Self-Esteem Crisis

I just finished reading Why the Rest Hates the West and it is a fantastic book.  Read it.  Our country and culture need to hear the message it contains.  The Charlottesville public library has a copy (which is currently checked out to me and is going to Andrea next), but get on the waiting list now.  I also just ordered my very own copy on PaperBackSwap, so you can borrow it from me once mine arrives.

Below is a little foretaste of what the book addresses.  I'm using this book as a source for a paper for my Multicultural Issues in Human Services class, so a lot of my focus while reading it was towards that topic, but Pearse covers so many relevant issues, I found myself writing down quotes just for my own edification.  I'll probably share more once I get my paper finished but I hope this excerpt will resonate with you.

“Compare the current Western angst-ridden environment with the assumptions of the age of Isaac Watts (1674-1748).  As with the great hymn writer, so with all of us: it is what we say subconsciously, or by the way, that is often most revealing of our true state of mind.  Consider the first and last verses of his most famous hymn:

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I could but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an off’ring far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

The central message of the hymn is obvious: the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and the magnitude of his love shown by that redemption inspire us to give ourselves to him and to his service.  In the process we are to abase ourselves and ‘pour contempt on all my pride,’ boasting in nothing but ‘the death of Christ, my God.’ Yet this self-abasement and recognition of our own sinfulness are a million miles removed from modern Western self-loathing.  On the contrary, they are compatible with an innate certainty of self-worth that, sadly, eludes us.  It is that last verse that reveals the true assumption about the evaluation of the self, precisely because of the offhanded way in which it is mentioned.  ‘The whole realm of nature’ is an inadequate gift to devote by way of thanks for God’s grace.  Only ‘my soul, my life, my all’ will do.  What kind of megalomaniac, some might ask, thinks that his own person is worth more, in the sight of God, than ‘the whole realm of nature’?  Certainly our culture has no such confidence.  And yet the words were sung with assurance by countless thousands who had no vote and little or no control over their lives, and who could be – indeed, were – ordered around every day of their lives by others who, through mere accident of birth, were their social superiors!  Did they suffer from a ‘crisis of self-esteem’?  Apparently not!