The Idolatry of Narcissism
Jan 23rd, 2005 by Hugh
It’s all about You, Jesus
And all this is for You
For Your glory and Your fame
It’s not about me
As if You should do things my way
You alone are God and I surrender
To Your ways
Jesus, Lover Of My Soul
Paul Oakley
Disclaimer: Please forgive the irony of the idea that a blog article should address narcissism.
Noel Paul Stookey (of Peter, Paul, and Mary) once observed that the magazine he remembers from his days as a kid was Life - heck, that covers pretty much everything, he noted. As he got older, a new magazine popped up: People. Still a lot there, but not so all-encompassing. Then a new magazine called Us hit the presses, and now we have a magazine called simply Self. Finally, he mused, he fully expects a new rag to show up in his mailbox any day now titled ME!!!
I think narcissism is the idolatry of our time.
Whatever comes before us, if it doesn’t revolve around our little lives, or worse, our petty little appetites (hmm, a tangent on gluttony would fit here), we’re seldom interested. It must be relevant, you see: it must have something to do with #1.
We’re too sophisticated to carve a statue out of a log and fall down to worship it, but that’s an unfortunate caricature of idolatry that seems to have stuck.
But note that word: worship. A dictionary definition of narcissism usually revolves around self-love, but I think of it more as self-worship.
Narcissism is at the core of what we think of as relativism. Now, no Christian would embrace relativism, but in truth, everything is relative - it’s just that a follower of Christ views everything as relative to God. On the other hand, the modern relativist views everything as relative to his god - himself - hence, self-worship, and I say: narcissism.
How about postmodernism? “Po-mo” scorns the idea that there’s a big picture to be beheld; instead, the only way to make sense of anything is to just look to yourself and the little story going on around you. A follower of Christ says there is a big story, and it doesn’t have you or me at its center - it’s God’s story that matters.
Or another one: open theism, the idea that God really isn’t in control, that he’s just kind of gambling at the same table as the rest of us (but he’s got all the cards he needs up his sleeve). Which card God plays depends on which card you play… maybe that’s not quite narcissistic, but it has a similar effect: man is no less central than God is.
The crux of the issue is this: do you view yourself as absolute, or contingent? Is your frame of reference the important one, or is there a bigger picture? Is it all about you? Or is it all about God?
