Identity Theft

For the past year or so, I have been growing more and more disgusted with the westernized church. In that time frame, my negative experiences with professing Christians have far outnumbered the positive ones. There are many problems plaguing the western church, and I will write about them as G-d gives me the words. The problem I want to talk about right now is identity theft.

No, I'm not talking about credit card theft. I'm talking about spiritual identity theft. For most of my Christian life, I have wanted to throw up whenever someone told me I needed to “get rooted in my identity in Christ.” I always thought that was because I was battling spiritual warfare, and once I got through that, I would find my identity in Christ and we'd all live happily ever after. I soon realized, however, that my problem was not that I didn't know who I was in Christ. My problem was that many of my fellow believers thought my identity belonged to them. “Getting rooted in my identity in Christ” was usually a euphemism for “Attend this group you don't have time or energy for. Take on this service project even if it makes you dead tired. Read this book. If you don't want/can't afford said book right now, I will question your salvation and your desire to know G-d.” As I've become progressively Messianic in my spirituality, “You need to get rooted in your identity in Christ” has become a euphemism for, “If you knew who you were in Christ, you wouldn't be so obsessed with Judaism.”

Spiritual identity theft is growing for a number of reasons. A big reason is fear. I see more fear inside the church than outside it these days. Christians simply don't trust anymore. We've become so afraid of sin that we think the only way to get a handle on it is to take away everyone else's free will and individuality. Another reason that kind of goes along with that is negativity. Christians focus more on what not to do than on what to do. And this hyper-focus on negativity is leading to micro-managing other people's spiritual lives in areas that might not be as simple and black-and white as we'd like to believe.

There are certainly times to ask for and give advice. But we need to give advice without snatching people's dignity. When people give us advice, we need to filter it through Scripture and the Holy Spirit and discern how to apply that advice in a way that works for our lives and our true, G-d-given identities. We need to approach the subject of identity in such a way that we do not commit identity theft.