Church of Self-Esteem Still Claiming the Souls of Millions!

I came across an interesting article about a study that was conducted regarding the self-esteem of “Generation X-ers” and “Generation Y-ers”. The study essentially asserts that–surprise, surprise–”Today’s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors.” Well, duh.

Most of the research cited in the article comes from San Diego state psychologist Jean Twenge. Per the article: “Twenge and her colleagues, in findings to be presented at a workshop Tuesday in San Diego on the generation gap, examined the responses of 16,475 college students nationwide who completed an evaluation called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006. The researchers trace[d] the [narcisism] phenomenon back to what they called the ’self-esteem movement’ that emerged in the 1980s, asserting that the effort to build self-confidence had gone too far.”

The article isn’t particularly in-depth but it got me thinking: Narcissism is really just a symptom of a much bigger problem–self-worship. And as is so aptly put in Harrold Best’s fantastic book titled Unceasing Worship–and I’m paraphrasing here–we as human beings are never not worshipping. Because, in essence, worship is not something that starts and stops in a particular location (i.e. in a church building for example) rather, worship pours out of us continually. Of course when worship isn’t properly focused on God through the work of Jesus by the power of the spirit, that worship turns inward and essentially becomes idolotry, self-worship or in this particular case narcissism.

Twenge, the psychologist cited in the study, has written a book titled “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled–and More Miserable Than Ever Before”. Hmm…could be a good book for review. Stay tuned.