Ungodly Godliness

JI Packer:

"Modern Christians tend to make satisfaction their religion. We show much more concern for self-fulfillment than for pleasing our God. Typical of Christianity today, at any rate in the English-speaking world, is its massive rash of how-to books for believers, directing us to more successful relationships, more joy in sex, becoming more of a person, realizing our possiblities, getting more excitement each day, reducing our weight, improving our diet, managing our money, licking our families into happier shape, and whatnot. For people whose prime passion is to glorify God, these are doubtless legitimate concerns; but the how-to books regularly explore them in a self-absorbed way that treats our enjoyment of life rather than the glory of God as the center of interest. Granted, they spread a thin layer of Bible teaching over the mixture of popular psychology and common sense they offer, but their overall approach clearly reflects the narcissism--'selfism' or 'me-ism' as it is sometimes called--that is the way of the world in the modern West.

Now self-absorption, however religious in its cast of mind, is the opposite of holiness. Holiness means godliness, and godliness is rooted in God centeredness, and those who think of God as existing for their benefit rather than of themselves as existing for his praise do not qualify as holy men and women. Thier mind-set has to be described in very different terms. It is an ungodly sort of godliness that has self at its center." Keep in Step with the Spirit, 97-98.