Humility: Take more than one slice

I've been thinking a lot about the slow death of humility in our world lately.

I taught a Sunday School class this week with a lesson entitled, "Just have a look at how humble I am", and its overarching point was simple: Being humble, for Christians, isn't just cute--it's the exercise of a command.

I read an article from a college newspaper that decried the X and Y generations as simply the generations of the "I". The author was right on. Our generation, if you can call it that, is one that has chosen vanity over humility--the "I" over the "we".

The love of the self, it seems, has permeated every nook and cranny of postmodern life (I shudder to write the term). Wants and needs have become synonymous; the "high thinking, plain living" dictum of our early ancestors is now simply a useless anachronism, too far fetched to be considered legitimate.

Most cultural anthropologists agree that selfishness in the human animal is as a result of conditioning over time, and not a natural (read biological) occurence. This, however, is of no consequence to Christians. We are meant to live our lives in a way that pleases God, and to do that we often have to act against what many (Christians and non-Christians alike) believe to be our nature as human beings.

Such traits, whether by nurture or nature, have to be overcome in order to live a life that is pleasing to God.

It is God, after all, who opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble; He also lives to interecede for us. So why is it so hard for us to intercede for others? Why can we not see the folly of being guided by naked self-interest?

The simple answer could be this: We don't oppose the pride in our own lives, we often equate humility with weakness and we still believe that God's favor is reflected in our petty definitions of success.

Humility is just one of many fruits by which followers of Christ can be recognized, but it is certainly an important one--probably more banana than pear.

All that to say this: We should be different.

Don't pray like the politicians.

Don't give with strings attached.

Don't live your life as if it is your own.

In the New Testament there is a passage that states, in no uncertain terms, that the man who thinks he is something when he is nothing deceives himself.

What it doesn't say, however, is equally true: The man who thinks he is something, even if he is something, is not humble.

False Humility?

Since all this had been on my mind, I was shocked to hear this country's most popular (and most bombastic) radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, tell his audience that he "didn't believe" in what he called "false humility" in a recent interview.

Immediately my mind went in several directions.

Judging only by the manner in which he presented it, I do not doubt that many of his listeners took it as a point of pride for him--and, perhaps, a belief we should all emulate.

Further, it wasn't the first time he has used this quirky term. Because of this, we should be able to get a better grasp of what he means:

But I did want to make note that I finally have now acknowledged what everybody knows, and it is one of the reasons that I am the biggest target of the American left simply because of that power. This is a power, my friends, that could be used for good or evil. I choose to use it for good. ... It's the elephant in the room. Why deny it? That would be false humility, and there's nothing that grates on me more than a person that engages in false humility and tries to laugh it off. ... I'm not going to sit here and deny what you all know. --May 16th, 2007

To engage in false humility, then, is a failure to tout one's own power and prestige when both are self-evident.

This, it is clear, is simply a weasel phrase from a man who boasts of his talent being "on loan from God" on daily basis.

For Christians who believe not only in what the Bible says about humility but in Christ's example, there is no such thing as false humility--only humility. "False" is a misleading modifier.

Denying one's own self-worth is not the same as a failure to express it in one's own terms.

Limbaugh's own hatred for "false humility" is borne out of his "drunk off his own aura" love for himself.

And that, my friends, isn't "on loan from God", either.