Pride & the Culture of Self

Just finished reading an article by Chuck Coleson, former aid to President Nixon and founder of Prison Fellowship.  He shared some insights on the current Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich’s scandal that has rippled through pages of the press this last week.   Coleson can empathize with the Governor, because he himself was convicted of obstruction of justice, and spent 7 months in prison.  As an Attorney and white house aid, Coleson hit rock bottom & he shared why.  The point of this post is not to give you the article in full spread, but to give you the key thoughts from Coleson, who’ve I’ve grown to admire and respect for his insight, and leadership over the years.

Coleson was asked how such intelligent people can do such stupid things?

He said #1 it comes down to pride!!

Coleson said “At the height of Watergate, a dear friend of mine, Tom Phillips, then CEO of Raytheon, invited me to his home. As we sat in his kitchen, Tom read to me a chapter on pride from a little book by C.S. Lewis titled “Mere Christianity.”  Lewis wrote, “There is one vice of which no man in the world is free. … The vice I am talking about is Pride or Self-conceit. …. Pride leads to every other vice. … A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. … Pride is a spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”

Coleson went on that very same night to give his life to Jesus Christ, and he became a new creation.  He went on to say, “I went on to serve seven months in prison. As lonely and demeaning as that experience was, I have never regretted it. I can honestly agree with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who wrote from the gulag, “Bless you, prison, bless you for being in my life, for there, lying on the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity, as we are made to believe, but the maturing of the human soul.”  What a great statement, and one that I think all of us should post in a place that we see it everyday for the rest of our lives.

The #2 reason for Blagojevich’s fall Coleson stated is:  The Culture of Self! Coleson grew up in the great depression and said “I thought if a smart guy like me earned a law degree and accumulated academic honors, they would enable me to find power, fulfillment and meaning in life.”  He found out later that he was terribly wrong.  He said “self-obsession destroys character!”

Tragically, America is continuing to rear its young to become not only self-obsessed, but obsessed with personal power. Quaint-sounding virtues such as courage, honesty and prudence — historically considered the elements of character — are no match for a society in which the exaltation and gratification of self becomes the overriding goal of life.

I thought Coleson’s final statements were great.

“If Blagojevich is guilty, the best thing that could happen to him is to be tried and convicted. He’s going to have to reach rock bottom — just as I did — before he will be able to escape his own prison of pride, self-delusion and self-righteousness. But that’s a transformation we can never accomplish on our own. I can vouch for the fact that human pride is simply too strong.”

“Lewis was right: Pride is a spiritual cancer. And the only cure, for any of us, is to stop looking down and to look up. The cure can only be brought about in someone who has come to realize that the will and power to do good and not evil comes from God alone.”

To read the article in its entirety “Click”