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. 10TruthorSelf-Deception?Where is all of this self-esteem leading us? Is all of thisself-esteem talk a blessing or a bane to God s people? AreDobson and the other professing Christian self-esteem teach-ers leading us down a primrose path? This pseudo-biblical,pseudo-scientific self-esteem surge in the church is one ofits biggest potential curses.It began as a little leaven, butlike a little leaven it has permeated the entire loaf.There ishardly a place in the church where self-esteem teachingsare not found and accepted as an antidote to life s problems,or at least as an adjunct to the Bible.We shall show how theself-esteem leaven turned loose has the potential to leadmany away from the eternal truths of God.The little leaven begins with the idea that everyone ex-periences low self-esteem and that everyone needs a certaindegree of self-esteem in order to be successful and produc-tive.The formula is simple enough: low self-esteem equatesto low success and high self-esteem leads to high success.The reasoning follows that those who are failures in life arethe ones with low self-esteem.It does not matter if one isinvolved in one or more of the six social problem areas stud-ied by the Task Force (mentioned earlier) or if one is simply173 174 James Dobson s Gospel of Self-Esteem & Psychology174 James Dobson s Gospel of Self-Esteem & Psychology174 James Dobson s Gospel of Self-Esteem & Psychology174 James Dobson s Gospel of Self-Esteem & Psychology174 James Dobson s Gospel of Self-Esteem & Psychology174 James Dobson s Gospel of Self-Esteem & Psychologyexperiencing a degree of failure in one or more areas of life.The answer is to raise self-esteem and prestissimo! Failureturns to success and irresponsible people become respon-sible.Social problems disappear and the world becomes abetter place to live in.or so the leaders of this litany wouldhave us believe, in spite of the lack of a biblical base or re-search support.Dr.Nathaniel Branden, popular writer and speaker, andbest-known secular self-esteem psychologist sounds likeDobson when he says:Tell me how a person judges his or her self-esteem andI will tell you how that person operates at work, inlove, in sex, in parenting, in every important aspect ofexistence, and how high he or she is likely to rise.Thereputation you have within yourself, your self-esteem,is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life.1If low self-esteem were labeled a disease, it would be themost prevalent disease in America according to the way manyview it.However, the truth is that man is not plagued withlow self-esteem.Someone might say, I know people who hate themselves.How would you explain that? People do say this.However,is this how they truly feel or is this a way of drawing sympa-thy and support from others? If they tell someone they hatethemselves, the common response is to rescue them fromthat idea.In the process they receive sympathy and supportnot normally given.It is a predictable transaction that oncebegun can become a habitual way of relating to others andreceiving support.On the other hand, there are some whodo experience a personal revulsion because of their sin.Inthat case, they need to confess and repent and be cleansed,not told to love themselves more.Now we are not saying that there are no individuals whogenuinely think that they hate themselves.However, whatthey generally hate is something about themselves or their Truth or Self-Deception? 175circumstances.They exhibit actual love for themselves inthat they continue to spend most of their time concernedabout themselves, even if it is with unhappy thoughts.Theygenerally get to the point where they are unhappy aboutthemselves because a discrepancy exists between their as-pirations or desires and their performance or condition.Thisintensive hate is evidence of high self-interest.As an ex-ample of this, Women s Health and Fitness News reports:In one [study] in 1987, nearly 9,000 women admittedthat they are not at all happy with what their mirrorsreflect: 12% said they are extremely dissatisfied, 16%are quite dissatisfied and 25% are somewhat dissatis-fied.The women are most discontent with their thighs,hips, buttocks, stomachs and waists.In another sur-vey of 33,000 women in 1986, 75% thought they weretoo fat and 64% were unhappy with their stomachs,61% with their hips, and 72% with their thighs.Only1% were totally happy with their bodies.2Thus a woman who aspires to look like Jane Fonda, butis actually fat and ugly by cultural standards, could end uphating her condition and thereby think that she hates her-self because her desire to look like Jane Fonda is discrepantfrom the reality of being fat and ugly. She is reacting to thediscrepancy.It is the aspiration-actuality-discrepancy thatis the root of the problem.She does not really hate herself.She hates the discrepancy.If she truly hated herself shewould be happy, or at least satisfied, to be fat and ugly.But,her self-love in tandem with the discrepancy makes her mis-erable.Now Dobson does touch on this idea, but more as anafterthought or as an exception rather than the rule.3 Andthis is one great weakness of Dobson in that he takes excep-tions, such as low self-esteem, and makes them the rule; andhe takes the rules (i.e.resilience of children) and makes themthe exception. 176 James Dobson s Gospel of Self-Esteem & PsychologyDr.David Myers, in his book The Inflated Self, discussesthe research having to do with how we view ourselves andothers.The research demonstrates that there is definitely aself-serving bias at work in individuals
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