Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Self-Esteem
Al Mohler looks at the self-esteem movement in education. Usually, Al sees things with too little subtlety to my mind, and given that I have all the subtlety of a tank rolling down a residential block, that's saying something. In this case, he is dead nuts on, but just not deep enough. The post is all about the very surface concept of no failure and lots of praise. What is not examined is why this doesn't work, the cynicism students develop about the abundant praise notwithstanding.
The idea that enough positive feedback will enable success is based on an extremely flawed concept - that everyone is capable of performing well in school. Guess what? - we're not all so capable. In the immortal words of Dirty Harry, "A man's got to know his limitations." The best thing I have ever read on the topic is Charles Murray's series in OpinionJournal -- One -- Two -- Three.
Seems to me, a similar message is true for the gospel, and it is one the church is forgetting as much as the educational system, likely for the same pop psychological reasons. It is true in the church on two levels. On the first level, we do not talk about sin enough, we do church like a self-improvement program. "Everyone is capable of being a good Christian," when, in fact NO ONE is capable of being a good Christian. That is the entire point.
But we also do it on another level, and that is leadership, whether pastoral, lay staff, or elders and other ruling offices, we take people with willingness instead of capability. We are all differently abled - too sound far more "pop" than I like. Scripture makes this quite clear.
We have two burdens as a church, really. The first is to keep those without the capability from entering leadership. This we have ceased to do out of sheer necessity, not to mention a lack of desire to hurt people. There simply does not appear to be enough abled people to fill what we perceive as the needs.
But secondly, we need to raise up those obviously abled. Which creates a whole other set of problems, for often we bring the abled along too quickly, before they are sufficiently mature on a personal level, then they get hurt, as does the church by the ensuing scandal.
It's become an ugly cycle. We need to break it somehow. The only logical way I can see to do so right now is to get by with less. Lower needs and expectations so only good and able people are doing what good and able people are needed for, mostly importantly making more good and abled people. It may take a couple of generations, but eventually order will be restored.
Related Tags: self-esteem, ability, leadership
The idea that enough positive feedback will enable success is based on an extremely flawed concept - that everyone is capable of performing well in school. Guess what? - we're not all so capable. In the immortal words of Dirty Harry, "A man's got to know his limitations." The best thing I have ever read on the topic is Charles Murray's series in OpinionJournal -- One -- Two -- Three.
Seems to me, a similar message is true for the gospel, and it is one the church is forgetting as much as the educational system, likely for the same pop psychological reasons. It is true in the church on two levels. On the first level, we do not talk about sin enough, we do church like a self-improvement program. "Everyone is capable of being a good Christian," when, in fact NO ONE is capable of being a good Christian. That is the entire point.
But we also do it on another level, and that is leadership, whether pastoral, lay staff, or elders and other ruling offices, we take people with willingness instead of capability. We are all differently abled - too sound far more "pop" than I like. Scripture makes this quite clear.
We have two burdens as a church, really. The first is to keep those without the capability from entering leadership. This we have ceased to do out of sheer necessity, not to mention a lack of desire to hurt people. There simply does not appear to be enough abled people to fill what we perceive as the needs.
But secondly, we need to raise up those obviously abled. Which creates a whole other set of problems, for often we bring the abled along too quickly, before they are sufficiently mature on a personal level, then they get hurt, as does the church by the ensuing scandal.
It's become an ugly cycle. We need to break it somehow. The only logical way I can see to do so right now is to get by with less. Lower needs and expectations so only good and able people are doing what good and able people are needed for, mostly importantly making more good and abled people. It may take a couple of generations, but eventually order will be restored.
Related Tags: self-esteem, ability, leadership
