Evangelical Reformation

Not all scientific research is scientific. There are a variety of reasons for this. The scientific method is extremely challenging to apply because it is difficult, especially in dealing with human beings, to isolate variables, the key to making the method work. Another difficulty with applying the scientific method resides in plain old human bias. Even scientists tend to find what they are looking for.

A study published in the January 1996 edition of Psychological Review, journal of the American Psychological Association, reveals the presence of bias in research on self-esteem. The study, by Roy F. Baumeister, Joseph M. Boden, and Laura Smart, is entitled: “Relation of Threatened Egoism to Violence and Aggression: The Dark Side of High Self-Esteem.”

This research begins by identifying the bias of previous studies that asserted that violence is a product of low self-esteem. The researchers observe regarding this entrenched belief:

“This view seems to be so widely and unequivocally accepted that it is often casually asserted in the absence of evidence and even in the presence of apparently contrary evidence. When reading the literature for this review, we repeatedly found cases in which researchers summarized observations that depicted aggressors as egotistical and arrogant, but then added the conventional supposition that these individuals must be suffering from low self-esteem.”

In other words, our society’s endorsement of self-esteem has been so enthusiastic that even academic researchers, who are supposed to be objective, have assumed that if a person is acting badly he must be suffering from low self-esteem, even if he is displaying an egotistical attitude. This same perspective also dominates popular culture. We have been taught that the bully, who usually displays egotism, actually has low self-esteem. He bullies and acts arrogantly to hide it.

The researchers in this study demonstrate that this assumption is false, contending that the bully and others displaying destructive behavior, rather than suffering from low self-esteem, may actually possess high self-esteem. They present their thesis as follows:

“An interdisciplinary review of evidence about aggression, crime, and violence contradicted the view that low self-esteem is an important cause. Instead, violence appears to be most commonly a result of threatened egotism—that is, highly favorable views of self that are disputed by some person or circumstance. Inflated, unstable, or tentative beliefs in the self’s superiority may be most prone to encountering threats and hence to causing violence.”

The aspect of this research that is especially significant for evangelicals is that not all people characterized by high self-esteem are inclined toward violent behavior. People who have high self-esteem based on performance tend not to react violently when challenged. This is understandable since these people possess an objective basis for their attitude. If a sportswriter insinuates that Tom Brady, a quarterback who has won multiple Super Bowls, is a lousy football player, Brady would probably laugh off such a comment. A quarterback with a bad record but who feels good about himself and his abilities would be more likely to respond to such negative comments with hostility.

It is specifically this nonperformance based self-esteem that secular and evangelical psychologists, and even pastors, encourage. I am not advocating self-esteem whether it is supported by performance or not. However, this research demonstrates that self-esteem not supported by performance, the type encouraged by evangelicals, is especially prone to produce hostility. Therefore, we need an evangelical reformation that guides us to more effective alternatives on which to base our lives. I will be suggesting an alternative in Friday’s posting.

“But Paul, what about all the studies demonstrating the benefits of self-esteem?” That is the question I was asked by a well-known Christian psychologist when we were guests on a Christian radio talk show out of Chicago. He had been invited to support the concept of self-esteem, and I was taking the opposite side of the issue. That venue is not the greatest for trying to develop a point, but I was doing my best in the allotted 15 second soundbites to make the case that the self-esteem movement was not on biblical grounds. It was at that point that the Christian psychologist switched the focus by asking the question above.

I responded by challenging him to name a few of those many studies that showed self-esteem to be helpful. He responded by asserting that there were lots and lots of them. I again asked that he name some. At this point the moderator, obviously favorable toward self-esteem, went to a commercial break and upon returning immediately changed the subject. This psychologist never did cite any scientific support for his position. The reason is that none exists.

All of the many studies supporting self-esteem were what the Task Force on the Importance of Self-esteem funded by the state of California in 1986 desperately tried to find. Research psychologist Robyn M. Dawes, in his book entitled House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth (1994), reports on the findings of that task force as follows:

“Self-esteem . . . is believed to be an important causal variable in behavior, even though the California Task Force on the Importance of Self-esteem could find no evidence of such a causal effect. Especially, low self-esteem is believed to yield, with an unerring consistency, personally or socially destructive behaviors, so that people who wish to change their behavior must experience an elevation of self-esteem first (as a result of therapy or an esteem-raising self-help group) and attempt serious change in their lives only later. Again, the evidence for these beliefs is negative.”

The final report of the California task force included chapters dealing with various societal issues for which the authors, funded by taxpayer money, hoped to find correlation between self-esteem and good behavior. Of all of the areas they researched, the only favorable correlation they discovered was between higher self-esteem and the use of contraception by teenagers, an advantage you might hope that your teenagers won’t need.

It is amazing that of the many categories they researched, this was the best they could say about self-esteem. This is especially amazing since this task force unabashedly started with an agenda to prove the benefits of self-esteem. It never even tried to claim scientific impartiality but rather candidly stated that its purpose was to demonstrate scientifically what they knew intuitively, that is, that self-esteem makes life better in every way. The commitment of the task force to that agenda made their inability to support that thesis even more dramatic. They did discover a correlation between high self-esteem and sexual activity by teenage males, an outcome they would have preferred not to find.

Dawes underscores that failure of the task force to uncover support for this theory cannot be assigned to a lack of effort. In the last chapter of the task force report, which examined the issue of self-esteem in relation to drug use, Dawes describes the extent of the research as follows:

“The author of the last chapter. . . conducted a library search of such sources as the Psychological Abstracts, the Social Science Index, the Educational Resource Information Center at the University Of California, and others, and found more than six thousand five hundred studies that used the word self-esteem in their titles. In addition, there were more than thirty thousand journal articles and dissertations that used a variety of terms related to self-esteem, such as self-concept, ideal self, and self-image.”

Dawes observes, “(I)f only a few studies have been conducted, we could fault the way they assessed self-esteem, or the outcome measures they used. But self-esteem has been examined ‘every which way.’”

This lack of evidence supporting the value of self-esteem highlights the need for an evangelical reformation that will return us to solid biblical grounds in our quest to discover approaches to effective living.

Some have contended that self-esteem just based on who I am is unbiblical and even prideful, but that I can feel good about who I am in Christ. That perspective certainly does have a more spiritual ring to it, but we must ask whether “who I am in Christ” provides a biblical basis for self-esteem.

Who am I in Christ? I am created an image of God, I am redeemed, I have been adopted into the God’s family, I have been regenerated and indwelt the Holy Spirit, I have been made part of the church, and I have been blessed in many other ways.

At least in part, this takes us back to the issues that we’ve discussed in the past several postings. All of those blessings are from the hand of God, and so rather than feeling good about me, I need to be praising Him for His goodness.

Nonetheless, there is a point here. As regenerated people we are different. In the words of the apostle Paul, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (1Corinthians 5:17) That certainly should provide a basis for self-esteem.

To analyze this point we need to get a little theological, so please hang in there with me. The problem with building self-esteem on this foundation is that the phrase who I am in Christ ultimately brings the esteem back to “I.” However, the “I” is totally dependent on the Lord for whatever goodness it might have. Therefore, we should not esteem the “I,” but the Lord who is the source of the goodness.

Let me explain at a practical level. I find that I can only live the Christian life as I draw on God’s resources. If I am not studying the Word regularly, spending time in prayer, and fellowshipping with God’s people, very quickly I lose spiritual power and begin to live on the level of an unsaved person. This makes it evident to me that God is the source of the goodness. It is true that through regeneration I received the capacity to appropriate and utilize the spiritual resources. The person who has not experienced regeneration is like a computer without a central processing unit. The believer has a central processing unit but still needs the power supply in order to operate.

Christ used the picture of the vine and branch to portray this truth. He taught in John 15:5,”I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Therefore, it is not the “I” that should be esteemed, but the vine that gives it life and the capacity to bear fruit.

When Moses asked God to reveal His name, He replied, “I am that I am.” At least one implication of the name of the Lord is that He is the only independent being in the universe, and that all others are completely dependent on Him for their existence and all that they have that is worthwhile. We have a need for an evangelical reformation that calls us to esteem the Vine instead of the branch, that reminds us that every good and perfect gift is from above.