While I intend for my book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (TTT) to be relevant for everyone and not just for Christian believers, this article taken from the first part of the 27th chapter of TTT (and found in full here) is primarily about Christians (for good or for ill). But I trust it will also be of interest and instructive to those of other faiths, or of no faith.
Disliking Failure
Failure is a word we hate to hear. During their school days, little seemed worse for most people than getting an “F” on a test or on their report card.
And in real life, failure is a fear for those who go into business for themselves as well as for those who go into non-profit service activities. Failure for either usually means loss of income as well as loss of self-esteem.
Since in the world of religion this seems to be more of an issue for Christians than those of other faiths, this article/chapter is mostly about success and failure as related to Christianity.
Liking Success
Because of the fear of failure, through the years there has been a spate of books, many from a Christian or semi-Christian perspective, written about how to succeed. Some of the most widely read are Acres of Diamonds (1915), Think and Grow Rich (1937), The Power of Positive Thinking (1952), The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), and The Success Principles (2005).
Success, as we who live in the United States all know, is often measured either in terms of dollars or in terms of numbers of people. In the business world no one who has not become fairly wealthy would be considered a success.
In the Christian world, successful churches are generally considered those that have had considerable numerical growth and boast large attendance at their regular meetings, and the pastors of such churches are generally considered successful.
Most people in the U.S., for example, would consider Joel Osteen, pastor of the Lakewood Church in Houston, a huge success.
The church of which Osteen (b. 1963) is pastor is the largest in the U.S. In 2017 the weekly attendance of his church was 43,500. Moreover, his ministry is said to reach over seven million broadcast media viewers weekly in over 100 nations around the world.
Not only is Osteen successful, but he seeks to help others achieve success also. He also has written several books and regularly posts articles on the Lakewood Church blog.
Some of his articles, especially in past years, were expressions of the so-called “prosperity gospel,” according to which financial success can be expected to result from proper or adequate faith—although many have serious questions about that understanding of success.
Being Faithful
Years ago I heard, and agreed, that the New Testament word for success is faithfulness. Certainly the NT does not speak about success as being defined the number of dollars one has made or the number of members attending a given church.
Many of the great Christian missionaries were quite “unsuccessful.” That is how Francis Xavier thought about his work in Japan in the years following his arrival there in 1549. (Many later missionaries, though, thought he was quite “successful.”)
For many years following his arrival in India in 1793, William Carey was “unsuccessful”—as were Adoniram and Ann Judson for years following their arrival in Burma in 1813.
But they all realized that the New Testament word for success is faithfulness—as did Mother Teresa of Calcutta. So I close this article with her oft-quoted words:
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In my reading of the Bible (cover to cover several times), I would have to agree with Rick Warren, God is looking for both faithfulness and fruitfulness. The latter is emphasized in some of Jesus' parables, but it is throughout the Bible - beginning to end. Some emphasize one or the other too much. Just yesterday at church, the Pastor's message was about Church unity. And yet his focus was on "faith alone" as the only true gospel. That missed another key point of Scripture, beginning, Jesus, end - it was always been faith and works together - two sides of the same coin.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the full chapter.
1sojourner, thanks for posting comments on yesterday's article; so far you are the only one who has done that.
DeleteI like your emphasis on both/and, and I agree that too often only one side of the coin is seen.
And I also appreciate your mentioning the "full chapter." Unfortunately, not many people seem to take time to read the chapters, which are about 2,500 words, so they miss much when I write only 600 words about what is in the whole chapter.
The first response received early yesterday morning was from faithful Thinking Friend Eric Dollard in Chicago:
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for writing about the difference between success and faithfulness.
"Success is living a life of humility, simplicity, honesty, and compassion. If that is faithfulness, then so be it.
"Monetary wealth or attendance figures are false gods, or idols, among many false gods and idols, which can drive us to narcissism, dishonesty, and indifference to the poor and weak. It is a struggle to avoid them."
Thanks for sharing your comments, Eric. I like your definition of success--but I am afraid that is not the understanding most people in our society have.
DeleteSuccess does need to be multi-faceted. Some have more capacity for productivity than others, but that should also be included in the definition of success. To hold productivity in balance, W Clement Stone insisted on a motto, "Do the right thing, because it is the right thing to do." - in other words, we MUST look out for the interests of others. Although no longer gainfully employed, I commend Dr Seat for remaining productive - this blog being of but one avenue.
DeleteMy Uncle Frank led a very productive life as a missionary in Africa, a hospital administrator in Bangladesh, Tanzania, and Kentucky; but always led a life of service to his community as well, including his local church, Kiwanis, and Lions Clubs. He set a good example for me. He is now in Hospice with only days or weeks remaining, but he still welcomes and encourages those who drop by. A successful life in my book.
ReplyDeleteHere are comments, and some push-back, from a local Thinking Friend:
"As usual a though provoking essay. But I don’t think it reasonable to claim that success = faithfulness. That is not what M Teresa says. She says that success is unimportant and faithfulness is very important for her. She doesn’t try to equate them at all."
Yes, Thinking Friend, you are correct in saying that Mother Teresa did not equate success and faithfulness. She sought only to be faithful, but from my understanding of the Christian faith, as opposed to the viewpoint of the rich and powerful in the world, she was a great success--because of her faithfulness.
DeleteShe didn't equate success and faithfulness, but I do and think that she is a good example of how she was successful as a follower of Jesus because she was so faithful to his teaching about love.
Another local Thinking Friend raised the following issue:
ReplyDelete"I wonder if your piece today would be more complete if you talk about what it means for a Christian to be faithful. (And refute the 'prosperity Gospel.')
My piece today was more complete in the chapter upon which the blog article was based. As I implied to 1sojourner above, I wish more people would take the time to read the whole chapter.
DeleteThinking Friend Patrick Crews in Arizona posted the following comments on Facebook, and I share them here:
ReplyDelete"By the intentions and aspirations of the prosperity gospel, Jesus was an abject failure. Faith is the capacity to let go of all things that obscure, oppose, and obstruct Unconditional Love.
"The prosperity gospel is about building the capacity to horde all those things be they material, or even religious."
Thanks, Patrick. I fully agree with your comments.
DeleteAnother Facebook Friend, John R. King Jr., posted these comments on FB:
ReplyDelete"Traditional US perspectives on 'success' has little to do with Christianity. Historically, some Christians in US have equated material success with God's blessing and have connected this to hard work. Not so bad, but when someone is poor or cannot get work some would assume they are lazy and not worthy. That goes too far with the logic and leads away from Christianity."
Thanks for your comments, John. What you wrote caused me to call to mind Weber's classic book "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" (1905). Perhaps the U.S. perspectives on success are partly based on the Calvinistic viewpoint that material blessings indicate that those who are financially successful are among the "chosen." So perhaps the Protestant (Calvinistic) ethic did give impetus not only to the "spirit of capitalism" but also to the "prosperity gospel."
DeleteI find it interesting that progressive writers on economics have found themselves deeply probing the historic relationship between economies and religions. The Bible, for instance, calls for honest weights and measures and paying employees their due wages. Some issues are more subtle. David Graeber writing in "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" looks at how various religions responded to the invention of compound interest by banning usury. You can read his book for free here: https://libcom.org/files/__Debt__The_First_5_000_Years.pdf Michael Hudson has an economics book about to come out titled "...and forgive them their debts" which you can read about here: https://michael-hudson.com/2018/08/and-forgive-them-their-debt
ReplyDeletePaul worked as a tent maker, not to get rich or succeed, but to meet his expenses as a traveling Apostle. While there are valid reasons why our modern world has separated religion from both economics and politics, there are lessons to be learned from the times when all were one. Lesson one said something about a camel going through the eye of a needle. Lesson two warned us about the love of money. Some things never change.
Thanks, as always, for your substantial comments, Craig.
DeleteYou have mentioned Graeber's book before, and I still haven't read any of it but would like to. Hudson's book doesn't come out until next month, it seems, and it is not included yet in the Wikipedia article about Hudson, whose name I didn't remember or that he is a professor at UMKC. (And I was impressed at how productive he still is even though he was born in 1939.)
Very helpful and hopeful article, Dr. Seat. I know from personal experience how toxic the focus on success (usually measured numerically) can be in the lives of those who are in paid ministry posts. The first line of conversations among pastors in private meetings and missionaries meeting away from the listening flock were of 'the numbers'. There is nothing worse than being on the wrong side of that equation. Even today, while I believe that to be faithful in what the Lord has put in front of us to do is part of following Christ, the clanking chain of Calvinist thinking has a tendency to pull me down from time to time. So reading posts like yours, Dr. Seat, remind me about what freedom in Christ looks like.
ReplyDelete