“We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” – United States Declaration
of Independence
These words, penned by Thomas Jefferson, are hardly a
matter of controversy. Rarely, outside of those few who still subscribe to some
form of tyranny or another, will anyone be heard arguing against the very basic
notion that a nation ought to be founded on the principle of freedom; fewer
still would, or should, argue that a nation ought to do anything at all to
stifle its citizens pursuit of happiness.
As a political doctrine I take no offense to the
Declaration of Independence. As an assertion of basic freedoms it is
practically unmatched; it is used to affirm very basic principles of government—that
a citizen and a government are separate; that a government does not exist to
control the people, but to protect and to enable individual success. I even
understand when this principle is abused in an effort to support certain
viewpoints that I happen to oppose. Of course there are reasonable limitations
that have to be placed upon any such unrestrictive doctrine; if it makes a
person happy to kill his neighbor that is, of course, not a pursuit we are
likely to oblige. If it makes a person happy to steal another’s property, it is
only the rare, freewheeling judge and jury who might grant leniency when the
defendant decides to quote Jefferson on the stand.
I certainly understand the value the world places on
the pursuit of happiness, and I understand that it really is a good thing. What
I object to—what I really cannot fathom—is when the church comes to the very
strange belief that it might go well with them if they hold to the same thing.
This is one of many ways that the doctrines of a
church ought to have no overlap with the doctrines of a nation. Just as I can
assert that the communism practiced in the early church ought never be
considered a valid principle for governing secular society, so also it should
be stated emphatically that the church ought never be tempted to teach its members
to pursue their own happiness.
To a Christian, after all, the pursuit of happiness
should be seen as a great contradiction. It should, at the very least, be
recognized as an enigma—for the Christian ought to know that happiness is not a
thing that can possibly be pursued. If anything, we could say that happiness
has already pursued and overtaken us,
and that we are foolish to think that anything could work the other way around.
Christianity is really not the solemn, quiet
religion that the secularists make it out to be; the content Christian is not
really the opposite of the giddy drunkard or the self-fulfilled womanizer. The
Christian simply knows a great secret: That he needn’t go searching about the
world, wandering back and forth in it, in the pursuit of happiness, contentment
or fulfillment. He needn’t any politician to tell him that he is free to pursue
his happiness. For the Christian, happiness is intrinsic. “Man is more himself,”
wrote Chesterton, “when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the
superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive
frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism
is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is the uproarious labor by which all
things live... Joy, which is the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic
secret of the Christian.”
The church that dares encourage its members to
pursue happiness, each in their own way, is a church that has quite clearly
never understood the nature of happiness, for it has somehow mistaken the
temporal, in which happiness is futile and fading, for the eternal, in which
happiness is inward and indistinguishable from joy. Such a church has really
sought to undo the drama of the temptations of Christ! For what was the
temptation to turn stones into bread but the temptation to place the temporal
above the eternal, to feast now and ignore the later...? The Devil offered
Christ nothing more than a moment of earthly happiness—a temptation just as
direct as an offer to a philanderer of his choice of lovers.
Many churches in recent years have failed in this
very particular and very important regard (just as, in many other regards,
churches have been failing throughout history). We are all sinners, of course,
but the fact that a man had to die for our sins mean that we ought never be
proud of them, and we certainly never ought to convince the church to accept
them! Needless to say, not only are certain sins being tolerated within the
body of Christ, but they are being celebrated!—for
certain sins offer the impression to the weak minded that they are nothing more
than men and women pursuing their own happiness, non-traditional places though
their happiness might lead them. Sinners are no longer driven to repentance;
they are driven to the altar in holy matrimony.
How can one obtain the status of Pastor or
Priest—titles that one expects to go hand-in-hand with theological training
and, one hopes, devoutness—and yet utterly miss such a fundamentally scriptural
doctrine? Faith is not a means of obtaining happiness—not in this world, at
least.
When the author of Hebrews offers his beautiful
account of the great men and women of faith in the Old Testament, how does he
conclude his account? “These all died
in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and
greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and
exiles on the earth,” and, again, “And all
these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised,
since God had provided something better for us...”
What about the Bible could possibly lead us to
believe that earthly happiness is our ultimate reward? Time and again men and
women are reminded to have eternity in mind and to reject their impulses toward
earthly security and happiness. But true happiness is not the fulfilling of our every desire, just as true pleasure is
not the momentary giddiness of a strong drink or the brief impulses of
eroticism.
G.K. Chesterton says that this “religion” of
happiness and pleasure seeking, “is the carpe diem religion; but the carpe diem
religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people. Great
joy does not gather the rosebuds while it may; its eyes are fixed on the
immortal rose that Dante saw. Great joy has in it the sense of immortality; the
very splendor of youth is the sense that it has all space to stretch its legs
in.”
Likewise, Malcolm Muggeridge, writing near the end
of his life, offered an intriguing observation on the source of true happiness:
“I increasingly see us in our human condition as manacled and in a dark cell.
The chains are our mortal hopes and desires; the dark cell is our ego, in whose
obscurity and tiny dimensions we are confined. Christ tells us how to escape,
striking off the chains of desire, and putting a window in the dark cell
through which we may joyously survey the wide vistas of eternity and the bright
radiance of God’s universal love.”
