I was reading this and found it very profound and worth a read, especially in these times of political turmoil and when we question (or at least I do) the actual values of this country and how we protect them; whether we even know what they are. I’ve taken excerpts; it’s a bit long for web posting. But worth the read. I have been wrestling with this very issue on a more personal scale, and amidst other people in my life as they, too, pursue this thing called happiness. I have felt unrest and disappointment at people seeming swept up with a cultural belief that we deserve this so called happiness, which I think demoralizes us, and really sells us short of the Life we are truly called to.
Ken Myers, someone I respect a lot, has really put together an intellectual study on what I’ve been trying to figure out. Here are some excerpts from “The Pursuit of Happiness” by Ken Myers, host and producer of Mars Hill Audio, published in Sept 08 TableTalk Magazine, a resource of Ligonier Ministries).
First some background to the phrase and philosophy of “the pursuit of happiness”:
W
hen Thomas Jefferson selected the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” to describe one of the unalienable rights of man, he was appropriating an idea with a very long history. Since the time of Aristotle and before, happiness was understood as a condition to which all people properly aspire… But [it] was an objective reality, not just a feeling or an emotional state.
In Christian terms, the pursuit of happiness meant recognizing that God had created us to flourish in the context of obedience to Him so that our image-bearing nature might display his glory. The pursuit of happiness was only possible by grace [because of our sin and waywardness], since we cannot by our own strength resist the disordering effects of sin in our lives.
So happiness on the historic account is really a function of sanctification, of growth in holy obedience. That formulation would no doubt come as a shock to most of our contemporaries, perhaps even many Christians, though it would have probably caused a nod of affirmation from most pagan philosophers.
So, at the time our nation was founded, the philosophies were committed to the idea of the individual as sovereign in his moral authority, thus happiness became a pursuit of pleasure, fun and bliss.
This state need have no correlation to the ethical choices one has made; in fact, many Americans seem committed to pursuing this kind of happiness by means of making bad ethical choices: committing adultery, dishonoring their parents, killing their unborn children, abusing their bodies. When happiness becomes merely a mood, the sustaining of which is the highest good, rules tend to get broken.
Not only has happiness been detached from objective human ends and identified uncritically with personal pleasure, the pleasures assumed to be the source of happiness are increasingly the most trivial and fleeting. Submitting to the dictates of fun morality makes the passive consumption of entertainment a more plausible road to happiness than subtler, more demanding pleasures like learning to play the violin, acquiring a love of literature, or cultivating a beautiful garden.
As it happens, the dominant assumption that happiness is a custom-built project with potentially instant payoffs does not seem to have made most people that much happier. [Quoting John P Barrow from "The Pursuit of Emptiness" on his acquaintances living in what he calls the 'Prozac Nation'] “They are not pursuing happiness, they are fleeing suicide.”
Trying to find happiness on our own terms, rather than on the terms of our Creator is an exhausting and disappointing undertaking.
So, are we indeed selling ourselves short?
The recovery of a richer vision for human happiness is a project for which Christians are uniquely suited. We believe we are made to delight in the knowledge and love of God, to find our fulfillment as creatures only as we walk in His ways. Knowing also that we live in a world disordered by sin, we recognize that true blessedness will often, until Christ returns, involve suffering, persecution and sacrifice. Our happiness is not a right, but a gift from one who was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.
“If you keep my commandments,” Jesus promised,” you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:10-22).
The pursuit of such single-minded faithfulness, not simple-minded fun, is the true road to human happiness.
Enough Said!
