.” To which I responded, “Too late. It already has.” And I was so pleased with this response that I probably would have smiled, had smiling not already become physically impossible for me.
There is a kind of sadness or melancholy which is delicious and addictive, which can make us feel special and, yes, even superior to others. A kind of misery that, if we give ourselves over to it, tips into self-indulgence and self-pity.
But you can also fall off the horse the other way. You can mistake “being chipper” for being godly. You can start to believe that Christians have no right to be sad about anything, because everything will be okily dokily in the end.
I’m afraid this poor theology has infected many of our churches, and it’s nowhere more obvious than in the songs we often sing. Some songs have so little gravity that NASA could use them to train astronauts in.
It’s not we that shouldn’t sing songs of joy, of course we should. But where are the songs of lament? It can sometimes seem as if Christians don’t have permission to be unhappy, to have regrets, to feel broken, to express deep sorrow, or to lament. Which would have been news to the writers of Scripture. The major giveaway being that there is literally a book of the Bible called “Lamentation”.
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Written by David L. Mobley |
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
I’m commanded to first take the log out of my own eye. I’m told that it’s there, and that I’d better deal with it first. So, I must get on my knees before God, metaphorically or literally or both, and ask God to help me see the log in my own eye and get it out.

As a father of six, I often feel like I’m constantly involved in conflict resolution —though not as much so as my wife, since she’s full-time with the kids whereas I have a “day job”. I suppose some of this conflict is almost inevitable —with eight people in the household, that means there are 28 different pairs of people who could have a conflict at any given time. But I digress. All this conflict keeps bringing me back to Matthew 7:3-5 (LSB):
“And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
This text is so simple, yet so deep and profound. Here, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses our natural propensity to judge others, and to judge them unfairly. When it comes to others, we’re ready to make a huge issue out of even something very small, which he describes here as a speck in their eye. But when it comes to ourselves, we’re ready to overlook even huge glaring issues, so much so that he takes it almost to a comical level and pictures us being willing even to overlook having a log in our eye. Imagine someone with a whole log in their eye, trying to help someone else remove a tiny speck! Clearly that would be impossible; if I have a log in my eye, there’s no way I’m going to be able to closely inspect someone else’s eye to help them get a speck out of it. It’s obvious —yet how much do we fail to do what this says?!?
So often, when there’s a conflict, our first response is to think of all the things the other person did wrong. This is how my kids often communicate to me about their problems —they bring a list of the ways they were wronged, and of course they must be an innocent victim. But it takes me back to my first year or so of marriage, when Maura and I fought so much —and I remember having all the same thoughts myself. If there was conflict, I could clearly see all the ways she had been wrong, but of course I was innocent, or at least I had good excuses for how I had acted. But I kept coming back to this passage, and to Ephesians 5:25-27:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.
Here, husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church, wanting what’s truly best for them. This call to love isn’t limited to marriage, though —it extends to siblings and beyond. Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said (Matthew 5:44, LSB):
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