Part I:
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE DISCIPLESHIP
[The sources cited in this Introduction to David Sanderlin's book,
The Christian Way to be Happily Married, are documented with endnotes in the book itself.]
HAVE ANY OF YOU READERS fallen in love with a dimple, and then you married the whole person, and now you are trying to deal with this? If so, don’t panic. Once upon a time in a Garden of Love in a faraway land a young woman and a young man vowed to love and cherish one another for all the days of their lives, and they lived happily ever after, and we Catholics and other Christians can too. This ecumenical Catholic Christian marriage guide is for engaged and married Christians (and non-Christians too!) who believe or at least hope that living happily ever after does not have to be just a fairy tale in our American land, with so many marriages ending in divorce.
It may not be easy to be happily married. Many of us or our friends have suffered from stormy marriage relationships, bitter divorce proceedings, and prolonged child custody battles. The number of children under 18 whose parents have divorced increased in recent decades from under 1% to over 50%. No wonder many young adults have shied away from marriage! One of my college students writes, “I am afraid to be married. I don’t want to get divorced. As a child I promised myself I would never put another person through what I had to go through when my parents divorced. To this day that’s why I am not married, and that’s why I have no children. I have had the same boy friend for ten years.”
How can we Christian couples be happily married in what has been called our American Divorce Culture? What is the Christian Way to marriage and family happiness? Communicating well? Resolving conflicts? Dealing with gender, personality, and cultural differences? Kindling the romance?
No. These communication and relationship skills have helped many of us a great deal, but they have not always helped enough. Many psychologists and other marriage authorities have been promoting these skills for over half a century now in what has been called our American Psychological Society, but it is during this very time that divorce rates have skyrocketed! We Christian couples need something more powerful than psychology’s communication and relationship skills. What more do we need?
CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE DISCIPLESHIP
We need to follow Jesus with faith, love, wisdom, and other Christian virtues and gifts. With Christian faith, we believe that Jesus is the Son of God and we trust that he loves and forgives us repentant sinners. With Christian love, we love our partner as much as possible as Jesus loves us, with a love that is always patient and kind (1 Cor. 13:4–7). With this love, we treat our partner well, with patience, kindness, wisdom, and other Christian virtues. This faithful, loving, virtuous Christian marriage discipleship is the Christian Way to happiness in marriage and family life.
This Christian Way to marriage and family happiness is good for non-Christians too. It is good for all of us couples to love our partner and treat our partner well, with wisdom, patience, and other Christian virtues. This guide’s Christian marriage guidance can be helpful for non-Christians who admire Jesus even though they may not believe that he is the Son of God. Non-Christians could follow Jesus in a limited way as a moral teacher or role model, if not as the Son of God. Surveys show that Americans of all faiths admire Jesus. Mahatma Gandhi says that Jesus belongs to all people.
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
Are we Christian couples following Jesus as much as we could in our marriage and family life? Maybe. But maybe not. Pope Benedict XVI warns that secularism, materialism, and moral relativism have weakened the discipleship of many Catholics and other Christians in the Western world. Is the Pope right?
We Christian couples can check our Christian discipleship by turning to Jesus and Christian saints and spiritual reformers. Jesus teaches that we should follow him not only by believing that he is the Son of God and trusting that he loves and forgives us repentant sinners, but also by turning away from our sins and amending our life. We turn away from our sins and amend our life in an authentic Biblical sense by becoming like Jesus in our moral character and conduct, with love, wisdom, and other Christian virtues. St. Paul urges the Ephesians “to imitate God [. . .] and follow Christ by loving as he loved you” (Eph. 5:1–2). St. John teaches likewise that “we can be sure that we are in God only when the one who claims to be living in him is living the same kind of life as Christ lived” (1 John 2:5–6). Thomas ŕ Kempis writes in
Of the Imitation of Christ that we follow Jesus by imitating his life and virtues. Pope John Paul II holds in his theology of the body that the fundamental vocation for all Christians is to follow Jesus by becoming like him in their moral character and conduct.
Jesus calls us Christian couples to become like him not only during prayer, worship, and other religious activities, but also during ordinary marriage and family activities like managing the family money and dealing with the housework. If we do not follow Jesus when we manage the family money and deal with the housework, are we true followers of Jesus? St. Teresa of Avila says that we find Jesus among the pots and pans.
This imitation-of-Christ, pots-and-pans Christian marriage discipleship is the Christian Way to happiness in marriage and family life.
Becoming like Jesus is a tall order! But that’s o.k. Many of us couples have already become more like Jesus in our marriage and family life. What’s more, some of us may suspect that we could become even more like Jesus, and we may be willing to go for it. We may be willing to go for an even more Christ-like marital love that is even more patient and kind, with little or no anger, fighting, or other hurtful conflict. We may be willing to follow Jesus farther along the Christian Way not only to happiness in marriage and family life, but also to holiness.
CHRISTIAN HOLINESS
We couples can set our sights on holiness. We are already holy in the basic sense of being created in the image of God. But many of us are impure, imperfect images of God, and we are called to become pure, transformed images of God. We are called to become holy in the deep sense of becoming extraordinarily loving, virtuous, Christ-like persons.
At the beginning of this 21st century, Pope John Paul II called for Catholic parishes to provide training in holiness for all parishioners. John Paul wrote that all the Christian faithful “are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity.” John Paul added that “the time has come to repropose wholeheartedly to everyone this high standard of ordinary Christian living.”
CHRISTIAN HAPPINESS
Some of us couples might hem and haw about going for the high standard of becoming like Jesus in our moral character and conduct. We might be afraid that we would have to sacrifice our happiness too much. But we need not be afraid. Becoming like Jesus might require us to sacrifice a worldly happiness at times, but it would not require us to sacrifice a Christian happiness. Christian happiness consists largely of following Jesus virtuously in this life and being united with God in a limited way in this life and then eternally. With this Christian happiness, we follow Jesus virtuously and we are happy at the same time, as discussed throughout this marriage guide (especially I,1--Part I, Chapter 1, and IV,1-6--Part IV, Chapters 1-6).
St. Paul and many other Christians have envisioned a virtuous Christian happiness in this life. Paul writes to the Philippians: “I want you to be happy, always happy in the Lord. [. . .] Fill your minds with everything that is true, everything that is noble, everything that is good and pure, [. . .] and everything that can be thought virtuous or worthy of praise. [. . .] Then the God of peace will be with you” (Phil. 4:4–9). Pope Benedict XVI teaches that obedience to God is the way to happiness. Benedict says that the virtuous life is the most joyful life.
We Christian couples are called to seek a virtuous Christian happiness, not just a worldly happiness. We would be more likely to seek the Christian happiness if we heard more about it. But many of us hear more about the worldly happiness that is promoted in our American consumer society than the Christian happiness that is prized in our Christian tradition. Some of us seek a worldly happiness more than a Christian happiness without even realizing it. We put our worldly happiness goals ahead of our Christian happiness goal of following Jesus with love, wisdom, and other Christian virtues. Suppose that a Christian stock broker put his worldly happiness goals of making a million dollars in the stock market and buying a multi-million-dollar estate in Beverly Hills ahead of his Christian happiness goal of following Jesus virtuously. He might spend so much time pursuing his worldly happiness goals that he would neglect his wife and children.
Bishop Arthur Brazier, pastor of the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, says that many couples in his marriage counseling focus on their individual worldly happiness so much that they neglect the needs of their family. Brazier could advise these couples to seek an individual Christian happiness that could include pursuing their individual goals, meeting their family’s needs, following Jesus virtuously, and being happy all at the same time. But Brazier and many other marriage authorities today do not say enough about Christian happiness.
STAGES OF GROWTH IN CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE DISCIPLESHIP
It may not always be easy to be happy in the Christian sense of becoming like Jesus in our moral character and conduct. But that’s o.k. Few of us will become saints today, tomorrow, or by the end of the year. But all of us have the potential to become increasingly loving, Christ-like, virtuously-happy persons gradually over the years, with God’s help.
We couples can grow gradually towards Christian ideals of love, happiness, and holiness. Many saints and spiritual reformers have identified beginning, intermediate, and advanced stages of Christian moral and spiritual growth. They have often emphasized growth in love for God during prayer and other religious activities, however, more than growth in marital love for one’s partner during ordinary marriage and family activities. This guide applies some of their insights on moral and spiritual growth to everyday marriage and family life. This guide draws from Jesus, St. Paul, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérčse of Lisieux, John Wesley, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and other saints and spiritual reformers in order to recover and develop a theory of growth in Christian marital love and discipleship that is both faithful to the Christian tradition and relevant for contemporary marriage and family life.
Here’s the theory. We couples can grow from a romantic love and wisdom that help make us emotionally happy in a beginning romantic stage of Christian marriage discipleship (Part II of this book) to a conventional needs love and wisdom that help make us conventionally happy in an intermediate needs stage (Part III) and finally to a Christ-like transforming love and wisdom that help make us virtuously happy in an advanced transforming stage (Part IV). We will focus on growth in love and wisdom, but we will touch upon faith, patience, gratitude, and other Christian virtues too.
Let’s not go overboard applying these stages of Christian marriage discipleship to specific persons, including ourselves and our partner. These stages represent broad generalizations that come with many qualifications and exceptions. Still, knowing about these stages could help us know roughly where we are now in our Christian marriage discipleship and where we could go next. We might have trouble if we did not know these things. Author Laurence Peter writes, “If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.”
CONVENTIONAL MARRIAGE GUIDANCE
We Christian couples need plenty of Christian marriage guidance centered around God and virtue in order to get where we are going in our Christian marriage discipleship. We do not get enough Christian marriage guidance from secular marriage authorities today, however. Few of these authorities say much about Christian discipleship, Christian happiness, and Christian virtues. Social critic Barbara Whitehead argues in
The Divorce Culture that today’s mainstream marriage guidance neglects religious and civic virtues that help bind couples together, including the virtues of “forgiveness, modesty, gratitude, loyalty, patience, generosity, and selflessness.”
Few secular marriage authorities encourage us couples strongly enough to strive for Christian ideals of love, happiness, and holiness. Many authorities emphasize that most of us cannot help being unloving at times. Psychologists Kinder and Cowan say that marriage can “elicit the most intense feelings of anger, hatred, and even violence.” Kinder and Cowan explain that marriage “involves interdependencies and mutual needs, and threats to them can lead to enormous insecurity and retaliatory feelings. Fighting is a
normal and inherent part [my italics] of any bond that is so meaningful to the parties involved.”
I suppose that angry, hateful, and violent fighting could be a “normal” part of “normal” marriages. But this fighting is not an “inherent,” inevitable part of all marriages. We couples have the potential to love our partner as Jesus loves us, with no angry, hateful, or violent fighting. Kinder and Cowan do not account adequately for our tremendous human and Christian potential for a Christ-like marital love that is always patient and kind.
Most Christian marriage authorities provide more Christian marriage guidance, but not always enough of it. According to Dana Mack in a study of marriage preparation programs for teenagers in over 2,000 public and church middle schools and high schools nationwide, most church school programs offered much the same communications training that was offered in the public school programs, and little else. Mack argues that both the secular and Christian programs needed to go beyond communications training to provide more moral and spiritual marriage guidance.
Donald Browning, Thomas Oden, and some other Christian scholars criticize some of their fellow Christians for “mimicking” current psychological trends and neglecting “their own wisdom traditions.” Catholic author Matthew Kelly writes in
Rediscovering Catholicism that after Vatican II many Catholic priests and educators stopped preaching and teaching about holiness. They thought that holiness was an unrealistic and unattainable ideal that often made people feel guilty, so they tried to make things easier for people by watering down holiness or throwing it out.
Author George Bernard Shaw is even more skeptical about holiness. He writes that Jesus “has not been a failure yet; for nobody has ever been sane enough to try his way.”
CHRISTIAN DISCIPLESHIP MARRIAGE GUIDANCE
Let’s not pour cold water on Christian ideals of love, happiness, and holiness. I am optimistic about Christianity, including Christian love and marriage. The saints have been extraordinarily loving, Christ-like persons. What’s more, we ordinary couples can become increasingly loving, Christ-like persons gradually over the years, with God’s help. Let’s set our sights optimistically on moral excellence instead of pessimistically on moral mediocrity; on the imitation of Christ instead of living like the rest of the world; on sanctity instead of “normalcy”; and on Christian hopefulness instead of a worldly skepticism. Let’s see what we can do, with the help of Jesus. Let’s not sell ourselves short, and let’s not sell Jesus short!
It may help to know that most of us couples are already on the right Christian marriage discipleship track that includes growth from romantic love to needs love to a Christ-like transforming love. What’s more, many of us already understand reasonably well how to grow from romantic love to the needs love that many conventional marriage authorities tell us about. We might not understand as well, however, how to grow farther to the Christ-like transforming love that Jesus and many saints and spiritual reformers tell us about. That’s where this marriage guide comes in. This guide supplements, enhances, and sometimes corrects today’s conventional marriage guidance in order to help couples grow not only from romantic love to needs love, but also from needs love to a Christ-like transforming love. We couples do not hear nearly enough these days about growth from needs love to transforming love.
This guide’s Christian growth-centered marriage guidance improves upon today’s conventional problem-centered marriage guidance. Many marriage authorities today advise us couples to negotiate and use other communication and relationship skills in order to deal with marital problems and differences effectively. We could use these skills to deal with marital problems and differences, however, without necessarily growing in love, wisdom, and other Christian virtues. Suppose that a couple disagreed about partying and shopping. Suppose that the husband wanted to party more often with his single male and female friends on weekends, and his wife wanted to borrow more money for shopping. The partying husband and shopping wife might negotiate an agreement that the husband could party more often on weekends and his wife could borrow more money for shopping. The husband and wife might be happy with their negotiations, but they would not necessarily be growing in love, wisdom, and other Christian virtues. Who knows, the wife might become a shopaholic, and her husband might commit adultery.
This guide’s Christian growth-centered marriage guidance includes practical problem-centered guidance too. We will explore growth in love, wisdom, and other Christian virtues in the practical context of dealing with marital problems and differences. Growing in these virtues is often the best way to deal with marital problems and differences over the long haul. Loving, wise, Christ-like couples usually deal with marital problems and differences better than unloving, foolish, un-Christ-like couples do!
INTEGRATING HAPPINESS & HOLINESS
This guide’s Christian marriage guidance is not only growth-centered, but also educational. The word “disciple” means student. We Christian couples are students of Jesus. We need to learn from Jesus about Christian marriage discipleship, including how to integrate happiness and holiness in our marriage and family life.
It may not be easy to learn from Jesus how to integrate happiness and holiness. We may be misled by philosophers, psychologists, and other authorities these days who insist that happiness and holiness often conflict, so we human beings cannot always be completely happy and completely holy at the same time.
Jesus, the apostles, and many saints and spiritual reformers, however, tell us couples that we can integrate happiness and holiness. Holiness can be our happiness! An Old Testament psalmist prays, “Happy are those who dwell in your house” and “Happy are those who find refuge in you” (Ps. 84:5–6—NAB; see Matt. 5:1–12; John 15:11; 2 Cor. 1:24). Jesus teaches that the poor in spirit, the gentle, the merciful, the peacemakers, and the pure in heart are blessed (Matt. 5:3–9), and many Christians have identified this blessedness with happiness, and rightly so—-as we will see throughout this guide.
This guide recovers the teachings of Jesus and many saints and spiritual reformers that true happiness consists of holiness. To recover, defend, and promote this holy Christian happiness--together with a Christian philosophy of life, virtue ethic, and marital spirituality in general—-this guide draws not only from the Bible and other Christian classics, but also from many popular and scholarly sources in spirituality, theology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, literature, and other areas. We couples need wise hearts as well as loving hearts in order to understand and follow the holy Christian Way to be happily married in our Psychological Society and Divorce Culture.
ECUMENICAL CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE GUIDANCE
This guide’s Christian marriage guidance is also ecumenical. Many of us Christians need ecumenical Christian marriage guidance for the religiously and culturally mixed marriages in our pluralistic and multicultural American society. Journalist Jill Smolowe writes that America has produced “the greatest variety of hybrid households in the history of the world.” She notes that if “the daughter of Japanese and Filipino parents marries the son of German and Irish immigrants, together they may beget a Japanese-Filipino-German-Irish-Buddhist-Catholic-American child.”
We Christians can dialogue with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and other people to develop common ideals of love, wisdom, and other virtues that can strengthen our marriages and families. Pope Paul VI writes that we Catholics want to join with various non-Christian religions in “promoting and defending common ideals in the spheres of religious liberty, human brotherhood, education, culture, social welfare, and civic order.”
HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE
It is important for you the readers to apply your understanding of Christian marriage discipleship in general to your own marriage and family life in particular. You can do this informally as you read this guide, or you can do this more systematically by using the “Christian Marriage Discipleship Check-Up Worksheet” in Appendix A at the end of the guide. The worksheet can help you check your Christian marriage discipleship, much as you might check your finances and health.
The worksheet has ten questions about your relationship with your partner on the following ten important aspects of marriage and family life: 1) communication; 2) money; 3) friends and relatives; 4) personality; 5) gender, cultural, and religious differences; 6) sex and intimacy; 7) housework and other family work; 8) education and careers; 9) prayer, worship, and other religious activities; and 10) parenting.
Completing the worksheet could help you and your partner determine where you are following Jesus virtuously now in your marriage and family life, and where you could follow Jesus more virtuously in the future. You and your partner could get ideas for dealing with specific marital problems and differences with love, wisdom, and other Christian virtues.
You could complete the worksheet now and/or later after you have read more of the guide or the whole guide.
There are also discussion questions in Appendix B for use in marriage enrichment workshops, Bible study classes, marriage and family classes, and other groups that deal with marriage, Christian discipleship, Christian spirituality, or other related areas.
This guide’s Biblical references are to the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) unless otherwise noted: NRSV (New Revised Standard Version); REB (Revised English Bible); NAB (New American Bible).
CONCLUSION
The Christian Way for us couples to be happily married is to follow Jesus with love, wisdom, and other Christian virtues during our ordinary marriage and family activities. This virtuous Christian Way to be happily married is timely as well as timeless, for there has been a revival of virtue ethics in recent decades. The time is right for more emphasis upon Christian virtues in our marriage guidance. The time is right for marriage authorities to catch up with many of us couples who have always known that we could strengthen our marriages and families with good, old-fashioned Christian virtues. Some of the virtuous ingredients in popular “recipes” for a happy marriage are 3 cups of love, 2 cups of kindness, 1 cup of courtesy, 4 spoonfuls of hope, 1 pint of faith, and generous portions of patience, respect, and other Christian virtues.
In spite of the recent revival of Christian virtue ethics and the common-sense appeal of Christian virtues, many marriage authorities today continue to emphasize much the same old communication and relationship skills that have been promoted for decades. These marriage authorities do not envision a Christian approach to marriage centered around God and virtue that could transform our marriages and families in this 21st century.
This guide offers Christian marriage guidance for those of you Catholics and other Christians—-and non-Christians too—-who would like to follow Jesus in your marriage and family life in the authentic Biblical sense of becoming more and more like Jesus in your moral character and conduct, with love, wisdom, and other Christian virtues. The best thing that you can do for yourself, for your partner, and for your marriage is to follow Jesus in this virtuous Christian way!
Many of you Christian couples may already be following Jesus with the support of fellow Christians in Bible study classes, prayer groups, lay religious orders, and other groups concerned with Christian discipleship in general. This guide can help you apply your Biblical, prayerful Christian discipleship in general to your marriage and family life in particular. This guide can help you strengthen your Christian
marriage discipleship.
This guide often addresses married couples, but it is meant for you engaged couples too. The best way to prepare for your marriage is to begin following Jesus now before you marry so you can continue following Jesus after you marry, beginning on the first day of your married life—before it is too late!
We Christian couples can picture our Christian marriage discipleship (or “engagement discipleship”) as a mental, emotional, and spiritual journey with Jesus through a Garden of Love in our soul. The Calvinist revivalist preacher Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) compares a soul that is holy to a garden with beautiful flowers: “Holiness [. . .] made the soul like a field or garden of God, with all manner of pleasant flowers; that is all pleasant, delightful, and undisturbed; enjoying a sweet calm, and the gently vivifying beams of the sun.”
It does not matter where we begin our journey with Jesus through the Garden of Love in our soul. We may begin mostly with romantic love, mostly with needs love, mostly with transforming love, or with some combination of these. It matters only that we set out upon this journey. Jesus teaches, “I am the light of the world; anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark; he will have the light of life” (John 8:12).
Yes, we couples can live happily ever after in our Psychological Society and Divorce Culture, even if we fall in love with a dimple and marry the whole person. We just need to follow Jesus along the Christian Way to happiness and holiness in marriage and family life.
PART II:
THE CHRISTIAN WAY FOR BILL AND MARIA TO BE HAPPY
DURING THEIR VACATION IN SAN DIEGO
Let's compare the conventional way that Bill and Maria try to be happy during their vacation in San Diego with the Christian Way that they should try to be happy. We will find that Bill and Maria would be much happier during their San Diego vacation if they followed the Christian Way to be happily married centered on God and virtue instead of the Conventional Way to be happily married focused on worldly goods.
Bill desires to jet-ski with Maria in Mission Bay on the first day of their vacation in order to be conventionally happy, but Maria wants to visit the San Diego Museum of Art with Bill instead. Maria complains, “You have such harebrained ideas. You’re no spring chicken. Why don’t you act your age?” Bill counterattacks, “You have no sense of adventure. You’re such a bore.”
Bill and Maria are seeking a Conventional Happiness centered around jet-skiing, art-museum visits, and other worldly goods more than a Christian Happiness centered around God and virtue.
It might seem that we couples could turn to worldly goods and to God and virtue as the two main sources of our happiness. No such luck! Jesus does not let us take this easy way out. Jesus calls us to put him first as the one main source of our happiness. Jesus explains: “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [worldly goods]” (Matt. 6:24—NAB).
St. Paul writes likewise to the Roman Christians that they cannot serve two masters. Paul explains that they are slaves of God, so they cannot be slaves of sin too: "You know that if you agree to serve and obey a master you become his slaves. You cannot be slaves of sin that leads to death and at the same time slaves of obedience that leads to righteousness. You were once slaves of sin, but thank God you submitted without reservation to the creed you were taught. You may have been freed from the slavery of sin, but only to become ‘slaves’ of righteousness" (Rom. 6:16–18).
Christian spiritual advisor Henry Foster (1821–1901) teaches likewise that we Christians “cannot afford to be double minded, to have a little of the Spirit of Christ and a little of the spirit of the world.” St. Augustine says that “Christ is not valued at all unless he be valued above all.”
BILL’S & MARIA’S SELFISHNESS
Most of us couples have some of the spirit of Christ, but we may have some of the spirit of the world too. Let’s describe the spirit of the world in terms of selfishness, as Jesus, saints, and spiritual reformers often do. Bill and Maria fight selfishly about the jet-skiing and the art-museum visit. In what sense are they being selfish?
It might seem that Bill and Maria are being selfish in the sense of putting their individual interests and desires ahead of their partner’s interests and desires. Bill puts his jet-skiing interests ahead of Maria’s art-museum interests, and Maria likewise puts her interests ahead of Bill’s interests.
Some Christians have characterized selfishness largely in these terms of putting our interests ahead of other people’s interests, but I do not characterize selfishness mostly in this way. Suppose that selfishness was mostly putting our interests ahead of other people’s interests. Then it seems that we would often need to sacrifice our interests in order to act unselfishly. But maybe we should not sacrifice our interests as often as we might think. The more we sacrifice our interests, the more we might help other people get their way, and then we might contribute to their selfishness. We might become permissive doormats, letting people step all over us.
Some psychologists and other authorities today warn us not to sacrifice our interests too much. Psychologists Rachael and Richard Heller encourage us to pursue our interests assertively with a “healthy” selfishness in order to develop our individual identity. They warn us not to sacrifice our interests so much that we do not know who we really are. They warn us not to identify ourselves mostly as someone else’s son, daughter, husband, wife, and so on.
This “healthy selfishness” is promoted daily in American newspapers, magazines, television programs, and other sources. Here are a few examples from magazine articles and news reports: “Why Selfish is Good” (
The Vauxhall magazine, Autumn, 2004); “Selfishness: A Good Trait for Soccer Star” (
Plain Dealer, January 15, 2005); and “Hudson Institute Defends U.S. Selfishness” (
U.S. Abroad.org News, January 7, 2005).
The Hellers and many other authorities today do distinguish appropriately between a supposedly healthy selfishness and a clearly unhealthy, self-indulgent selfishness. And these authorities do make some good points. But they give selfishness too much of a good name. Selfishness, properly understood, is a negative, unhealthy character trait, not a positive, healthy one. To understand why this is so, let’s characterize selfishness not only in terms of our relationship with other people, but also in terms of our relationship with God. Selfishness involves above all putting our interests and our will ahead of God’s interests and God’s will—-not just ahead of our neighbor’s interests and our neighbor’s will. After all, our neighbor’s interests are sometimes unwise, and our neighbor’s will is sometimes unloving. We should not necessarily put our neighbor’s interests and will ahead of our own.
Maria should not necessarily put Bill’s jet-skiing interests ahead of her art-museum interests in order to act “unselfishly.” Bill’s interest in pressuring Maria to jet-ski with him is unwise and unloving.
Maria, Bill, and all the rest of us Christian couples should always put God’s interests and God’s will ahead of our interests and our will. God’s interests are always wise, and God’s will is always loving. God wants all of us Christian couples to respond to our partner lovingly and follow Jesus virtuously, and we should want these things too. These are our true Christian interests, and we should always put them first.
Bill and Maria do not put their true Christian interests in God and virtue first, ahead of their jet-skiing and art-museum interests. That’s why they are acting selfishly.
I will ordinarily use the word “selfishness” in this sense of putting our misguided interests, desires, and will for worldly goods ahead of God’s will that we follow Jesus virtuously.
Selfishness is not always sinfulness. With sinfulness, we know that we are being sinful, but we choose to be sinful anyway, with a free choice. We are morally responsible for our sinfulness.
With selfishness, on the other hand, we might not always know that we are being selfish, and we might not always choose to be selfish, with a free choice. Some of us might have been shaped morally during our childhood by such things as misguided parents and what some scholars call an American Culture of Narcissism, so we might be pretty selfish without realizing it. Then we might not be morally responsible for our selfishness. We would be morally responsible, however, for trying to identify and overcome any selfishness that we might have, with the help of Jesus.
In this guide, let’s deal with selfishness more than sinfulness. Bill and Maria are selfish, but they are not necessarily sinful in the sense of being morally responsible for their selfishness. Let’s leave judgments about people’s sinfulness to God.
Bill and Maria might not realize that they are being selfish when they put their jet-skiing and art-museum interests ahead of God and virtue. After all, the jet-skiing and the art-museum visit that they desire are not bad things, and they desire these things for seemingly good reasons. Bill was neglected by his parents during his childhood, so he has low self-esteem. He wants to jet-ski and engage in other adventurous activities in order to bolster his low self-esteem and be happy. He takes pride in himself as an adventurous person.
Maria also has low self-esteem. She wants to visit art museums and engage in other educational activities in order to feel good about herself and be happy. She takes pride in herself as an educated person.
Bill and Maria need to deal with their low self-esteem, but they need to deal with their selfishness too. What’s more, dealing with their selfishness could help them build their self-esteem. Suppose that they stopped fighting and started responding to one another more lovingly. Then they could feel better about themselves as more loving, Christ-like persons.
CONCLUSION
We Christian couples are called to seek a Christian Happiness centered around God and virtue instead of a Conventional Happiness centered around worldly goods. Bill and Maria would be much better off during their vacation in San Diego if they sought a Christian Happiness instead of a Conventional Happiness. To seek the Christian Happiness, they would let go of their selfish jet-skiing and art-museum desires in order to be happy responding to one another lovingly and following Jesus virtuously, with or without the jet-skiing and the art-museum visit. In other words, they would put away their old self "corrupted through deceitful desires" and put on a new self "created in God's way in righteousness and holiness of truth," as Paul the Apostle puts it (Eph. 4:22-24), Then they would discuss their jet-skiing and art-museum interests lovingly without being anxious about getting their way. What would they decide to do? It would not matter, as long as they responded lovingly to one another in some reasonable way. They might decide to shop together on the first day of their vacation, to go their separate jet-skiing and art-museum ways on the second day, and to sunbathe together on the third day. They could still do most of the things they enjoyed doing, including jet-skiing and visiting the art museum. They would probably enjoy these things more without the fighting.
Bill, Maria, and all the rest of us couples would lose little and gain a lot by seeking a Christian Happiness instead of a Conventional Happiness.