Self-righteousness

A pastor and his family on an early morning flight had been delayed for hours and were feeling sleep-deprived and anxious. As the plane landed, another family behind them attempted to exit quickly, with the teenager rushing ahead. The pastor shares:

I stuck my arm into the aisle to block the rest of the family from passing, like I was Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. “None shall pass.” “We’re all trying to get off this plane,” I said to the family, “Let’s wait our turn!”

They had words with me that I cannot share here and pushed past my arm. I was fuming.

As the passenger disembarked, a flight attendant approached, explaining that the teenage girl had been experiencing a panic attack and needed assistance. The family had been trying to help her. The family was not rude; they were desperate.

How did I, a former chaplain trained to notice physiological signs of stress, miss that this young lady needed help? How did I let my core value of courtesy block my capacity to see what was really going on?

I was operating out of assumption and unable to see reality. Rather than see that this young lady needed help getting off the plane, all I could see was a family rudely skipping the line, and I must intervene.

Whether we move toward self-righteousness or self-protection, the common denominator is self. This is what every follower of God has in common: We get caught up in ourselves, we get triggered, we forget others, and we forget the Lord.

Ah, how the heart is bent towards self-righteousness! Even criminals look down on other criminals. That's what happened in a strange story from Spain. According to the First Thoughts blog a 64-year-old man in the city of Jaén reported a home burglary. The victim, who happened to coach a youth soccer team, listed several electronic appliances as stolen.

Days later, police received an anonymous call from a payphone. It was the burglar, informing them that he had left three videotapes in a brown envelope under a parked car. Apparently, the stolen tapes were evidence that the soccer coach was also a criminal. The thief included a note stating that he wanted the police to do their job and "put that (expletive) in prison for life." Nine days after the burglary, the police arrested the soccer coach.

The article concludes: "There is a well-worn adage that evangelism is one beggar telling another where to find bread. (But) so often, I live out my Christian faith more like a criminal telling the cops where to find the crooks. This should not be. When I find myself picking up the phone to report that others have fallen short, may I instead speak the words of another thief: When you come into your kingdom, remember me (Luke 23:42).

Hannah Payne was sentenced to life in prison in December of 2023 for the 2019 shooting death of Kenneth Herring. Payne was officially convicted of felony murder, malice murder, aggravated assault, and false imprisonment.

During the original incident, Payne chased down Herring after witnessing a hit-and-run involving him and another driver on Riverdale Road.

"I just seen her outside hitting on the window. And that’s what made me just grab my phone," recalled Cameron Williams, a truck driver who recorded footage of the interaction. This evidence eventually aided the prosecution in Payne’s conviction. Williams said that he saw Payne "yelling, hitting on the window, hitting on the door.”

According to authorities, Payne initially called 911 after witnessing the traffic incident, but ignored the advice of the dispatcher who told her not to follow Herring’s car. After pursuing Herring, she got into a confrontation with him, and eventually shot him, fatally wounding him in the stomach. Because of the footage, prosecutors were able to isolate images of Payne holding her gun, standing next to Herring’s truck.

Payne later told police that Herring had shot himself with her gun; the jury, however, did not agree with her version of events. It took them only two hours of deliberation before they rendered a guilty verdict. During the sentencing, Payne fought back tears as Judge Jewell Scott handed down her life sentence with a possibility of parole.

“Mr. Herring was a human worthy of saving,” the prosecutor said, when petitioning the court for the maximum allowable sentence. “He had a family to go home to.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Incidents of road rage are becoming all too common as people struggle with mental health issues, the deterioration of society, and taking justice and retribution into their own hands in this age of lawlessness.

Is there really an afterlife? While most people think humans will never be able to prove what happens after death, half of adults still believe their spirit lives on—somewhere.

The new survey of over 1,000 people in the United Kingdom, finds 50% of respondents believe in an afterlife. Of this group, 60% believe everyone experiences the same thing when they die—regardless of their individual beliefs. However, two in three believe scientists will never be able to tell us what really happens when someone passes.

Regardless of whether people think they’re going to heaven (55%) or worry their life choices could end up sending them to hell (58%), the poll finds 68% of all respondents have no fear of what comes next. Overall, one in four think people go to heaven or hell, 16% believe they’ll exist in a “spiritual realm,” and 16% believe in reincarnation.

No matter what happens after death, respondents are confident it’ll actually be an improvement over their current life. The poll finds adults think heaven provides people with a chance to recapture the things they’ve lost throughout their life.

The vast majority (86%) think the afterlife involves a sense of peace and 66% describe it as a place of happiness. Three in five adults believe there will be no more suffering when they die.

However, respondents think there are a few conditions people need to follow in order to reach this peaceful realm. Over four in five people (84%) say you have to live a good life and be a generally good person to reach heaven. One in three claim you have to place your faith in a higher power to reach the afterlife and one in five say it requires you to confess all your sins.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This survey was taken in mid-life when old age and illness are seen as far away. When one gets closer to the end, it is likely many of them will change their opinion, or fall deeper into denial with the help of Satan who wants to soothe them with lies.

Garret Keizer was asked by his minister to visit an elderly parishioner, Pete, in a nursing home. Garret finds out that Pete loves bananas, so he starts bringing some on each week’s visit. Garrett said:

I was standing with my Chiquitas in line at the supermarket behind one of those people who seem to think they're at a bank instead of a store. She must have had three checkbooks. I shifted from one foot to the other, sighing, glancing at the clock. I wanted to catch Pete before supper. No doubt I was feeling the tiniest bit righteous because I was about the Lord's business on behalf of my old man, who needed his bananas and was looking forward to my company. And here was this loser buying an armful of trivial odds and ends and taking my precious time to screw around with her appallingly disorganized finances.

When I finally got through the line, I watched her walk to her vehicle feeling that same uncharitable impulse that makes us glance at the driver of a car we're passing just to “get a look at the jerk.” She got into the driver's seat of a van marked with the name of a local nursing home and filled to capacity with elderly men and women who had no doubt handed her their wish lists and checkbooks as soon as she'd cut the ignition.

Do some Christians harm their witness by falling into the trap of “moral grandstanding” or “virtue signaling”? Or do we convey the message that we are just as depraved as others? Clinical psychologist Joshua B. Grubbs writes about a study which asked 6,000 Americans questions about their most important moral and political beliefs and how they communicate them to others.

Almost everyone admitted they were occasionally guilty of grandstanding--sharing their beliefs selfishly for respect or status. However, habitual grandstanders experienced conflicts in their personal relationships:

People who reported grandstanding more often also reported more experiences arguing with loved ones and severing ties with friends or family members over political or moral disagreements. People who indicated using their deepest held beliefs to boost their own status in real life also reported more toxic social media behaviors. (These include) picking fights over politics on Facebook and berating strangers on Twitter for having the “wrong” opinions.

Grubbs advises all grandstanders to check their motivations: “When you enter into contentious territory with someone who differs in opinion, ask whether you’re doing so because you’re genuinely interested in communicating and connecting with your fellow human. Or are you just trying to score points? ... Do you find yourself trying to one-up the good deeds of someone else to make yourself look good to people whose respect you crave?”

A 67-year-old woman scheduled for routine cataract surgery thought it was just dry eye and old age causing her discomfort. But the real cause of her discomfort was much more concerning: 27 contact lenses, stuck in the woman's right eye in a "blue mass."

Rupal Morjaria, a specialist trainee in ophthalmology, said the woman hadn't complained about any visual trouble before the operation. But when the anesthetist at the hospital started to numb her eye for surgery, he found the first cluster of contacts. Morjaria said, "He put a speculum into the eye to hold the eye open as he put the anesthetic in, and he noticed a blue mass under the top eyelid."

Eventually they found a mass of 27 lenses. "We were all shocked," Morjaria said. "We've never come across this." A representative from the American Academy of Ophthalmology said he's seen patients have one lens stuck, but never 27. "This is one for the record books, as far as I could tell," he said.

The woman had been wearing monthly disposable contact lenses for 35 years, but it's unclear how long they had been gathering in her eye. Sometimes when she would try to remove a contact from that eye, she couldn't find it. The patient had just figured she'd dropped it somewhere, Morjaria explained, but it was actually getting stuck in her eye with the others.

Possible Preaching Angles: Miracles; Jesus; God, power of; Gospel—Instead of going to the doctor and seeing the person that could fix her blurred vision, she just tried harder. She kept adding something else, thinking that it must be the problem. What this woman didn't need was something else added to her life- She needed it removed.

In a New York Times article titled "The Stories We Tell Ourselves," philosopher Todd May notes that we're often telling stories about ourselves—mainly to make ourselves look good. May writes: "We tell stories that make us seem adventurous, or funny, or strong. We tell stories that make our lives seem interesting. And we tell these stories not only to others, but also to ourselves."

May says that most of us "live in echo chambers that reflect the righteousness of our lives back to us." And in our "echo chambers" we justify why we and our group are superior to others. In short, we tell ourselves a very narrow, shallow story.

Followers of Jesus aren't always better people, but we always have a better and bigger story because our story isn't first and foremost about us. It begins with Jesus. A children's Bible called The Jesus Storybook Bible has a wonderful way of summarizing this story as Jesus tells his followers:

This is how God will rescue the whole world [Jesus says]. My life will break and God's broken world will mend. My heart will tear apart—and your hearts will heal … I won't be with you long. You are going to be very sad. But God's Helper will come. And then you'll be filled up with a Forever Happiness that won't ever leave. So don't be afraid. You are my friends and I love you.

Once upon a time there was a frog who lived in the north and wanted to go south for the winter as the swans did. Each year that frog watched the swans fly south while he shivered in the snow and cold. Then he got an idea. He went to the swans and asked to go with them. "You can't fly!" they responded.

"I know," the frog said, "but I have a wonderful idea. Let me get a stick and if two of you will help me, I can go with you. Two of you could keep the ends of the stick in your beaks and I could hang on to the middle of the stick and get out of this miserable cold weather."

So two of his swan friends agreed to help and it worked beautifully for many miles. However as they were flying low over the farmlands of North Carolina, a farmer looked up and saw the frog holding onto the stick. "Look at that!" he shouted to a friend, "That's amazing! Wonder whose idea that was?"

The frog, quite proud of his incredible idea, opened his mouth to tell them. That's when he fell to his death.

Possible Preaching Angles: Author Steve Brown comments on this story: "Pride and self-righteousness are the most dangerous places for a Christian to live."

We often hear someone say: "Well, I'm not very religious, but I'm a good person and that is what is most important." But is that true? Imagine a woman, a poor widow with an only son. She teaches him how she wants him to live, to always tell the truth, to work hard and to help the poor.

She makes very little money, but with her meager savings she is able to put him through college. Imagine that when he graduates, he hardly even speaks to her again. He occasionally sends a Christmas card, but he doesn't visit her, he won't even answer her phone calls or letters; he doesn't speak to her. But he lives just like she taught him—honestly, industriously, and charitably.

Would you say this was acceptable? Of course not. Wouldn't we say by living a "good life" but neglecting a relationship with the one to whom he owed everything he was doing something commendable?

In the same way, God created us and we owe him everything and we do not live for him but we "live a good life" it is not enough. We all owe a debt that must be paid.

We all have failures in our careers. But usually we keep quiet about it. Not this Princeton professor, who recently shared his CV of failures on Twitter for the world to see. It includes sections titled "Degree programs I did not get into," "Research funding I did not get" and "Paper rejections from academic journals."

Why did he do it? "Most of what I try fails, but these failures are often invisible, while the successes are visible. I have noticed that this sometimes gives others the impression that most things work out for me," Princeton assistant professor of psychology and public affairs Johannes Haushofer wrote on the CV.

Projecting only success and never recognizing failure has damaging effects, Haushofer wrote. So he decided to do something about it. "[People] are more likely to attribute their own failures to themselves, rather than the fact that the world is stochastic, applications are crapshoots, and selection committees and referees have bad days. This CV of Failures is an attempt to balance the record and provide some perspective," he said. But here's what Haushofer called his "meta-failure": "This darn CV of Failures," he wrote, "has received way more attention than my entire body of academic work."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Though we often fail, we can rise up again because of God's forgiveness; (2) God will lift up all those who humble themselves, but the proud he rejects

The magazine Vanity Fair published an article on the actress Jessica Alba, which had the following paragraph on Alba's faith and views on God:

Alba's childhood was marked by two things: illnesses … that landed her in the hospital often, and a burning desire to leave a mark on the world, which at the age of 12 meant becoming a devout born-again Christian. "I was seeking a purpose," Alba says of her years as a member of a conservative Christian youth group. "I wanted to exist for a reason." This lasted until she was 17, when, she says, she was turned off by the boundaries and labels set by fellow churchgoers. That year, she attended an acting workshop in Vermont and "fell crazy in love with a cross-dressing ballet dancer who had a baby and was bisexual. I was like, 'There's just no way he's going to hell!'" Acting opened her to a new world of creative people and a community where she belonged. "I felt like, at the end of the day, God is love and everyone is human."

Editor's Note: Alba expresses what many in our culture feel and think—that God does not and will not judge sin. But the Cross shows God's righteous judgment of sin and that he bears our sin.

A study by a couple of researchers at the University of Toronto and at James Madison University in Virginia proved something that we may already know. The study, provocatively called "Cognitive Sophistication Does Not Attenuate the Bias Blind Spot," concluded that we cut ourselves more slack than we give to others. No surprise there, right. But writing about this study in the New Yorker, Jonah Lehrer explains why we do this. He claims that we all have "bias blind spots" because there's a mismatch between how we evaluate others and how we evaluate ourselves. Lehrer writes:

When considering the irrational choices of a stranger, for instance, we are forced to rely on [how they behave]; we see their biases from the outside, which allows us to glimpse their [errors]. However, when assessing our own bad choices, we tend to engage in elaborate introspection. We [study] our motivations and search for relevant reasons; we lament our mistakes to therapists and ruminate on the beliefs that led us astray.

As an example, if we drive crazy through traffic it's because we have an important meeting or we don't do it that often, and so forth. But if someone else cuts us off in traffic there's one simple, observable explanation: he's a jerk. Lehrer concludes "[our bias blind spots] are largely unconscious, which means they remain invisible to self-analysis and [resistant] to intelligence." In other words, being smarter won't help you see your own junk. As a matter of fact, more intelligence may add to the problem.

An article on Quartz begins, "In an era of limitless technology and information, life can feel at once empowering and overwhelming—especially in jobs where employees feel pressure to be swamped. But just how busy are we, really?" The global marketing firm Havas Worldwide wanted to know the answer, so they surveyed over 10,000 adults across 28 countries. The bottom line was stunning: People feel compelled to lie about how busy they are.

When the respondents were asked the question "I sometimes pretend to be busier than I am," over 51 percent of Millennials answered yes. And when asked that question about other people, between 57 percent to 65 percent of those surveyed think other people pretend to busier than they actually are. The conclusion from the researchers is very revealing for how we live our lives: " … our tendency to lie about how busy we are comes from our belief that being busy is equivalent to 'leading a life of significance' and not wanting to be 'relegated to the sidelines.'"

In a 2014 interview, the actor Bill Murray was asked about his then current eligible bachelor status. (Murray went through a painful divorce in 2009.) Murray said it would be nice to have a female companion for special events, but he also admitted that he needs to work on himself first. Murray said, "There's a lot that I am not doing that I need to do."

When asked what, specifically, he felt was missing from his life, Murray replied:

Just something like working on yourself or self-development or something … I don't have a problem connecting with people. My [issue] is connecting with myself. If I am not really committing myself to that, then it's better that I don't have a different person [in my life].

Then Murray reflected on what stops us from looking into our own issues: "What stops [any of] us," he said, "is we're kind of really ugly if we look really hard. We're not who we think we are. We're not as wonderful as we think we are. It's a little bit of a shock … it's hard."

So of all things, Christianity isn't supposed to be about gathering up the good people (shiny! happy! squeaky clean!) and excluding the bad people (frightening! alien! repulsive!) for the very simple reason that there aren't any good people … This goes flat contrary to the predominant image of [Christianity] existing in prissy, fastidious little enclaves, far from life's messier zones and inclined to get all "judgmental" about them. Of course there are Christians like that … The religion certainly can slip into being a club or a cozy affinity group or a wall against the world. But it isn't supposed to be. What it's supposed to be is a league of the guilty.

George Orwell's famous novel Animal Farm provides a parable about how we often treat each other in Christian community, families, and work settings. In Orwell's parable, farm animals rebel against the cruel farmer, but when they overthrow the farmer and the pigs take charge of the place, they become even worse than the farmer.

Two pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, vie for leadership, and Napoleon eventually succeeds in exiling Snowball. But Napoleon's leadership does not bring prosperity and comfort. When the farm experiences a major setback, it's Snowball's fault, even though he no longer lives there. Snowball becomes a convenient scapegoat for Napoleon, so he can deflect criticism from his own poor leadership. Orwell writes:

Whenever anything went wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball. If a window was broken or a drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had come in the night and done it, and when the key of the store-shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown it down the well. Curiously enough, they went on believing this even after the mislaid key was found under a sack of meal.

Sadly, many of us humans suffer from this same "Snowball Syndrome." We blame our children, our spouse, our parents, our fellow Christians, our boss, or our employees. Sometimes it really is someone else's fault, but all too often we blame others without examining our own hearts. There's only one cure for the "Snowball Syndrome"—repentance and confession of sin.

Sociologist Brene Brown's TED talk "The Power of Vulnerability" has garnered over millions of hits. For good reason: we are hungry for the freedom to admit our vulnerability. Brown pushes us to embrace our own brokenness, with the reality that we are not alone in it, that we are—or easily could be—just one step away from the broken people all around us. Brown says:

We are "those people." The truth is … we are the "others." Most of us are one paycheck, one divorce, one drug- addicted kid, one mental health diagnosis, one serious illness, one sexual assault, one drinking binge, one night of unprotected sex, or one affair away from being "those people"—the ones we don't trust, the ones we pity, the ones we don't let our children play with, the ones bad things happen to, the ones we don't want living next door.

Like most of us, John Burke (pastor of Gateway Church in Austin, Texas) assumed that he was not a judgmental person. But just in case he was wrong, he tried an experiment: for a whole week he kept track of his judgments about other people. Here's what he discovered:

Judging [others] is fun! Judging others makes you feel good, and I'm not sure I've gone a single day without this sin. In any given week, I might condemn my son numerous times for a messy room; judge my daughter for being moody—which especially bothers me when I'm being moody (but I have a good reason!) …. even my dog gets the hammer of condemnation for his bad breath ….

Some of you may be thinking, "Wait, are you saying that correcting my kids for a messy room is judging?" NO! But there's correction that values with mercy and there's correction that devalues with judgment.

I watch the news and condemn those "idiotic people" who do such things. Most reality TV shows are full of people I can judge as sinful, ignorant, stupid, arrogant, or childish. I get in my car and drive and find a host of inept drivers who should have flunked their driving test—and I throw in a little condemnation on our Department of Public Safety for good measure! At the store, I complain to myself about the lack of organization that makes it impossible to find what I'm looking for, all the while being tortured with Muzak—who picks that music anyway? I stand in the shortest line, which I judge is way too long because—"LOOK PEOPLE—it says '10 items or less,' and 1 count more than that in three of your baskets—what's wrong with you people?" And why can't that teenage checker—what IS she wearing?—focus and work so we can get out of here?

Judging is our favorite pastime, if we're honest—but we're not! We're great at judging the world around us by standards we would highly resent being held to! Judging makes us feel good because it puts us in a better light than others.