A Defence of Pride

Must we abandon Christianity because it suppresses greatness and glory?

Many on the Right reject Christianity because they believe it to be antithetical to excellence and glory.

Having been told that it is the slave morality which tames man and drains him of his vitality - which Nietzsche terms “the victory of tschandala values” - they have been convinced that Christ drags us down into homogenous yeast, in which no one can rise above the other, there can be no great victories, no glorious quests, no honored elites, no devastating acts of beauty.

They have been told that Christianity is the enemy of everything that is higher and greater.

A reader wrote in about his turmoil with this issue:

I've been reading your Substack for a while now. Really enjoy your work and appreciate your perspective, particularly on the tension between Christianity and the secular right.

On that subject, I was raised atheist and have always viewed myself as agnostic, but lately have been exploring Christianity following some relevant events in my life.

I wouldn't consider myself a believer at this time, but I'm reading the Bible and trying to learn more about Christianity in general. One thing I struggle with a lot is how to interpret the idea of pride as a sin, and how to square that with my own beliefs.

To the extent that I have any view currently that I believe in with genuine fervor, I believe in human excellence - great art, feats of engineering, exploration and so on. I believe that these are largely what justify human existence and give meaning to life, and I try (poorly, it goes without saying) to live my own life based on this principle.

There seems to me clearly an element of pride in this - pride in "humanity" generally, and pride in my own personal attempts at excellence. And yet it's also the case that most human achievements that I consider to meet a standard of excellence or greatness were accomplished by Christians, often quite serious ones. I am interested in sources that explore this seeming contradiction and the correct interpretation of the sin of pride in this context, and was wondering if you have any recommendations, or thoughts of your own on the matter.

An excellent subject for discussion!

As with so many other fundamental aspects of the faith, the meaning of essential terms - like pride - has become obscured, and these terms are now commonly understood in degraded, imprecise, and fundamentally false forms. Modern man receives these terms through osmosis from a culture that has lost its contact with truth and rigor. But these words have meanings, and an incredibly rich history of philosophy and theology to rediscover.

The sin of pride is not ‘the pursuit of excellence’, or of beauty, majesty, greatness, honor, or magnificence. In fact - as we shall see - many of these are explicit virtues that Christian men must strive to perfect.