Destroying self-confidence
One of the great missions you have is to get self-confidence out of your children's hearts. . . . We teach children to despair of themselves and to flee to Christ, to flee for grace and mercy . . . (John Piper in Fathers Who Give Hope)This is the litmus test of whether parenting is faithful to the Gospel. If the good news of Christ is not true, then Piper's words are nonsense; if the good news of Christ is true, then Piper's admonition is the only wise way to raise children.
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3 comments:
I don't know, Graham. Piper often seems a bit melodramatic to me. And it seems like you'd have to be pretty careful how you define what these phrases mean, no? The sentence by itself seems very open to misunderstanding, standard self-loathing disguised as Christian piety, with just a dash of Calvin's total depravity mixed in (for better or worse, depending on your take). I'm wondering (really, not rhetorically) if you can point out the Scripture that backs Piper up. Even better (since we can almost always find Scripture to back up an isolated sentence), can you point me to Scriptures (plural) that clarifies why this should be the litmust test of faithful and wise parenting. (And what it means!) I've got a beautiful daughter coming, and I long to shepherd her well.
I have to say I agree with Dan - at least, that one would need to be pretty specific about the scope of such a litmus test. Salvifically, I think Piper's words are true - insofar as we have confidence in ourselves (or in anything but Christ) to make sense of the world, to deliver us from our destructive ways of inhabiting the world, or to reunite us to God, that confidence must be destroyed and we have to be taught that Christ alone is our hope. But it's more complicated than that. Our children are God's beloved, and if we don't teach them that God actually likes them and wants them as they are - even if that self isn't perfectly reformed and self-despairing - then we are teaching them a law to live by, not the perfect gift of mercy.
Dan, I think you're right that language is important. What if I paraphrased Piper this way?
"One of the great missions you have is to cultivate humility in your children's hearts. . . ."
True humility, as I understand it from Scripture, is not self-loathing, but confidence in Christ. It is the soil in which all the other virtues grow.
In my experience, self-confidence is a form of pride. (Luke describes some of Jesus hearers as "those who trusted in themselves" [18:9], which I read as synonymous with self-confidence.) It is not as flaming as outright conceit, but looks within for confidence rather than to Christ, which I think is what Piper is trying to get at. My self-confidence varies inversely with my Christ-confidence. When I am most confident in Christ, I am least self-confident, and yet most secure. When I am most self-confident, I am least confident in Christ, and far more insecure.
Sarah, I'm curious at division of "salvific" confidence in Christ from other sorts. Are they distinct?
Separately, I think it is unfaithful to the Gospel to teach children that God doesn't love them until they are reformed and self-despairing. Quite the opposite: The very nature of His love is to come to us in our wretched state. Reform and self-despair are the fruits of being loved, not the conditions. And, I should add, they are the happy fruits! It is not as if God's love makes us miserable. It is like the child who comes into an inheritance casting his own checkbook to the wind because it is nothing now that he has received such an inheritance.
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