The only vaccination against the viral strains of autonomy, tribalism, and corrupted ambition is to leverage your whole being for connection and service outside of yourself. That’s the only way that we, as people who are created for the glory of God in community, can flourish in a fallen world.
God created all people with hearts that churn with desires. We aren’t merely thinking creatures who find our way forward by making rational calculations. We’re driven instead by what we love, by our passions. We’re creatures that are formed by our affections. We become what we love. As James K.A. Smith says, “To be human is to love, and it is what we love that defines who we are. Our (ultimate) love is constitutive of our identity.”1
You probably see where this is going. Radical autonomy bends our heart’s desires inward toward self. Hyper-individualist people believe that satisfaction can only be achieved by making themselves strong and accumulating everything they want.
The Bible calls us to a contradictory set of values that contradict this hyper-individualism. These are values that are essential for those of us who are tasked with building and keeping a network. We’re not exempt because we’re leaders. In fact, the burden to be an example is greater. And the path remains the same. If I want to be great, I must be a servant (Mark 9:35). If I desire to be treated in a particular way, I should do unto others as I would have them do unto me (Luke 6:31). I should not merely consider my own interests but also the interests of others (Philippians 2:4). To find myself, I must lose myself (Matthew 16:25). The only vaccination against the viral strains of autonomy, tribalism, and corrupted ambition is to leverage your whole being for connection and service outside of yourself. That’s the only way that we, as people who are created for the glory of God in community, can flourish in a fallen world.
How does a heart warping inward get untwisted and radically redirected? The truth is that it takes an act of God. Only supernatural intervention can reverse self-obsessed drives so that they move upward toward God and then proceed outward toward others. We were born with hearts that constantly curve inward toward self-love; we must be reborn to love others. When a human being is re-born, the gospel begins the work of overwriting radical autonomy, tribalism, and corrupted ambition with an others-centered program.
