End the Scarcity Cycle

Rebecca Inglis - August 4, 2019

Avoid Self-Righteousness

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A widely cited US News and World Report Survey asked 10,000 people to indicate the likelihood that they, and a long list of celebrities, would go to heaven. The vast majority of respondents believed that they were more likely to go to heaven than any of the celebrities, including the selfless nun Mother Teresa. Research finds that people tend to believe that they are more likely than others to donate blood, give to charity, treat another person fairly, and give up one's own seat in a crowded bus for a pregnant woman. What is it that drives this belief, even if we’d never admit it, that we are somehow better than anyone else? Self-Righteousness is ‘believing that your ideas and behaviour are morally better than those of other people’ or ‘believing that you are better and more moral than others’. The 20th century, German-born psychoanalyst and social philosopher, Erich Fromm, is credited with saying, “There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.” It can happen to any of us - in fact, it probably already has. It happened to Judas. He defended his moral indignation, or self-righteousness saying, “For this perfume might have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.” (Matthew 26:9) He didn’t say this because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief; he pilfered from the very money-box he was in charge of running! Judas fooled those around him and was probably fooling himself - deluded into thinking his moral compass was more accurate than anyone else’s. This Sunday we will look at indispensable wisdom from the bible. Wisdom that can help us to avoid self-righteousness and instead encourages us to have hearts of purity, hearts of integrity and hearts of reformers, rather than rebels.