I want to tie two seemingly unrelated quotes together. The first quote comes from Jesus's parable of the two men praying in Luke 18:9-14 (click here for the source):
9 Now He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and began praying this in regard to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, crooked, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to raise his eyes toward heaven, but was beating his chest, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other one; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The second quote come from the speech that Martin Luther King Jr. gave protesting the Vietnam War (click here for the source):
'The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.'
Before I connect the two quotes together, we need to substitute a fill-in-the-blank for the word 'Western.' As a result, we come up with the following:
The ________ arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.'
Note that we can use any group's or individual's name in the fill-in-the-blank. For examples:
The Leftist arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just
or
Curt's arrogance of feeling that he has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just
And so we should see that this arrogance of feeling knows no personal, group, nor ideological boundary. From here, we should easily see the connection between the 2 quotes. In the former, we see the Pharisee who offers evidence of his own righteousness by how he is morally superior to the Tax Collector. The Pharisee proudly proclaims that not only is he morally superior to the Tax Collector, that he is without fault while the Tax Collector is without merit.
And what is said in the second quote? That the 'Western arrogance of feeling' proclaims that the West believes that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them. This does not just imply that the West believes that it is superior to other parts of the world, it claims that the disparity is so great that the West is completely self-sufficient while the rest of the world is dependent on the West. Just as a side note, do we still wonder why there are some Americans, the President for example, who are plagued with narcissism?
Those of us who believe in Christ should be alarmed at having such arrogance. We should be alarmed because arrogance is not only not smiled on by God in either the Old or New Testaments, such arrogance brings God's opposition and punishment. And so no believer should have such an arrogance of feeling, but many of us do anyway.
To the unbeliever, having such an arrogance of feeling is not necessarily a problem as it is for the Christian, and so many of them could enjoy being arrogant, but not all do. And so one of the many conditions that harms the reputation of the Gospel is when an individual or group of believers are arrogant while there are many unbelievers who are repulsed by that characteristic.
By now we should see how the second quote can be an example of the Pharisee's attitude expressed in the first quote. Though they are not identical, the two quotes have enough in common so that the person or group in question in the 2nd quote becomes an example of the Pharisee from the 1st quote. And since what the West was trying to teach others involved secular concerns, then we can conclude that one does not have to be religious to be a Pharisee. That those who have only secular interests can be Pharisees too.
The possibility of becoming a Pharisee should, for us who believe in Christ, strike fear in us because of what happens to the Pharisee in the end. We should also note that, for us believers in Christ, there is never a time whenwe can safely pray the prayer of the Pharisee nor is there a time when we no longer need to pray like the Tax Collector.
For unbelievers, the possibility of becoming a Pharisee means that one is emulating the characteristics of what they often criticize Christians for.
Many of my fellow believers will object to what has been written here by claiming that because they have Biblical worldview, in contrast to the worldviews of unbelievers, they have everything to teach unbelievers and nothing to learn from them because they have what unbelievers don't have. Here, James Boice's criticisms of Monasticism and the early Anabaptists apply here as well. We should note that those Monastics and Anabaptists believed that, because of how corrput unbelievers were, they had nothing to learn from unbelievers, Boice said that the attitude of the Monastics and early Anabaptists failed both to appreciate the effects that God's common grace could have on people in government and on those influencing culture as well as it 'overestimated' the godliness of devout believers including themselves (see pg 104 of Two Cities, Two Loves: Christian Responsibility In A Crumbling Culture). And so those fellow believers who conclude that they have everything to teach unbelievers because of their own adherence to a biblical worldview have deceived themselves about both their godliness and the contributions that unbelievers can contribute.
At this point, we should point out the carrot that arrogance holds out in front of us. That carrot consists of feeling good about oneself. That carrot consists of feeling a sense of significance. In fact, feeling superior to others can be especially gratifying especially when others consist, in part, of those whom we do not respect or even despise. In addition, being arrogant can lead us to feeling entitled over others. However, because being arrogant can make some feel significant, challenging a part of those beliefs that makes them feel significant, regardless of the facts and logic one employs, can be perceived as a personal attack by those who feel superior to others.
Certainly there are individuals and groups from all over the ideological spectrum that could accurately be used in the above fill-in-the-blank. And there are other times in which our own names could accurately put in the fill-in-the-blank. But because of the current situation, we need to look at the Evangelical support for President Trump and his policies. Why? It is because of both what Trump has said and done, especially during his 2nd term as President, and the level of support he gets from religiously conservative Christians.
Note that Trump had campaigned on the claim that only he can fix it with it being the nation with its problems. Trump had hats made saying: 'Trump Was Right About Everything.' Or consider the title of a Charlie Kirk book: The MAGA Doctrine: The Only Ideas That Will Win The Future. Don't both Trump's self-proclamations and the book title sound way to similar to what was said in the second quote? And, if so, can't both Trump's self-proclamations and Kirk's book title cause those who embrace those sentiments to speak like what was said in the 2nd quote?
If so, then perhaps the Evangelical community needs to reexamine the kind of commitment that it has made to both Trump and the MAGA Doctrine. The claim that some believers have all of the knowledge while unbelievers have none should raise a score of red flags because of the arrogance that such a claim carries with it. The recommended reexamination does not imply that one must necessarily leave the Trump and MAGA followings, though I would strongly recommend it, such a reexamination should cause Christians in the Trump and MAGA followings to adamantly stand for drastic change in both their leader and their their groups. That change must include promoting hybrid approaches and solutions to our nation's problems rather than just Trump and MAGA ones. Those hybrid solutions must have contributions from unbelievers who hold to different ideologies than MAGA ones. That is because, as the Scripture say, 'GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD' (which is part of I Peter 5:5). And looking down on others as inferiors is a first and almost certain indicator that one is arrogant. On the other hand, recognizing the contributions that those outside one's group can make is evidence, though not necessarily proof, that one is not arrogant.
For those fellow believers who insist on Christian Nationalism, arrogance cannot be one of their traits. In fact, arrogance should never be a part of any Christian's life. And we should note that for those of us believers who have escaped the clutches of yearning for Christian Nationalism, we have our own sins to battle. We can neither entertain the notion that we are superior to any Christian Nationalist nor think that we have nothing to learn from them. We too should seek hybrid approaches and solutions to our nation's problems. This should cause us to avoid the all-or-nothing thinking that Trump and many MAGA followers employ--a kind of thinking that provides the cognitive foundation for authoritarianism. And that authoritarianism would make believers do what both Jesus and Peter warned against: the lording it over of others.
