#592. Taking the pursuit of holiness too far.

(I first met author Jason Boyett when he interviewed me for an article about faith and humor in Collide Magazine. I told him it was my belief that by writing a Christian book I would soon be able to sleep on a bed made of money and own pants carved of gold. He laughed. A lot. We’ve been friends ever since. Today he jumps in with his second guest post on Stuff Christians Like. The first one was a lot of fun and I think this one is too. Enjoy)

Taking the pursuit of holiness too far.
Raise your hand if you have ever exceeded the speed limit and felt guilty about it. Or if you’ve ever asked God for forgiveness because the cashier gave you back too much change, and you totally knew it but didn’t say anything about it. Or if you have ever worried over the mental brainteaser “When does it become lust?”

(Possible answers to that last one include A: The moment the thought enters your head; B: When you choose to return to that thought or dwell on it; C: When you take a second, lingering look at that Megan Fox* photo; D: Right this moment, jerk, because now I’m imagining Megan Fox.)

* Female readers: feel free to substitute the male celebrity equivalent for Megan Fox.

At various times in my Christian life—by which I mean “on the way home from youth camp”—I have become fixated on personal holiness. “Be holy because I am holy.” Be in the world, but not of the world. And what most often happens is I get caught up avoiding some specific temptation—lust, greed, watching “90210”—and I waste a lot of spiritual energy trying to steer clear of this sin. Looking back, I wonder if maybe it would have been a better idea to spend that energy and prayer in the pursuit of something positive. For instance, becoming a more gracious person.

An example: I’ve heard Bible teachers tell men they should never look at Renaissance art because of the female (and male) nudity. Or tell husbands to avoid friendly, casual, interpersonal communication with other women even if it means being rude. Why? Because anything that might come across as normal or, you know, human could apparently lead to extramarital hanky-panky, I guess. Don’t give sin a foothold, etc. This is a problem. What happens when our pursuit of personal holiness becomes so self-interested that it loses sight of what followers of Jesus really ought to be doing? What happens when we focus on ourselves so much we forget to love God and love people?

Serious commentary: END.

To help you avoid these pharisaical pitfalls, I will now offer you some examples of well-meaning Christians who became too focused on personal holiness. All of these examples have been canonized as Christian saints. (Disclosure: yes, there is a reason I am interested in saints.)
These folks, in my opinion, took personal holiness to unhealthy extremes.

Your pursuit of holiness has gone too far when…

You remain chaste even after your wedding night.
In the seventh century, St. Bertilia married the love of her life. Then she and the groom took vows of chastity and remained virgins until they died. Presumably to make a long, uncomfortable point about self-sacrifice. Point taken. True love waits, and waits.

You abstain from all food and drink except communion.
That’s what St. Catherine of Siena did for long periods in the 14th century. This mortification of the flesh allowed her to avoid foul human temptations like, you know, daily sustenance. She also denied herself sleep. You know what happens when you don’t sleep, don’t eat, and only drink Eucharistic wine? Let’s just say St. Catherine should have been the patron saint of the hungover.

You cut out your own eyes to escape admiration.
That’s what St. Lucy did. As the story goes, she had a particular suitor who wouldn’t leave her alone. Dude kept going on an on about how much he admired her beautiful eyes. But Lucy, wishing to remain virginal and avoid the sin of pride—two birds, one stone!—put a stop to the man’s admiration by plucking out her own eyes. She had them delivered to the suitor. (Maybe God approved of this wee-bit-dramatic gesture, because he miraculously restored Lucy’s eyeball-less sight.)

You pray for ugliness to avoid temptation.
St. Wilgefortis was an attractive young Portuguese princess who took a vow of virginity. But, lo, her father wanted her to marry the king of Sicily. Marriage tends to complicate virginity vows—not talking to you, St. Bertilia—so Wilgefortis asked God for a special favor: to make her ugly. God answered her prayer by blessing her with a holy mustache and beard. When the foreign king backed out of the wedding (guess he couldn’t handle the prickly kisses), Wilgy’s angry father had her killed.

You live naked in the desert.
You might think nudity is always a bad thing when it comes to holiness. But what if you live in isolation in the desert? And what if exposure to the baking sun and biting flies is a way to deny the flesh? Then you might do what St. Mary of Egypt did. Which is: live naked in the desert, so long as you grow your hair long enough that you can arrange it, Garden of Eden-style, to cover up the naughty bits.

You refuse to wear shoes, and demand others to do the same.
Another way to “put to death the misdeeds of the body” is to stop protecting your feet from thorns and sharp rocks, which is why St. Teresa of Avila, in the 16th century, decided shoes indicated an embarassing lack of discipline among nuns. So she started a whole nuns-should-be-barefoot campaign. (Possible picket sign: “Saving souls by shunning soles.”) It caused a big schism amid the Carmelite community, dividing the shoe-wearing nuns from the shoeless. The nasty results included public lashings, imprisonment, and some really sick calluses.

You disrupt dinner by resurrecting the main course.
St. Nicholas of Tolentino practiced personal penance by refusing to eat meat. Once he was mistakenly served chicken. Horrified, Nick made the sign of the cross over the roasted bird. It came back to life and flew away through the window. Good thing the dish wasn’t wild boar. Or swordfish.

Let these saintly examples be a lesson to you. Sure, doing weird stuff may give you the appearance of holiness. And yeah, if you’re super-holy you’ll get churches named after you and people will be healed at your gravesite and all that stuff. But will you be more like Jesus?

Hard to say. Except I’m pretty sure Jesus wasn’t a eyeless, shoeless, bird-resurrecting, vegetarian nudist who only ate at Passover.

He did have a beard, though.

(For more awesomeness from Jason, make sure you check out his site, jasonboyett.com or www.pocketguidesite.com)