In early 1941 England had survived a series of massive German air attacks that included bombing London for 57 days and nights straight. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed, and a million houses destroyed or damaged. To say the British people were extremely concerned and even scared about their future would be an understatement. So, the BBC made a decision to broadcast more religious content, inviting Oxford professor C. S. Lewis to give regular 10-15 minute talks about the Chrisitian faith. One that aired in the Fall of 1942 was called, “The Great Sin.” Actually, given what Lewis says, it could have been called, “The Greatest Sin.” Yet, the sin he picks may surprise you! I have included a good portion of the broadcast’s contents below. Enjoy.
“There is one vice of which no man in the world is free, which everyone in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else, and of which hardly any people (except Christians) ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.
According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites in comparison. It was through Pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice; it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
Does this seem to you exaggerated? If so, think it over. The more pride one has, the more one dislikes pride in others. In fact, if you want to find out how proud you are, the easiest way is to ask yourself: 'How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or patronize me, or show off?' The point is that each person's pride is in competition with everyone else's pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise. Two of a trade never agree.
Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive – it is competitive by its very nature – while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If someone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.
That is why I say that Pride is essentially competitive in a way the other vices are not. The sexual impulse may drive two men into competition if they both want the same girl. But that is only by accident. They might just as likely have wanted two different girls. But a proud man will take your girl from you, not because he wants her, but just to prove to himself that he can…
Pride has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began. Other vices may sometimes bring people together. You may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people. But pride always means enmity—it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God. In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison—you do not know God at all.
As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom god, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ‘ordinary’ people.”
Granted, there IS a good form of pride. According to the apostle Paul not all pride is bad. He essentially says this very thing in Galatians 6:3-5, where we read, “If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each should carry his own load.”
Of course, as Paul makes clear, “good pride” or “biblically acceptable pride” is that which one takes in the self without any sense of superiority, or any desire to compare the self with others. Lewis’ would call it “non-competitive” pride. A humble sense of self-accomplishment which does what it does, not to be seen, or seen as better, or seen as best, or to look down on others and make them feel smaller in any way. In fact, such non-competitive pride can rejoice and celebrate just as heartily in the victories and accomplishments of others – even when those others outdo them! – because it was never about being the winner. It’s a pride devoid of any thought of measuring itself against others.
Yet, as Lewis points out, competitive pride is another story; especially when the goal is self-exaltation, done to prove itself better than others. And, yes, I know the implications of that for sports! Yet, there is a difference between loving a sport and doing your best simply because you want to give it your all, and wanting to win so as to trounce and humiliate the opponent. Such a motive is usually revealed in loss. Does the loser congratulate the winner, or throw things around, and storm off the field unable to congratulate the victor?
Lewis is right. Such competitive pride is to be avoided at all costs. For it's not only at the root of so much suffering, pain, and strife in this world, it's also the pride God hates and will always resist.
May we be wise enough, and know ourselves well enough, to discern the difference between the two, Pastor Jeff
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