Dying to self

Today, someone in a comment section asked about a meme from an Evangelical, "TF is 'dying to self' supposed to mean?" And that question deserves a blog's worth of answer, because:

It's one of those Christian ideas that could make Christians actually do good in the world if they bothered to understand their own holy book. 

According to the story, Jesus willingly accepted deprivation and even death in order to benefit others - was able to overcome the body's physical survival instincts to such an extent that he could override them for the sake of a higher cause. And therefore Christians are likewise supposed to overcome selfishness to such an extent that they would be willing and able to sacrifice anything, even their own lives, for the sake of others. 

So what it SHOULD mean in practice would look something like "Yeah, I don't like shots or masks, but there's a deadly pandemic so I'll set aside my own desires for the sake of saving others... and count myself fortunate that the sacrifice I'm being asked to make is so small compared to the sacrifice my role model made to save others." 

What it INSTEAD looks like to most Christians is more often things like "My god doesn't want me to engage in normal, pleasurable human activities like admiring sexually attractive people, the part of me that wants to do that is evil and must be killed by continually denying it... 

... and since I can't watch any show or movie where an actress shows even a little bit of cleavage, no one else should either."

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