[This is part 2 in a series on “pride” in the Bible. See part one, three, four, five, six, seven, eight]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

Most every Christian is more than familiar with the idea of pride as a sin. This idea, vaguely conceived, is very often repeated among them. 

But if you ask an average Christian, untrained to ever think of things in more socio-political terms, what “pride” is more specifically referring to in the scriptures, they are likely to give you nothing more than an account of this sin in terms of a man’s personal or private faults. They have little to no relation of this concept to the sort of arrogance and audacity that men have when they believe themselves to be capable of taking the reins of political power unto themselves and wielding it against other people, which is arguably what pride is all about.

We are usually given some image of the individual person who has some exaggerated sense of self or an elevated view of themselves, whether their looks, their charm, or their physical abilities, attributes, intellect, or possessions. One is likely to fault another for being “proud” when these actions, while maybe indeed harmful to that person, don’t really have anything to do with the sort of pride in the relentlessly political word of God. 

Now, it is not wrong (as I mentioned in part one) to show examples of pride and such sin in individuals, and these individual instances may be what leads men to joining up with political rulers anyway. We should still caution our brothers against such pride that we think to be unnecessary or harmful to themselves, and we should never inculcate pride in our youth (as government school systems do with the country). There is still a “personal pride,” so to speak, that keeps men from coming to God’s word and wisdom, and which leads them toward the false philosophies (e.g., statism, socialism, democracy) of the world.

But it would be severely downplaying a Biblical understanding of pride to act like this is some mere personality flaw in individuals and ignore its wider, social manifestation in the audacity that men have to rule over others.

It makes me recall the scripture, “How long, O simple ones, will you love your simple ways?” (Proverbs 1:22). This would apply well to those who make pride into something relatively benign as narcissism while ignoring the great sin of statism and patriotism, which leaves whole societies plundered and dead. One commentator explained “the simple” as “those who are indifferent through thoughtlessness and inconsiderateness, and are thereby open to evil” (Pulpit Commentary, Prov. 1:22). If we don’t think such issues as pride to be deeper than personality flaws, we’re likely to miss its most evil manifestations, such as when men take the reigns of political power and control other humans and their property.

The pride of power

As I showed in the previous article, the real pride of the scriptures is the pride of statism, i.e., the pride that men have when they take the reigns of power or when they worship those who do. 

“The proud” are not simply some big-headed men who puff their chests out all day just because they’re full of themselves. They are men who are full of themselves, but more specifically, they are the ones who are so full of themselves they believe they have a right to rule over people and that they will never be stopped.  

To be sure, “pride” in the scriptures is almost always connected with violence, i.e., with the state rulers who prey on God’s people. As one psalm says, 

“O God, the proud are risen against me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul” (Psalm 86:14).  

“Assemblies of violent men,” i.e., the organized and legalized violence of States, is evidently part of who we might call “the proud.” Those we might call “the proud” are men who form States and legalize their plunder. It is men who have set up political systems to rob people, and “congresses” and “courts” to sign-off on the robbery, who are “the proud.” They are the men who rule over us today and rob us for all we’re worth. How do we know that we live under such a system of robbery today that is hiding behind the name of “the law?” The 19th century French economist, Frederic Bastiat, gave us a simple exercise:

“See whether the law takes from some persons that which belongs to them, to give to others what does not belong to them. See whether the law performs, for the profit of one citizen, and, to the injury of others, an act that this citizen cannot perform without committing a crime” (Bastiat, The Law, p. 14).

The sin of pride is thus far from just some personality flaw of men who think too highly of themselves, though it is that too. It also regularly manifests itself outwardly in the worship of states (statism) and in the rulers’ audacity themselves to rule over people. And it is these men who the scriptures are most often referring to when speaking of the proud. God’s word is much more than some simple “self-help” guide or devotional book, as men have made it to be; it is an anarchist manifesto, a political-economic textbook, a liberty manual, and one great-big lesson in exposing the statist conspiracy around us, topped with His promise to topple these proud men (Psalm 1:4; 9:17; 37:9, 20, 28, 38; 68:2; 92:7, 9; 145:20).

For modern Christianity to have reduced sins like theft to a kid stealing a candy bar rather than the rulers who rob us of billions of dollars annually, or pride to a some egotistical kid who thinks highly of himself instead of the men who believe they have a right to rule others, shows just how far we have come in making the word of God—a text that is all about the slavery of our people by proud men who pretend to be gods—to “none effect” (Mark 7:13). And it shows just how much men want to continue in the real pride of state-worshiping rather than repent of this great sin. They think it’s fine to worship the State and its violence, so long as they’re not one of those gay pride paraders. 

The pride of statism on display

Though “personal sins” and these “social sins” are, of course, bound-up with one another, with the individual man needing to regenerate himself in order to change society and the statist social system being comprised of individual sinners, I wouldn’t hesitate to submit that what God really means by “the proud” are the rulers and the people who take their “pride” to the next level of brandishing a sword against others and imagining they can live and rule autonomously from God (Gen. 11).

What’s interesting, though, is that this individual sin (e.g., the narcissist who doesn’t have political power) is often emphasized in Christianity over the social manifestations (e.g., the narcissists who do have political power). We’re more likely to be led to think the main “pride problem” we have is just egotistical people who have a high opinion of themselves (but who otherwise don’t rob people for a living). Few shepherds would teach their flocks that the real pride problem has to do with statism. Your average pastor is more like to go on a rant about a girl who wears makeup too often or one who spends too much time on the internet, all while pointing people to venerate flags, soldiers, or “law enforcement” officers on the other hand, thereby downplaying the truth and elevating the benign.

Thus, men are often led to believe that “pride” is just a personal problem, such that they should, say, avoid celebrating one of their personal achievements so they won’t be “too prideful.” “Don’t go boasting about that home-run that Junior hit at his baseball game, God doesn’t like pride!”

By diminishing a socio-political conception of pride and emphasizing such relatively harmless things like tooting your own horn, men are then enabled to think, contra the scriptures, that pride extended to such institutions as the State—the false god systems of rulers that God was really concerned with—is an acceptable form of pride! That “patriotism” is actually permitted by God, rather than being the very thing—love and worship for the systems of human rulers—that God hates and calls pride! 

But this is arguably the worst form of pride one can have — the pride in abstract entities such as “Egypt,” which always necessarily leads men to love “country” more than God (or to believe they can, without contradiction, combine “God and country” together). 

It is very typical for Americans, who have been raised in a highly statist society full of propaganda that has trained them to worship Pharaohs, to say that they are “proud to be an American.” The idolatry that this country’s masters have bred seems to just be so much more perfected than others around the world, if only because these flag-wavers are more or less completely blind to violence of Egypt and actually believe they’re free.

But however trained in the sin of pride Christians may be, they often don’t even see the connection when they are using the language themselves. They see no problem with, say, a war victory making them feel the feelings of being “proud to be an American.”

A conversation with a proud statist

I recently had the occasion to tell one of these proud-to-be-Americans that his pride (his statism) was sinful. I didn’t narrow it down to the pride of statism, which is arguably what Biblical pride is all about, but tried to put this truth over on him on the simple basis that pride is pride is pride — in any form. In other words, I didn’t even try to emphasize that the pride of statism is much more evil and destructive to social order than personal vanity but allowed for the idea that pride is equal. This was a most generous argument to grant to such an obvious idolater as he was (among millions of other Americans like him).

He disagreed! He said that “all pride isn’t equal” but—get this!—that vanity and personal ego was worse than his state-worshiping! So I stopped being generous and emphasized that his statist pride is the very essence of sin. (The central sin in the scriptures, which makes up its ongoing and undying narrative, is arguably men worshiping false god-kings and turning their back on Christ the King). 

His agreement that (some) pride was sinful, but disagreement that all pride is equal, allowed him to downplay the pride that God is arguably emphasizing and make what he thought was the real pride into a simple personal matter. That is, he argued that his statism—proud to be an American—wasn’t pride! But this is the very evil God hates!

He started making exceptions in his mind because he knew the truth and didn’t want to face it. He responded by drawing a false distinction straight from the devil: “There’s a difference between prideful sin, and cherishing what God has given you, such as a great country with great men.” Yikes.

The pride of statism vs. the pride of men

He must not read his Bible, and he must have been unfamiliar with the Lord Acton quote that “great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you add the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.” Because he apparently had no idea that “great countries” and “great men,” i.e., Egypt and its Pharaohs, are precisely the enemies of God in the scriptures. God is way less concerned about some big-headed teenager than He is state-worshipers. God doesn’t smash societies in the Bible because ‘they were all staring at mirrors, so therefore I poured out My wrath upon them.’ God destroys societies that are filled with state rulers and state-worshipers who have embarked upon the evil political scheme of plundering and enslaving men and their property.

The destruction that God brings upon a people, which is proof of their rebellion against Him, is almost always associated with men pridefully and foolishly seeking after the kingdoms of men. God is always warning of the destruction that comes to men who trust in state militaries (Isaiah 31:1-3), those who make men their strength (Jeremiah 17:5-6), those who trust in Pharaohs (Jeremiah 46:25), those who idolize these systems (Ezekiel 30:13), those who trust in these Egyptian systems whatever (Isaiah 20:5), etc.

Yet this guy thought it was the other way around. In his mind, it was personal vanity that was the chief sin while state-worshiping was completely fine. As he said, really revealing how much the word of God was being watered-down to justify the greater sin of his state-worshiping, “true pride is narcissism.” 

Again, this isn’t really wrong. Personal pride is also a problem. But this alone doesn’t encapsulate the political spirit that accompanies the real narcissism of believing you have the power, knowledge, or some sort of “divine right,” to rule over whole societies of millions of people. All state rulers and their worshipers are filled with pride, but not all pride manifests in statism. 

Another “Christian statist” (contradiction) came to his aid and chimed-in that pride “depends on the attitude.” I guess this is supposed to mean that so long as your sinful patriotism is not too personally vain, it’s alright and not the most grievous form of pride that the scriptures are really referring to. One can, I guess, be loosely or somewhat “proud of their country” (an abstract and arbitrary concept formed by statists to get men to identify their homeland with the ruling elites), so long as it isn’t too adamant and idolatrous. They can be a passive or somewhat active “patriot,” so long as they don’t get too enthusiastic about the matter. Patriotism is fine, so long as you don’t scream above some certain decibel level after the “national anthem” plays. Statism is not idolatry, so long as you tame it a little.

Getting it backwards

It is funny that one should downplay the pride that is associated with statism, i.e., the thinking that the Egyptian system has done wonders for prosperity and liberty, given that this, and not really some insignificant pride of some poor person experiencing a personal success story in life, is the main idea of pride in the scriptures. 

If anything, it should run precisely the other way: The “pride” of thinking you’re some beautiful musician or something is way less harmful and way less scriptural than the pride of statism — both the patriotism of being one of its foolish worshipers, or the feelings one has when they become a ruler themselves. God is not talking about people looking into mirrors all day when He speaks of the proud; He is talking about kings and those who are deceived by their rulership and accompanying ideologies. 

So his argument still fails. Even if all pride isn’t equal, and I’m tempted to say it’s not, the worst form is statist pride! And yet, he rejects statist pride and relegates God’s word to…I guess, the child who celebrates his goal at the soccer game. “Hey boy, your little celebration back there, well you should know that’s pride, and God doesn’t like that. Be careful, you little sinner, to not lose God’s favor…Now go America! Kill them A-rabs and keep us free! Back the Blue! Support the troops!”

Even if it’s true that not all pride is made equal and that we can arbitrarily separate the pride of statism from the pride of thinking you’re a handsome man (or something like that), which the guy I had discussed this with arguably sinfully separates from the general concept in order to continue his idolatry for the State, it runs in the opposite direction supposed by the average American idolater: The pride of statism is much more significant, worse, and scriptural than a man looking in the mirror or bragging about some personal accomplishment.

If anything—and I don’t want to downplay personal exaltation and ego that is also a problem—the sinful pride is the very thing he thinks is exempt: being proud of Egypt, whether as an administrator of this system or as one of its citizen-idolaters. The prideful rebellion against God by men is shown in them nowhere better than when they set up man-kings and human princes against God’s will that we make Him our Lord (Hosea 8:4).

Personal pride

Now, I say none of this as an endorsement for a man to abandon his humility and act pridefully so long as he doesn’t rule over another person. I think avoiding the sin of pride applied to the individual person, and practicing humility in all the things one does, must also be a part of the conscious Christian life; the pride of rulers originates within individuals. And indeed, if one begins to look down on their neighbor and their brethren, they are only acting just like those who, through the force of the State, treat the rest of the people as subjects to be robbed.

Furthermore, it is a personal pride that often prevents men from humbling themselves enough to come to God and His word. Men are so ‘right in their own eyes’ that they think they do not need God (which inevitably leads them into the hands of man-gods).  

I just bring to attention that it’s striking that the sin of pride is rarely addressed in reference to the pride of rulers and the pride of idolaters, when this is what the word of God is really talking about when speaking of “the proud” and those who have exalted themselves upon earthly thrones. To harp on the pride of individuals, without pointing out its most dangerous manifestation in the rulers, just seems like a typical watered-down message that you would hear in most churches, all while they turn around and justify their idolatry for the State, their flags posted around the building, the state-servants (police or veterans) given special attention on State holidays, or the other statist sacraments they engage in.

Far from the pride of statism—the patriotism of believing that your murderous political system has built “the best country ever”—being insignificant or (somehow) lesser than a more “personal sin” of pride in a man, it’s the very sin repeated in the scriptures: men worshiping false-god States (e.g., the Pharaohs of Egypt) and thinking that salvation and liberty rests within Egyptian plunder systems. 

“Christian statists” and pride

This guy who apologized for his “patriotism” and exempted it as a form of pride, while reducing pride to nothing more than individual ego, shows just how far people will go to avoid the truth and hang on to their idols and false gods (e.g., flags, governments, presidents, etc). This watering-down of the scriptures is the same thing as acting like an “idol” is, say, one’s social media account (which is often what you get when you ask someone what idolatry is), rather than the systems of men who exalt themselves as gods. “I can display my American flag and my favorite politician’s bumper sticker, so long as I don’t mess around with that social media.”

If one reduces pride to nothing more than a problem of an individual, and is able to exempt the pride of statism as a result (when this is arguably God’s main emphasis), then they are likely to believe they can engage in the very evil forms of pride that are most often pointed out in the scriptures: that it’s fine to be a state worshiper, so long as you don’t so something as “sinful” as cheer for your kid’s soccer game and say “he’s the best on the team.” (Nothing wrong with saying “my country is the best!” or “my political party is better than yours” though!). 

But even if we focus pride on the individual, there is still no way that the Christian could aspire to seek political office, with all the high-mindedness that it entails. Even on a personal level, the Christian must still agree that “my heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty. I do not aspire to great matters or things too lofty for me” (Psalm 131:1). Even if one reduced pride to an individual level and faithfully sought to avoid it in themselves, they could still never find themselves supporting or joining the State, an institution that embodies pride, idolatry, sin, and evil.

Those who have ambitious plans to use the State to reform society—whether modern technocrat social engineers who use “science” to justify their intervention, Nazi eugenicists who thought their atrocities were backed by “science,” or the “scientific socialism” of Marx that wants to centrally plan all production, or even those who think they can Christianize Babylon—are not only unchristian, but downright being led by the demonic. Statism is a temptation by Satan to make men believe they are gods. 

The hardened-hearts of proud statists

To see someone relegate “pride” to individual narcissism while exempting their state-worshiping is a perfect example of how people will jump through any mental hoops necessary to avoid being corrected by the word of God. Rather than for this man to realize he was an idolatrous state-worshiper, which is the very thing the prophets spend all their time rebuking, and repent from such state worship, he completely ignored this lesson and chalked his patriotism up to being acceptable, so long as—God forbid!—he doesn’t personally hold himself in too high of esteem (just “his country” and Pharaoh’s agents). 

This is a problem for people in general, even Christians, who fail to learn from the word of God and their brothers. In fact, it was an example of individual pride that he couldn’t admit that his statism was pride! He was too proud to accept this conclusion, mostly because it would have required that he repent of his idolatry, which most aren’t ready to do, preferring to hear lies instead (Isa 30:10-11). To be even more harsh, the scriptures would say he is indeed dumb. “He who hates correction is stupid” (Proverbs 12:1). He couldn’t “reject evil and choose good” (Isaiah 7:15). Rather than accept what he hasn’t yet seen and allow a brother to show him the way, he rejected this conclusion that statism is pride, and in the process kept himself further away from God. As one scripture says,”Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but he who ignores reproof goes astray” (Proverbs 10:17). 

It’s a shame he wouldn’t listen, but not surprising. The State is a (false) religion, and thus men defend their political gods accordingly, that is with all the might and conviction as those who know the One True God.

Far from the dismissal of patriotism as a form of pride, in God’s eyes those who believe in such absurdities as “American pride” are the very ones guilty of the worst form of pride: idolatry toward rulers. The teenage girl taking a “selfie” is the least of God’s concerns.