“Christianity is when you do good and it makes you feel bad.” Such a capacious formula of modern Christian self-awareness was derived by one person who was baptized during the perestroika years and spent his entire subsequent life in the Church. I heard it once in a casual conversation, and suddenly realized with horror that it was about me too.
Photo by Azrul Aziz
I live and think about my Christianity in exactly the same way, but I have never thought of it all to such aphoristic precision. And many of my close Christians, whom I have known for decades, could also subscribe to this sad confession.
+Dyed looks, sad faces, some kind of bashful reluctance to talk about spiritual life, about Christ and the Gospel in a friendly circle and revival only when it comes to something not directly related to our Christianity - about art, sports, children, about how someone spent this summer... And all this, mind you, happens to church people who sincerely believe in God and consider themselves Christians. It feels as if everyone has already realized that somewhere we have lost our course and, instead of the longed-for quiet harbor of Christ, we are now sailing to an unknown destination, but together we pretend as if nothing happened.
It’s just that “...this makes you feel bad,” like any pain, breaks through, excites your conscience, and doesn’t allow you to finally calm down in this bad dream.
I thought for a long time why this happened, why the joy of my initial appeal to God over the years turned into such a sad existence, which cannot be called anything other than the expectation of death. And it would be nice if this expectation were joyful, like that of the Apostle Paul. But instead of joy, not even fear - complete hopelessness and confidence in my own destruction, only slightly diluted by the timid hope that God, for some reason unknown to me, will still save me no matter what.
It was from this sad state that I tried some time ago to reflect on it and understand its reasons. And I came to certain conclusions that I would like to share now. In no way do I pretend to make any broad generalizations here. Everything that will be discussed is solely my personal experience and my opinion. But this is a look at a problem that probably concerns many and the essence of which can be boiled down to the following question: why do modern Christians often dislike themselves so much?
I come to You with a backpack, Lord!
Can a Christian love himself? It would seem a ridiculous question. Not only can, but must, called and obliged by the words of the Holy Scripture “... love your neighbor as yourself.” That is, the measure of our attitude towards our neighbor is most directly determined in the Bible by our attitude towards ourselves. And if you don’t even love yourself, how then can you love other people and God? Learn to treat yourself correctly, then you will understand how to treat your neighbor correctly.
It would seem obvious things, but... Many modern Christians do not know how to love themselves and do not even want to. Usually, this strange reluctance is explained by the words of Christ ... if anyone wants to come after Me, deny yourself, and take up your cross, and follow Me
(Matthew
16:24
).
Indeed, upon a superficial reading, it may seem as if words about self-rejection are some kind of synonym for self-dislike. But why does the Lord call the disciples to such self-denial? For the sake of salvation! For the sake of the highest good that a person can strive for in his current state. This means that we are not talking here at all about dislike for oneself, but just the opposite - about the maximum manifestation of this love, about self-pity, and concern for one’s fate. “To deny oneself,” says Saint Philaret of Moscow, “does not mean to abandon the soul and body without attention, without care, but only to reject the addiction to the body and its pleasures, to temporary life and its well-being, and even to spiritual pleasures drawn from unclean nature , to the desires of one’s own will, to the favorite concepts of one’s own wisdom…” - everything seems to be clear here. But then the Saint writes words so important that they are worth highlighting: “... Why is this self-sacrifice required? Because without him the desire to follow Christ would remain unfulfilled.” This is why we are called to give up our addictions! It is impossible to go on a long hike with a backpack filled with all sorts of nonsense that is unnecessary on such a trip. We have burdened ourselves with too many attachments and are exhausted under their weight, but we cannot dare to throw them off, considering them something valuable and important. That is why Jesus calls us with such touching words, filled with compassion and pity for people who have exhausted themselves with an unbearable burden: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;
take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls; For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. This is what we are talking about in the words about denying oneself - about throwing off the painful burden of one’s own passions and sins, and taking on the light burden of following the Lord, Who offers this to us because He loves us. So can we, dare we, not love ourselves when Christ loves us?
Alas, we both dare and we can. Moreover, at the same time we also console ourselves with strange thoughts, as if our dislike for ourselves is pleasing to God, because we seem to be “denying ourselves according to the commandment.” In fact,
we are in ordinary despondency, arising in that place in our soul where the Lord should reign.
They seemed to have rejected their passions, but they never followed Christ. And we have neither the old dubious joys nor the new consolation of Christ left. Just emptiness and boredom, turning into mortal melancholy. They didn’t like prayer, they didn’t like reading the Bible, they didn’t like worship in church... We drag all this along for years as some kind of burdensome duty, as if we were whiling away a century with a hateful wife. We do good deeds that make us feel bad. But reading, prayer, and services in the Church are all nothing more than various forms of communication with God. Which bothers us so much. So it turns out that we have stopped loving ourselves and have not learned to love God...
And along with despondency laziness is sure to wander. Before you know it, prayers, reading, and church services have all been abandoned. Well, you’re too lazy to do something that doesn’t bring you joy. I missed it once, then again... It seems like at first my conscience nibbles a little, like, it’s not good, get up, go. And you didn’t go to church for the third time, you didn’t get up to pray in the evening. Then on the fourth... And conscience slowly began to sound quieter and quieter: what’s the use of bothering a person who doesn’t need it at all. And in place of prayer and Bible reading came watching movies and endless correspondence on social networks with other similarly lost Christians who had fallen out of love with themselves and God.
Why are believers so hostile towards atheists?
Source translation for mixednews - Lena Che
01/6/2011 Greta Christina
We, atheists, are labeled with offensive and evil labels when we experience anger, hope, or talk about morality or the meaning of life. What are believers so afraid of? Is there anything atheists can say about our lack of faith—or even just about our lives—that won't make us look negative?
Two recent stories in the news/blogs/blogosphere have brought home to me - not for the first time - the "damned if you did, damned if you didn't" attitude that applies to non-believers in our culture. On the one hand, atheists are provoked into negativity and confrontation, and readers learn that we walk around disappointed and angry all the time because we have no hope for life after death. On the other hand, non-believers are encouraged to share the positive, joyful aspects of our lives and to embrace those paths through which we find meaning in life and hope even in the face of death...and are encouraged to increase the number of times we mention God's name.
The first call is more familiar. You've probably heard a song like this before - even if you haven't heard it performed exactly this way. In a blog for Canada's National Post, Father Tim Moyle reflects on why he believes so many atheists seem angry... and suggests that atheists are angry because the topic of death makes us feel bitter and hopeless . He's writing:
Atheists tend to see their personal world as a limited given, in which everything they can achieve has its ceiling.
For them, life's injustices will never ultimately be repaid, and the "you can get what you see" attitude limits them from life's challenges. Believers know that everything is for the best. They know that following the teachings of the church can bring them closer to the promised ideal here and now, that any unjust obstacles in their life's path are the result of their faithfulness to God, and that they will be counted in the hereafter. It is easy to understand that such reasoning adds fuel to the fire of anger that many atheists feel. When a person adheres to atheistic beliefs, which certainly means that he will not wait for final justice, peace and love, he cannot turn a blind eye to complete annihilation in death.No wonder they are so annoyed.
The second plot seems to be less common. But, alas, not so rare. Recently, when Elizabeth Edwards passed away, and when a farewell message was published shortly before her death, in which the woman expressed her deep and an abiding sense of hope, spoke of the meaning and value of life, right-wing Christian commentator Donald Douglas reported with venomous notes as something terrible that Elizabeth was guilty of bitterness and nihilism, as in her message of gratitude to her family, friends, full of faith because of hope and resilience...she didn't mention God. He said:
It's obvious that Elizabeth Edwards wants to base her faith on something, be it hope or strength or anything. But not on God. I doubt it was simply out of bitterness at being abandoned by her estranged husband - rather she was abandoned by God. And imagine what would happen if she became First Lady. Americans, especially Christians, typically expect outward expressions of faith from their presidents, and therefore expect the same from the First Lady. Democrats clearly aren't worried about this, as evidenced by one of the writers in the American Prospect. By proclaiming that it's cool to be anti-religious, Edwards' Godless Theology borrows ideas from neo-communists. Yet, lying on her deathbed and giving what is popularly called her final farewell, Elizabeth Edwards cannot find the strength within herself to ask for God's blessing. How does she prepare for her future life? I believe that the nihilism I speak of has grown to such an extent that it has moved into the realm of the political left even more than I expected.
Yes, yes, as a warning to anyone who jumps up to correct me, I know. Elizabeth Edwards was not an atheist. She is more of a weak deist, believing in a god who created the universe, but not believing that he interacts with his creation day after day. But my opinion remains the same. Even if Edwards believed in God one way or another, she didn't say so in her farewell message... and for that reason, Douglas felt quite comfortable beating her on her deathbed. In fact, the fact that Edwards was not an atheist makes my conviction even stronger. This self-evident hostility towards lack of piety would seem to be directed against anyone - atheist, deist, believer, whatever - who does not show enough or enough reverence and gratitude to God. Even if they are already fucking dying of cancer.
While sermons of this kind against peaceful atheists are slightly less common than attacks against violent non-believers, they are not at all uncommon. Look at the reaction to the atheist marching band at the Texas Christmas Parade. Their singing of "Jingle Bells" and wishing them a Merry Christmas was enough to spark a firestorm of debate regarding atheists as aggressive, mocking, provocative, hate-filled troublemakers. Or look at the reaction that atheist advertisements on buses and billboards provoke. Yes, some of them are part of campaigns that criticize or argue against religion.
However, most advertisements say things like:
“You can be good without God.” Or “Millions of people behave well without God,” or “Don’t believe in God? So be kind in the name of virtue.”
And wherever these advertising appeals appear, they inevitably cause almost horror among believers, who declare such appeals to be inherently offensive, confrontational, shouty and downright aggressive.
In-your-face aggression is often seen as the main result of our perceived bitterness and emptiness in life. If the lives of atheists were not empty and were meaningful, apparently, we would not need to rub our godlessness in everyone’s face as compensation. And when we talk about our exceptionally common sense of meaning, joy and value in life, we are accused... again of hopeless, bitter nihilism.
Why is this happening?
Why is the a priori assumption “atheists are desperate and bitter” the only possible conclusion that can be drawn based on many facts?
Why is it so important for many believers to see religion as the only possible source of hope, joy and meaning... and to see less religious people as naturally cut off from everything that makes life fulfilling?
It doesn't seem like these conclusions are being drawn based on any real reason. To begin with, it is absurd to look at someone who is feeling angry and think that anger is the only emotion they are capable of. I've read a lot of angry atheists (hell, I write about it myself), and authors elsewhere have written about the delight, pleasure and gratitude they get from life. In fact, gushing, pompously matter-of-fact, Carl Sagan-style wonder at the magnificence of the universe is so common among atheist writers that it has become almost a cliché. So reading an article by an atheist in which he expresses anger at religion, and assuming that he must be constantly filled with blind rage and incapacity for joy, or laughter, or surprise... is like reading a movie review by Roger Ebert (American film critic and TV presenter, mixednews) and feel deep pity for his tragic narrow-mindedness and narrow-mindedness, since all he ever did in life was go to the movies. When you think like that, it's really kind of stupid.
In fact, when you look at the things that irritate angry atheists, you will notice that many of them - maybe most - are not about how believers treat atheists. They are about how believers treat believers themselves. Rich Christian healers deceive parishioners out of their pockets; The Catholic Church deliberately protects pedophile priests and transfers them from one parish to another so that they can rape even more children of Catholic parents; Muslim women are imprisoned, beaten and even killed for extramarital affairs; in India, the untouchable caste is taught that their harmful status is a punishment for the sins of a past life; Fundamentalist preachers tell women not to divorce abusive spouses; religious wars, hatred and fanaticism; Protestants hate Catholics; Hindus hate Muslims; everyone hates jews... when you ask angry atheists why we are angry at religion, the above nonsense also immediately comes to mind. Fanaticism and hostility towards atheists is one of the items on the list, of course. However, the abnormal intensity of atheists' irritation is not due to selfish frustration based on mistreatment. This is a justified reaction to cruel and unjust arbitrariness. That is the absolutely correct answer that can be expected from people with a sound perception of morality and the meaningfulness of existence.
And I hope I don't have to explain how flat and ridiculously pointless it is to take non-believers with their strictly meaningful sense of morality and meaningfulness, transcendence and connection with the higher, dreams and fun... and take it for granted that we should have lost hope and the joy of life, to despair over the inevitability of death and to lose touch with all that is good and true.
So what's going on?
Where did such assumptions come from?
Why is the anger of atheists so unceremoniously attributed to bilious nihilism? Why were atheists so easily denied the right to happiness, as a feeling that was logically impossible for them?
Why is it so important for many believers to force atheists into a framework of natural despondency and hostility?
Of course, some of this is the standard response to social movement change. Think of shrill, angry feminists; violent, irrational black activists; hysterical homosexuals; any time the marginal class raises their voice and expresses their discontent, they are either dangerous or trivial, and therefore whatever they say is automatically rejected. This is hegemony in action, guys! If the system of power is going to protect and preserve itself, it does not recognize the legitimacy of any criticism addressed to it. The possibility that the criticism might be legitimate will not even be considered, not for a second. And religion contains active mechanisms of self-defense and self-preservation.
It's because they have to think so.
This is because acknowledging the existence of good, good atheists undermines too many of the rational religious beliefs of believers.
For starters, the existence of good, happy atheists destroys the pragmatic justification for the existence of religion and deals numerous blows to it. If you argue that religion is necessary for a person to be happy and moral, then the existence of happy and moral atheists outside of religion pulls the ground from under your feet. In any case, the pragmatic justification for religion is ludicrous - as if it were claimed that everyone should believe in Santa Claus because he makes kids happy and obedient in December - but even if you don't care which of the things you believe in, are true and you are only interested in their usefulness, then the existence of atheists whose lives are rich, good and meaningful makes it abundantly clear that religious faith is not really all that is useful. This is why so many believers, when faced with happy and moral atheists, simply cover their ears and begin to chant monotonously: “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!”
However, the existence of good, happy atheists does not simply contradict arguments about the benefits of religion. It contradicts some of the most common arguments about the truth of religion.
They believe that God not only exists, but that he is the source of all happiness and virtue, even that he is the very definition of happiness and virtue. And they attribute every part of the happiness and well-being in their lives to the presence of God and their personal relationship with him.
So when does an atheist see the light and say: “No, there is no God in my life, there is no personal relationship with an invisible friend... and my life is still happy and good”? When does it become clear to an atheist, through our words and actions, that we find enough meaning, morality, and joy in this life, and this life alone? Then the atheist takes the “proof” and turns it into dust. If we can live a good, happy life without faith in God... where does virtue and prosperity come from? Believers must decide that God either doesn't care much about whether people believe in him... or they must reject virtue and prosperity from atheists. And the last thing is exactly what many believers do.
And happy, moral atheists question the truth of religion's claims in yet another way—by asking the unsolvable puzzle of why atheists exist in the first place.
When it becomes clear to atheists that we are giving religion a sincere chance to consider the issue seriously and thoughtfully, and eventually we come to the conclusion that the God hypothesis is implausible and not supported by convincing evidence... the believers themselves, when the question of why God has not revealed yourself to us. And believers are forced to conclude once again that God doesn't really care whether they believe in him... or they are forced to conclude that the hearts of atheists are so hardened that they do not perceive God, or anger, or bitterness. They must conclude that we abandoned religion either out of bitchy resentment at our lives not going the way we wanted them to, or out of selfish resentment at God's commandments and restrictions. If atheists live a happy life, then this knocks the foundation out from under the first assumption... if a moral life, then from under the second.
So, of course, these believers are going to give up the idea that atheists can be both moral and happy. And of course, everything that atheists do drives us into a framework that proves our bitter, hostile, joyless nihilism. When we feel righteous indignation at serious injustices against ourselves and others... this is proof of our bitter, hostile, joyless nihilism. And when we experience deep, transcendental joy, wonder and gratitude for life in general and our lives in particular... it proves our bitter, hostile, joyless nihilism.
Such reasoning is a very tricky part of rationalism.
There's just one problem.
This is ridiculous.
It's not just that it's not falsifiable and therefore based on dubious hypotheses (although it is). This is, apparently, absurd. It requires a completely willful ignorance, a blatant denial of obvious facts, a deliberate closing of the ears and the closing of the eyes, a conscious and completely sincere willingness to abandon reality and replace it with one's own.
And if you care about whether the things you believe are true, you should be willing to rethink them.
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Bad, very bad!
Recently, in a conversation, an old friend of mine, being despondent, uttered another formula of “Christian dislike for oneself,” which I myself had uttered many times before, and heard from others more than once. But then suddenly she somehow grated on my ears so much that I wanted to figure out what she was talking about. And my friend literally said the following:
- Yes, I, of course, understand that I am a bad Christian, but still...
This is where cognitive dissonance occurred to me. I tell him:
- Wait, how is this? What does it mean to be a bad Christian? This is some kind of oxymoron, “sturgeon of the second freshness.” A person is simply either a Christian or not, he either lives by the commandments or breaks them. For example, do you steal?
- No.
- Do you take bribes?
- No.
- Are you drinking, cheating on your wife?
- No, of course not.
- That is, you do not do any of the “sins leading to death,” as the Apostle Paul called them, and therefore you are capable of inheriting the Kingdom of God. Why do you call yourself that?
A friend thought:
- But I know that I have pride, vanity, and love of money...
“Okay,” I say, “stop!” These are not sins, but passions; they operate to one degree or another in every person, including the greatest saints. And they also saw them in themselves, and repented of them until their death. So, do you think they are also bad Christians?
In short, we had an important and meaningful conversation then. And this is what I took away from it. A modern Christian often has no idea, even at the conceptual level, what the difference is between sins leading to death, sins not leading to death, mental sins and passions. All this is mixed into some kind of terrible mess, and as a result a person ceases to see the difference between, say, murder and attachment to delicious food, between adultery and an unkind word spoken in the heat of the moment. As a result, a good, kind person who lives according to the Law of God feels like an unrepentant sinner, deprived of salvation. And, of course, he doesn’t love himself, and why can he love himself? Well, then even sadder things happen. Dislike for oneself always requires some kind of compensation, so some people fill it with alcohol, others with compulsive overeating, or, more simply, with an unbridled craving for the refrigerator at any time of the day, others become addicted to social networks... From such a false sense of self, a person slowly, step step by step it can come to real mortal sins, changing the very nature of man, his soul and body, cutting him off from God, bringing death and destruction. The logic here is quite simple: if I, even without committing mortal sins, live in anticipation of eternal destruction, and not the resurrection of the dead and the life of the next century, if eternal bliss is no longer available to me, then at least I will try to taste sinful pleasures, after all, I will still be lost... Needless to say, such thoughts are inspired in a person by the same ancient creature that once whispered in the Garden of Eden the advice to eat the forbidden fruit. Thus, dislike for oneself, multiplied by ignorance, can deprive a person of communion with God and lead him to communion with the devil.
By the way, in theological literature I have only encountered the expression “bad Christian” in Nikolai Berdyaev, and even he used it more in a journalistic than in a theological sense. None of the holy fathers have ever seen anything like this.
The Wrath of Jesus Christ
The Gospel gives a clear answer as to whether anger, among other human properties, was perceived by the God-Man during the incarnation.
Almost all the episodes where the Jews try to provoke Him with their questions to violate the Jewish law are examples of this. Jesus calls the provocateurs hypocrites, snakes, and tombs filled with filth. He shows non-verbal aggression towards legalists who have given themselves the right to interpret the Law and have turned God’s commandments into a set of meaningless rituals, behind which they have forgotten how to see human pain and grief.
The most striking example of the wrath of Jesus Christ is given in the story of the expulsion of merchants from the temple, where He moved from angry looks to action.
And here it is very important to understand what the Lord directed his aggression towards. According to the general opinion of the holy fathers, His anger was directed at the sin committed by people. And not for any sin, but only for the one that the national teachers of the Jews committed under the guise of righteousness. The harlot knew that she was guilty, and the Lord protected her from stoning. The publicans understood that they had betrayed their people, and the Lord came to visit them and ate bread with them.
Jesus Christ in the Gospel shows aggression only where it is necessary to defend the boundaries of real righteousness. His angry voice is heard only in those cases when sin tries to pass itself off as piety.
Joyful and sad
Here is another common explanation for self-dislike: the holy fathers humiliated themselves, scolded themselves with the last words, accused themselves of the most terrible sins, which means we should do the same too. Everything seems to be so; in the prayers of repentance composed by saints, one can indeed find very strict definitions of them in relation to themselves. But there is one important point, without which it is impossible to correctly understand the spiritual experience from which such prayers were born. The saints loved God and communication with Him very much. Their whole life was essentially such communication, prayer accompanied them in all their affairs, and they often knew the Holy Scriptures by heart and nevertheless read it daily, enjoying the Word of God, which fed their soul. For the sake of communion with God, they even left the world and went into the desert, so that nothing from earthly concerns would distract them from this constant turning to the Lord. And, of course, such love of the saints for God did not remain unrequited. The Holy Spirit shone within them, illuminating their minds, feelings, and even their bodies. In His radiance, the saints saw themselves as sinful, unworthy of this Divine purity, which can highlight shortcomings even in angels. The joy from this divine consolation was so great that the holy fathers seemed to balance it with repentant crying for the sins that they saw in their souls, enlightened by grace. And they even came up with a special name for this paradoxical combination of crying and joy - joyful sadness. Thus, the Monk Gregory of Sinaite writes: “...The greatest weapon is to keep yourself in prayer and crying, so that from the joy of prayer you do not fall into conceit, but keep yourself unharmed, choosing joyful sadness.” Thus, the sadness and self-abasement of the saints were inextricably linked with the greatest joy and were nothing more than one of the manifestations of the action of God in them.
In one of his early songs, Boris Grebenshchikov very accurately managed to express the very essence of Christian joyful sadness:
But we're walking blind in strange places
And all we have is joy and fear:
Fear that we are worse than we can
And the joy that everything is in Safe Hands.
The saints scolded themselves not at all from a sad state of abandonment by God, but from such a depth of approach to God that it is impossible for us to even imagine. The sadness about their sins was dissolved in them by the joy of Christ, who heals these sins, gives them heavenly consolations, and reveals to them the secrets of the Kingdom.
But now let's think - can a person in such a state not love himself? Even at the level of human relationships - can a bride not love herself, next to whom is her beloved and loving groom? The answer, I think, is obvious.
This joyless self-abasement is another failure of our spiritual life, another “systemic” mistake of our Christianity. The Monk Simeon the New Theologian teaches: “Everyone should consider himself and listen to himself wisely, so as not to rely on hope alone without crying for God and humility, nor again to rely on humility and tears without following them with hope and spiritual joy.” Both sadness and joy, one without the other and in their extreme manifestations, are dangerous. There is neither joy without sorrow, nor sorrow without joy, for the source of both of them is God. The normal internal state of a believer is a combination of joy and sadness, located in an elusive dynamic balance. But what remains of joyful sadness when joy leaves it? It is with this that remains that we live, doing good that makes us feel bad. Why be surprised that in such a deplorable state we don’t love ourselves...
