1 00:00:00,060 --> 00:00:02,140 Our culture is obsessed with identity. 2 00:00:02,280 --> 00:00:06,240 We're often told you do you and encouraged to live according to our true and 3 00:00:06,240 --> 00:00:11,549 authentic self, expressing publicly how we feel about ourselves internally. 4 00:00:11,979 --> 00:00:15,290 However, the very concept of personal identity is inherently slippery. 5 00:00:15,829 --> 00:00:24,070 It encompasses things like ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, religion, belief, educational background, profession, and personality. 6 00:00:24,250 --> 00:00:25,230 But it's not fixed. 7 00:00:25,590 --> 00:00:29,740 It can change through time, through circumstance, and even through self invention. 8 00:00:30,119 --> 00:00:32,710 So, as Christians, how should we regard identity? 9 00:00:33,329 --> 00:00:35,790 God created us as unique individuals. 10 00:00:36,339 --> 00:00:38,879 How does our creatureliness affect who we are? 11 00:00:39,370 --> 00:00:43,449 Furthermore, as sinners redeemed and sanctified by the Lord Jesus, and adopted 12 00:00:43,460 --> 00:00:48,089 into the household of God, how does Christ's work change the way we view ourselves? 13 00:00:48,880 --> 00:00:55,340 How does the encouragement to find your identity in Christ actually play out in the complexities of competing sources of identity? 14 00:00:55,900 --> 00:01:02,220 At our final event in our series on Culture Creep in October 2024, Rory Shiner, Senior Pastor Providence City Church 15 00:01:02,230 --> 00:01:08,740 in Perth, showed us how losing ourselves for the sake of the kingdom will help us find ourselves once and for all. 16 00:01:09,170 --> 00:01:15,720 In this episode, we bring you the audio from that event, minus the Q&A segment, which you can find on our website, ccl. 17 00:01:15,720 --> 00:01:16,060 moore. 18 00:01:16,270 --> 00:01:16,750 edu. 19 00:01:16,750 --> 00:01:17,470 au. 20 00:01:17,955 --> 00:01:23,135 We hope you find Rory's talk helpful as you think about your identity in Christ. 21 00:01:38,245 --> 00:01:40,485 Well, good evening and welcome. 22 00:01:40,575 --> 00:01:48,815 My name is Peter Orr and I'd like to welcome you to our fourth Centre for Christian Living event of 2024. 23 00:01:49,295 --> 00:01:56,665 The Centre for Christian Living is a Centre of Moore College that exists to bring biblical ethics to everyday issues. 24 00:01:56,955 --> 00:02:01,764 And this year we've dedicated our four live events to exploring the idea of culture creep. 25 00:02:02,295 --> 00:02:07,555 And the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans, he talks about not being conformed to this world. 26 00:02:07,575 --> 00:02:09,375 I'll read that passage in a second. 27 00:02:10,065 --> 00:02:14,774 This year, we're looking at different temptations we face to be conformed to this world. 28 00:02:15,475 --> 00:02:18,985 Previously, we've thought about technology, particularly AI. 29 00:02:19,335 --> 00:02:21,535 We've thought about casual sex. 30 00:02:21,535 --> 00:02:22,785 We've thought about wealth. 31 00:02:23,155 --> 00:02:25,605 And tonight we're thinking about identity. 32 00:02:26,014 --> 00:02:29,934 And we're very privileged to be joined by Rory Shiner, who has flown in from 33 00:02:29,945 --> 00:02:35,285 Perth to be with us tonight to help us to think about the question of identity. 34 00:02:35,385 --> 00:02:39,804 We'll get to know Rory in a moment, but let me start by reading that passage I mentioned 35 00:02:42,680 --> 00:02:44,120 Is what the Apostle Paul says. 36 00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:51,310 Therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. 37 00:02:51,790 --> 00:02:53,470 Holy and pleasing to God. 38 00:02:54,094 --> 00:02:56,865 This is your true and proper worship. 39 00:02:57,435 --> 00:03:02,305 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. 40 00:03:02,795 --> 00:03:06,825 Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is. 41 00:03:07,195 --> 00:03:10,545 His good, pleasing, and perfect will. 42 00:03:10,995 --> 00:03:16,555 Well, in response to what I've just read, and anticipation of what we'll hear this evening, Why don't we pray 43 00:03:17,355 --> 00:03:23,484 our father, we do thank you for this time that we can meet together and think about the question of identity. 44 00:03:23,615 --> 00:03:30,355 Would you pray that you would help Rory as he explains your word and helps us to think about how it relates to the 45 00:03:30,365 --> 00:03:37,635 world that we live in and please help us to listen carefully and to respond in a way that honors the Lord Jesus. 46 00:03:37,695 --> 00:03:38,935 And we ask it in his name. 47 00:03:39,144 --> 00:03:39,625 Amen. 48 00:03:40,165 --> 00:03:43,054 But I might just call Rory up and we'll get to know Rory. 49 00:03:46,284 --> 00:03:51,004 Uh, Rory, I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and your family and then how you became a Christian. 50 00:03:51,084 --> 00:03:53,415 Yeah, so my name's Rory, great to be with you. 51 00:03:53,475 --> 00:04:00,275 I've left behind a wife and four kids, so we're all under one roof, four boys, and really great to be with you tonight. 52 00:04:00,275 --> 00:04:04,600 I had the privilege, which I hope lots of you have had, of Being from a Christian family. 53 00:04:04,600 --> 00:04:10,149 And I think the double whammy there was that they believed in and taught us about the Lord Jesus Christ. 54 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:15,770 And they live lives that checked out as in whatever else I ended up believing. 55 00:04:15,780 --> 00:04:20,699 They definitely believed that Jesus was real and that he'd brought them into salvation. 56 00:04:20,719 --> 00:04:22,449 So that's my kind of story through them. 57 00:04:22,480 --> 00:04:28,000 And I'll probably like again, lots of people in the room, a few little scrapes and bruises along the way, and probably into a 58 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:34,765 settled mature adult faith at 19 at University with some kind of untoward behavior during high school and all that sort of thing. 59 00:04:34,765 --> 00:04:36,054 And 60 00:04:36,054 --> 00:04:38,485 here you are, and you're a pastor of a church in Perth. 61 00:04:38,674 --> 00:04:41,184 How did you go from the 19 year olds mature 62 00:04:41,184 --> 00:04:42,365 faith to being a pastor? 63 00:04:42,635 --> 00:04:42,874 Yeah. 64 00:04:42,874 --> 00:04:47,194 So at university, that's where I got radicalized and got involved in the Christian union there. 65 00:04:47,204 --> 00:04:50,465 And the significant thing there, which wasn't as much part of my background was just a 66 00:04:50,705 --> 00:04:54,624 really credible way of using the Bible and having God's word at the centre of everything. 67 00:04:54,674 --> 00:04:56,895 Christian ministry that really did something in me. 68 00:04:57,115 --> 00:05:04,864 And then the main staff worker for the Christian union took me aside and I kind of ended up in ministry under false 69 00:05:04,895 --> 00:05:11,934 pretenses or misunderstanding because he took me aside and he said, look, I think you should come and do ministry training. 70 00:05:12,354 --> 00:05:15,704 And what we do is raise support for about 26, 000 a year. 71 00:05:16,215 --> 00:05:17,565 And two things occurred to me. 72 00:05:17,645 --> 00:05:20,054 One was, Oh my goodness, you must think I'm great. 73 00:05:20,054 --> 00:05:23,344 He's asking me to do this thing and 26, 000 a year. 74 00:05:23,344 --> 00:05:26,815 That's more money than I've ever seen before in my life. 75 00:05:27,265 --> 00:05:29,244 So you saw this is unbelievable. 76 00:05:29,405 --> 00:05:32,945 And then since have discovered that 26, 000 a year is not amazing. 77 00:05:33,145 --> 00:05:37,785 And it turns out the guy was asking everyone to do ministry. 78 00:05:37,805 --> 00:05:40,535 And so there was nothing special about maybe on that false pretense. 79 00:05:40,605 --> 00:05:42,095 Here I am. 80 00:05:42,635 --> 00:05:43,135 That's all right. 81 00:05:43,135 --> 00:05:45,725 It's just been too awkward to get off the conveyor belt. 82 00:05:45,785 --> 00:05:46,905 Having got onto it. 83 00:05:46,935 --> 00:05:47,385 Yeah. 84 00:05:47,765 --> 00:05:52,105 Rory and I were just chatting about ministry and what would be a good question to help you get to know. 85 00:05:52,145 --> 00:05:59,005 So I was going to ask what's harder now at this stage in ministry than it was at the beginning and what's easier at this stage of ministry 86 00:05:59,005 --> 00:05:59,425 than it was. 87 00:05:59,685 --> 00:06:02,375 So the easy one first, say there is a point where. 88 00:06:02,715 --> 00:06:06,115 Say for example, preaching is not all of ministry, but it's a big part of ministry. 89 00:06:06,115 --> 00:06:14,015 And I think you get to a point in preaching where the shadow of fear recedes to about 10 o'clock the night before. 90 00:06:14,235 --> 00:06:20,679 So when you start, the shadow goes to about Wednesday of the week before, and you live in dread of having to deliver this sermon. 91 00:06:21,090 --> 00:06:25,990 Preaching, there's a bit of inside baseball, but it's like an exam that you can't write and say, listen, I'm not quite ready yet. 92 00:06:25,990 --> 00:06:27,800 Could tell you're starting at 11 o'clock today. 93 00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:29,089 You just kind of do the thing. 94 00:06:29,420 --> 00:06:36,510 So that gets to a point where you manage, I don't think you ever get to zero anxiety, but where you can manage that in a livable way. 95 00:06:36,759 --> 00:06:42,140 The boring thing that gets hard, well, the generic thing that gets harder is the kind of leadership thing that as 96 00:06:42,150 --> 00:06:48,610 things grow and develop, you get to a point where everything that could have been solved would have been solved. 97 00:06:48,960 --> 00:06:49,919 Before it got to you. 98 00:06:49,919 --> 00:06:53,770 So everything that gets to you is difficult and ambiguous and unwinnable. 99 00:06:54,010 --> 00:06:55,650 I think that's true of anyone in leadership. 100 00:06:55,700 --> 00:07:00,150 So I'm sure people here will recognize that maybe there's specific one, which is relevant tonight 101 00:07:00,559 --> 00:07:09,870 is I think our culture is uniquely ill equipped to deal with chronic as opposed to acute problems. 102 00:07:10,479 --> 00:07:13,250 And one of the things you discover in ministry, which you're not confronted with 103 00:07:13,290 --> 00:07:19,229 at university is sometimes people just have problems that don't fix that go on. 104 00:07:19,530 --> 00:07:21,950 indefinitely at a kind of heart level. 105 00:07:21,950 --> 00:07:22,870 That's a whole thing. 106 00:07:22,870 --> 00:07:30,940 And I think where there's ways in which our culture sells us short in our ability to make sense of and care for people in chronic situations. 107 00:07:31,019 --> 00:07:31,590 Thank you, Roy. 108 00:07:31,650 --> 00:07:32,609 I'm going to hand over to you. 109 00:07:32,719 --> 00:07:33,099 Thank you. 110 00:07:33,530 --> 00:07:33,770 Excellent. 111 00:07:33,819 --> 00:07:34,640 Well, it's great to be here. 112 00:07:34,659 --> 00:07:36,760 So thank you very much for coming out tonight. 113 00:07:36,809 --> 00:07:39,449 And I'm really glad to be thinking with you about these things. 114 00:07:39,810 --> 00:07:45,060 Well, I've got three goals and therefore you've got three ways of marking tonight's assessment 115 00:07:45,250 --> 00:07:49,320 and seeing whether it pleases you or not, or whether I've achieved according to the rubric. 116 00:07:49,539 --> 00:07:50,120 So here we go. 117 00:07:50,180 --> 00:07:59,419 Firstly, I want to describe as best I can the way we moderns go about answering the question of who am I? 118 00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:08,819 I think we do have a very distinct way of doing that, and I want to ask for high marks if the way I describe it is resonant. 119 00:08:09,210 --> 00:08:15,469 If you hear it, and my aim in that section is that you recognize it and you say, yeah, that sounds like how we do it. 120 00:08:16,040 --> 00:08:23,130 That's the first section to faithfully describe how we go about constructing identity, how we go about answering the question, who am I? 121 00:08:24,090 --> 00:08:26,680 The second thing I want to do is find fault with that. 122 00:08:27,460 --> 00:08:37,759 Having described it fairly impartially, I do want to, at that point, pick at it and criticize it to point out some of its weaknesses and shortcomings. 123 00:08:38,129 --> 00:08:45,610 But then, In a surprising move that no one saw coming, I want to turn to the idea of finding your identity in Christ. 124 00:08:46,290 --> 00:08:52,820 And instead of saying that as the obvious, no brainer solution, I want to find a little bit of fault there too. 125 00:08:53,620 --> 00:08:58,300 I want to raise the idea of find your identity in Christ. 126 00:08:58,925 --> 00:09:06,665 And at least tease that out or think critically about that as a kind of panacea solution to our 127 00:09:06,835 --> 00:09:14,554 pastoral and personal problems, because to quote the Princess Bride, when we use that kind of language. 128 00:09:14,830 --> 00:09:16,490 Find your identity in Christ. 129 00:09:16,670 --> 00:09:19,150 I don't think that word means what we think it means. 130 00:09:20,410 --> 00:09:25,090 And then finally, having shocked you with that dangerous move, peace will be restored. 131 00:09:25,410 --> 00:09:29,879 And I'll say something positive about being in Christ and how that could work in a kind 132 00:09:29,879 --> 00:09:34,889 of more complicated, but interesting way to shape our sense of who we are and how we live. 133 00:09:35,569 --> 00:09:36,380 Ready for this journey? 134 00:09:37,190 --> 00:09:37,580 Let's do it. 135 00:09:37,800 --> 00:09:38,070 All right. 136 00:09:38,100 --> 00:09:42,670 Our first part is thinking about how we construct the modern self. 137 00:09:43,359 --> 00:09:46,469 I take it by your present here, you think that this is a topic, that something's 138 00:09:46,489 --> 00:09:51,679 going on, that the way we use the language of identity is having kind of a moment. 139 00:09:52,400 --> 00:09:55,429 So we think about identity politics. 140 00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:59,819 We construct in social media, online identities. 141 00:10:00,710 --> 00:10:07,170 We see a shift in language, a subtle but interesting one, from saying, I am a zealot. 142 00:10:08,140 --> 00:10:12,150 Or, I am a Christian, to I identify as a. 143 00:10:13,340 --> 00:10:14,520 Zealot or Christian. 144 00:10:15,380 --> 00:10:16,270 Something's going on there. 145 00:10:16,270 --> 00:10:17,420 I think that is interesting. 146 00:10:18,180 --> 00:10:23,600 The word itself, identity, is a fairly new word. 147 00:10:23,980 --> 00:10:26,370 It's got a bit of a background, but it really emerges in the way we use it 148 00:10:26,430 --> 00:10:31,280 out of sociology and social psychology in the first half of the 20th century. 149 00:10:31,440 --> 00:10:35,960 As you can see on a graph I've got here from an article by Nathan Campbell in Zadok, it 150 00:10:35,960 --> 00:10:43,270 explodes in usage after the second world war, and especially you can see there into the 1960s. 151 00:10:44,100 --> 00:10:49,110 So I'm not doing anything with that, except to just let you look at it and just note that that's interesting. 152 00:10:49,940 --> 00:10:53,680 That the language of identity doesn't come out of the Bible. 153 00:10:53,710 --> 00:10:58,540 It's not a Bible word, concept might be there, but for whatever reason, it 154 00:10:58,569 --> 00:11:03,439 suddenly becomes useful in our culture, very dramatically and very, very quickly. 155 00:11:03,940 --> 00:11:12,870 Recently, perhaps at the pointy end of this issue, you had the transgender debate where kind of ironically or 156 00:11:12,890 --> 00:11:20,789 interestingly at a science level, one of the things we have discovered is that gender or sex goes deeper than we thought. 157 00:11:20,829 --> 00:11:21,819 So for example, if I. 158 00:11:22,375 --> 00:11:24,015 Rub the lectern like that. 159 00:11:24,064 --> 00:11:30,105 A forensic scientist can come in tomorrow and say not only that there's a smudge left 160 00:11:30,105 --> 00:11:36,265 by a human, but it's in some weird way, a male smudge that I will have left behind. 161 00:11:37,145 --> 00:11:42,284 But the transgender debate isn't really a debate about science, but about naming rights. 162 00:11:43,450 --> 00:11:53,140 About identity, does my culture or the science or even my own body have naming rights over me? 163 00:11:53,700 --> 00:11:57,300 Who gets to say who I am? 164 00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:01,349 That's the space I think we're kind of occupying tonight. 165 00:12:01,359 --> 00:12:05,490 The issues that come up for us in this area of identity. 166 00:12:05,490 --> 00:12:09,630 And so I want to think first of all about how we construct our identities as moderns. 167 00:12:11,040 --> 00:12:17,660 The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor talked about sources of the self, that's his way of thinking about it. 168 00:12:17,670 --> 00:12:24,310 What are the sources by which we construct selves as people in modernity? 169 00:12:25,040 --> 00:12:33,620 And rather than bore you with a description of that, I wanted to do a little experiment, kind of a thought experiment. 170 00:12:34,089 --> 00:12:36,550 So here it goes, but you've got to come with me for it to work. 171 00:12:37,030 --> 00:12:49,440 I want you to think about you, so same physically, psychologically, biologically, IQ, everything is the same. 172 00:12:50,220 --> 00:12:58,610 I'm just going to introduce one variable to you, which is the you that was born 500 years ago. 173 00:12:59,460 --> 00:13:00,440 Everything else is the same. 174 00:13:00,840 --> 00:13:03,050 except 500 year ago birth. 175 00:13:03,050 --> 00:13:04,380 Can you do that? 176 00:13:05,390 --> 00:13:06,500 Let me have a go at this. 177 00:13:07,129 --> 00:13:10,780 How would you have constructed yourself if you were born then? 178 00:13:11,959 --> 00:13:19,220 Well, you would have been born into a context in which you were one of eight, 10, maybe 12 children. 179 00:13:20,010 --> 00:13:22,800 Several of whom would have died before their fifth birthday. 180 00:13:23,540 --> 00:13:26,520 You would have known we'd like 99 percent accuracy. 181 00:13:26,520 --> 00:13:34,940 What you were going to do when you grew up, because it was shaped by two unchangeable realities, which were your gender and your family of origin. 182 00:13:35,910 --> 00:13:37,459 If you're a boy, father was a farmer. 183 00:13:37,459 --> 00:13:38,359 You were going to be a farmer. 184 00:13:38,580 --> 00:13:42,370 If you're a female, you're going to be a wife and a mother in that context. 185 00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:43,750 So. 186 00:13:44,469 --> 00:13:47,630 In that context, you never had the conversation. 187 00:13:47,750 --> 00:13:49,400 So what are you going to do when you grow up? 188 00:13:50,780 --> 00:13:54,160 You never heard a graduation speech about following your dreams. 189 00:13:54,739 --> 00:14:00,859 Your parents never said to you, look, the main thing about your job is that you enjoy it, that you, you really get into it. 190 00:14:01,499 --> 00:14:04,690 Most of the wisdom that was available to you. 191 00:14:05,665 --> 00:14:10,375 That is the folk songs that you sang, the advice from your elders, the stories that 192 00:14:10,375 --> 00:14:17,435 you knew, the poems that you learned were about how to cope with given realities. 193 00:14:18,194 --> 00:14:22,134 They were about the wisdom of making peace with the hand that had been dealt to you. 194 00:14:23,175 --> 00:14:24,555 Your life was communal. 195 00:14:25,154 --> 00:14:26,105 So you had next to no enemies. 196 00:14:26,385 --> 00:14:26,975 Privacy. 197 00:14:26,975 --> 00:14:33,895 There were always people around the world that you looked at was another Charles Taylor word enchanted. 198 00:14:35,065 --> 00:14:41,945 So there were spirits and demons and forces in the world that were beyond your control and everything meant something. 199 00:14:42,275 --> 00:14:45,314 The question was not whether it meant something, but what it meant. 200 00:14:45,724 --> 00:14:48,704 The thunderstorm might mean that God is angry with you. 201 00:14:48,704 --> 00:14:53,285 The failure of the crops might mean there's a sin in the village that requires repentance. 202 00:14:53,315 --> 00:14:56,365 So it was a world that had a surplus of meaning. 203 00:14:57,355 --> 00:14:58,255 A lot of your. 204 00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:05,030 Troubles were to do with how much everything meant, everything meant something and nothing meant nothing. 205 00:15:06,339 --> 00:15:13,910 Your life meant something because you had been assigned a role that you were required to play out. 206 00:15:14,954 --> 00:15:21,105 The play, if you can use that metaphor, started before you arrived and it would continue after you died. 207 00:15:21,835 --> 00:15:25,584 And your role in the play was to be an extra. 208 00:15:26,735 --> 00:15:29,204 You weren't cast on centre stage. 209 00:15:29,504 --> 00:15:39,705 You didn't have any participation in the script, but your identity, and you would never have used that word, your identity was what had 210 00:15:39,705 --> 00:15:49,099 been assigned to you and you needed to stand in the spot That had been assigned without complaining or arguing for the good of the whole. 211 00:15:50,080 --> 00:15:54,450 So if they're the sources of the self, if that's how you're constructed, what's it like to be that person? 212 00:15:55,640 --> 00:15:59,919 You might want to think about that, the 500 year ago version of you, I've got a few thoughts. 213 00:16:01,335 --> 00:16:08,255 I reckon compared to you now, you would know more than you do now what it feels like to be afraid. 214 00:16:09,515 --> 00:16:11,585 The world was a threat to you. 215 00:16:12,435 --> 00:16:17,525 You probably weren't an environmentalist because nature was mainly trying to kill you. 216 00:16:19,234 --> 00:16:20,744 Death was present. 217 00:16:21,894 --> 00:16:32,634 God was, in a sense, not someone that you decided to believe in, but someone whose reality was not so much just a choice as a given, like breathing. 218 00:16:33,675 --> 00:16:38,815 You almost couldn't imagine the version of you or your culture that didn't believe 219 00:16:38,825 --> 00:16:45,974 in God because belief in him and evidence of him was everywhere and self evident. 220 00:16:46,925 --> 00:16:52,835 You would feel guilty and ashamed of the things that you did wrong, but you would 221 00:16:52,835 --> 00:16:59,245 rarely feel anxiety and it would never occur to you that your life might not have any 222 00:16:59,305 --> 00:16:59,635 meaning. 223 00:17:01,075 --> 00:17:01,335 Right? 224 00:17:01,395 --> 00:17:08,324 So fast forward to 2024 version of you, 500 years later, how are we put together now compared to then? 225 00:17:09,504 --> 00:17:10,175 Take another shot. 226 00:17:10,804 --> 00:17:12,105 I'm pitching for recognition. 227 00:17:13,685 --> 00:17:19,765 So you're probably born into a family of one, two, maybe three siblings, four, and someone somewhere has gone a bit crazy. 228 00:17:20,295 --> 00:17:27,984 Uh, it's possible to have got to 30 without having seen a dead body or even attended a funeral. 229 00:17:29,220 --> 00:17:32,320 Death is off screen and hidden. 230 00:17:33,710 --> 00:17:42,320 The chances that you will do with your life, what your parents did with their life are small because your whole education has encouraged you to pursue 231 00:17:42,320 --> 00:17:52,669 your dreams, to do what is meaningful for you, your parents, especially if they're Caucasian, will consider themselves to have been good parents. 232 00:17:52,679 --> 00:17:58,679 If they encourage you to find your own place in the world, to not do the same job as them, and. 233 00:17:59,480 --> 00:18:07,190 If you do the same job as them, they're slightly embarrassed at dinner parties and they explain to their friend that, Oh, he really wanted to do it. 234 00:18:07,520 --> 00:18:10,130 He made that choice himself. 235 00:18:11,570 --> 00:18:20,649 If life is a play, you've been encouraged to occupy the centre stage, to be the protagonist in your story and to write your own part. 236 00:18:21,784 --> 00:18:26,905 Because a part that's been assigned to you by someone else will be unsatisfactory and inauthentic. 237 00:18:28,045 --> 00:18:32,675 Gender will have had a pretty low relevance to the kinds of career you chose. 238 00:18:33,855 --> 00:18:37,545 And if you grew up from 16 to 21, you'll be sick to death of the question. 239 00:18:37,545 --> 00:18:39,595 So what are you going to do when you grow up? 240 00:18:40,704 --> 00:18:46,345 Almost all the major decisions in your life, the things that are sources of the self, where you study, what 241 00:18:46,345 --> 00:18:52,895 you do, who you marry, which, if any faith you follow, how you perform your gender are all your decisions. 242 00:18:54,195 --> 00:19:03,175 And almost every book and every movie and every song, you know, is not about coping with given, but about navigating choice. 243 00:19:04,225 --> 00:19:10,014 And people in life with chronic situations that don't get fixed, they just seem to disappear. 244 00:19:11,245 --> 00:19:15,504 You kind of don't know what happened to them, but you don't see them around much anymore. 245 00:19:16,585 --> 00:19:18,235 Your world is disenchanted. 246 00:19:18,745 --> 00:19:24,665 So even if you technically, as I do, believe in spirits and demons, you can go days, weeks, months, even a 247 00:19:24,665 --> 00:19:31,635 whole lifetime without being able to name a single event that you're certain was caused by a spirit or a demon. 248 00:19:32,904 --> 00:19:35,624 You may have lived alone, and you probably will one day live alone. 249 00:19:36,244 --> 00:19:41,995 Your friends will mainly be your peers, and you'll instantly recognize the experience of loneliness. 250 00:19:43,605 --> 00:19:53,875 Your world has a deficit of meaning, vast numbers of things, thunderstorms, droughts, economic events, probably have no meaning. 251 00:19:54,744 --> 00:19:59,235 And at several points in your life, you've wondered whether anything in your life means anything at all. 252 00:20:00,344 --> 00:20:05,544 Almost everything you are comes from decisions that you have made. 253 00:20:06,644 --> 00:20:07,624 So what's it like to be that person? 254 00:20:08,930 --> 00:20:14,770 Well, you're almost never afraid in the sense that you could relax on Friday 255 00:20:14,770 --> 00:20:19,250 night by watching a horror film about literal demons to unwind from the week. 256 00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:24,709 If you believe in God, you're aware that you do. 257 00:20:25,779 --> 00:20:35,020 And even if you believe the exact same creed as humans 500 years before, you're conscious that in some sense you've chosen that. 258 00:20:36,060 --> 00:20:36,889 And here's the thing. 259 00:20:37,460 --> 00:20:40,580 You can imagine the version of you that doesn't believe in that. 260 00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:47,639 The alternative you that doesn't believe in God is a fairly easily imagined individual. 261 00:20:48,669 --> 00:20:57,140 So you're not afraid in terms of demons and spirits, but you are extremely anxious because you're worried that you've made the wrong choices. 262 00:20:57,855 --> 00:21:05,325 You feel the crushing weight of the possibility that because everything was your choice, everything in life is also your fault. 263 00:21:07,095 --> 00:21:08,155 That's the way it plays out. 264 00:21:08,155 --> 00:21:14,415 And that's the way we've come to think about ourselves from large families to small, from death being from present to hidden. 265 00:21:15,135 --> 00:21:21,014 A strong, tight, suffocating experience of community to a weak, loose, and easily escapable experience of community. 266 00:21:21,654 --> 00:21:24,384 What you did was what your parents did, conditioned by your gender. 267 00:21:24,714 --> 00:21:26,074 Now it's what you decide to do. 268 00:21:26,504 --> 00:21:27,844 Gender is way down the list. 269 00:21:28,014 --> 00:21:29,644 Freedom of choice almost non existent. 270 00:21:29,654 --> 00:21:31,554 Freedom of choice now almost overwhelming. 271 00:21:32,144 --> 00:21:33,834 Natural world is full of meaning. 272 00:21:34,195 --> 00:21:36,314 Your natural world is absent of meaning. 273 00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:37,910 You experience fear and guilt. 274 00:21:38,080 --> 00:21:41,450 Now you experience anxiety and a lack of purpose. 275 00:21:41,950 --> 00:21:46,870 Your identity is chosen for you and your identity now is chosen by you. 276 00:21:48,050 --> 00:21:49,500 Let's come at this from another angle. 277 00:21:49,909 --> 00:21:54,090 I wanted to think with you and ask you to help me exegete a picture. 278 00:21:54,500 --> 00:22:00,300 Mark Sayers I think points this out that once you see it you can't unsee it because it is literally everywhere. 279 00:22:00,650 --> 00:22:05,080 It is the picture in a thousand different guises of a woman. 280 00:22:05,540 --> 00:22:09,860 on a mountaintop with a backpack looking at a sunset. 281 00:22:10,729 --> 00:22:15,999 I just want to take a moment and maybe if you're online you could think this out in your group or by yourself 282 00:22:15,999 --> 00:22:20,399 but I might just ask you here and I'll repeat it back into the microphone just to tell me what you see. 283 00:22:20,399 --> 00:22:21,769 We're doing a bit of exegesis together. 284 00:22:22,149 --> 00:22:23,509 Not of a text but of a picture. 285 00:22:24,019 --> 00:22:24,599 That picture. 286 00:22:24,889 --> 00:22:25,319 What is it? 287 00:22:25,350 --> 00:22:25,870 What do you see? 288 00:22:28,705 --> 00:22:30,615 So it's an ad for Kathmandu that may well be there. 289 00:22:30,635 --> 00:22:30,825 Okay. 290 00:22:30,825 --> 00:22:32,585 So I can't remember where it was harvested from. 291 00:22:33,784 --> 00:22:34,004 Yeah. 292 00:22:34,004 --> 00:22:35,045 Possibility, right? 293 00:22:35,075 --> 00:22:37,865 If you're looking at over a mountain and it's sunrise, right? 294 00:22:37,865 --> 00:22:39,345 I think it's sunrise, not sunset. 295 00:22:39,674 --> 00:22:40,884 There's possibility. 296 00:22:42,764 --> 00:22:43,214 Freedom. 297 00:22:43,215 --> 00:22:44,134 Yeah, that's absolutely. 298 00:22:44,134 --> 00:22:45,455 This is someone who's free. 299 00:22:45,465 --> 00:22:46,565 Who's unconstrained. 300 00:22:47,545 --> 00:22:48,114 Adventure. 301 00:22:48,134 --> 00:22:48,605 That's right. 302 00:22:48,614 --> 00:22:49,164 The backpack. 303 00:22:49,695 --> 00:22:51,255 There's some sort of adventure. 304 00:22:51,304 --> 00:22:53,685 Someone that's decided to do something kind of fun. 305 00:22:56,195 --> 00:22:56,395 Yeah. 306 00:22:56,435 --> 00:22:57,065 A communal. 307 00:22:57,095 --> 00:22:58,455 There's no people around her. 308 00:22:59,220 --> 00:22:59,830 That's a woman. 309 00:23:00,279 --> 00:23:02,370 Yeah, I think the gender is significant. 310 00:23:02,620 --> 00:23:05,669 There's a version of this from the 19th century of the Grand Tour. 311 00:23:05,879 --> 00:23:07,959 Byron and that kind of figure, always male. 312 00:23:08,129 --> 00:23:09,549 This picture is almost always female. 313 00:23:09,639 --> 00:23:10,879 I think that's probably significant. 314 00:23:11,039 --> 00:23:11,649 Accomplishment. 315 00:23:12,029 --> 00:23:12,989 Yeah, accomplishment. 316 00:23:13,019 --> 00:23:19,179 So they've done something and they've done something, I don't mean this in the pejorative sense, but for themselves. 317 00:23:20,195 --> 00:23:22,255 So there's no advantage bestowed on the community. 318 00:23:22,345 --> 00:23:24,875 There's a very strong kind of eat, pray, love vibe here. 319 00:23:27,034 --> 00:23:30,125 Con Yeah, it is interesting, isn't it? 320 00:23:30,145 --> 00:23:31,565 There's a kind of a conquest idea. 321 00:23:31,585 --> 00:23:36,975 Again, it's slightly different from the Victorian picture of the male figure out on the grand tour. 322 00:23:37,215 --> 00:23:41,965 But there is some sense of someone having made a decision and conquered a mountain over. 323 00:23:42,264 --> 00:23:42,424 Couple more. 324 00:23:43,425 --> 00:23:46,165 She's been enabled by great gear. 325 00:23:46,735 --> 00:23:47,355 Yeah. 326 00:23:47,665 --> 00:23:47,754 Okay. 327 00:23:47,915 --> 00:23:49,155 She's been enabled by great gear. 328 00:23:49,155 --> 00:23:51,985 I don't know whether that's like a haunted advertising thing or a thing, but yeah. 329 00:23:52,624 --> 00:23:53,345 It is great gear. 330 00:23:53,355 --> 00:23:56,455 It's also worth remembering that once you step outside from the fantasy, there's also 331 00:23:56,964 --> 00:24:01,045 some poor sap there who's been told to get the angle right and so on and so forth. 332 00:24:01,045 --> 00:24:02,844 Encouraging risk taking. 333 00:24:02,845 --> 00:24:03,855 Encouraging risk taking. 334 00:24:03,855 --> 00:24:04,495 Yeah, that's right. 335 00:24:04,495 --> 00:24:07,675 It's a situation in which there's a certain degree of risk and possibility. 336 00:24:07,905 --> 00:24:08,535 Absolutely. 337 00:24:12,505 --> 00:24:13,125 Oh yeah, that's right. 338 00:24:13,135 --> 00:24:13,695 This is the thing. 339 00:24:13,695 --> 00:24:15,275 Once you've seen this, you can't unsee it. 340 00:24:15,275 --> 00:24:18,625 It's just every, it's like an icon of 2024 life. 341 00:24:18,625 --> 00:24:18,845 Yeah. 342 00:24:18,875 --> 00:24:19,384 We'll go one more. 343 00:24:19,935 --> 00:24:21,744 It's like a commitment to go and do it. 344 00:24:22,135 --> 00:24:24,715 She's got an early sunrise. 345 00:24:24,744 --> 00:24:26,064 She's got up at three in the morning. 346 00:24:28,124 --> 00:24:33,144 Yeah, I think that's part of it, that it's not someone who's living in what Charles Taylor would call sacred time. 347 00:24:33,144 --> 00:24:34,574 It's not morning and evening prayer. 348 00:24:34,574 --> 00:24:37,044 It's not a communal feeling. 349 00:24:37,064 --> 00:24:42,784 It's someone who's made an independent decision to obviously get up before dawn and go up in the dark and be there herself. 350 00:24:43,675 --> 00:24:48,335 It has the freedom of wealth to do something like as well. 351 00:24:48,405 --> 00:24:48,775 Yes. 352 00:24:48,995 --> 00:24:51,225 Free time to do something like that. 353 00:24:51,355 --> 00:24:52,055 Yes, yes. 354 00:24:52,065 --> 00:24:55,314 So there's kind of a flex there of someone who's chosen to do what they could do. 355 00:24:55,555 --> 00:25:02,185 Again, which is a privilege only bestowed on men in the 19th century as they did their grand tours, Byron, etc. 356 00:25:02,454 --> 00:25:04,949 But here is a woman, I think we've got it all. 357 00:25:05,350 --> 00:25:05,719 Right? 358 00:25:06,070 --> 00:25:12,620 Unconstrained by her community, undefined by the people around her or the roles that she occupies in the community. 359 00:25:12,950 --> 00:25:15,300 She has climbed a mountain. 360 00:25:15,650 --> 00:25:29,729 I think if we look at this picture, we assume that in some sense, she is finding herself, that she's made a decision to get in touch with who she is. 361 00:25:31,135 --> 00:25:40,244 Whereas anytime up until about the 1960s, she would appear to most humans as lost as someone who couldn't 362 00:25:40,244 --> 00:25:45,414 possibly know who she is because she's been abstracted from the community that gives her meaning. 363 00:25:46,045 --> 00:25:48,855 Most humans would read that as a picture of lostness. 364 00:25:49,134 --> 00:25:53,045 We immediately understand it to be a picture of someone who is finding herself. 365 00:25:53,985 --> 00:25:55,555 Second bit of art, integration. 366 00:25:55,665 --> 00:25:59,015 The other thing I want to think about, here's a very interesting and difficult prospect. 367 00:25:59,195 --> 00:26:00,985 How do you persuade someone to join the army? 368 00:26:01,725 --> 00:26:07,035 Now think about that, that's high stakes baked into the whole deal is that you might kill or be killed. 369 00:26:07,365 --> 00:26:09,345 And that's about as hardcore as it gets, right? 370 00:26:09,805 --> 00:26:12,365 Kill or be killed, that takes some persuading. 371 00:26:12,675 --> 00:26:13,154 How do you do that? 372 00:26:13,165 --> 00:26:14,125 Here's the next picture. 373 00:26:14,634 --> 00:26:16,375 Again, for your exegesis. 374 00:26:16,405 --> 00:26:18,164 This is from 1914. 375 00:26:18,625 --> 00:26:20,205 Notice the persuasive work. 376 00:26:20,404 --> 00:26:24,335 How are we being persuaded here to put our lives on the line? 377 00:26:25,195 --> 00:26:25,655 Read it out. 378 00:26:25,915 --> 00:26:28,805 Come into the ranks and fight for your king and country. 379 00:26:28,805 --> 00:26:30,235 Don't stand in the crowd and stare. 380 00:26:30,535 --> 00:26:32,315 You're wanted in the front line enlist today. 381 00:26:32,315 --> 00:26:32,795 What do you say? 382 00:26:32,795 --> 00:26:33,097 Get 383 00:26:33,097 --> 00:26:33,703 on board. 384 00:26:33,703 --> 00:26:35,216 Be part of your community. 385 00:26:35,216 --> 00:26:35,518 Yeah. 386 00:26:35,518 --> 00:26:35,821 Yeah. 387 00:26:35,821 --> 00:26:36,426 So there's 388 00:26:36,426 --> 00:26:37,855 a get on board. 389 00:26:37,855 --> 00:26:38,735 It's appealing. 390 00:26:39,195 --> 00:26:42,675 And I mean, it's in the morally neutral sense of the word, but it's appealing to a sense of shame. 391 00:26:43,005 --> 00:26:46,415 That is shame is the experience of your peers thinking less of you. 392 00:26:46,415 --> 00:26:50,685 And it appeals to a sense of shame because you'll be left and that's shameful. 393 00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:52,500 Anything else? 394 00:26:52,639 --> 00:26:54,720 It's all about, uh, do it for your king and country. 395 00:26:56,290 --> 00:26:56,409 Yeah. 396 00:26:56,590 --> 00:26:57,669 So do it for your king and country. 397 00:26:57,669 --> 00:26:58,379 So there's an appeal. 398 00:26:58,379 --> 00:27:04,850 Now the technical word for this is an appeal to transcendence, an appeal to something that is bigger than you, that is larger than you. 399 00:27:04,850 --> 00:27:07,219 So the appeal is, Hey, don't think about you. 400 00:27:07,229 --> 00:27:11,840 Think about a thing that's bigger, that transcends you and your situation. 401 00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:12,189 Right. 402 00:27:12,189 --> 00:27:12,540 One more. 403 00:27:12,540 --> 00:27:14,999 Activity. 404 00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:15,759 Yeah. 405 00:27:15,759 --> 00:27:16,759 Activity and activity. 406 00:27:16,779 --> 00:27:20,340 So you're either standing and staring or going and doing something. 407 00:27:20,340 --> 00:27:21,070 So do something. 408 00:27:21,090 --> 00:27:21,899 Don't just stand there. 409 00:27:22,199 --> 00:27:22,610 Fantastic. 410 00:27:22,729 --> 00:27:23,349 Let's go to the next one. 411 00:27:24,120 --> 00:27:25,399 This is a 20, 24. 412 00:27:26,270 --> 00:27:27,379 Now, interesting, right? 413 00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:35,559 So again, I will stop getting you to do the lecture for me, but immediately I think, again, gender is probably relevant to the picture. 414 00:27:36,129 --> 00:27:38,439 It's a person by themselves. 415 00:27:39,500 --> 00:27:46,590 And the appeal is to do what you love, that is in our categories, to think about the army as the 416 00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:53,139 platform on which you could enact your play and bring your script into the army to enact your play there. 417 00:27:53,389 --> 00:27:58,100 And just in case you missed it, they italicized the word you, which is kind of amazing. 418 00:27:58,910 --> 00:28:03,580 That is a picture, and it's a picture again of what Charles Taylor calls expressive individualism. 419 00:28:04,195 --> 00:28:07,514 This is his phrase, Charles Taylor to say that, how do we construct our modern selves? 420 00:28:07,514 --> 00:28:10,355 He says, we are expressive individuals. 421 00:28:10,365 --> 00:28:15,314 That is, we find ourselves by an inward journey rather than a communal journey. 422 00:28:15,324 --> 00:28:20,514 You climb up a mountain, you decide to join the army to play out a particular narrative and so on. 423 00:28:20,514 --> 00:28:22,365 So that's the individual aspect. 424 00:28:22,725 --> 00:28:28,585 And then your moral obligation is to having discovered that identity to then express that to the world. 425 00:28:29,210 --> 00:28:35,550 And our obligation as fellow citizens is to receive your expression, to validate that, and to take that on. 426 00:28:35,550 --> 00:28:44,010 Where expressive individuals in an age of authenticity, that's again Taylor, in the post 60s cultural revolution, in which 427 00:28:44,309 --> 00:28:51,050 authenticity, that is not merely accepting the role to assign to you, but forging your own way, is essential to the good life. 428 00:28:52,070 --> 00:28:56,020 Finally, there's the end of the descriptive bit, but you might have picked up on this already. 429 00:28:56,220 --> 00:28:59,100 It comes kind of in the form of a salvation story. 430 00:29:00,230 --> 00:29:03,799 So if you're a Christian and you think in categories of creation, fall, redemption, 431 00:29:03,799 --> 00:29:10,119 and new creation, you'll notice that expressive individualism has a similar structure. 432 00:29:10,119 --> 00:29:11,319 I think we've got the map here. 433 00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:17,025 So The way it plays out in films and books and popular music is that there's a true self. 434 00:29:17,685 --> 00:29:24,135 That is, that's the origin story, but in the fall, I've become kind of alienated from that true self. 435 00:29:24,385 --> 00:29:27,914 Something's disrupted that harmony of the original creation. 436 00:29:29,084 --> 00:29:33,124 These external forces have made that a hostile experience. 437 00:29:33,714 --> 00:29:41,804 There's a hero moment where you're liberated and through some sort of circumstance or crisis or human, you reconnect with that true inner self. 438 00:29:42,125 --> 00:29:44,545 Self and the circumstances. 439 00:29:44,545 --> 00:29:49,325 Now, the testimony is that you're still working on it, facing some conflict and so on, but things are 440 00:29:49,325 --> 00:29:55,525 materially different having gone through that crisis and got in touch with your original and true self. 441 00:29:56,480 --> 00:30:01,730 So again, high marks if I've described something that sounds familiar and my bad if I haven't. 442 00:30:02,970 --> 00:30:05,240 My second task, part two, is evaluation. 443 00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:14,230 That's my attempted kind of fairly impartial description of expressive individualism and you may be shocked to find that I have some criticisms of it. 444 00:30:15,500 --> 00:30:21,690 However, I'm going to completely evacuate the room of all energy and introduce 445 00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:27,680 a word that kills political and online discussions by introducing nuance. 446 00:30:30,540 --> 00:30:38,294 That is, I think the answer to the question, is expressive individualism good or bad is game. 447 00:30:38,995 --> 00:30:39,795 Where's the energy go? 448 00:30:40,505 --> 00:30:41,445 It's complicated. 449 00:30:43,265 --> 00:30:45,375 Here's a few reasons that I think are complicating. 450 00:30:45,565 --> 00:30:50,485 Firstly, in economics, economists distinguish between revealed and stated preferences. 451 00:30:51,185 --> 00:30:51,355 Right. 452 00:30:51,355 --> 00:30:56,385 So stated preferences are the ones that we think we have and reveal preferences are the ones that we actually have. 453 00:30:56,575 --> 00:31:00,815 So before Netflix went online, everyone claimed that we're into art house and indie films. 454 00:31:01,095 --> 00:31:05,355 As soon as Netflix goes online, we just want to watch reality television and Will Ferrell films. 455 00:31:06,504 --> 00:31:08,184 Or in the airline industry. 456 00:31:08,445 --> 00:31:15,125 If you ask people right up until deregulation what they wanted, they said they wanted the full service with food and lots of legroom. 457 00:31:15,385 --> 00:31:20,465 And it turns out what we actually want is no legroom, terrible seats, no food and a cheap fare. 458 00:31:21,335 --> 00:31:27,125 In the same way, I think you almost never meet someone who's an enthusiastic, expressive individualist. 459 00:31:27,975 --> 00:31:30,395 You almost never meet anyone who says, Oh, this is the good life. 460 00:31:30,395 --> 00:31:32,265 This is the way it's done. 461 00:31:33,005 --> 00:31:35,325 And yet it is what we consistently choose. 462 00:31:36,125 --> 00:31:40,195 So you think about migration pattern, that's a very high stakes thing that by the time you've moved 463 00:31:40,195 --> 00:31:45,595 your family from X to Y, migration patterns are almost always from less freedom to more freedom. 464 00:31:46,375 --> 00:31:49,555 Almost always from rural to urban. 465 00:31:50,420 --> 00:31:55,100 Which is a kind of proxy vote for having more freedom about establishing your identity. 466 00:31:55,700 --> 00:31:59,870 That's why urban centres work, they give you the freedom that rural centres do not. 467 00:32:00,359 --> 00:32:06,479 Secondly, the other complication, or one of a few, is that you couldn't understand this way of 468 00:32:06,479 --> 00:32:11,134 constructing the self apart from Christianity in general and the Protestant Reformation in particular. 469 00:32:11,965 --> 00:32:17,795 And so you just want to kind of bake that into any harsh criticisms of the way we put ourselves together, that it is 470 00:32:17,815 --> 00:32:23,834 at least partly, whether it's an own goal or a wonderful fruit, at least partly the product of the way Christianity in 471 00:32:23,835 --> 00:32:33,385 general understands individuals and the way the Reformation in particular made it possible for someone to somehow dislodge 472 00:32:33,405 --> 00:32:40,355 from their nationality and family and geographic location, that those things ought not be the last word on who you are. 473 00:32:41,325 --> 00:32:46,705 And so one of the complications and nuances is that we're telling as Christians a kind of family story. 474 00:32:47,945 --> 00:32:49,435 But I have got a few criticisms. 475 00:32:49,635 --> 00:32:51,615 Really quickly, number one, it's just really new. 476 00:32:52,825 --> 00:32:56,775 Like this way of thinking about how to put yourself together is super new. 477 00:32:56,775 --> 00:32:58,565 It's kind of a post sixties thing. 478 00:32:58,575 --> 00:33:05,215 And I think that just by its own, you should raise some red flags because things that are new second point are often under thought. 479 00:33:06,715 --> 00:33:13,584 And I think this way of putting yourself together, because it's so ubiquitous, we assume 480 00:33:13,584 --> 00:33:18,035 that someone somewhere has done the hard thinking to work out whether it's coherent. 481 00:33:18,705 --> 00:33:21,015 But I think the truth is that it's very under thought. 482 00:33:21,810 --> 00:33:27,330 The Emperor, if not completely naked, is at least taking a dash for the bathroom 483 00:33:28,260 --> 00:33:32,990 and has grabbed what he thought was a towel and turned out to be a flannel. 484 00:33:33,750 --> 00:33:35,020 And we're all hoping he doesn't trip over. 485 00:33:36,099 --> 00:33:38,250 Some of them are so obvious it's almost embarrassing. 486 00:33:38,945 --> 00:33:42,865 Like for example, how are we deciding on these true selves? 487 00:33:43,635 --> 00:33:45,585 Which true self is the one that you're privileging? 488 00:33:45,595 --> 00:33:47,735 Which is the one that you're hiding from the rest of us? 489 00:33:47,935 --> 00:33:50,415 On what criteria are you making these decisions? 490 00:33:50,415 --> 00:33:57,115 On what basis have you decided this part of yourself is authentic and these other parties completely extraneous to who you really are. 491 00:33:58,094 --> 00:34:02,225 Second one that's super obvious is who decided that I. 492 00:34:03,770 --> 00:34:06,680 Was best positioned to answer who I am. 493 00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:15,059 My qualifications are immediately bought into suspicion by the fact that I don't even recognize my voice when it's on a voice recorder, 494 00:34:16,060 --> 00:34:24,720 but the moment I hear it, I say, that's not what I sound like, which has once been described as like a chipmunk with Australian accent. 495 00:34:28,415 --> 00:34:30,325 But you know, that is what I sound like. 496 00:34:31,455 --> 00:34:38,824 So at what point did we decide that the guy that doesn't even know what he sounds like is the infallible last word on who I am? 497 00:34:39,995 --> 00:34:48,455 One of the liberations of the Christian doctrine of the judgment of God is that it tempers our ability to judge ourselves. 498 00:34:49,245 --> 00:34:57,385 The apostle Paul opens up the first century version of the Johari window where he says in 1 I don't even judge myself. 499 00:34:58,035 --> 00:34:58,525 Verse four. 500 00:34:58,525 --> 00:34:59,985 My conscience is clear. 501 00:35:01,240 --> 00:35:02,840 But that doesn't make me innocent. 502 00:35:03,350 --> 00:35:04,960 It's the Lord who judges me. 503 00:35:05,860 --> 00:35:10,980 Part of Christian identity is a little bit of circumspect judgment of our own judgment of who we are. 504 00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:15,810 And the other one, which is obvious, and I don't want to be misunderstood on this 505 00:35:15,830 --> 00:35:21,779 is if we're finding ourselves alone, why do those selves end up being so similar? 506 00:35:22,990 --> 00:35:30,580 If those selves are forged in the deep isolation of Mount Doom, why do they need all this community validation? 507 00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:36,510 If the true self is unique and self discovered, why do we need communities to express them? 508 00:35:37,750 --> 00:35:41,839 I don't say that in judgment of other communities, I say it as a truth about my community. 509 00:35:42,739 --> 00:35:50,079 I'm a Christian, and just like people of certain sexual orientations or gender expressions find others, that's exactly what I've done. 510 00:35:51,310 --> 00:35:56,010 Having become a Christian, I've found a group of people, a church with whom I can 511 00:35:56,010 --> 00:36:02,710 work out who I am based on this kind of shared identity, but why does that happen? 512 00:36:02,710 --> 00:36:10,010 My criticism is not doing that, which I think is vital to any sense of identity, to any coherent answer to the question, who am I? 513 00:36:10,479 --> 00:36:15,250 My critique is just that expressive individualism doesn't have a good reason. 514 00:36:15,940 --> 00:36:17,020 For why we do that. 515 00:36:17,950 --> 00:36:21,460 I think the scriptures, two other criticisms. 516 00:36:21,460 --> 00:36:24,390 Number one, just the poor mental health outcomes. 517 00:36:24,950 --> 00:36:29,860 And one of the easy ways is just to describe expressive individualism and just say, so how's that going for you? 518 00:36:30,820 --> 00:36:36,430 The anxiety and fragility and crushing sense of aloneness and meaninglessness are very bracing. 519 00:36:37,590 --> 00:36:45,450 And finally, as Christians or me, at least as a Christian, I just notice that it comes to us as a kind of competitor to the gospel. 520 00:36:46,475 --> 00:36:52,505 It is shaped like a salvation story and comes to us either as a rival to the gospel. 521 00:36:53,255 --> 00:36:58,365 The traffic from the church is not toward Islam, not toward Buddhism. 522 00:36:58,365 --> 00:36:59,795 It's not toward Hinduism. 523 00:36:59,805 --> 00:37:03,165 If your church is smaller than it was, that's not where they've gone. 524 00:37:04,225 --> 00:37:09,785 They've gone to a kind of general secularism that is undergirded by a sense of expressive individualism. 525 00:37:10,405 --> 00:37:17,315 It's an alternative to the gospel, or maybe even more insidiously, it comes into the church in a kind of 526 00:37:17,325 --> 00:37:26,415 moralistic therapeutic deism as the gospel, that we are centre stage and that Jesus is in some sense, the one 527 00:37:26,415 --> 00:37:33,605 that allows me to come to my full expression at centre stage as the kind of person that I always was meant to be. 528 00:37:35,045 --> 00:37:37,325 So part three, finding your identity in Christ. 529 00:37:37,625 --> 00:37:38,945 This is the shocking turn. 530 00:37:38,945 --> 00:37:40,095 So brace yourselves. 531 00:37:40,345 --> 00:37:44,675 It's like one of those old Buzzfeed number three will shock you because we're at to the 532 00:37:44,675 --> 00:37:50,415 point where we talk about finding your identity in Christ, finding yourself in Christ. 533 00:37:50,785 --> 00:37:53,394 And the answer feels like, is that what we should do? 534 00:37:54,335 --> 00:37:57,095 Like, obviously, yes, that's the solution. 535 00:37:57,435 --> 00:37:59,815 Find your identity in Christ. 536 00:38:00,490 --> 00:38:01,200 And is that true? 537 00:38:02,350 --> 00:38:04,200 And I'm going to say yes, no, and sort of. 538 00:38:05,090 --> 00:38:07,080 Firstly, at some basic level, yes. 539 00:38:07,725 --> 00:38:11,675 Now the Bible doesn't use identity language, that word is new, but if you know how to 540 00:38:11,675 --> 00:38:14,725 read the Bible, you don't need the word there to tell you the concepts there, right? 541 00:38:14,745 --> 00:38:19,655 So doing a word study on love, you won't find the prodigal son. 542 00:38:19,674 --> 00:38:23,185 And if the prodigal son is not part of how you understand love, that's kind of a really weird thing. 543 00:38:24,464 --> 00:38:28,935 And I think it would be weird to say that the Bible doesn't have something to say about what we call identity. 544 00:38:29,755 --> 00:38:35,035 From the very first, when Christianity launches onto the world, it creates identity crises wherever it goes. 545 00:38:35,855 --> 00:38:38,275 It's an identity crisis for Israel? 546 00:38:38,710 --> 00:38:42,550 It's an identity crisis for the Gentiles and their relationship to Israel. 547 00:38:42,870 --> 00:38:48,640 It creates a crisis for Roman citizens and single virgins and slave owning masters. 548 00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:55,130 The New Testament language is easily recognized as some kind of identity language. 549 00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:59,080 We're in Christ, we're united to him, we're one with him. 550 00:38:59,270 --> 00:39:03,699 We put off our own self and we're being renewed into a new self. 551 00:39:03,699 --> 00:39:09,249 Paul says, it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. 552 00:39:09,250 --> 00:39:16,440 So there is some sense where identity in Christ is not something we bring to the Bible, but something we find in it. 553 00:39:17,570 --> 00:39:18,770 But here are my cautions. 554 00:39:19,580 --> 00:39:20,360 The word is not there. 555 00:39:21,735 --> 00:39:25,145 And it may be that in that word we bring some freight with us. 556 00:39:25,855 --> 00:39:31,375 Again, in Nathan Campbell's article in Zadok, he talks about this, that there may be a kind of Trojan horse situation 557 00:39:31,375 --> 00:39:36,674 to watch there, that when we use the word identity, we're bringing more into the city than we first anticipated. 558 00:39:37,575 --> 00:39:43,425 Secondly, it accepts the premise that the question's right and the solution is wrong. 559 00:39:44,695 --> 00:39:49,475 So if our world says, find your identity in X, Y, or Z and we say, no. 560 00:39:49,825 --> 00:39:51,275 Find your identity in Christ. 561 00:39:51,705 --> 00:39:53,695 We just, at that point, just swapped out the nouns. 562 00:39:54,615 --> 00:39:58,605 So the noun of your nationality, we swap that with Christ. 563 00:39:58,925 --> 00:40:00,445 We haven't said much more than that. 564 00:40:00,445 --> 00:40:04,864 And so therefore we haven't questioned whether the methodology is valid, whether the 565 00:40:04,865 --> 00:40:09,454 search frame that way is actually one that we're going to set ourselves up to win. 566 00:40:09,454 --> 00:40:13,305 I think the tell phrase here is when we talk about identify as a Christian. 567 00:40:13,835 --> 00:40:17,055 I think at that point, something has been smuggled to the scriptures. 568 00:40:18,125 --> 00:40:20,745 And I want to ask thirdly, it's kind of a pastor's question. 569 00:40:21,185 --> 00:40:24,615 How robust is that just in the trenches of pastoral care? 570 00:40:25,735 --> 00:40:31,265 How is that high definition enough as a concept to do the kind of help that we sometimes think it will? 571 00:40:32,105 --> 00:40:38,325 When a young adult is discovering, struggling with a sense of same sex attraction, and we might say they ought to find their identity in 572 00:40:38,365 --> 00:40:48,775 Christ, but we wouldn't tell the mother having miscarried that her grief is evidence of that her identity was in motherhood and not in Christ. 573 00:40:49,965 --> 00:40:56,705 There's something going on there that's just a bit more complicated than the way we sometimes present it. 574 00:40:56,715 --> 00:41:01,355 So I thought to finish, we'd do something just fully crazy and do a little Bible study. 575 00:41:02,545 --> 00:41:05,674 Although we could look at the Bible and rather than jump all over the place, just to settle down as 576 00:41:05,675 --> 00:41:11,805 we finish into Colossians chapter three, as we try to see what the Bible does say about these things. 577 00:41:11,815 --> 00:41:12,305 Notice both. 578 00:41:13,180 --> 00:41:16,060 The radical and conservative nature of this passage. 579 00:41:16,110 --> 00:41:19,780 Colossians chapter three, verse one, since then you've been raised with Christ. 580 00:41:19,820 --> 00:41:20,480 Listen to the language. 581 00:41:20,490 --> 00:41:24,850 Set your heart on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 582 00:41:24,860 --> 00:41:27,530 Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. 583 00:41:28,230 --> 00:41:33,210 For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 584 00:41:33,220 --> 00:41:35,980 When Christ, who is your life appears. 585 00:41:37,015 --> 00:41:40,865 Then you will also appear with him in glory. 586 00:41:41,795 --> 00:41:43,505 There's something about identity there, right? 587 00:41:44,455 --> 00:41:53,095 That the person who's encountered Christ has experienced in him some radical transition about where they are, about where their self is. 588 00:41:53,785 --> 00:42:01,865 Is they're hidden with Christ in God, their life will appear with him because it's hidden with him. 589 00:42:03,015 --> 00:42:05,845 And there's a radical kind of recasting of what we would call identity. 590 00:42:05,845 --> 00:42:12,274 So verses 10 and 11, having put on the new self, which has been renewed in knowledge and the image of its creator. 591 00:42:12,364 --> 00:42:23,024 Here, there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all. 592 00:42:24,035 --> 00:42:25,055 It's kind of wild. 593 00:42:26,215 --> 00:42:33,305 There's this new self that we put on and by putting on that new self, by being in Christ, by being united to him, 594 00:42:33,925 --> 00:42:42,224 these words are worth paying attention, we enter into a here, H E R E, which I take it to be like the church. 595 00:42:43,815 --> 00:42:54,485 Here in Christ amongst his people, we enter into this space in which our previous Ethnic identities, Gentile 596 00:42:54,485 --> 00:43:00,035 or Jew, religious identities, circumcised or uncircumcised, cultural identities, barbarian or Scythian, 597 00:43:00,255 --> 00:43:10,614 socioeconomic identity, slave or free, are all swept away here because Christ is all and is in all. 598 00:43:12,175 --> 00:43:18,200 But notice alongside that, there's a moral imperative, Descriptive language, it's a 599 00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:22,840 statement of what you are, not a chosen identity, but an identity that is given to you. 600 00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:33,220 But the moral imperatives involve a kind of acting out, a kind of dressing up, a cosplay, a form of what C. 601 00:43:33,229 --> 00:43:33,309 S. 602 00:43:33,309 --> 00:43:36,070 Lewis calls in mere Christianity, let's pretend. 603 00:43:37,020 --> 00:43:43,050 Which is kind of a dissonant language in the age of authenticity, but I think here, part of the form of the moral life, 604 00:43:43,270 --> 00:43:53,440 part of the way you find your identity in Christ is not to be drawn on an inner journey, but to cosplay an identity 605 00:43:53,569 --> 00:44:00,780 that has been received as being, or at least giving a crack at being compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, and patient. 606 00:44:02,370 --> 00:44:02,970 That's different. 607 00:44:03,780 --> 00:44:11,070 The modern construction of self discovery involves spontaneity, its interior and inward. 608 00:44:11,720 --> 00:44:18,850 Directed, but this form of identifying with Christ and in him has much more space for putting on, trying out. 609 00:44:19,370 --> 00:44:21,650 It's got a kind of a moral rote learning. 610 00:44:22,699 --> 00:44:32,369 It sounds more like the kind of humble inauthenticity that comes at least in the early stages, as you try to learn a new language and your face 611 00:44:32,370 --> 00:44:40,090 has got that kind of pensive look as you try to conjugate the verb and worry that you've said a word that might either mean mum or you're dead. 612 00:44:40,325 --> 00:44:50,855 To me, or it's like learning a new dance in which you're awkwardly not indwelling the form because you're thinking 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. 613 00:44:51,335 --> 00:45:02,635 As you look inauthentic ahead of anything becoming really natural and notice the way that the new Testament owns the formative power of community. 614 00:45:02,835 --> 00:45:08,175 I think in the Bible, the community of the church is not the fruit. 615 00:45:08,620 --> 00:45:16,290 The reward you get at the end of self discovery that happened in isolation, but it is itself 616 00:45:16,610 --> 00:45:21,560 the source and the, to use a modern word, lived experience of working your way into Christ. 617 00:45:22,450 --> 00:45:25,280 I've been part of a community where you see in others. 618 00:45:25,715 --> 00:45:26,855 What you're meant to be. 619 00:45:26,895 --> 00:45:31,825 And this is where the Bible does things that we find embarrassing, such as inviting imitation. 620 00:45:33,015 --> 00:45:36,335 To say to Christian leaders, one thing you could do is be more like them. 621 00:45:37,075 --> 00:45:46,565 Imitate them to be part of a community where you can mimic one another, where you can get together, like in a language course and practice, not lying. 622 00:45:46,785 --> 00:45:50,625 Let's give that a crack to be in a community where you have a go at forgiving 623 00:45:50,625 --> 00:45:55,235 each other and teaching and admonish one another and often by wrote and against. 624 00:45:55,700 --> 00:46:04,380 Instincts, practice receiving one another across cultural and economic barriers as fellow selves in Christ. 625 00:46:05,860 --> 00:46:15,300 And notice finally, the conservative force of creation alongside the newness and radicalism of the new creation in Christ. 626 00:46:16,259 --> 00:46:20,670 Sometimes we speak about identity is cut from whole cloth, this kind of year zero approach. 627 00:46:20,905 --> 00:46:26,145 Where the before and after of life in Christ is dramatic, where we come from a kind 628 00:46:26,145 --> 00:46:33,485 of Rousseau's jungle, a kind of blank canvas on which Christ imprints a new identity. 629 00:46:34,385 --> 00:46:38,444 And certainly here, there is no Jew or Gentile circumcised or uncircumcised. 630 00:46:38,815 --> 00:46:46,635 Because we have been overwhelmed in Christ and yet from verse 17, there are in Christ, husbands and wives and 631 00:46:46,635 --> 00:46:53,745 fathers and children and masters and servants, pre existing realities that get dragged into this new situation 632 00:46:54,165 --> 00:47:04,405 and continue to exert their obligations and duties on us, even though, and because we have been united to Christ. 633 00:47:05,485 --> 00:47:11,985 And I think the tell here is the language of being renewed in the image of our creator, which is both 634 00:47:11,985 --> 00:47:20,455 radical newness, but also harking back to our original purpose of bearing the image of God in the world. 635 00:47:21,615 --> 00:47:29,755 Matthew Anderson argues in a 2012 essay that we might be better served by the more concrete language of the New Testament. 636 00:47:31,425 --> 00:47:37,105 Finding your identity in Christ, I think that is essentially true, but it's a kind of abstraction. 637 00:47:38,035 --> 00:47:39,645 The question is, how do you do that? 638 00:47:40,804 --> 00:47:44,805 And you do that in the concrete, not by being identified as a Christian or identified 639 00:47:44,805 --> 00:47:50,215 in Christ, but by, try this on, being a disciple of Christ, a child of God. 640 00:47:50,905 --> 00:47:58,335 A brother or sister within the community or in the traditional baptismal liturgy, a soldier of Christ Jesus. 641 00:47:59,275 --> 00:48:04,895 These sources of the new self bring with them the duties and obligations. 642 00:48:05,054 --> 00:48:10,914 I think without which we will never be truly and authentically those who have been found in Christ. 643 00:48:17,274 --> 00:48:17,624 Brilliant. 644 00:48:17,754 --> 00:48:18,624 Thank you very much, Rory. 645 00:48:18,674 --> 00:48:20,545 Just a few announcements. 646 00:48:21,255 --> 00:48:26,325 The podcast comes out every couple of weeks, various issues, interviews. 647 00:48:26,735 --> 00:48:28,465 You might find that helpful. 648 00:48:28,905 --> 00:48:31,985 There's also on the CCL website, a podcast survey. 649 00:48:31,985 --> 00:48:39,995 So if you listen to the podcast, again, we would love to have your input on how we can improve the podcast. 650 00:48:40,405 --> 00:48:47,265 We would love it if you'd prayerfully consider making a donation to fund the Centre for Christian Living, which has helped us with our overheads. 651 00:48:48,105 --> 00:48:51,075 Can you join me in thanking Rory for his time tonight? 652 00:48:51,125 --> 00:48:51,665 Thank you, Rory. 653 00:48:57,675 --> 00:49:00,605 Why don't I close our evening in prayer. 654 00:49:00,715 --> 00:49:05,145 Oh father, we thank you so much for Rory's hard work in preparing this evening and 655 00:49:05,154 --> 00:49:10,225 stimulating us, helping us, pointing us to your words, helping us to think about who we are. 656 00:49:10,675 --> 00:49:21,414 And Father, we do pray that you would continue to give us clarity, help us to think about ourselves truly, honestly, in light of you and your 657 00:49:21,415 --> 00:49:31,645 word, and help us as we minister to others to help them to think about themselves truly and honestly in light of your word and in light of Christ. 658 00:49:31,815 --> 00:49:32,955 And we ask it in his name. 659 00:49:33,305 --> 00:49:33,625 Amen. 660 00:49:48,515 --> 00:49:54,510 To benefit from more resources from the Centre for Christian Living, please visit ccL. 661 00:49:54,540 --> 00:49:54,960 moore. 662 00:49:55,370 --> 00:49:56,050 edu. 663 00:49:56,690 --> 00:50:05,060 au, where you'll find a host of resources, including past podcast episodes, videos from our live events, and articles published through the Centre. 664 00:50:05,650 --> 00:50:11,380 We'd love for you to subscribe to our podcast and for you to leave us a review so that more people can discover our resources. 665 00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:18,540 On our website, we also have an opportunity for you to make a tax deductible donation to support the ongoing work of the centre. 666 00:50:19,170 --> 00:50:29,220 We always benefit from receiving questions and feedback from our listeners, so if you'd like to get in touch, you can email us at ccl@moore.edu.au. 667 00:50:29,790 --> 00:50:33,720 As always, I'd like to thank Moore College for its support of the Centre for Christian Living 668 00:50:34,230 --> 00:50:40,050 and to thank my assistant Karen Beilharz for her work in editing and transcribing the episodes. 669 00:50:40,490 --> 00:50:44,630 The music for our podcast was generously provided by James West.