No, in answer to question, “What has gone wrong with the world?” the better answer is this: pride. Pride is the universal human evil across the globe – not religion. Pride, according to C.S. Lewis “leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.” There is no doubt that many atrocities have been and continue to be committed in the name of religion and this would include those who have, at certain junctures, perverted the Christian religion. However, whether this evil is true to a given religion or a perversion of pure religion it is always the product of human pride.

This is the uniquely Christian analysis of the human condition and the biblical counter is humility – humility before God first and then others. It is this wretched condition of pride that separates us from God and from each other. It is this universal disease that has convinced each of us that we are important in and of ourselves and we often validate this “self-importance” by comparison to others. In doing this we inevitably exalt ourselves and demean others. This is what creates division, envy, strife, and even violence.

It is pride that causes people to think they are better and perhaps more deserving than others and so they justify their greed, avarice and scheming. It was pride that produced the Enron scandal as well as every other that rocked American business in the last decade. It was this same pride which has led so many elected officials into graft and corruption.

It was pride that led Adolf Hitler to believe in the power of the human will and it was pride that facilitated the deception of the German people in the name of nationalism and Aryan superiority. It was pride that gave birth to the communist revolution and its violent reign by elevating the idea that human reason alone was sufficient for the governance of men. This same pride was at the root of the bloody “reign of terror” known as the French Revolution which tried (unsuccessfully) to found its government on the “Rights of Men” supposedly given by men rather than God.

Throughout the ages it has been pride, not religion that has caused all human conflict and related suffering. No good has ever come from this kind of pride and arrogance. Religion, as we talk about it, is a concept until it is institutionalized by sinful, pride-filled men. Christian teaching warns us that sin proceeds from within rather than from without. It is pride which proceeds from every human heart that has alienated us from God and from each other. Here again Lewis is helpful in understanding pride and the Christian call to humility:

We must not think Pride is something God forbids because He is offended at it, or that Humility is something He demands as due to His own dignity – as if God Himself was proud. He is not in the least worried about His dignity. …He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble – delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity that has made you restless and unhappy all your life. He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up and strutting about like the little idiots we are.

This is pure religion: the Christian faith which calls men to humble repentance and reconciliation with God through Christ Jesus. It is not the source of all evil in the world as some propose – it is the only cure for the universal human disease: Pride.

© 2007 S. Michael Craven

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S. Michael Craven is the Founding Director of the Center for Christ & Culture, a ministry of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families. The Center for Christ & Culture is dedicated to renewal within the Church and works to equip Christians with an intelligent and thoroughly Christian approach to matters of culture in order to recapture and demonstrate the relevance of Christianity to all of life. For more information on the Center for Christ & Culture, additional resources and other works by S. Michael Craven visit: www.battlefortruth.org

Michael lives in the Dallas area with his wife Carol and their three children.