I've been reading some Christopher Lasch lately, even delving into some of his stuff available online. He was a very original thinker that consistently criticized the bad behavior of both the Right and the Left.
His most popular book Culture of Narcissism is about force of narcissism at work in American society. But what does this term mean? Is it just selfishness? In an afterward written years later, Lasch does a good job of saying exactly what he means when he uses the term.
Narcissism in this sense is the longing to be free from longing. It is the backward quest for that absolute peace upheld as the highest state of spiritual perfection in many mystical traditions.
Lasch continues to point out that a narcissist in this sense yearns to create an existence based on complete self-reliance. This self-reliance impulse is so complete that it tries to deny the existence of external sources of need, of conflict.
There are two major narcissistic trends in the church today.
One of them, Lasch correctly identifies as fundamentalism. American religious fundamentalism seeks to return Christians, and American society in general, to the fundamentals they were built on. Today’s church and popular culture is frightening to the fundamentalist. The fundamentalist hopes that inner peace can be found through return to traditional America and its traditional values. Fundamentalism, while maybe momentarily prominent in American society, I think is on the wane. It stinks to be raised a fundamentalist.
Josiah has recently blogged about the mega-church, and I did as well about a year ago. The mega-church is an even clearer embodiment of American narcissism. The mega-church seeks to be the total package for its member. It's commitment to provide for as many needs of its members: material, emotional, and spiritual, is what distinguishes it from a normal church. A mega-church's identity is not inherently bound to how well it points people to the gospel. A good mega-church seeks to make the member independent from society at large. This is more uncomplicated life, one without the tensions involved in “living in the world, but not of the world.” The flavor of American Christianity that takes root in the mega-church is not in conformity to what I take the true tenets of Christian faith. The Christian is supposed to take joy in sufferings and trials, not to structure life around their avoidance.