Reverse Pharisaism: When Humility Becomes a New Form of Pride

We understand Pharisaism, but what is Reverse Pharisaism?

Charles Haddon Spurgeon once recalled the wise words of a man he met in his early years of preaching. What this man said to him made an impact....perhaps greater than the man, or Spurgeon, even knew at the time! This is what was recorded.

But keeping close to the cross is the thing for me. I remember an old countryman saying to me, long ago, “Depend upon it, my brother, if you or I get one inch above the ground, we get just that inch too high;” and I believe it is so. Flat on our faces before the cross of Christ is the place for us; realizing that we ourselves are nothing, and that Jesus Christ is everything. (1)

The point was simple yet profound: pride is the universal sin, the spiritual gravity that always pulls the human soul upward when it ought to bow low.

However, pride does not always appear in its traditional forms. The Pharisee who thanked God that he was “not as other men are” (Luke 18:11) has many descendants, but not all of them wear phylacteries or stand in the temple. Today, we meet a subtler kind of self-righteousness—a reverse form of Pharisaism that glories in being unlike the proud, condemns the judgmental, and congratulates itself for being humble. I have known several men like this over the years...seemingly humble, meek-spirited, and self-deprecating to a fault!

This article examines the roots, expressions, and end results of what might be called Reverse Pharisaism, a phenomenon that exposes the self-centeredness even within supposed humility.

The Parable Turned Upside Down

The parable of the Pharisee and the publican (Luke 18:9–14) was given “unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.” The Pharisee’s self-congratulation was spiritual narcissism—pride disguised as thanksgiving. Yet, even though we still have many like the Pharisee, in contemporary Christian culture, the pendulum has swung to an equally dangerous extreme: “I thank Thee that I am not as this Pharisee.”

This new form of pride arises when believers define righteousness in terms of contrast rather than conformity to Christ. We see it in the moral relativism of the age, where mere authenticity becomes a virtue and conviction becomes a vice. But the irony is that even the rejection of "legalism" can become legalistic when we measure our humility against another’s supposed arrogance.

The Many Faces of Reverse Pride

Pride’s disguises are countless. The early Church Fathers saw pride not merely as one sin among many but as the mother of all sins/heresies. Whether it manifests as arrogance or false modesty, the root remains the same.

In modern culture, pride takes socially acceptable forms:

• Pride of face, race, or place. We elevate appearance, ethnicity, or geography.

• Pride of grace. We boast of doctrinal purity, spiritual insight, or being “different from the proud.”

• Pride of possessions—or of poverty. One flaunts success; another flaunts simplicity.

• Pride of relevance or separation. The worldly church glories in its “openness,” while the reactionary church boasts of its “purity.” Some are proud of their differences from the modernist...from the compromiser...from the Bible-corrector....and on and on. These two groups and their variants all may fall prey to self-exaltation.

These rival prides all echo the same ancient sin: the desire to be recognized as superior. As the Apostle John warned, “...the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16).

Strange Days of Self-Righteousness

We are living, as in the days of the Judges, when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 21:25). Everyone is right. It is hard to get anyone to admit they are wrong...on anything. People want to be seen as right and good, even if they are not! Modern culture has even coined a term for this public display of individual, yet questionable, righteousness—virtue signaling. British writer James Bartholomew first popularized the phrase in The Spectator (2015), defining it as the practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or moral correctness. (2)

In essence, virtue signaling is the digital counterpart to Pharisaism—moral boasting in the temple of social media. Yet in our day, this often takes a reverse form: people boast not of their strictness but of their softness, not of purity but of tolerance. They pride themselves on not being like “those judgmental Christians.” In doing so, they reenact the parable’s irony: “I thank thee that I am not as this Pharisee.” Such virtue signaling, whether progressive or conservative, reveals that the desire to be seen as righteous before others remains alive and well in the human heart. As a result of this spirit, the rich despise the poor, and the poor despise the rich. The educated mock the unlearned, and the unlearned mock the educated. The religious look down on the irreligious, and the irreligious think those who hold to faith are somehow inferior....And on and on it goes.

This mutual contempt is not accidental; it is actively engineered and exploited. Social media algorithms, political strategists, and ideological activists capitalize on humanity’s natural bent toward pride and comparison. As Reinhold Niebuhr warned, “No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint” (3). Reverse Pharisaism feeds this cycle, baptizing pride in the language of righteousness and fueling cultural hostility under the banner of moral sensitivity.

The End Results of Reverse Pharisaism

The final fruit of Reverse Pharisaism is spiritual blindness and communal decay. Its outcomes are observable in at least three areas:

1. Loss of Self-Awareness.

   The Pharisee prayed but did not see himself; he saw others. Reverse Pharisaism fosters the same blindness in opposite form. When humility becomes a performance, repentance turns into rhetoric, and discernment becomes self-approval. Jesus warned that when the light within becomes darkness, “how great is that darkness” (Matt. 6:23).

2. Erosion of Discernment.

   Pride—whether overt or inverted—corrupts judgment. When believers glory in being “nonjudgmental,” they cease to judge righteous judgment (John 7:24). Reverse Pharisaism silences truth under the guise of tolerance, and the Church loses her prophetic edge.

3. Division and Destruction.

   Pride inevitably divides. As Proverbs declares, “Only by pride cometh contention” (Prov. 13:10). The body of Christ fractures into factions—each claiming moral superiority over the others. Denominations, movements, and even families become battlegrounds for self-justification. This attitude produces what the prophet Amos called “a famine of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11), because pride stops the ears from listening.

In the end, Reverse Pharisaism leads not to freedom but to fragmentation. The proud Pharisee and the proud anti-Pharisee both fall into the same pit. God resists them both (James 4:6).

The Remedy: Beholding the Lovely Lord Jesus

The cure for pride is not found in condemning it in others but in beholding Christ Himself. When Isaiah saw the Lord “high and lifted up,” he did not say, “Woe is them,” but “Woe is me” (Isa. 6:5). True humility begins where self-consciousness ends and Christ-consciousness begins.

Paul’s admonition in Philippians 2:3–8 calls the believer to imitate the mind of Christ—who “made himself of no reputation” and “humbled himself.” The more we gaze upon Him, the less we find to boast of. The ground at Calvary is still the only level ground on earth.

Reverse Pharisaism is pride dressed in the garments of piety. It is the self-righteousness of those who thank God they are not self-righteous. Whether in theological debate, social engagement, or church life, this spirit erodes true holiness by replacing repentance with self-congratulation.

The Church must learn again to tremble at the words, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6). The solution is not found in new labels or new movements but in old-fashioned contrition—falling low before the “lovely Lord Jesus” and staying there. For as Spurgeon’s farmer rightly said, if we get even one inch off the ground, we have gotten one inch too high.

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1. C. H. Spurgeon, “The Believer’s Present Rest,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 55 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1909), 535.

2. James Bartholomew, “The Awful Rise of ‘Virtue Signaling,’” The Spectator, April 18, 2015.

3. “Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes,” MN Counseling Therapy, accessed Month Day, Year, https://mncounselingtherapy.com/quotations/reinhold-niebuhr-quotes/.