Rescuing Identity from the Grasp of Idolatry

In this talk, I will work through four main points addressing the topic at hand: the corruption of Christian Identity by worldly philosophies.

Point 1: What is Christian Identity

Point 2: The Corrupting agent and its influence in the World

Point 3: The Corrupting agent and its influence in the Church.

Point 4: Rescuing Christian Identity from Corruption

With the roadmap for this talk given, let’s dive in.

Point 1 What is Christian Identity

Daniel Henderson, President of Strategic Renewal considered the question of “who am I” to be one of the most vital longings of the human soul. I’m inclined to agree. When we look at the vast tapestry of human thought, the question of who am I has dominated much of our philosophical inquiry and thought. Christianity, fundamentally changed the conversation.

Before delving into the question of how worldly philosophies have taken our Christian sensibilities on the topic of Identity captive, I would like to begin our time together by giving everyone a couple of rough ideas about the nature of Christian Identity as we see it in the Scriptures.

From Romans 8: 1-5 We gather that one with a Christian sense of Identity lives life in a way that is obedient to the plans and purposes of God.

Psalm 25, 2 Peter 1:1-9, Galatians 5, and several other passages address the various elements of Christian Identity and I encourage you to study them on your own time.

The information in all of those other passages are best summarized by Paul in the following verse from the second chapter of Galatians:

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (GAL 2:20)

Some of you may be wondering why I am referring to a singular verse instead of the whole section, so let me address the context of the verse (Gal 2:10-21) to make sure we are starting from a similar understanding and so that you can fully understand my perspective.

11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.

12 For prior to the coming of certain men from aJames, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision.

13 The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.

14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?

15 “We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles;

16 nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.

17 “But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be!

18 “For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

19 “For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God.

20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

21 “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

Verse 20 is in the context of Paul condemning Peter for being a hypocrite, and reaffirming that we are saved not by works but by faith. What Paul does in the passage is directly challenge Peter for Identifying himself with something other than Christ as being essential to the life of faith. By making this rebuke, Paul connects our claim of identity with the claim of our salvation. In essence saying that if Peter’s claim of identity is not in Christ alone, then Peter is claiming that his salvation is not in Christ alone.

I believe that such a remark is true for us today as well, and in order to help explain why I believe that it’s important to examine verse 20 very carefully.

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (GAL 2:20)

We are crucified with Christ

We are no longer living on our own

Christ lives in us

Life in the flesh is lived by faith in Christ.

Christ gave himself up for us and loved us.

So our sense of who we are is connected to Christ. In a very real sense, our Identity is tied to Christ. And so too is our salvation. So whatever we claim in relation to our identity which is Christ in us, we equally claim it having relation to our salvation.

Point 2 The Corrupting agent and its influence in the World

Carl Trueman answers this question with some of the more academic language in his book “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Man” where he specifically examines this corruption as it relates to Sexuality and Gender.

For those who are familiar with Trueman, I’m addressing the philosophy of Expressive Individualism in connection to Humanism and Pragmatism.

The essence of what Trueman writes is that the modern understanding of Identity looks to psychology, and defines the purpose of life as expressing that identity in the social context of relationships. Expressive Individualism became the dominant perspective because people felt that it was useful for their lives, and it defined their purpose of life in the terms of happiness defined by their desires.

The reason we are talking about Identity being taken captive by false philosophies is that we often understand Identity by looking at ourselves. Looking back at what we learned from God’s word we know that this is incorrect because it is an equivalent claim to saying that we understand salvation by looking at ourselves.

The following statements capture our predicament quite effectively:

The Bible says our Identity is Anchored in Christ

We live, and sometimes talk, like our Identity is Anchored in our minds, behaviors, or experiences.

Setting aside the academic jargon, here are a few examples that show the problem with the perspective identified by Trueman, Bellah, and a few others:

Proper Christian Identity: My Identity is defined by Christ who lives in me.

Corrupted Christian Identity: My Identity is defined by my sexual orientation.

“Proper Effect: I am made in the image of God to fulfill the purposes He has for me, and my sexual expression needs to submit to His plan.

Corrupted Effect: How I sexually express myself is my identity, and anyone who attempts to stifle my sexual interests is attempting to prevent me from being my full self.” - David Wolcott

MONEY

Truth: I am made in the image of God to fulfill the purposes He has for me, and my wealth needs to submit to His plan, because I am defined by Christ who lives in me.

Lies: How I use my wealth is my identity and anyone who attempts to stifle my monetary interests or goals is attempting to prevent me from being my full self, because my wealth defines my sense of Identity.

GENDER

Truth: I am made in the image of God to fulfill the purposes He has for me, and my gender needs to submit to His plan, because my gender doesn’t define who I am. God does, because His Son lives in me.

Lies: My gender defines who I am and anyone who attempts to stifle my chosen gender is attempting to prevent me from being my full self.

RACE

Truth: I am made in the image of God, and my race should not define the way I interact with other humans, because they are first and foremost individuals made in the Image of God.

Lies: “My race defines my interactions and relationships with others, and anyone who doesn't treat me according to my race is oppressing my true self.”- David Wolcott

EMOTIONS

Truth: I am made in the image of God to fulfill the purposes He has for me, and my emotions need to submit to His plan. My identity is anchored in Christ, not how I feel.

Lies: My emotions define who I am and how I should interact with people and anyone who attempts to stifle my emotional being is attempting to prevent me from being my full self.

INTELLIGENCE

Truth: I am made in the image of God to fulfill the purposes He has for me, and my intelligence needs to submit to His plan. My intelligence does not impact my identity, it is a gift God has given me to express the presence of His Son who lives in me.

Lies: How I use my intelligence is my identity and anyone who attempts to stifle my intellectual interests or goals is attempting to prevent me from being my full self. I decide what to do with my intelligence, not God.

HAPPINESS

Truth: I am made in the image of God to fulfill the purposes He has for me, and my happiness needs to submit to His plan. Happiness or how I achieve it have no bearing on my Identity.

Lies: How I achieve happiness is my identity and anyone who attempts to stifle my happiness is attempting to prevent me from being my full self.

I think it’s fair to say at this point that we can deduce the problem to the following equation of sorts

THE ACADEMIC FORMULA

Proper Christian Identity is defined by Christ who lives in each of us and produces an effect that is obedient to the plan of God for our lives.

Corrupted Christian Identity is the result of replacing Christ with some idol and it produces an effect that defends that idol no matter the cost.

Point 3 The Corrupting agent and its influence in the Church.

Now then, up until this point we have been following along much of the same work produced by Trueman and others to drive the point home of what is wrong with the culture and how that culture can snare us as christians in regards to various topics. What most people don’t think about is what happens when we make the mistake of replacing Christ with some biblical command, or good work.

GOOD WORKS

Truth: I am made in the image of God to fulfill the purposes He has for me, and my good works need to submit to His plan. My Good works do not define me, they express Christ who lives in me.

Lies: The good works I do are my identity and anyone who attempts to stifle my good works is attempting to prevent me from being my full self.

Let’s look at a few other impacts in our churches. Let me start with a short story.

There was a time in my life when I felt unseen, unknown, and unvalued. I went to church, to people I trusted, and it felt like they told me it was my fault and that I needed to change in order for people to value me. I felt that my church had betrayed me. Have you ever heard a story like that?

For me church hurt started happening when I was in college. Don’t misunderstand me, I have a great many positive memories from my time in college, but it was also the period of time in my life where I struggled to find the place that I belonged.

Did you catch the expressive individualism in what I just said?

Expressive Individualism is one of the major culprits behind Church Hurt, and it is one of the largest ways we communicate the idea that we aren’t in the right place, community, or vocation. We belong where God wants us to be.

Deconstruction starts to happen when we ask the question: What beliefs of this church led to my being betrayed and devalued?

As deconstruction occurs and we start to uproot cornerstones from our faith, this is when we are most vulnerable to the enemy. This is when he steps in showing us false teachers and leads us to doubt the people who care about us. When we start to meet other broken people who feel hurt and who are struggling to wrestle through their faith and we all view the world and our identity through expressive individualism we become a breeding ground for the rise of movements like progressive Christianity.

That’s one side of the coin, let’s look at the other.

As someone involved in ministry work, I started to really closely examine myself as I was working on this message, and I realized that one of the largest temptations I face as an apologist, and as a human is to be more concerned with expressing myself than expressing Christ. I think a huge part of abuse within the church is expressive individualism because Ministers can become consumed with the desire to make sure they are heard, rather than making sure that God is heard. Take for example the pastor who fails to preach on any of the Gospels because he’s more concerned with preaching out of Romans to affirm his views on Election and Predestination. What about the cult leaders who utilize their ministry to perpetuate abuse and evil because of their flesh?

Don’t we see the expressive individualism at play? Don’t we see that the root cause of so many problems in the church are found in expressive individualism?

Point 4 Rescuing Christian Identity from Corruption

So at this point we have looked at the impact of the Corrupted Christian Identity and it’s source of corruption. In effect, we have identified the problem. What then is the solution?

In order to address this, I think it’s important to visit 2 Corinthians 10: 3-6 “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.”

I want to direct your attention to the last part of 6: “Take every thought captive to obey Christ”

The solution, the method, by which we can reclaim a proper sense of Christian Identity is by taking every thought captive:

Here are a few questions that can help us rescue our Christian sensibilities on the topic of Identity.

Is this thought or action about me expressing myself or is it about me expressing Christ?

Does this thought or action glorify God or does it glorify my flesh?

What does the Bible say about this thought or action?

Does this fit the character of Christ?

Does this way of seeing myself match up with the Bible’s description of how God sees me?

Does this way of thinking help me be more obedient to Christ?