‘Let them deny themselves’
Jesus said, ‘If someone would follow me, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me’. As a consequence of the rapid cultural changes in western countries like Australia, our Lord’s statement has become extremely counter-cultural due to its emphasis on self-denial when our contemporary culture upholds unrestricted self-autonomy as the way to human fulfilment.
Given an enormous boost by the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, the culture of western society now upholds the unchallengeable value of the individual and the individual’s freedom. The 2005 study of the religion of American teenagers by the sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Denton led them to comment, ‘all that society is, apparently, is a collection of autonomous individuals out to enjoy life’.
Their analysis of American religion coheres with what the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argued in his book After Virtue. Most westerners, including Christians, now hold that all moral choices are simply about choosing what the individual feels is right. People believe we have a right to maximum freedom of thought and action, and so society is, says MacIntyre, ‘a collection of strangers, each pursuing his or her own interests under minimal constraints’.
The outcome of a long historical development has been that most of us maintain in some way that the freedom of the individual to fulfil his/her desires has become our fundamental cultural orientation. In his book, The Ethics of Authenticity, the philosopher Charles Taylor summed up this orientation of our society:
Everyone has a right to develop their own form of life, grounded on their own sense of what is really important or of value. People are called upon to be true to themselves and to seek their own self-fulfilment. What this consists of, each must, in the last instance, determine for himself - or herself. No one else should try to dictate its content.
This scholarly analysis of the contemporary western culture in countries like ours means that our society is moving in direct opposition to orthodox Christianity. Now we can’t expect to change society, but we can decide to be faithful to Christ in the traditional way within that society.
Orthodox Christianity says that the purpose of our human existence is not self-satisfaction and unfettered individual freedom, but rather to serve God our Creator. We do this, as our Lord himself told us, and as the old prayerbook catechism had it, by loving God with all our heart, and mind, and soul, and strength; and our neighbour as ourselves. In this God-centred way, and not the way of self-centredness, is true human fulfilment and happiness to be found. This is because we are creatures, God’s creation, and so the true orientation of a human life and society is to be found by making God our true north.
Our Lord Jesus Christ takes this for granted, but it is repudiated by most people today. So, again we find ourselves as Christians in contradiction, even opposition, to our society’s values. So we will have to develop an alternative orthodox Christian culture to our wider society, one that follows the way of Christ and not the way of the world, if we are to find and experience the freedom and fulfilment God offers us in Jesus Christ. And, among other things, that means accepting self-denial - discipline - in how we live as faithful disciples.
This practise of discipline will be hard for us because it contradicts so much of what we have absorbed from values from the values of our society. Those values have been a part of our education, they are prominent in the media, and even more prominent in social media. They undergird much of what our friends and family believe in and live by.
We are going to have to revive, after centuries of disuse, the outlook and practises of the early Church in being different, and even opposed to, what wider society applauds. For example, early Christians denied themselves the convenience of getting rid of unwanted babies by abortion and infanticide of girl babies. They repudiated moral relativism because God had stated in scripture and the teaching of Jesus that there was objective moral truth. Consequently, they developed Christian churches as communities of believers that upheld their beliefs amidst the challenges of living in a non-Christian society.
Jesus makes the rules for his disciples, not us. He upheld self-denial in order to help us focus on God. not ourselves, in explicit teaching on fasting, prayer, almsgiving, the way of the cross, the needs of others before self, repentance and confession. He did this not because God wants us to be miserable, but because our Lord understood that orienting our life to serve and praise God is difficult. We need to be trained in it if we are to find the freedom and fulfilment God promises. As one old Christian slogan has it: ‘No cross, no crown’.
It is my belief, therefore, that self-denial is non-negotiable in the Christian way. More of this when this series resumes in February when Lent next year begins. However, we can be helped in this way of the cross if we develop practises that are followed, as best we can, by us as a community, so self-denial is not a matter of solitary hard yacka. In this shared way self-disciple can become something positive - part of the re-shaping of our life together as we gradually grow at our local level as a faithful orthodox Christian community. This monthly series is intended to aid you in this re-invention of traditional Christian life; and next year an early Lent, and the sermons and teaching of that holy time, will also contribute.
December 2020.