Since “stupid” is not one of the “Seven Deadly Sins” (though I think it should make the list), I’m going with pride as the deadliest sin for the United States of America in recent years. Deaths of U.S. troops, deaths of Iraqi civilians and military, death upon death has been the result of overreaching pride on the part of the United States in attacking a country that had not attacked us first. In theological terms, this is hubris, hubris or hybris from the Greek. According to its modern usage, hubris is exaggerated self-pride or self-confidence (overbearing pride), often resulting in fatal retribution. I’d say that fits.
Arrogance, conceit, self-importance and smugness—prideful behavior on every level is what caused this administration to violate 1,600 years of Christian moral reasoning, the Just War theory, and attack Iraq. “Rogue state” is the term usually applied to countries that engage in pre-emptive war; blind pride is usually the cause.
This kind of prideful behavior is not only a political and strategic error, it is a fundamental faith error. The Christian theologian who best grasped the magnitude and meaning of the sin of pride is Reinhold Niebuhr. He wrote, regarding the sin of pride, “But the self lacks the faith and trust to subject itself to God. It seeks to establish itself independently. . . .By giving life a false center, the self then destroys the real possibility for itself and others. Hence the relation of injustice to pride. . . . The sin of inordinate self-love thus points to the prior sin of lack of trust in God. . . . The anxiety of freedom leads to sin only if the prior situation of unbelief is assumed.”
This kind of overwhelming self-love that defines the sin of pride has its roots in a lack of trust in God. It is, in short, the very essence of unbelief in a religious sense.
The irony of the religious blather that has accompanied the various justifications for our attack on Iraq is made evident as we consider Niebuhr's articulation of the theological basis of the sin of pride. It is unbelief, not faith, that led us to the blind arrogance that has mired this country in an unwinnable war now longer than WWII.
Now, it is important to distinguish this kind of hubris from appropriate forms of pride as self-regard and the healthy integration of self. Christianity has often overextended the notion of pride as a sin and done a lot of harm especially to women and children who are chastised for being ‘prideful’ when they are really just achieving normal and healthy selfhood.
With that caveat, then, let me just end with the tried and true verse from Proverbs, “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (16:18 KJV) Translation: We need to get out of Iraq.
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