Why is the new self reformation movement wrong? First, I will define the major flaws with the self reformation movement. Then, I will show how it relates to the Bible, and to our lives as followers of God’s Word.

            People should never reject reformation, if it is reforming something that is flawed. If there is a political movement, education system, or society that is corrupt or has evolved that way, we should be the catalyst for this reformation. However, the old saying goes, “If it’s not broken, then don’t fix it.”

            The self reformation proponents, such as Charles Schuler, and many other Christian psychologists, believe that man’s greatest problem is that he has not seen his true self-worth and esteem. The proponents of the self worth philosophy take this as being one of the greatest problems of man, and their mission is to provide this very basic need to humanity. However, self-esteem ideology did not come from the Bible, and it can only be traced to secular humanistic people such, as Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Sigmund Freud. 

                 Maslow, Rogers, and Freud did not believe that God created man, so their ideology is a false premise of the makeup of man.  They believed that man is basically good and that circumstances and society turns man out flawed.  Needless to say we as Christians have nothing in common with these men.

            Christians are not to yoke up with people that are in error in our philosophy, in man’s well-being and or in our education. The Bible states in Amos 3:3 “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?”  We cannot integrate the Biblical truth of man, with their fallacy of self-esteem reformation, because this produces heresy.

            God’s Word talks about man and his state. That man was created perfect. However, man sinned, (The Garden of Eden) and thus, we obtained a sinful nature.  Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” concludes that man is inheritably evil from birth.  From the time that man is born, he only gets worse, and is afflicted by the world and his circumstances, and his reactions and choices.  (Proverbs 13:15) “. . . but the way of transgressors is hard.”  

            The Law of God concludes man’s condition, in that man cannot obey God’s laws. The Bible states in Galatians 3:10, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” Man is unable to have a life that is satisfying and complete outside of the Lord. Knowing this truth, should drive us to Christ, as Romans 8:3 illustrates, “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:”

            Jesus came and died for man’s sinful condition, so that humanity could have perfection. Perfection is not in who I am, but in God Himself through His only begotten son. Salvation induces to us a new nature, which is perfected in Jesus, and gives a new life in Christ Jesus.

          In conclusion, the self reformation movement theory is so dangerous, when mixed with Christianty.  Rather than sinful men turning to Jesus Christ for healing of their souls, this flawed idealogy turns to self and the fixing of man’s circumstances for the answers. The bitter pill of  new self reformation is sugar coated by Christian leaders of today, and is destroying man, because they are delivering a placebo rather than the cure.