The Roots of Our Present Crisis of Faith

Factors militating against the essential acts of Christ-centered faith, prayer, reflection, and contemplation…

Factor #1: Narcissism

To a certain extent, we are by nature narcissistic. To ourselves we are real and our reality is paramount. However, our natural tendency for self-preoccupation has trapped us in a spiral of self-absorbed destruction.

Narcissism is an obsession with self. It is self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish self from external objects. Our society is chalked full of people who are unhealthily obsessed with self. (Note: I do not excuse myself from this critical analysis of our society!) We see this unhealthy obsession with self in our “propensity for individualism and our corresponding inability to be healthily aware of and concerned about the reality beyond our private lives (The Shattered Lantern, 28).

We have a growing incapacity to recognize the reality of others. We are turned in on ourselves, obsessed with self-help and self-development. An idolatrous commitment to self-advancement, luxury, ambition, achieving, and comfort is ripping the heart out of us and leaving us incapable to genuinely attend to the needs of others.

Further, our society is increasingly obsessed with excessive privacy. The destructive privatization of every area of life is taking over. There is nothing inherently wrong with privacy. To some degree, we all need our privacy. What is at issue is excessiveness. “When this need is unchecked, meaningful social interaction diminishes and the opportunity to escape into a world of private projects, private dreams, and private fantasies increases. Narcissism grows stronger when there is not enough meaningful social interaction to draw us out of our selves and make us aware of the reality outside us. This movement towards greater privacy is both a symptom and a cause of narcissism” (The Shattered Lantern, 33).

It is no wonder that we have difficulty believing in and seeing the reality of God in our daily experience when we have difficulty perceiving any reality beyond ourselves. To see and experience God’s Empowering Presence in ordinary life is to see beyond ourselves, toward others, toward the larger world, and ultimately toward an Infinite horizon.