Humility

Of all the barriers that can prevent a person from connecting with God, pride is one of the strongest. While pride is as old as the very first person, I seem to see growing acknowledgment and acceptance of personal pride as a normal state for someone to be in. And what I mean by "pride" may not be what you think.

At this point I will digress to address a reaction some people may have, which I've heard before: "Christians lecturing others about pride? That's ridiculous. What group is more arrogant about its own morality, or more vocal about the way other people should behave?" There's a germ of truth in that, no doubt. I agree that even when advising non-believers about moral issues, Christians should not be haughty about it. Rather, they should always keep in mind their own reliance on God's grace, not to mention the clear Biblical assertion that teaching the Law, without teaching redemption through Jesus, "brings death" because a person in his or her natural state will fail to live holy. The Christian mission is not to sort out Us from Them - and then derive satisfaction that God will only protect Us from Hell! That is a perversion of Christianity that also has the tendency to redirect attention to external behavior instead of the internal condition of the soul. (On the other hand, it is not prideful for someone to contribute to a conversation about what is right and wrong as long as it is done in a non-hostile fashion; refer to the Tolerance entry. Pride is viewing oneself as superior, but being without pride does not mean having the lowest common denominator of moral ideals.)

So pride has its own way to smuggle itself into an unwary Christian, and in general nobody is invulnerable from pride. However, particular flavors of pride are becoming steadily more acceptable in the culture around me. Pride is the vice of exalting oneself, especially above God.

• Intellectual pride. By this I don't mean pride taking place in the intellect, as all real virtues and vices take place holistically (even "passion" sins like lust or anger aren't real vices unless the sinner feels the impulse in the flesh, allows the impulse to adversely affect his mental judgment, and chooses to obey the impulse in his soul or will). Intellectual pride is clinging to the basic belief that knowledge and wisdom have no "God component". Another way of stating this is that the intellectually proud believe that their own faculties are sufficient, apart from God, for arriving at all truth - even if they don't know everything on their own power, they think they could. A result of intellectual pride is the inability to trust the substance of Christian thought. However, I think it's also incorrect for someone to veer into gullibility by deactivating his or her brain! Earnest believers should be thorough in weighing and testing what others say about God, because such matters warrant it. The pride is not in carefully considering what other sources of knowledge, including God and His body the church, seem to say, but in not considering those other sources at all.
• Moral pride. Moral pride is the attitude of making up one's own rules as one sees fit. A telling but unsurprising observation is that the morally proud often profess the precise set of morals and values that match their behavior. The morally proud person who has rage problems will tell you personal expression is the right and privilege of each individual. The morally proud person who embezzles will tell you wealth redistribution is a prime way to make society fairer. Moreover, the morally proud reserve the right to shift their set of rules, perhaps whenever convenient. The Christian answer to moral pride is to derive one's holiness from the Holy God, of course. But the opposite, also incorrect, extreme of moral pride is moral rigidity and the resulting inability to operate in the wide region of the "gray", meaning everyday situations in which moral decisions are hard.
• Economic pride. Economic pride goes beyond money, which is ultimately merely a medium of exchange anyway; economic pride is separating resource considerations from God, whether the resource is a job, a vehicle, another personal possession, inborn talents, or is in fact money. Economic pride consists not only of withholding resources from God, but also manifests in the failure to trust God in any dealings with those resources, whatever the expression of that trust may be.
  
• Intentional Pride. In other words, pride of intention or pride pertaining to intention. Intentional pride is when one's intention is solely determined by oneself. People intend to accomplish goals with their actions, whether the goals are large or small, important or trivial. The intentionally proud believe that they are and should be completely self-directed in all they do. Christians believe differently, of course. Calling any part of the Trinity "Lord" should be more than a habit or custom or figure of speech. Some parts of the Bible go to the point of characterizing Christians as "slaves", slaves to righteousness and to the Savior. In my opinion or taste, applying the word "slave" to humans who: 1) have been freed from the corrupting influence of sin, and 2) presently and for eternity share existence with a benevolent God, is quite misleading. Anyway, the point is that Christians have Someone to answer to, so they cannot have intentional pride, pride of intention.

The above qualities may seem directly opposed to the vibes emanating from current and even past US culture. Deep humility is hard to achieve and maintain in any culture throughout history (rooted as it is in fallen human nature), but it is still if not more necessary here and now. Humility is also one of the firmest dividing lines between Christians and the rest, regardless of to what degree the rest call themselves "Christian". The conflict between humility and pride strikes at the issue of control, so it is pivotal.