Self-exaltation

In today's digital age, selfies have become a global phenomenon. Millions of people, especially young adults, spend countless hours capturing and sharing images of themselves. This trend reflects a growing desire for self-expression, social validation, and personal branding. Here are the most current stats as of the end of 2024:

• 92 million selfies are taken every day.
• Individuals spend 54 hours a year (or 7 minutes a day) taking selfies.
• The average “selfie-taker” is 24 years old.
• Women take 1.5 times more selfies than men.
• A full 95% of youth have taken selfies, compared to 63% of those aged 35–54 and only 44% of people over 55.
• Roughly 33% of pictures snapped by 18 to 24-year-olds are self-portraits.
• Millennials are forecast to capture around 25,700 selfies over their lifetime.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Kind of makes you think that the world was a little less narcissistic when we had to pay for film.

In an issue of CT magazine, author Jen Wilkin writes:

Individualism says that I should do what’s best for me regardless of what’s best for others. Instant gratification assures me that waiting is an enemy to eliminate. At every turn, I am told that I can and should have what I want when I want it.

Earlier this year, my husband and I spent two weeks with an apparent narcissist named Charlotte. From the moment we stepped into her space, it was all about her. She demanded our full attention day and night. Forget rational arguments or the needs of others; it was The Charlotte Show 24/7. She thought only of herself and demanded loudly and often that her needs be met. Our schedules bowed to her every whim. She uttered not a word of gratitude during the entire 14 days.

And we didn’t mind one bit. Because all 7 pounds and 15 ounces of her was doing exactly what she should. Our newest grandchild’s age-appropriate focus is to declare, Me, right now! Any time she is tired, hungry, or needs a clean diaper. Babies self-advocate as a survival instinct. They understand only the immediate need.

But what is appropriate in an infant is appalling in an adult. In its obsession with “me, right now,” our culture doesn’t just worship youthfulness; it worships childishness, legitimizing it into adulthood. An adult who demands what he wants when he wants it is a costly presence in any community, prioritizing his own needs above those of others and of the group. He has not learned to “put away childish things,” as the Bible says (1 Cor. 13:11, KJV); he has managed to grow physically from a baby to an adult without shedding the childish mantra of “me, right now.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

As parents, our first challenge is to meet the needs of babies crying out, “Me, right now.” But our greater task over the years is to train our children to mature and outgrow their entitlement, to resist the narcissistic norms of our age. It is our job as Christian parents to move our children from the immaturity of individualism and instant gratification to the maturity of sacrificial service and delayed gratification.

It's always interesting listening to some folks who are trying to make sense of Christian virtues. For example, The Journal of Positive Psychology ran an article with the following headline: "Humble persons are more helpful than less humble persons: Evidence from three studies."

Humble people are helpful. Wow, you don't say? How shocking! The abstract for the article reads: "Humble participants helped more than did less humble participants even when agreeableness and desirable responding were statistically controlled." In non-technical language, this means in situations where people wanted to help for unselfish reasons, people who weren't full of themselves were more likely to actually lend a hand. The article also reports that humble people even make better bosses and employees.

So how do you explain this strange virtue? Well, not to worry. The researchers tried to examine the evidence "for the evolutionarily predicted connection between humility and helping." Christians have a simpler explanation for humility: It comes from Jesus.

Humans have been trying to chase away gray hair for millennia. Clay tablets from the Assyrian Empire dated to the 7th Century B.C. mention using the gall of a black ox, cypress oil, licorice, and honey to turn gray hair black.

Ancient Egyptians applied oil cooked with the blood of a black calf, according to the 3,500-year-old Ebers Papyrus. (Presumably, if it worked, we’d still be trying it).

Tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, who is spending millions experimenting on himself to slow aging, posted a YouTube video detailing his regimen to reverse hair loss and graying; the video has over 1.5 million views.

Johnson, 46, uses two topical treatments. One contains an herbal extract that, Johnson acknowledges, has colored his hair. But he says something is reversing his grays. When he has looked closely at plucked hairs, he says color has returned to some of them.

What is working? He isn’t sure. Johnson’s routine also includes more than 50 supplements daily and trips to a Honduran island for $25,000 gene-therapy injections.

Tom Brady has expressed frustration with the attitude of new athletes in professional sports. On the "DeepCut with VicBlends" podcast, he discussed the self-centered mindset of younger players.

Brady said, "I think the biggest problem with a lot of (expletive) kids these days, it’s all about them. Their brand, their social media. When it’s about ‘me’ and then not about ‘us,’ well, there’s no way to succeed as a team if all you’re doing is thinking how selfish it is for you to get the attention."

VicBlends agreed, emphasizing the value of elevating others. "It’s cool to show the world how great you are, but the most inspiring thing is how great you can make others."

Brady reflected on the broader implications. "That’s the point of life. Is what we could do – how do you help other people finish the race?"

One-third of U.S. adults said they would probably or definitely take a drug to prevent or reverse graying if such a medication were approved, according to a poll of 9,000 people. Some endorse gobbling black sesame seeds and blackstrap molasses to give gray hair the brush off. Others take liquid chlorophyll or douse their hair in onion juice. In online forums, posts about reversing grays can draw hundreds of replies.

Humans have been trying to chase away gray for millennia. Clay tablets from the Assyrian Empire dated to the 7th Century B.C. mention using the gall of a black ox, cypress oil, licorice, and honey to turn gray hair black. Ancient Egyptians applied oil cooked with the blood of a black calf, according to the 3,500-year-old Ebers Papyrus. (Presumably, if it worked, we’d still be trying it).

Tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, who is spending millions experimenting on himself to slow aging, posted a YouTube video detailing his regimen to reverse hair loss and graying; the video has nearly 700,000 views.

Johnson, 46, uses two topical treatments. One contains an herbal extract that, Johnson acknowledges, has colored his hair. But he says something is reversing his grays. When he has looked closely at plucked hairs, he says color has returned to some of them. What is working? He isn’t sure. Johnson’s routine also includes more than 50 supplements daily and trips to a Honduran island for $25,000 gene-therapy injections.

Augustin Lignier, a photographer in Paris, created a photo booth for rats. He took inspiration from B.F. Skinner, the famous researcher who made The Skinner Box, designed to dispense food pellets when rats pushed a designated lever.

It became one of the most well-known experiments in psychology. Reward-seeking rats became lever-pressing pros, pushing the bar down over and over again in exchange for food, drugs, or even a gentle electric zap directly to the pleasure center of the brain.

Mr. Lignier built his own version of a Skinner Box—a tall, transparent tower with an attached camera—and released two pet-store rats inside. Whenever the rats pressed the button inside the box, they got a small dose of sugar and the camera snapped their photo. The resulting images were immediately displayed on a screen, where the rats could see them. (“But honestly I don’t think they understood it,” Mr. Lignier said.)

The rodents quickly became enthusiastic button pushers. But then the rewards became more unpredictable. Although the rats were still photographed every time they hit the button, the sweet treats came only once in a while, by design. These kinds of intermittent rewards can be very powerful, keeping animals glued to their slot machines as they await their next jackpot.

In the face of these unpredictable rewards, the rats ignored the sugar even when it did arrive, and just kept pressing the button anyway. To Mr. Lignier, the parallel is obvious. “Digital and social media companies use the same concept to keep the attention of the viewer as long as possible,” he said.

Indeed, social media has been described as “a Skinner Box for the modern human,” doling out periodic, unpredictable rewards—a like, a follow, a promising romantic match—that keep us glued to our phones.

Singer-songwriter and author Sandra McCracken writes in an issue of CT magazine:

Greek mythology may not be a guide to the Christian life, but I appreciate the clever commentary the ancient stories offer. I was recently reminded of Narcissus, the young man who neglected all other loves and physical needs so he could stare endlessly at his own reflection. Narcissus eventually dies while sitting by the reflection pool—the tragic and ironic conclusion to his selfish love.

The old, dark comedy still applies—maybe especially applies—to our modern ego and pride. We have more than just pools and mirrors to contend with. ... Aided by our phones and social media, many of us spend more time with our reflections than even Narcissus did. The overwhelming majority of Americans now own smartphones. And with billions of mobile devices in circulation around the world, the situation is the same in many other countries. We are a selfie society, encouraged to view and post about ourselves often, in hopes of attracting more likes and boosting our “brand.”

To see only ourselves and to spend life captivated by our own dim radiance is, in effect, to die. And death is always a tragedy. To see God, however, is to see resurrection and new life. When we look to Jesus to remember more fully our true worth, we gain freedom from vain self-reflection, knowing instead that we belong to the one Source of true delight.

Picture this: you’re nestled comfortably in your airline seat cruising towards your holiday destination when a flight attendant’s voice breaks through the silence: “Ladies and gentlemen, both pilots are incapacitated. Are there any passengers who could land this plane with assistance from air traffic control?”

If you think you could manage it, you’re not alone. Surveys indicate about 30% of adult Americans think they could safely land a passenger aircraft with air traffic control’s guidance. Among male respondents, the confidence level rose to nearly 50%.

We’ve all heard stories of passengers who saved the day when the pilot became unresponsive. For instance, in 2022, Darren Harrison managed to land a twin-engine aircraft in Florida – after the pilot passed out – with the guidance of an air traffic controller. However, such incidents tend to take place in small, simple aircraft. Flying a much bigger and heavier commercial jet is a completely different game.

Takeoffs and landings are arguably the most difficult tasks pilots perform, and are always performed manually. Only on very few occasions, can a pilot use autopilot to land the aircraft for them. This is the exception, and not the rule.

Landing is complicated, and requires having precise control of the aircraft’s direction and descent rate. To land successfully, a pilot must keep an appropriate speed while simultaneously managing gear and flap configuration, adhering to air traffic regulations, communicating with air traffic control, and completing a number of paper and digital checklists.

Once the aircraft comes close to the runway, they must accurately judge its height, reduce power, and adjust the rate of descent – ensuring they land on the correct area of the runway. On the ground, they will use the brakes and reverse thrust to bring the aircraft to a complete stop before the runway ends. This all happens within just a few minutes.

Both takeoff and landing are far too quick, technical, and concentration-intensive for an untrained person to pull off. So, if you’ve never even learned the basics of flying, your chances of successfully landing a passenger aircraft with air traffic control’s help are close to zero.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Pride; Self-confidence; Self-exaltation – This illustration speaks to the overconfidence of the human nature. We have been encouraged to overestimate our abilities and underestimate our shortcomings in today’s culture; 2) Criticism; Pastor; Minister – This could also apply to a church setting in which members criticize the performance of the pastor and leadership and often have the thought “I could do their job so much better!”

William Muir, a researcher at Purdue University, studies the productivity of chickens. He wants to know how to breed chickens that lay lots of eggs and create environments that foster greater productivity. To research how to make super chickens, he did an experiment.

Muir put chickens into two groups. One group contained normal, healthy chickens. He left them alone for six generations of a chicken’s life. Another, separate group included all the super chickens, those who are proven high producing egg layers. Muir also left them alone for six generations. He provided food, water, and a clean environment, but did nothing to influence the chickens egg laying.

At the end of the experiment, Muir discovered that the group of normal chickens were flourishing: they were laying more eggs per chicken than when the experiment started. In the group of super chickens, only three were left. They had pecked the others to death. The super chickens had laid more eggs through a strategy of suppressing other chickens’ productivity, by killing, or intimidating them, so they were unable to lay eggs.

Possible Preaching Angle

Competition; Leadership; Success - Leadership can fall into the same trap. We believe that if we find the right super chickens we will have success. We look for superstars. In our culture, and in our churches, we often create super chickens, because we desperately want success. We think it can come through one superstar leader.

The CDC’s bi-annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2023) showed that most teen girls (57%) now say that they experience persistent sadness or hopelessness (up from 36% in 2011), and 30% of teen girls now say that they have seriously considered suicide (up from 19% in 2011). Boys are doing badly too, but their rates of depression and anxiety are not as high, and their increases since 2011 are smaller.

What are the causes behind this concerning trend? It’s complex, but in a thorough overview of hundreds of studies, here’s how researcher Jon Haidt summarizes the data:

There is one giant, obvious, international, and gendered cause: Social media. Instagram was founded in 2010. The iPhone 4 was released then too—the first smartphone with a front-facing camera. In 2012 Facebook bought Instagram, and that’s the year that its user base exploded. By 2015, it was becoming normal for 12-year-old girls to spend hours each day taking selfies, editing selfies, and posting them for friends, enemies, and strangers to comment on, while also spending hours each day scrolling through photos of other girls and fabulously wealthy female celebrities with (seemingly) vastly superior bodies and lives. The hours girls spent each day on Instagram were taken from sleep, exercise, and time with friends and family. What did we think would happen to them?

Author and pastor Mark Sayers says there are two stories competing for our minds and hearts. The first story is broadcast loudly across pop culture, social media, and all media. It claims that you and I are the center of the universe. We are unique individuals, and we can be awesome. We just need to create our identities. By making the right choices with our wardrobe and weekends, and by hanging out with the right people and doing the right things, we can be limitlessly happy. The world offers you and me an amazing life; we just have to go out and make it happen.

The second story is quiet. It’s more of a whisper from the back burner in our brains, but it will not go away. It’s there in the quiet, in the middle of the night. It’s the longing when the promises of the first story under-deliver. The whisper tells us we were made for more. In hushed voices, it insists that we have an immovable and important identity, a sort of real home somewhere out there. We’re longing for it, and we know it’s not just in our imaginations. There’s got to be more to this life, it nags.

We continuously suppress that second story, though, largely because the first story is so loud. Everything from Instagram to movies to clothing ads to political campaigns declares that we can be whoever we want to be. Pursuing the second story takes time and intentionality and going against every cultural grain.

Tim Keller used this story to illustrate the “conversion of the heart.”

Many years ago, when I was in college, I was part of a Christian fellowship, and there was a young man who joined up. And it shocked us all. This young man was famous on the campus for being incredibly sexually active, and he had the looks to go with it. He was handsome and charismatic. And then, to our surprise he came into the fellowship where he declared that “He’s a Christian now … and he foreswears his sexual past … and he going to live a chaste, pure life.”

He threw himself into the Christian activities. Everyone said, “Wow! This is a real change.” However, it wasn’t long before we came to realize that this young man, in every group, any committee, any Bible study, whether he was the leader or not, he had to be the leader. He always sought control. There was power struggle after power struggle, and after a while it became clear that when he was sexually active it really wasn’t about sex; it was about power. He would go after some girl until she fell for him, and then he lost all interest. It wasn’t about sex. It was about power.

When he came into the church, he suddenly adopted all the Christian beliefs, the Statements of Faith, and Christian practices. He stopped living in sexual promiscuity. But deep down inside, he still wanted power. Power in relationships.

Keller points out that we all have the need for deeper conversion in our heart. He says, “Deep down inside, every one of our hearts is saying, ‘If I have money, if I have approval, if I have power, if I have comfort, if I have control, if I have romance ….’ Every one of our hearts needs that deeper conversion from our idols to the Living God.”

You can read a free PDF copy of the book here.

Kelly Kay Green wanted to be someone. So, she donned a specially made dress, chugged a Coors Light for courage, and ran onto the field at the Super Bowl in February 2020. In her pursuit of fame, Green thought of everything: She selected a seat close to the field, trained with a physical therapist to stick the landing, engaged a lawyer, and bought a Velcro-equipped dress she could strip away.

Green wanted to make it to the 50-yard line from her end zone seat. She did not even make it to the one-yard line. Arrested almost instantly, she feared that her ambitions of internet celebrity would lead only to a long, cold night in lockup.

After her release, though, a photographer was waiting. Reunited with her phone, Green saw her Instagram statistics soaring. Her mug shot rocketed around the internet. Followers multiplied, ultimately hundreds of thousands of them, with many eager to pay for videos and pictures that were often at the very least suggestive. Invitations to high-profile parties arrived, too.

“All of a sudden, I wasn’t just the hot girl or the girl that ran on the field,” she said. “I was a hot Instagram influencer that ran on the field and had worldwide attention.” But she also found that fame has a downside. Green said, “[Fame] looks so inviting and so glamorous, but I learned quickly that [celebrity] events give me anxiety, being around people who are just asking me what I can do and how can I help them,” she said. “All of these things that Hollywood is, and will always be, that looked so appealing to me just turned me completely off from it.”

Green moved back to Tennessee. She still has a copy of her mugshot.

Christian Coleman is the reigning world champion in the men’s 100 meters. From time to time, strangers approach the 26-year-old Atlanta native with a proposition. He said, “People will look at me, like, ‘You’re Christian Coleman. Hey, you want to race?’ And I mean, like, we’re in the middle of the mall. It’s like, obviously not.”

It’s a remarkably common occurrence, top sprinters say. Against all odds, overconfident average citizens size up these singularly skilled and sculpted specimens and think they have a chance to win. The urge appears to be universal, spanning national boundaries and identities.

Karsten Warholm, the 26-year-old world record holder in the 400-meter hurdles, works out at an indoor public facility in Oslo, in his native Norway. Mr. Warholm recalled a training session when a man, not dressed in running clothes, asked him to race.

Mr. Warholm said, “I was like, ‘Sure,’ because I was going to do another run either way. Of course, I smoked him, obviously.” At the finish line, the man insisted he had a bad start. He wanted to race again, Mr. Warholm recalled, chuckling.

Columnist David Brooks mocks what passes for humility these days. He points to a tweet from the president of the European Central Bank: “I was humbled to be awarded an honorary degree by the London School of Economics earlier this week. Thank you so much for this prestigious honor!” Brooks notes the three rules of this fake humility.

#1) Never tweet about any event that could actually lead to humility. Never tweet: “I’m humbled that I went to a party, and nobody noticed me.” Never tweet: “I’m humbled that I got fired for incompetence.”

#2) Use the word humbled when the word proud would be more accurate. For example: “Truly humbled to be keynote speaker at TedX East Hampton.” The key to humility display is to use self-effacement as a tool to maximize your self-promotion.

#3) Never use a pronoun. Start your tweets with “Humbled to be …” or “Honored to be …” This sends the message that you have only a few seconds to dash off this tweet, because you’re so busy and important.

We used to dance around our humblebragging, but now Brooks says “our [so-called] humility is explicit, assertive, direct, and unafraid. We blaze forth so much humility that it’s practically blinding. Humility is the new pride.”

Robert Samuel is a 46-year-old former mobile phone salesman who now gets paid to sit in line for others. If a client wants something but can’t stomach a long queue, they pay him thousands of dollars to do it for them. Samuel sits, standing, or sometimes sleeps, in lines: waiting for theater tickets, iPhone releases, limited edition hoodies, and more before either relinquishing his place to his customer or buying them tickets. This has been his work for nine years and before the pandemic, he was earning over $86,000 a year. The toughest gig was Hamilton where the inside of his tent frosted over.

He said, “You can get people to literally do everything for you. They can watch your kids, they can watch your pets. They can clean your home. They can pick you up from A to B, or bring you your food. So, this is just an extension of that. You can get people to do just about anything, within reason, as long as it’s legal and you want to pay.”

In an interview with Denzel Washington, it noted that the actor has been getting more explicit about his Christian convictions. In 2019 Washington called himself “a vessel of God.” Privately over coffee with the interviewer Washington added:

The enemy is the inner me. The Bible says in the last days — I don’t know if it’s the last days, it’s not my place to know — but it says we’ll be lovers of ourselves. The No. 1 photograph today is a selfie, “Oh, me at the protest.” “Me with the fire.” “Follow me.” “Listen to me.”

We’re living in a time where people are willing to do anything to get followed. What is the long or short-term effect of too much information? It’s going fast and it can be manipulated obviously in a myriad of ways. And people are led like sheep to slaughter.

Don’t play with God. Don’t play with God. You hear what I said? Don’t play with God. You heard what I said? Don’t play with God.

Then the interviewer mentions that Washington urged her to download and use a daily Bible reading app. Washington said. “You have to fill up that bucket every morning. It’s rough out there. You leave the house in the morning. Here they come, chipping away. By the end of the day, you’ve got to refill that bucket.”

In Oprah Winfrey’s lifetime achievement award acceptance speech at the 2018 Golden Globes, she said, "What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have."

“Your truth.” Those two words are so entrenched in our lexicon today that we hardly recognize them for the incoherent nightmare that they are. Among other things, the philosophy of "your truth" destroys families when a dad suddenly decides "his truth" is calling him to a new lover, a new family, or maybe even a new gender. It's a philosophy that can destroy entire societies, because invariably one person's truth will go to battle with another person's truth, and devoid of reason, only power decides the victor.

"Your truth" also puts an incredible, self-justifying burden on the individual. If we are all self-made projects whose destinies are wholly ours to discover and implement, life becomes a rat race of performative individuality. "Live your truth" autonomy is as exhausting as it is incoherent. Depression is the inevitable result and “the inexorable counterpart of the human being who is her/his own sovereign.”

A recent interview with actress Maria Fabriela de Faria, in Global Heroes from The Wall Street Journal, perfectly reveals our culture of self-centered individualism.

When asked, “What is one good choice that everyone can make to improve the world around them?” She answered, “Look for your own truth, LIVE your own truth instead of repeating anyone else’s.” She explained: “What’s crucial to me is to make my audience . . . [question] old beliefs.” She counsels her fans to engage in a daily practice of asking, “What do I need today?” because “the only person who will know what works for you, is you.”