Confidence--the Winner's Delusions?...Part I

Self-esteem is a particularly awkward gospel principle. First, some conceptual background/baggage/problematization/contextualization--take your pick...

Whereas our faith's culture tends to create this aura of mystique around "drawing the line," "making a stand," not all gospel principles function this way (though a great many do). Because of this emphasis on definitive gospel action, we run the risk of applying this model to the entirety our lives. And if we all we do is draw lines, we will most certainly create a picture of faith; the question is whether that picture is something that belongs in an art museum, on a fridge, or, worse still, in the first-grade classroom. By defining our faith by a metaphor, we must accept the consequences/limitations of that metaphor. Therefore, if faith merely becomes an act of defiance, a decision, an execution...well, such a model, I would suggest, fails to address the process leading up to the decisionary moment. And the faithful listener is left wondering if there is anything more to life than a conglommerate of decisions.

I would suggest that Latter Day Saints need to be open to a variety of models in their self-conceptualization of righteousness. A common formulation of righteousness often comes in the idea of using agency wisely, properly. Yet what are the consequences of using this model? Our righteousness becomes compartmentalized, a list of good things. While this model is effective in that it allows anyone who does A,B, and C to call themselves good people, it also threatens (though seldom actualizes) the threat of having "the form of godliness" while "denying the power thereof."

Part II--Applying this discrepancy to a real world gospel question...