Disagreement between brothers and sisters

The Baptist tradition is a great witness to vital Christianity. To say that we Baptists are correct is foolish. We do not even agree among ourselves. Here in America, Baptist beliefs and practices have been argued endlessly. This is not a surprise. We do not have creeds, we do not have bishops, and we regularly empower individual believers (with Bible in hand) to work out their own theology. In my understanding of our tradition, when dealing with Baptists, expect heresy. With knowledgeable Baptists, heresy is not a bad thing. The word has no necessary meaning beyond “a differing opinion.” A Baptist heretic is just what she/he ought to be.

I am a comfortable heretic.

Among my heresies is a firm conviction. CHRISTIANS ARE NEVER TO LOVE THEMSELVES.

When Jesus was asked to name the greatest commandment, he responded that our first obligation was to love God. He followed quickly with a second. We are to love our neighbors. In other settings he said we are to love one another and we are to love our enemies. I am asserting that he never taught or commanded love of self.

During the past century in Christian circles a differing opinion (heresy) took root. Simply stated, many Christians bought into the idea that we cannot love others until we learn to love ourselves. The history of this movement toward Christian narcissism can, I believe, be traced to Freud and his disciples rather than to Jesus and his disciples. I was not introduced to Christian narcissism in either college or seminary. I ran into the phenomenon in Southern California where I pastored churches for 22 years. I had never before run into so many self-absorbed, self- centered, self-motivated people. I was sucked into the movement for a block of time, but then I returned to my Jesus and Bible orientation and shook the temptation of self-love.

Christian narcissists love to refer to Jesus’ reference to love of neighbor “as yourself.” When they do this, they diminish the importance of the command to love our neighbors and they misinterpret “as yourself.”

The command to love neighbors is very old and reaches at least back to the wanderings of the Israelites following their escape from slavery in Egypt. When they left Egypt, they were a people without land and had few resources. They joined the phenomenon of wandering tribes that populated southern Palestine and the Sinai Peninsula. The Bible accurately describes the Israelites as an almost desperate people who lived at a level of subsistence. Their strength was in their worship of Yahweh, the God who delivered them from Egyptian slavery. In their nomadic life, they competed with other wandering tribes for whatever they could garner from the land. It was a constant struggle to survive and to get along with other wanderers. For the sake of security, tribes entered into covenants with other tribes. Typical covenants set down the rules for relationships with Gods and neighboring tribes.

Another wandering tribe was the Hibirus. They were different. They were a warrior tribe of mercenaries. The Israelites and the Hibiru entered into a covenant in which the Hibiru promised to worship Yahweh, the Israelite God, and the Israelite tribe promised to treat the Hibiru as they treated their own tribal members.

This relationship is believed to carry the framework of future Israelite covenants. Yahweh became a warrior God to whom all must be obedient. It was entirely okay to kill all those who did not become obedient to Yahweh. When a tribe bowed down to Yahweh, they promised to treat all Jehovah worshipping neighbors as they would treat members of their own tribe. This formula led the Israelites in their conquering of Palestine and was still the basis over a thousand years later of the two great commandments that Jesus repeated. The most basic form of the second commandment was “love your neighbor as you would a member of your own family or clan.”

There is no evidence that the concept of self-love was a part of the thinking and understanding of Jesus. The basic language of Jesus was Aramaic, a cousin language of Hebrew.

Eventually his teachings were translated into Greek and then into the languages of the world. To get to the intent of Jesus, issues in this discussion must return to Jesus, his life and his teachings. In all of his parables and aphorisms, Jesus never ever hints at self-love as a pursuit of the good. He constantly advocated self-giving (even self-denial) and the doing of good for others. Christian narcissism is a horrible misreading of the faith of Jesus from Nazareth.

We should not confuse loving one’s self with the development of a healthy ego or self-esteem. The Christian formula for developing strong, healthy egos is found in loving others and gift giving to others. Trying to love one’s self is not the Jesus way to wholeness. Narcissism is more appropriately diagnosed as a mental illness that leads people down a path to loneliness and despair.

To suggest that self-love is the way of Jesus denies the teachings of Jesus and the witness of the Bible. It is more blessed to give than to receive.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.