Summary

The article argues that Christian faith, contrary to its teachings of altruism, often fosters self-centeredness among believers through its emphasis on personal prayer efficacy, reliance on personal experiences for faith validation, exclusive claims to salvation, and assertions of possessing objective truth.

Abstract

The author of the article presents a critical perspective on Christianity, suggesting that it inadvertently encourages narcissism. The piece outlines four main ways this occurs: Christians are taught that God prioritizes their personal prayers, even for trivial matters like finding parking spots, while seemingly ignoring the suffering of others. They are encouraged to validate their faith through personal experiences, often dismissing the spiritual experiences of non-Christians. The Christian doctrine of salvation exclusively through Jesus is presented as 'Good News' for believers, yet it condemns non-believers to eternal suffering, which the author points out as a self-centered view. Lastly, the article criticizes the Christian claim of holding objective truth, which can lead to a dismissal of critical thinking and a history of religious conflicts.

Opinions

The author believes that the focus on God answering personal prayers for minor conveniences, while ignoring widespread suffering, reflects a self-centered attitude among Christians.
Personal experiences are seen as a biased and self-affirming way to justify Christian beliefs, while disregarding the validity of experiences from other faiths.
The author questions the morality of the Christian concept of salvation, which is considered 'Good News' for believers but spells eternal damnation for non-believers, highlighting this as a self-centered belief.
The article suggests that the Christian claim to possessing absolute truth stifles critical thinking and has historically led to religious wars and persecution of those deemed 'heretics.'
The author implies that the Christian faith's lack of openness to revising its doctrines, as opposed to the scientific method, contributes to a self-righteous attitude among believers.

4 Ways Christian Faith Encourages Believers to Be Self-Centered

Naturally, I only realized it after I walked out.

Christians might be puzzled by the title of this story. Isn’t self-sacrifice or altruism important teaching in the Bible? I thought the same when I was still in the fold, but after deconstruction, I realized I was wrong. Christian faith instigated narcissism more than caring for others. I know this is a controversial claim and there are different ways to look at the issue, but this story is my genuine take on it. Below are four ways most Christian churches encourage believers to be self-centered. (Of course not every church exhibits all of these four characteristics. If you feel your church has none of these problems, please leave a comment and tell me a bit about your church.)

1. Christians are taught that God listens to their prayers.

Millions of people die an unnecessary or unnatural death every day. Diseases, accidents, natural disasters, crimes, you name it. UN estimates that 25,000 people die of hunger or related causes every day. The 2004 tsunami took away 230,000 lives in a matter of hours. There are horrible, horrible things happening every day.

But Christians pray that the supposedly omnipotent and omniscient Creator of the Universe God will save them a parking spot when doing grocery shopping.

And if indeed they find an empty spot in a busy parking lot, they will give thanks to God, assuming that God did answer their prayer request.

How is THAT not self-centered?

Christians might argue that they expect their prayers to be heard because God loves each one of us. Well, how about the children who were/are/will be sexually abused by the clergy in the church that is supposedly the Body of Christ? Apparently, God did not hear the prayers of tens of thousands of children in the Christian residential schools in Canada and save them from being sexually abused or murdered. If God does not listen to the prayers of these most vulnerable ones in His own house, why do you expect Him to hear your petty requests?

Not only that, when Christians hear someone has real needs, usually their first reaction is to pray for them. After five minutes of fervent prayer, they would feel very good about themselves that they have “helped” the person in need. I once heard a comment about this observation, saying that prayer is a form of “spiritual masturbation”. It’s sad but true.

Another reason many Christians give for believing in the efficacy of prayers is personal experience, which is my next point.

2. Christians are encouraged to use their personal experiences to strengthen their faith.

“I don’t know about other people’s experience, but I have had experiences that show me God loves me and hears my prayers,” they said. In other words, they think they can use their personal experience to justify their belief that their God is real, and as such, is the only real God in the world.

What about the religious experiences of billions of others from other faith traditions? Christians simply dismiss them.

Phra Phrom is a very popular god in Southeastern Asia. Hundreds of thousands of visitors and tourists flock to Bangkok every year to offer incense to him, praying for protection and good fortune. His popularity is due to the supposed “answered prayers”.

What do Christians usually say in response to this? “Those idol worshippers took coincidence or provision from the Triune God and wrongly attribute it to false gods.”

Or “they are deceived by the Devil, who also can work miracles.”

In other words, the experiences of people from other religious traditions are not reliable, but those from Christians can point and lead them to the One True God.

Among millions of gods out there, only one is true, and that one happens to be the God that Christians worship. Christians got it right; the rest did not.

Tell me, how is it not self-centered?

Note that most religious people let their personal experiences inform their belief system, but unlike monotheistic religions, those who believe in a plurality of gods usually do not discount other religions at the level I describe above.

3. Christianity emphasizes that salvation ONLY comes from believing in Jesus, and calls it the Gospel.

But why would you call a belief system that claims non-believers have no hope of salvation, and will suffer eternal torture after they die, a Good News? It’s good news to Christians because they believe it, but if it’s bad news for other people, Christians certainly don’t think it should be a concern.

The majority of Christians have not stopped to think about this question: The Gospel brings me peace, joy, and hope, but how can it do that if the Gospel also dictates that people who happen not to be convinced by it, suffer eternally?

I have talked about this absurdity and Christians’ ambivalence in another article:

One Way to Make Christians Instantly Toss out Salvation by Faith

You may think that Christians are serious about this fundamental aspect of their faith, but you can actually ask them…

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Heaven is supposed to be a place of utter bliss, joy, and absolutely no sadness. But if you Christians go to heaven and find that some of your family members and friends are not there, are you not bothered by it, even if just a little bit?

If you believe that you will have a blissful afterlife, good for you. But why does it have to involve other people heading in the opposite direction? To accentuate the goodness of heaven by using a contrast?

How is it not self-centered?

4. Christians are often told that Christian faith points to objective truth, and they can’t be wrong about it.

How could they be wrong? After all, the Bible is the Word of God, so it must be right. Critical thinking is discouraged and unwelcome.

Science is all about finding better models, better theories, and better tools to describe and predict natural phenomena more accurately. Scientists in general are not inclined to use the word “truth” to describe scientific theories because there is always room for revision. In contrast, Christians focus on preserving the original form of their faith. The Bible is not open for revision because it is, undoubtedly, perfect. Unfortunately, “God must be right” is often internalized as “I follow God’s teaching, so I must be right. If you question my belief, you are questioning God”.

This result may not be intentional, but it happens all the time. Think about all the religious wars and persecution of “heretics” in church history. Those wouldn’t have happened if people were humble enough to say, “My belief system may be wrong, so I will not insist that I must be right”.

If any Christian wants to argue this point, just tell me, how likely do you think you are wrong about your belief that Jesus is the Son of God?

So these are the four ways Christianity encourages believers to be self-centered. I can list more, but I think it is sufficient for this article’s purpose. Do you think what I wrote is fair? Do you have anything else to add? Please leave comments. I will try my best to respond promptly.

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