Don’t Follow Your Heart
Don’t Follow Your Heart: Boldly Breaking the Ten Commandments of Self-Worship
By: Thaddeus Williams
“We all, regardless of our official religious identity, have a tendency, as natural as blinking or breathing, to place ourselves at the center of our own existence. By the end of this book, my prayer is that we would be joyously cured of this ‘god delusion.’”
Thaddeus Williams’ book titled Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth is one of my favorite books on the topic of social justice that I recommend often. I appreciated his fair and clear understanding of the topic.
This book is similar, but his conclusions are less nuanced as the idea of self-worship isn’t as multi-faceted as social justice.
Instead of asking twelve questions as he did in his other book, Don’t Follow Your Heart “analyzes, exposes, and debunks the Ten Commandments of self-worship.”
Though ‘following your heart’ has its own chapter within the book, it is a good overall summary of what self-worship means: doing whatever we want or whatever feels right. It’s the idea that we are the author of our own identity, the carrier of our own truth, and the maker of our own path, a path that takes us to our every desire and dream.
‘Follow your heart’ is Disney’s favorite catch phrase, but we hear it all over the place often in different words. Williams shares some staggering statistics:
“84% of Americans believe that the ‘highest goal of life is to enjoy it as much as possible.’
91% affirm that ‘the best way to find yourself is by looking within yourself.’”
As a Christian, those numbers should alarm us because we should not be affirming either of these stances if we are followers of Christ. That means some of us must be buying into the lies of what Williams argues is its own (and possibly fastest-growing) religion: self-worship.
With each commandment Williams exhorts readers to be heretics of this religion: boldly break the rules of self-worship. He employs a similar formatting as in CIWCC by including testimonials at the end of each chapter sharing their stories. Here they are called ‘heretic’ testimonials and include stories from people including Alisa Childers, Josh McDowell, J.P. Moreland, Oscar & Kelli Navaro, Jamal Bandy, Walt Heyer, Trevor Wright, and more.
Williams thesis is that the key to being your true self requires breaking these ten commandments.
“I wrote [this book] to convince you to become an atheist about yourself— a defiant, outspoken, strident atheist cured of the delusion of your own deity.”
“Dear reader, I ask you keep an open mind to the possibility that, for all your proper unbelief, there exists a Being far worthier of awe and enjoyment than anyone you have ever imagined. There is a God to be discovered, not invented; a living Person, not a projection; a Being who defies and exceeds our expectations. Crack open the door to belief, just a sliver. You just may find someone there— Someone awesome, uncreated, and unimaginably good.”
So what are the ten commandments?
Ten Commandments of Self-Worship
#liveyourbestlife: Thou shalt always act in accord with your chief end— to glorify and enjoy yourself forever
He talks about our theological and scientific need to be ‘awed’ and how that makes us feel human.
“Self-worship leaves us awe less and empty because we aren’t nearly as awesome as we like to think.”
#okboomer: Thou shalt never be outdated, but always on the edge of new
He talks about the serpent’s whispers to Eve in the garden to be like God. Turns out self-deification isn’t a new idea, but an age-old lie they subscribe to.
“When we bow to ourselves, when we are self- rather than Christ-centered, we are on the wrong side of the future, taking sides with a crushed serpent who is doomed to sulfur and destruction. But when we bow to the reality of Christ’s reign as King, we step into his winning kingdom, the forward flow and glorious destiny of the cosmos. By worshiping him rather than ourselves, we find ourselves on the right side of the future.”
#followyourheart: Thou shalt obey your emotions at all costs
Here he reminds us what our hearts are really like: dull, dithered, depraved, and delusional. Do we really want to trust those?
“The truth is that what God says is true about you is infinitely more trustworthy than whatever your fallen feelings say from one moment to the next.”
#betruetoyourself: Thou shalt be courageous enough to defy other people’s expectations
He challenges what being true to yourself actually means. Throughout the books he reveals those in history who espoused many of the popular ideas today and what it meant to those people. The books Critical Dilemma and Cynical Theories both expose that as well.
“We never seek to be true to ourselves in a vacuum. Our so-called true selves are shaped by cultural forces around us and what the elite say should be celebrated and what should be censored. Being true to ourselves is almost always a matter of being true to others.”
“Christianity is most fundamentally a call not to intellectually assent to a man-made worldview, but to yield relationally to a real, resurrected person.”
#youdoyou: Thou shalt live your truth and let others live theirs
The dangers of this hashtag (aka: relativism) should be obvious, but for many, the rainbows and lollipops of such a (false) utopia blind them to the trajectory of this thought process.
“When confronted with those who steal men, whip women, and rob cradles, Frederick Douglass did not stoop to mealy-mouthed cliches about “equally valid patterns of life.””
“No one is quite the tolerant relativist they think they are… We’re all moral absolutists deep down if we believe that human beings should be treated with dignity and respect.”
#yolo: Thou shalt pursue the rush of boundary-free experience
Out of all the chapters, I wasn’t sure if he quite nailed the explanation of the above ‘Thou shalt’ and I thought he could have talked more about boundaries, but I did like how he equated a YOLO life to a ‘flat’ and ‘horizontal’ life and emphasized the goodness of even a ‘small’ but faithful life.
“Jesus baptizes the mundane with meaning, even if we can’t always detect it.”
#theanswersarewithin: Thou shalt trust yourself, never letting anyone oppress you with the antiquated notion of being a ‘sinner’
He referenced some of the common cognitive distortions that Haidt and Lukianoff shared in their excellent book The Coddling of the American Mind and how not only do our cognitive distortions and confusing emotions plague us, but our own sin nature.
“When we look within for answers, we find ‘the old self’”
#authentic: Thou shalt invent and advertise thine own identity
Here he affirms the notion that living materialistic and fake lives is indeed something to avoid, but the weight of defining our own identity and ‘true’ self is too big a burden for any finite being to bear.
“My story is still unfolding, but I am sure of this— God’s sovereign ability to author our lives is far more interesting, meaningful, surprising, and joyful than anything we could dream up for ourselves.”
#livethedream: Thou shalt force the universe to bend to your desires
Many of these overlap, but he talks again here about following your dreams and the idea that everyone can create their own moral universe— as Elsa said, “No right, no wrong, no rules for me…” Is the dream really what we think it is?
“The self-identifying wolf wouldn’t last long in the wolf pack. The self-identifying eagle wouldn’t survive the leap off the skyscraper. Encouraging aspiring wolves and eagles to live their dreams does not make us loving, it makes us complicit in their destruction.”
#loveislove: Thou shalt celebrate all lifestyles and love lives as equally valid
A big thing discussed in this chapter is the redefinition of words, including love, and how words matter; we can’t allow people to weaponize and redefine words that speak of reality (see also the books Live Not By Lies and 1984). Included is the lies spun around ‘the war on women’ and the stats that speak the truer picture about how abortion and human trafficking— which is propped up by the legitimization of pornography and sex work and sexual ‘freedom’— harm exponentially more women, inside AND outside the womb. Look at the mental health of women who undergo abortions; look at the ‘missing women’ in Asia that total more than the entire US population of females because of gender-based abortion.
““By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Mt 12:37). We must hold fast to that noble tradition. Be a heretic against the cult of self-worship by making a daily habit of calling things by their true names.”
“In what fantasy land does loving someone require unwavering agreement and celebration of all their choices? Think of those you care about. If another person or group of people are demanding that you agree with them unquestioningly about everything, then they are not inviting you into a relationship but into a regime or cult.”
The Heretic’s Manifesto
The subtitle containing the word ‘bold’ is by no accident. This is indeed a book about being bold. That’s not a new concept for Christians. In Acts 4 we see the disciples sharing the gospel amidst persecution and asking for boldness:
“Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness” (v29)
Being a ‘heretic’ to the religion of self-worship comes at a cost.
I like what Alisa Childers shared in her testimonial:
“Friends, I literally gave up on my dreams. And guess what? God had a way better plan for me… Jesus never said to follow our hearts, chase our dreams, and find ourselves. He said we must deny ourselves, pick up our crosses, and follow him. This is where true freedom, hope, and deep joy abide.”
We are called not to conform to the patterns of this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. (Romans 12:1) If your beliefs don’t look that different than the culture at large, you may need to re-evaluate what god you are serving.
Jesus reminds us that if the world hates you, “remember it hated me first.” (Jn 15:18)
To follow God’s truth and design does not mean you will be well-liked and commended. It’s folly to those who reject Christ. But nonetheless we pursue living in God’s truth with courage and boldness because if we are following Christ, we have all we need; it is the path of life to the fullest.
One way Williams offers readers to take action is to sign their Heretic Manifesto to “join the redemptive revolt against self-worship for the glory of God.”
I decided to sign. It may mark me, but of all the things to be marked by, I would love to be marked making a stand for God’s truth and God’s glory.
But just signing the manifesto doesn’t change our hearts. We have to make the daily decisions that resist self-worship. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can “sin boldly.”
The Heretic Manifesto includes the ten counterpoints to the Ten Commandments of Self Worship. It states that they seek to live lives marked by…
… awe for the God of the Bible.
… rejection of the ancient serpent’s lie to define our own reality.
… following God’s heart before our own hearts.
… rebellion against the doomed philosophies of self-worship ideologues.
… courage to champion the objectively beautiful, good, and true over and against the ugliness, evil, and falsehoods of the age.
… ascending the adventurous terrain of seeking God’s kingdom, rather than wandering the flatlands of our own subjectivity.
… looking to God’s Word rather than within ourselves for answers.
… authenticity before the fact that God is God and we are not.
… expressing our God-given freedoms within the God-given forms of moral reality.
… loving others redemptively, with an eye toward their temporal flourishing and eternal good.
If you are interested in learning more, they have a whole website dedicated to this manifesto and you can find that HERE.
Recommendation
I definitely recommend this book. It’s a pretty quick read and covers all the main ideas that culture is pushing, sometimes overtly and sometimes more subtly.
It’s an inspiring book and helps articulate what these sentiments, that often sound nice, really stand for and where their trajectory really goes.
Even though it was not new information for me, it is always encouraging to know that we do not stand alone when we stand against the lies of the Enemy.
Read this book if you’re wondering what could be wrong with the phrase ‘love is love’?
Read this book if you feel like you’re the only one saying no to ‘living their own truth.’
“Self-worship not only robs us of awe, originality, freedom, authenticity, humility, courage, and adventure; it also strips us of the joyous capacity to give and receive a love that is truly redemptive, like God’s love.”
[See also Kevin DeYoung’s version of this book called ‘Do Not Be True to Yourself.’]
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