In The Womb Of The Self

The sort of Christian faith that is conceived in the womb of the self
is quite different from the historic Christian faith.
It is a smaller thing,
shrunken in its ability to understand the world and to stand up in it.
The self is a canvas too narrow, too cramped,
to contain the largeness of Christian truth.
Where the self circumscribes the significance of Christian faith,
good and evil are reduced to a sense of well-being or its absence,
God’s place in the world is reduced to the domain of private consciousness,
his external acts of redemption are trimmed to fit the experience of personal salvation,
his providence in the world diminishes to whatever is necessary to ensure one’s having a good day,
his Word becomes intuition,
and conviction fades into evanescent opinion.
Theology becomes therapy,
and all the telltale symptoms of the therapeutic model of faith begin to surface.
The biblical interest in righteousness is replaced by a search for happiness,
holiness by wholeness,
truth by feeling,
ethics by feeling good about one’s self.
The world shrinks to the range of personal circumstances;
the community of faith shrinks to a circle of personal friends.
The past recedes. The Church recedes. The world recedes.
All that remains is the self.