A Theology of Happiness
Acts 2:45-46 And (they) sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. 46 And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.
“When 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 for the Greeks, as for the Biblical writers, happiness was an objective reality, not just a feeling or an emotional state. The phrase “whatever makes you happy,” so commonly uttered today, would have been nonsense to Hebrews, Greeks, and Christians alike, since it implies no fixed moral order in which happiness resides.” Ken Myers from “The Pursuit Of Happiness.”
The idea that happiness is exclusively connected to very personal pleasurable experiences, being embraced by Western culture is a fairly new thing in history brought to us courtesy of the French Enlightenment. The “enlightenment” which greatly influenced Thomas Jefferson took us away from the idea of “sin against God and community” and taught that freedom of the individual was the ultimate good for societies and individuals. The philosophies of the time when our nation was founded were committed to the idea of the individual as sovereign in his moral authority.
Now don’t misunderstand me, I am not at all a stoic. I could fill pages of Scripture that prove the command to “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth” contained in it the intended enjoyment of food, sex and achievement for those so commanded. Where society has taken a left turn is in insolating the hedonic pleasures of food, sex & achievement from the greater good and the deep flourishing that comes from communities, which celebrate life together within a moral framework.
I find it so interesting that the “Happiness Project” I have been researching doesn’t report people in back rooms doing drugs or participating in wild sex orgies when it headlines the happiest people on earth. There’s a noticeable absence of unrestrained sensuality from these secular happiness reports. What is depicted in communities where people are sharing life together, enjoying food together, dancing (in very non-sensual ways) and working together. It is becoming abundantly clear that there are two kinds of happiness; one totally about the self-absorbed individual doing whatever seems to work for them and the other about the connected individual who combines their own personal pleasure with a larger purpose.
Last summer, researchers at UCLA demonstrated that the type of happiness you pursue in life affects your overall well being on a genetic level. Researchers discovered that people who, as a matter of habit, chase after “hedonic happiness” (the pleasure that comes from partying, sex, overeating, drinking, etc.) show physical evidence of gene expression that resulted in higher inflammatory response and the lower production of anti-viral and antibodies in their immune cells. This response is similar to the physiological response of depressed or exhausted individuals. By contrast, people who pursue, as a matter of habit, “eudemonic happiness” (happiness that comes from pursuing the greater good) show physical evidence of gene expression that resulted in less inflammation and a stronger immune response, higher production of antiviral and antibodies in their immune cells). This particular pattern of gene expression is associated with better physical well-being and overall good health.
You know I am reading all this stuff in preparation for my “Happy” sermons and I’m thinking, “Thank you God for giving us the Bible and thank you for this awesome gift called the local church.” Many of us have been trying to do happiness right for centuries and didn’t even know it. Oh people, listen to me, “God is good and he has a good plan for our lives, one that includes individual ecstasy at times but not at the expense of the family, the marriage, the community, the economy and all the flourishing that makes earthly life a taste of heaven instead of a pit of hell.”
Taste and see that the LORD is good. Psalm 34:8 (NLT)
