pride of life

Any success I've ever had at problem solving has to be attributed to the fact that I never call anything a problem. I'm the ultimate pessimist and can't imagine that what I'm experiencing would be the worst of it. So I immediately assume that what I'm experiencing is evidence of a greater problem. A symptom if you will. The secret then is to call it a symptom and search for the problem. Once it is found, call it a symptom and search for the problem.
The thing about symptoms is that there are usually many for any given disease. The problem with being ignorant to the underlying problem and treating only the symptom is that even if the symptom is eradicated, the disease's other symptoms still loom large and will eventually present themselves.
The church tends to have recurrent problems with only a handful of issues. There are the sex scandals and child abuse rampant in the RCC, public religious figures fall like flies to adulterous affairs and illegal financial practices. Just today I heard from the pulpit that the three biggest continuous problems faced by the church are sex, money and power. I don't agree with this assessment. Rather, I think these three are symptoms and even symptoms of symptoms.
Pride is the disease that causes these symptoms. Power is the first symptom, or desire for power. Money is a means to power, and sex is evidence and exercise of it.
C. S. Lewis recognizes pride as the ultimate when he states that Satan himself will help us to overcome wrong behaviors because he can cause in us pride for having conquered such nasty behavior. Of course, the resulting pride is much more damaging than the original behavior.
A physical behavior is much more obvious and demeaning than an abstract concept and attitude. We overcome the physical, pat ourselves on the back for it and develop a pride that festers and grows undetected until it screws up every area of our lives.
Likewise, our preoccupation with the evils of money evidences our belief that money itself is of any good. Of course it is not, and only has value for what it can get for us. Power. Power feeds pride and money brings power. Power must be exercised. Sex is a way to exercise power and to cause others to submit to one's own will, or else to create in one's self a sense of power and acceptance. I am convinced that the only lust involved in the majority of Christian sex scandals is the lust for power and manipulation. One realizes that his position attracts adoring supporters and many of them can be wooed and seduced by that position.
Pride is the daddy of them all. It has no place in society, much less Christendom – a kingdom that follows a servant. Let each one think of the others as better than him self. In the kingdom, the first shall be last. You would think that in this kingdom, folks would be racing to the back of the line, striving to go unnoticed, in imitation of One who being very nature, God, did not find equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing and put on a servant's nature. Instead, we write books and teach seminars that tack another word on to the position of servant. Servant-leader. We speak about how to be humble within the context of our top, venerated positions. We preach a gospel that overcomes symptoms, and we fall like flies to complications of an untreated disease.