Holy Misery: The Strange Christian Romance with Suffering, Sacrifice, and Self-Erasure
Christianity has a long history of treating suffering not merely as unavoidable, but as morally desirable. Pain becomes purification. Exhaustion becomes virtue. Self-denial becomes holiness. From martyrs and monastic ascetics to evangelical purity culture and modern grindset ideology, the same underlying logic persists: if it hurts, it must matter.
The problem is that this mindset doesn’t just romanticize suffering—it helps preserve the systems that create it. “Everything happens for a reason” becomes a way to neutralize outrage. Poverty becomes “humility.” Burnout becomes “character.” The exploited are praised for endurance instead of liberated from exploitation.
Modern hustle culture often looks less like a break from religion than Protestant asceticism rebranded with productivity apps and LinkedIn posts. The monk denied himself pleasure for God; the corporate employee denies himself sleep for quarterly targets. Different altar, same ritual.
There is also something deeply disturbing about teaching children that discomfort itself is spiritually meaningful. Many religious schools historically treated guilt, shame, and even physical irritation as tools of moral formation. During Lent, some Catholic schoolchildren were literally made to wear itchy burlap garments around their necks to “share in suffering.” In any nonreligious context, adults intentionally making children uncomfortable for moral instruction would rightly raise alarms.
A society that canonizes suffering will inevitably manufacture more of it. Once pain becomes morally prestigious, reducing unnecessary suffering starts to look suspicious—as though joy, rest, pleasure, and flourishing are somehow signs of weakness rather than signs of civilization.