The Shallow Theology of Christ-Centric Self Esteem

Many American Christians do not understand identity, sense of self, nor do they have a helpful grasp of how this valuable piece of mental health integrates with spirituality.

In an article for the Gospel Coalition, Sharon Miller writes on how insecurity can be properly dealt with. She discusses Tim Keller’s Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness as a defining work in her understanding of insecurity. Mainly she identifies low self-esteem and self-preoccupation as its two sources.

A low self-esteem is a negative view of self, one that is opposite to how God sees people.

Self-Preoccupation is fragile worrying about all the things we do because they are tied to our worth.

Her main argument centers around the woes of self-help as being too “self-focused” as opposed to “Christ focused.” If humans are the center, we will never be satisfied.

The problem with this bait and switch conception of identity and spirituality, the strategy where we push Jesus in front of ourselves to become the core of esteem, is that we never actually deal with the unhealthy or unhelpful parts of identity that were burdening us to begin with. Putting Jesus in the center while an unhealthy view of self remains is no better than putting a bandage over and uncleaned wound. The wound still exists and can even fester if not properly cleaned.

What’s more, the way many American Churches discuss sin makes it nearly impossible for anybody to think about anything other than themselves and their shortcomings. Constant messages and sermons are given around fleeing sin, the evils of sin, how important it is to rid ourselves of such a treacherous thing. Regardless if the narrative of Jesus’ forgiveness is spoken of or not, sin is often central to the story.

This imbeds an internal dialogue around searching every corner of one’s inner being, where each person is constantly looking inward to find and crush sin; they have time for little else. The larger, white Christian church in America literally makes people think of themselves in ways that contribute to what Miller wants Christians to stop doing.

It’s contradictory.

We need to discover why people feel insecure. We need to uncover the root of our preoccupations with ourselves.

In psychological terms, the source of insecurity is not self-preoccupation yet traumatic relational experiences from our past where someone convinced us we were anything less than worthy. We become so anxious or fearful that we look to everything and anything to confirm our worth. The perpetuating cycle begins.

Attachment theory explains as much. How we relate to people, how we act when we feel stressed are both connected to the relational bonds we had with our primary caregivers. If our parents did not show us unconditional love or repair conflict after a relational breakdown, we grow unhealthy attachments. Our sense of self can be skewed because of this.

People do not think of themselves in a vacuum. We are not constantly considering our faults and mistakes because we want to be thinking of ourselves. Vanity does not come out of the sky. Not dealing with the ‘whys’ of people’s stories, while pushing Jesus into the identity conversation, is at best unhelpful and at worst toxic.

Insecurity is tied to how we view ourselves and how others may view us. Even if we’re insecure about our career, we are typically trying to prove something to the ghosts of our past. Whether it be a father figure or our former partner who tied their conception of us to how successful we were, we want to prove a worth we were never instilled with.

In her piece, Miller concludes by saying “When we shift our focus off ourselves — our fears, our appearance, our success, our self-doubt — and fix our gaze on Christ alone, we encounter the freedom we were created to have. We finally learn to be free of me.”

The subtext of such a sentence is one rooted in self-hate. Being free of “me” contains the supposition that our sense of self is a burden to our life. It is only when we experience healing of our past relational trauma that we can begin to have a healthy view of ourselves. We must dig deeper than spiritual platitudes. The Christian identity narrative lacks curiosity surrounding the why of one’s life.

Why do I fear things? Why do I care so much about what other people think? Why do I doubt myself so much? Where did this all come from?

These are the questions we need to be asking. Ignoring our wounds to focus solely on Jesus does nothing for our long term mental health. Turning a blind eye to them exiles the parts of us that are hurting.

There is no depth around why one might be so preoccupied. There is no empathy surrounding the difficult nature of struggling with worth. There is only the age old Christian attempt to command people to look at a Jesus. This strategy hasn’t actually accomplished fulfilment for many.

To be fair, I am not attempting to discount the Brown, progressive Jesus of the Ancient near east, just the American conception of shallow identity work.

Because at the end of the day, shifting our focus off ourselves and fixing our gaze on Jesus is just the Christian version of self help. “Stop thinking about you! Think about Jesus! He’s gonna fix all your problems!” Christians often claim that Jesus is the core and lasting fulfillment. We must be positive towards ourselves but only because of Jesus yet never too much or we’ll think about ourselves with self-preoccupation. We must have Jesus at the center even if we don’t have a healthy view of self.

If someone has a preoccupation with their value, can we ask why? Can we find the root of such a reality? Can we unfurl a story to understand where along the way somebody question their worth?

I agree that if we lynchpin our worth on the things we do, we may think about ourselves too much. But not because we’re selfish but because we’re hurting. This fragility of self-focus can be damning and draining.

I contend that foregoing the road of self-awareness, healthy understanding of self, and true self-love in exchange for a shallow “Jesus is my center” theology has committed so many to years of suffocating low-self esteem disguised as Christ centric faith.

There is a long way of deconstruction and spiritual trauma healing work needing to be done before we can move forward. I believe that we can do it. I believe that we must.