The importance of being a miserable sinner! Part 2

The importance of being a miserable sinner!

Part 2: The modern refusal to accept any criticism

The modern ideology embraced by many people is very different.

The emphasis seems to be on an assertion that I am completely alright as I am. Whatever I happen to be, then that is how I am meant to be; it is 100% acceptable, and anyone who dares to criticise anything about me is condemned. There is a terrible brittleness in this – a fragility, a lack of confidence, a fear that any challenge will cause me to collapse. It seems to reject the idea that I can improve as a person, or that I have the resilience to cope with, and respond positively to, criticism. It also seems to reject the idea that there may be things about myself with which I am not happy and which I want to change. We can see the positives lurking in the background – just as we understand the message behind the perfume advert: each of us does indeed have the human right to be exactly me. We do not have to conform to how anyone else says we should be, or submit to being erased if we differ from the consensus. However, modern ideologies have distorted this positive message into an arrogant and self-righteous assertion that whatever I want to do is beyond reproach. This is a recipe for division and coercion, not least because people will want to do contradictory things, so if we demand that everyone must accept what anyone wants to do we cannot please everyone and conflict must result. Society is losing its ability to debate and learn from each other. Instead, different camps polarise and hurl insults at each other. The Christian emphasis on being a loved sinner allows us to acknowledge our faults, see the good in others – and adopt that goodness as our own – without regarding that as an admission of failure or defeat.