The Tyranny of Preferences

Desires are funny things. They drive everything we do, and yet, like the engine in a car, we rarely look at them. As the Book says, man’s heart is deep water and all that. But wise men, like C.S. Lewis, pop the hood and force us to inspect the desires that move us. In The Screwtape Letters, he shows how our pinings and preferences can subtly erode peace and crowd out love if left unexamined. Lewis diagnoses the disease of preferences gone wild, exposing the disharmony that results when diminutive wants grow into systematic demands — all to the tune of “Can’t you just . . . ?”

‘All-I-Want’ State of Mind

In Letter 17, the demon Screwtape describes an old woman who struggles with the sin of gluttony, not from overeating but from being overdemanding with her preferences. At table after table, she rejects the meal offered to her “with a demure little sigh,” insisting that all she wants is “a cup of tea properly made, or an egg properly boiled, or a slice of bread properly toasted” (The Screwtape Letters, 88). Because her requests are singular and relatively small, she fools herself into thinking them reasonable and easy to accommodate, even though they conceal “an insatiable demand for the exact” (89). She refuses to feast until her foibles are indulged.

Lewis dubs this the “‘All-I-want’ state of mind,” where one particular preference comes to dominate. Like a totalitarian dictator, the singular all controls everything and everyone. As a result, the old woman infects every table she pulls up to with “querulousness, impatience, uncharitableness, and self-concern” (87). Under the guise of “All-I-want,” she is a micro-tyrant, “a positive terror” to everyone around her (87). Her petite preferences sabotage the spiritual health of her community — and the demons love it.

Tiny Tyrannies

The danger of an “All-I-want” mentality extends far beyond eating. Consider how many approach the church the same way this woman approaches the table. We bring seemingly small desires with us, expressed (at first) as slight requests: Can’t you just be a bit more like me? Can’t you just let the Spirit lead more? All I want is some newer music. Like the old woman, we fool ourselves into thinking these preferences should be easy to accommodate because we present them solo, not as a list of demands. But even virtuous desires, isolated from other goods, go a bit mad, becoming lone judges over everyone and everything. Almost without our noticing, “All-I-want” preferences become tiny tyrannies.

Consider two examples. In the Old Testament, God miraculously fed his people in the wilderness with manna (cf. Exodus 16). Each morning, bread fell from heaven to meet all their dietary needs. God laid the table with bespoke portions so that each individual left satisfied. But the Israelites let little preferences grow into sinful demands. They missed meat — nothing wrong with that. But they let that desire fester and grow worms. You can imagine them sliding the proffered plate of manna away “with a demure little sigh” and thinking, All I want is the teeniest, weeniest bit of charred steak. Left unchecked, their preferences led to grumbling, ingratitude, and scorning the meal God offered.

“Our pinings and preferences can subtly erode peace and crowd out love if left unexamined.”

In the New Testament, we see something similar in the church at Thyatira (Revelation 2:18–29). King Jesus commends their works of love, faith, and patience, which increase day by day. And yet he confronts them because they “tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality” (Revelation 2:20). How could a faithful church allow such depravity? The text doesn’t tell us explicitly, but likely the preferences of a fussy few dominated the many. Can’t you just allow this woman to teach occasionally? She’s so dynamic. Or, All I want is that she preach once a month. Can’t you just give her a mic? Or, Can’t we just do something new? This woman’s novelty is so refreshing. Perhaps not everyone at Thyatira indulged her, but the sinful cravings of a few cowed the rest.

These examples show that sometimes “insatiable demand[s] for the exact” arise from mere preferences (89): a large portion over a small one, meat over bread, modern music over hymns, a long sermon over a short one. These preferences fit in the wisdom bucket; they only cross into sin if they trump the demands of love and become tiny tyrannies.

But as in Jezebel’s case, many subtle demands that assail the church move well beyond preference into sin and folly. They build on assumptions that contradict God’s designs. The lust for novelty, the demand for uncritical affirmation, the call for women to preach — these are not mere flavor choices, like vanilla or chocolate. Disordered from the start, they run counter to God’s taste. We must distinguish prudential preferences from sinful urges.

Spreading Sickness

In all three cases above — Screwtape, Sinai, and Thyatira — inordinate desires ran riot within a community. When individual preferences metastasize into demands and ultimatums — especially when they masquerade under the banner of “All I want . . .” or “Can’t you just . . . ?” — societies get sick. Totalized desires, even disguised by a demure sigh or a shake of the head or a quiet departure to a more accommodating church, make fierce tyrants.

The tyranny of preference opposes the way of love, the way of Christlike humility, and the way of joy. The way of love because love “does not insist on its own way” (1 Corinthians 13:5). The way of humility because, like Christ, the humble “look not only to [their] own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4). And the way of joy because the joyful lay down their preferences when “progress and joy in the faith” calls for it (Philippians 1:25).

Perhaps our churches are unwell because we fail to examine the preferences, desires, and assumptions we impose on the body of Christ. Might “querulousness, impatience, uncharitableness, and self-concern” trouble us because our passions go unchecked (James 4:1)? Are many theologically anemic because, like Lewis’s old woman, they push away any feast of worship that doesn’t conform to their skeletal preferences? Could it be that you and I contribute to the disharmony in the body because we bring the “All-I-want” mindset into the pews?

Diagnose Your Desires

If this diagnosis is correct, then many of the church’s illnesses go untreated because they masquerade as preferences. “Can’t you just . . . ?” is a subtle sickness; we need to expose it so we can confess and repent.

This month at Desiring God, we want to examine some of the most common preferences and urges afflicting the church. You may have heard them before; you may have said them before.

• Can’t you just love everyone?
• Can’t you just let me attend without joining?
• Can’t you just be like me?
• Can’t you just help me?
• Can’t you just talk about Jesus?
• Can’t you just do something new?

Beneath each of these seemingly harmless statements churns an engine of desire, fueled by unbiblical assumptions and demands. We aim to pop the hood and expose what’s there so we can diagnose the urges at work in us. We invite you to join us as, wielding the scalpel of the Spirit, we diagnose the preferences that lead us astray and expose the “Can’t you just . . . ?” phrases that excuse our sin.

Only when our King’s desires move us will our churches thrive as he intends. Only when our loves are attuned to the Trinity will we overthrow the tiny tyrannies that plague us.