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It feels like every week a new church leader announces a “moral failure.” When I see a new headline reporting some form of sexual sin from a leader, it turns my stomach; I can’t read the stories. I know they are important to hold individuals and institutions accountable, but they turn my stomach. There’s so much evil in this world. So many people who we ought to be able to trust have and will abuse their authority to fulfill their own selfish desires.
I understand that there are power dynamics and deep psychological issues at play with these stories, but it seems to me that one significant cause of moral failure is a lack of self-control. This is true for church leaders and lay members. Whether it is a major sexual abuse scandal or a private porn addiction or even the choice to gaze lustfully upon someone, there is a choice point where the individual decides to indulge their desires. Again, I know that in the case of leadership scandals there are often other dynamics involved, but that does not negate the reality that someone has to make a choice. Someone failed to have self-control.
As a society, I believe we have very, very poor self-control. Self-indulgence is cultivated in us from an early age through both practices and ideology. Our consumer economy teaches us by practice that we have a moral obligation to fulfill our desires so long as our credit holds up and no one is measurably harmed. All things are available to us to purchase and enjoy. All desires are on offer. Millions of people are posting thirsty, seductive photos and videos of themselves to elicit our attention and affirmation. It is a licentious age, a culture where we are invited to say “Yes!” to our heart. Even our technology wears down our self-control. We indulge in mindless distractions on our phones over and over and then wonder why we have no willpower to resist temptation when it inevitably arises.
In addition, ideologically we are told that we should follow the deepest desires of our hearts. If that means leaving a spouse and children to follow a new sexual identity or start a life with a new partner, so be it. If that means pleasuring yourself to pornography when your spouse is sexually unavailable, so be it. To deny that desire would be to betray yourself, and you must always be true to yourself. Your self is the most sacred thing in this life, so to be inauthentic to yourself is a form of blasphemy. And of course, if you are your own and belong to yourself, that logic makes perfect sense. Only you can ensure your own happiness; why sacrifice happiness in the one life you get? As one recent Substack writer put it:
This is the point of our one wild and precious life: to live it so that we don’t have regrets at the end. The most common deathbed regret among the dying? According to palliative care experts, it’s that they didn’t live a life that was true to them.
This was in a piece praising middle-aged women who left their “nice” husbands to pursue personal pleasure.
So whatever our natural sinful inclination to self-indulgence might be, that inclination is being nurtured, cultivated, trained, and ideologically supported by our society. We are taught to give in and then surprised when so many people in our churches are viewing pornography. Our culture’s influence on our self-indulgence is demonic.
Self-control is a Fruit of the Spirit, which means that we depend upon God’s grace to receive it, but we can’t be passive. Self-control is a discipline, too. It is a muscle we exercise or we don’t. We each have an obligation to mortify our flesh and resist sinful temptation in all forms. Given the powerful currents of our society, we must be intentional about practicing self-denial. Chastity is a virtue, even (especially?) in marriage. A beautiful marriage does not mean you will have all your sexual desires fulfilled. You won’t. You will have to practice self-control. Over and over again.
1 Corinthians 9:24–27
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
This needs to be a basic part of our lives: regular denial of temptations, whether they be sexual, or for physical comfort, or mindless distractions, or food. We need to reclaim the power of temperance as a virtue, especially as protestants. We ought not to be people controlled by our passions. We need to discipline our bodies. How many leaders have failed to practice this discipline and become “disqualified”?
This self-denial must not be done bitterly, but hopefully. As I have written about in You Are Not Your Own, we must practice “renunciation in affirmation, not resignation.” Which means that we renounce sinful temptations with an affirmation that the desired object—be it food or a person—is good in its being. It is good that that food is delicious. It is good that that person is beautiful. But their beauty is not mine to delight in intimately. You must thank God for the good things in this world while thanking Him that most of those good things are not yours to enjoy. And that is a good thing. Affirmation also helps you avoid the trap of self-pity: “Other people own nice things. It’s only fair that I treat myself to the same.” When you affirm the goodness of your contingency, you deny yourself the destructive narrative of self-pity.
The opposite of affirmation is resignation. Resigning yourself to bitterness that you can’t have what you want. This will leave you miserable and vulnerable to temptation. And it’s a denial of the goodness of the thing you desire, which is really a denial of God’s good creation. All of this must be done in prayer with the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
If we will commit ourselves to self-control, that doesn’t mean the temptations will cease or the intrusive thoughts, but it does mean that we can respond to them righteously.
We desperately need people who choose to control themselves with the aid of the Holy Spirit. This is difficult work, but as 1 Corinthians 10:13 teaches, there is always a means of escape from temptation. Far too many are led by their passions in the church. Much of this happens behind closed doors, but what is done in darkness will be revealed. I’m not arguing that if we just practice self-discipline we won’t have any more leadership scandals; Satan will always work to tear down Christ’s Bride. But every moral failing involves a person choosing to give in to sin. And insofar as it is in our power to cultivate self-control, we have an obligation to.
I wrote in my journal last week: "I've been entertaining some very negative things lately: anger, envy, shame, despair, fear, etc."
Preach.
I have been immersing myself in Augustine's "City of God" for the last 6 or 7 months. I've also been trying to read a number of the other church fathers. I said to my wife yesterday - "they were so much wiser than we are!" We are such a superficial culture. Truly chaff that the wind blows away. I often think of what Pascal said: "All of humanity's problems, stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Or Luke 5:16 "But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." We are such easy prey for Satan. You are so spot on brother. Thank you. Since I've already demonstrated I have no original ideas (are none worthy of articulating) let me finish with G.K. Chesterton: "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."
Keep going!