Living the Challenges to Identity

Each generation faces its own unique questions and challenges from the culture. It seems that our generation is faced with challenge of anthropology. From gay rights activists to the transgender movement, historic Christian understandings of sex, gender, and identity have come under fire in an increasingly rapid and vehement pace. But how in the world did it come to this?

One of the best resources on understanding this rapid development is Carl Trueman’s book Strange New World (the shortened version of his The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self) where he documents how changing ideological and technological trends have tilled the ground for the current controversy to foment. In my own life, I have felt the tug of these recent changes. With Trueman as a guide, I want to show how pervasive the nature of these challenges can be.

The Ideological Challenge

Trueman’s main burden is to trace the rise of expressive individualism which is the belief that “each person has a unique core of feeling and intuition that should unfold or be expressed if individuality is to be realized.”[1] In other words, people must be authentic. They must be “true to themselves.” Trueman contends that this expressive individualism has given rise to the sexual revolution as this belief coheres well with “the priority that the LGBTQ+ movement places on sexual desire and inner feelings relative to personal identity.”[2]

Perhaps the most noteworthy place this belief has permeated America is the worship service. As I began evaluating my tradition growing up, I encountered a recurring thought: “My worship was fine because it was an authentic expression of my inward feelings towards God.” Now, certainly I wouldn’t want my worship to be contrived. But the fact that my first thought was whether I was being authentic rather than whether God was pleased by my actions really shows how deeply expressive individualism had formed my (and my church’s) worship service. And I know I am not the only one who views the time of singing this way. Talk to any member in your congregation, and you will soon find how pervasive expressive individualism is. And if you can find this in the church, then I wonder how much more of a hold Expressive Individualism has on the culture at large?

The Technological Challenge

After a journey through Rousseau, Nietzsche, Freud, and Marx to sketch an intellectual history, Trueman turns to investigate the technological and structural changes that have allowed expressive individualism to flourish.

Trueman argues that one reason why we view the human as so moldable is because this fits with a “correlative understanding of the world [as]…something plastic that we believe we can shape in any way we wish.”[3] In other words, Trueman asks, “If we can shape our world, then why can we not shape our very identity?” This sort of “plastic” identity forms the necessary backdrop for the LGBT+ ideology to flourish.

Trueman sees the level of mobility in jobs and careers as conducive to the formation of a plastic identity. My dad was an engineer, and my mom was a math teacher. Unlike the past when my career identity was inherited, I could be whatever I wanted. With a college education, I could pursue a career in anything from zoology to performative dance studies. How many others are like me who have to go and figure out what they want to be during the first two years of college? The fact that colleges students tend to change their major three times shows that people struggle to define themselves by their future career. If we think that we can chose what we want to be in life (and notice the word “be” as opposed to “do”), then is it really such a big leap for people to think they can also choose their identity?

Trueman also points to the concept of “Imagined Communities,” or communities formed by the Internet instead of geography. Now, instead of being born into a set community identity, people can choose which virtual community they want to be a part of. Consider how many people from around the world joined up online to fight for Ukraine against Russia, proving the grip that online communities can have. Even as I myself am integrating into the Southeastern community, I’m still closely connected with my virtual friends from college (in fact, one of them looked over this article before I published it!). Trueman notes, “People can now pick and choose their communities, and that means that they can pick and choose their identities.”[4]

Where do we go from here?

The point is that if I, a seminary student born and raised in a Christian household, feel the ideological and technological tugs to unravel my identity, then how much more does the rest of the world feel it? No wonder we sit at a cultural crossroads during the sexual revolution. This month at the Center for Faith and Culture we will explore this challenge to humanity of sexual identity. Throughout the month of April, we will be publishing articles that both respond to the culture’s understanding of identity as well as providing the biblical alternative to identity. These articles will equip you to develop a biblical understanding of identity so that you might be faithful in whatever spheres of influence the Lord has placed you.

References

[1] Trueman, Brave New World, 22.

[2] Ibid., 24.

[3] Ibid., 93.

[4] Ibid., 121.