Arrogance is a major problem. You are a fool not to believe so. But another major problem is pride.

The problem with pride is that pride is not always arrogance. Sometimes it is and that pride is bad. But, at least as the Hebrew Bible tells the story, some pride is very, very good. It is not arrogant. It is not evil. It is glorious. It is dignified.

The problem with pride is that in Christian English we have consigned dignity to a permanent relationship with arrogance, thus, semantically, gutting our language of the proper terminology for lives of respect.

If every time you do good, if every time you take pride in yourself and what you have done, it’s now deemed “bad,” by the sheer nature of incentives, very little good will soon be taking place at your hand.

Take away a man’s dignity and you destroy his sense of self-respect. You rob him of his feeling of value. You ruin him.

It is the assault on your name that hurts the worst. It is identification with failure that hardens the soul.

“I have called you friends.”

Till angel cry and trumpet sound,
The Mad Christian