Identity: Social Fad or Eternal Truth?
The word identity has all but run its course in our culture of ever-changing trends. The idea that identity is created and asserted by the individual has seeped unnoticed into the collective consciousness of an entire generation.
Most of us can’t remember a time when the individual was not the focal point—a time when self-sacrifice was nobler than self-expression; when the community defined the individual, and not the other way around; when the question was “How can I contribute?” rather than “How can I be noticed?” It has now faded into the wallpaper of our shared psyche that the gate to a happy life can only be unlocked by figuring out who you are and then asserting and staying true to yourself.
We have been raised to believe in the value of the individual above all else, and we have taken this notion to its logical conclusion: tolerance for almost any form of identity expression, no matter how far outside the norm.
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
While some good has come out of these cultural shifts, the encouragement to define ourselves however we choose has not turned out how we expected. Instead of weightless freedom at the end of that string, we have found heavy chains. Indeed, we are seeing the wisdom in Kierkegaard’s simple statement, “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”[1]
“When the pressure is on the individual to decide who they are and what they can become, there is no one to blame but themselves when they fail to become who they want to be.”
When the pressure is on the individual to decide who they are and what they can become, there is no one to blame but themselves when they fail to become who they want to be. This anxiety is played out on social media and in the workforce, but it is perhaps most palpable on college campuses. In a study on generational differences in perfectionism, Thomas Curran and Andrew Hill noted a marked increase in social and self-oriented perfectionism in college students in the past 30 years.[2]
Another long-term study has concluded that over the past eighty years young Americans are becoming more anxious and depressed. Psychologist and generational researcher Jean Twenge believes this trend has several contributing factors, including an obsession with image, money, and fame, but she also blames isolation and loneliness.[3]
The unmooring of individual identity from fixed markers has also contributed to the intense tribalism we see today. From partisan politics to deep racial divides to the #MeToo movement, we have never been more divided into—or more fiercely defensive of—our tribes. New York Times columnist David Brooks, quoting Pascal Bruckner, writes,
“Modern individualism releases each person from social obligation, but ‘being guided only by the lantern of his own understanding, the individual loses all assurance of a place, an order, a definition. He may have gained freedom, but he has lost security.’”[4]
Tribes, Brooks continues, are the logical places to find security in the dizziness of our newfound freedom. It makes sense to seek safety in groups of people who share our values, especially when we have no anchor but our own fickle selves to sink our identity into.
IDENTITY FROM A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE
Though identity as a buzzword has run its course, it is more important than ever for Christians to have a firm grasp on both the cultural and biblical definitions. We are warned not to “conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind[s].”[5]
In order to not be pulled along by the cultural tide, we must have a clear understanding of not only what culture says, but also what God says about this topic. We are called to be agents of change and beacons of light in a broken world.[6] How can we shift the conversation if we are unaware of the truth that will illuminate the darkness?
Perhaps more importantly, though, a proper understanding of a Christian’s identity has the power to change us in profound ways. There is truth to the secular view that discovering who you are is the secret to a happy life, but the Christian’s path to self-discovery diverges drastically from the culture’s. And, contrary to secular self-discovery, what the Christian finds at the end of that path offers true contentment.
“There is truth to the secular view that discovering who you are is the secret to a happy life, but the Christian’s path to self-discovery diverges drastically from the culture’s.”
Where did this concept of identity come from? The word identity comes from the sixteenth-century Latin word identitatem, which the French turned into identité. The root of the word is idem, which is translated “sameness.” Think identical, like a twin, or like the image of your face being reflected back to you in a mirror. The modern understanding of identity, based largely on the psychoanalytical research of Erik Erikson[7] in the 1950s, is the set of beliefs we hold concerning ourselves. These beliefs inform our emotions and motivate our actions.
Where the Christian understanding begins to diverge from the culture’s is in the source of those beliefs. Timothy Keller is the well-known pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. In late 2015, he spoke to students at Wheaton College on the subject of identity.[8] He said in times past, or in traditional cultures, the common view was that we received our identity from our community—I am my parent’s daughter, I am part of this village, etc.
Today, the common view is that we form our identity through self-exploration and then self-expression. We are told we can determine who we are by looking deep within ourselves, and we are encouraged to then express that identity. Whereas in times past your “self” was chosen for you, today you can choose the “self” you want to be.
The Christian view of identity differs from both the traditional view (we receive our identity from our community) and the modern view (we form our identity through self-exploration). We believe our identity is conferred upon us by our Creator, God. In other words, we won’t find our truest definition of self by looking out or in, but by looking up.
Yes, God has a set of beliefs about you. The goal of Tracing the Thread is to help you to align your beliefs about yourself with God’s beliefs about you. If you see yourself the way God sees you, you will have the truest picture of who you are, giving you the peace, security, humility, courage, and confidence to live into your created ideal.
GOING BACK TO GO FORWARD
Changing your beliefs is not a simple wardrobe change, however. There is real work to be done in uncovering which beliefs you carry about yourself are false, and figuring out why you believe them.
Over the years, as I began to trace every one of my knee-jerk reactions backwards, peeling back the layers to the motive underneath, then deeper still to the lie that fueled the motive, patterns and categories began to emerge. The vast majority of the lies I believed about myself came from three sources: the parental love I received, the tribes I belonged to, and the voices I listened to.
These three cradles of identity, hewn during the earliest years of my life, laid the foundation for my sense of self and greatly impacted the self I chose to be. The story that was written for me had profound, and often unseen effects on the story I was now writing. If I wanted to change how I wrote my story in the present, I would have to go back to the parts of my story I didn’t write, the parts where my definition of self was penned, not by me, but by others, and allow God to overlay them with the truths of who he sees me to be.
[1] The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin by Søren Kierkegaard, Liveright Publishing, 2015
[2]https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rethink-your-way-the-good-life/201801/the-unsettling-truth-about-what-s-hurting-today-s
[3]https://www.thecut.com/2016/03/for-80-years-young-americans-have-been-getting-more-anxious-and-depressed.html
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/opinion/the-retreat-to-tribalism.html
[5] Romans 12:2
[6] Matthew 5:13-14
[7] https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/7395392/erik-eriksons-theory-of-identity-development
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehw87PqTwKw
Christy Rood spent fifteen years in Seattle ministering alongside her husband at a church plant there. She’s a recent transplant to the Raleigh, NC suburbs and is still adjusting to seeing the sun more than a quarter of the year. When she is not writing, she is busy with two full-time jobs: one teaching public elementary school music, and one trying to keep up with schedules and laundry for her four kids. You can connect with her at her website, www.christyjrood.com and on Twitter @christyrood.