Our National Hubris: An Abomination Before God

 David Alan Black

The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest. - Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

An inscription from the immortal speech of Patrick Henry reads: “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

How strange these words sound today when physical pleasure has become the chief end of man, when we risk liberty for “security” and may lose both!

Charles Haddon Spurgeon once wrote of “sanguine brethren who are looking forward to everything growing better and better, until this present age ripens into a millennium.” He concluded: “Apart from the Second Advent of our Lord, the world is more likely to sink into a pandemonium than to rise to a millennium.” Spurgeon predicted that there would spring up in the church “a body of faithless men who profess to have faith, unsaintly men who will unite with the saints; men having the form of godliness, but denying the power.”

Today the church is busy with committees to study this or that and commissions to deal with this and that and campaigns to do this and that when we are overlooking the real issue. The one thing that is destroying America more than anything else is our godless pride and self-worship.

The Latin term for pride is superbia, deriving from the adjective superbus, itself formed from super, “above.” The superbus is a man who thinks he is a cut above others. To take a proper pride in one’s work or family because of their excellence, or to aim at such excellence, is to be in danger of becoming proud in the bad sense—of becoming superior to others, contemptuous of them, haughty, arrogant, and bossy.

The Greek New Testament has two main words that are rendered “pride”: alazoneia, which basically means boastfulness, and hyperephania, which basically means arrogance. In addition, there are phrases that include the word hypselos (“high”), such as “a high heart” and “high-minded.” These terms give us a succinct definition of pride: “the inordinate appetite for one’s own superiority.”

What makes pride the gravest of all sins is not the positive object aimed at in the sin (say, pleasure or power) but the turning away from God, what theologians call the aversio a Deo (the opposite of conversio ad Deum) that is involved in it. Pride means turning away from God by refusing to subject oneself to His rule. That’s why pride is not merely one of the seven deadly sins; it is rather, as Saint Gregory said, “the queen of vices.”

In Philippians 2:5-11, Paul takes us to Genesis by contrasting Christ’s obedience and humility with Adam’s disobedience and pride. The man Christ Jesus, though being in God’s perfect image, did not count equality with God as being something to be grabbed, but waited until it was given Him as a reward for taking the form of a slave and humbling himself unto death, even the death of a common criminal. Adam, on the other hand, with the assistance of Eve, had counted equality with God as something to be greedily clutched by eating the fruit that would open his eyes and make him like God (Gen 3:4).

Note that the first sin was not the sin of disobedience, of eating the forbidden fruit, but the sin of pride that prompted it, of self-exaltation to the extent of wanting to be like God, to be equal to God—a sin repeated on a universal scale a few chapters later with the attempt to build the tower of Babel: “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves!” (Genesis 11:4). Let us build a tower with its apex in the heavens, so that we can climb up and look God in the eye and say, “Look, God, we’re on a level with you! We can do everything you can!”

Dear friends, I ask you: Isn’t that the root sin of our contemporary American exceedingly skilled, technically brilliant, scientific, empire-crazed civilization? Do you recall the president’s remarks in his speech to the American Enterprise Institute? Had I not known who made these remarks I might have thought a petty tyrant was speaking, not the leader of the Free World. Read them and decide for yourself whether these are the words of an empire-builder or a public servant:

We go forward with confidence, because we trust in the power of human freedom to change lives and nations. By the resolve and purpose of America, and of our friends and allies, we will make this an age of progress and liberty. Free people will set the course of history, and free people will keep the peace of the world.

The president says “we trust in the power of human freedom to change lives and nations”? He speaks of “an age of progress and liberty.” This is liberal humanism, pure and simple! Like most politicians, Bush believes that social change, here and abroad, is the result of politics and state coercion. He believes that society can be radically altered by means of state-financed public education, health education, welfare programs, speech codes, etc. Conservative Christians, on the other hand, believe in regeneration (John 3:3). Men and societies are not changed by politics, but by God!

We Americans don’t just exercise our incomparable values at home, we’re happy to share them with the world. America is remaking the world in its image. The theorem is: Globalization = Westernization = Americanization. For instance, at LA’s Shadow Convention in July, 2000, Sen. John McCain said: “I believe in American exceptionalism. I believe we were meant to transform history. I believe that the progress of all humanity will depend, as it has for many years now, on the global progress of American interests and values. I believe we are still the last, best hope of earth.” All the while, opponents of the Americanization of the globe are treated as vermin. What vanity! Yes, it is vanity to court honor with worldly potentates and to be puffed up with visions of grandeur. It is vanity to trust in the “progress of humanity” and in riches that perish. It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-lived life. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him in brokenness and humility!

Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Writing to the church at Rome, Paul said, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment” (Romans 12:3). Arrogant pride is despicable in the eyes of God. Only through God’s help can we be the humble people the Bible honors. As David prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23, 24).

A wrongful pride has wormed its way into American society on a national level. Even when our pride is not openly blatant, because we intentionally hide its presence, it still saps the spiritual life that complete dependence on God provides.

In an age of heady globalization, Americans no longer fear the Almighty. We prefer instead the axis of hubris, the officious strut, the Brave New World.

Too bad. 

July 18, 2003

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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