by Fr Gabriel-Allan Boyd
More than a few times, I’ve had various parts of my life stolen. My email was once hacked, my FaceBook account was broken into, and worse, my credit and debit cards have been hacked. In each case, someone pretended to be me, and used my identity to hassle me, or fulfill some personal mission, or to help themselves to my bank account.
At some point...in some way, most of us have had our identity stolen by someone else. And it’s an incredibly frustrating experience for us because, when we have our identities stolen, of course, it creates chaos in our life. Not only do we have to go through the process of getting new cards and getting new passwords, but sometimes, the person who stole our identity has taken over parts of our lives, being sly enough to have our account statements mailed elsewhere, and taking control of our lives. After a certain point, it can even be difficult to prove you are who you say you are.
It turns out that, for someone who knows how to game the system, stealing your identity and bringing chaos into your life isn’t all that hard to do. They only need to poach little parts of the data that represent your life, a photo, a birth date, your social security number, your credit card number, etc... With just a few little parts of that representative code, it’s a somewhat simple matter for them to make themselves look like you and plunder your life.
The same is true of Christians. When identity groups know how to game the system, with just a few parts of the code that represent what Christianity looks like, it’s a simple matter to steal the Christian identity...to make us think that this is obviously a necessary part of what a Christian looks like. This pattern goes back to the beginning.
Think about this for a moment. Go all the way back to back in the Garden of Eden. God created man & woman in His image toward His likeness. God’s full intention was always to give us, as His children, every blessing to help us grow into His likeness—to become like God—to give us the best of Himself. In fact, that’s what it means to be human and to have life...to grow in God’s likeness. And God warned Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and evil, because eating from it will bring about their death (Genesis 2:17). That warning is similar to how we might warn our own toddlers not to touch the stove, or not to put a fork into an electrical socket. Of course, we want our child to someday learn how to learn to cook on the stove and learn the proper way to use electricity...but, those things are far too dangerous for a toddler to mess with. Nevertheless, Satan has the goal of dehumanizing us and destroying our lives. So, taking a piece of God’s data, Satan hijacked it to steal Adam & Eve’s identity in God...and he shifted that identity into something that he could plunder for himself. The crafty serpent stole the original piece of the code about what Adam & Eve were created for...and God’s instruction, forbidding them to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And notice carefully that the main strategy the serpent uses is to put them into the role of victim. “Oh, you’re not going to die” (he lies...insinuating that God is lying). God is trying to keep you from seeing what He sees. God just wants to keep you from becoming like Him” (Genesis 3:4). Using just a piece of the code of what it meant to be human, the devil used the tool of victim mentality, to plunder every blessing that God had intended for them. And we know the rest of the story. Eve ate of that tree, then Adam ate of that tree, and it damaged not only their relationship with God, but also their family relationship, and their relationship with the rest of creation. The devil hacked their identity to make a perverse profit for himself.
That’s why is so important to recognize what’s happening to us in our current culture’s “identity-politics.” On the surface, identity-politics merely needs to borrow two or three small pieces of the code of Christian love, like the following ones: Of course, every Christian should love and care for people of other races and oppose any type of racism. We should love and care for people who see themselves as LGBTQ. We should love and care for poor immigrants seeking help. We should care about people who can’t get adequate and affordable healthcare. We should love and care for this beautiful planet we live on. We should defend the lives of unborn babies (who cannot fend for themselves). We should care about and give respect to the “Blue Lives” in our midst who bravely risk their own lives, protecting those who are targets of violent crime. We should care about the psychological, spiritual, and cultural harm that various types of sin do to our society. We should be invested in the fact that God has revealed ultimate truth to us, and we should care enough about others to insist that there be accountability for actions, because we all benefit from that. We can go on and on, identifying with endless issues (little pieces of Christian code) deserving of our love and concern…while at the same time we are being robbed of the greater nuance of identity, in what it means to be human.
There are three main problems with identity-politics that rob us of our true identity, making it so self-destructive,
The first problem is that identity-politics are entirely dependent upon maintaining a victim mentality. Remember, going all the way back to what the serpent did with Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden? Victim mentality is the first-choice demonic strategy for destroying humanity. It’s a powerfully seductive tool, used to keep us locked into a negative mindset of blame, entitlement, moral elitism, and selfishness, making us unadventurous—thinking that, since we have no power to change things, then the least amount of action should be utilized to improve our lot in life. A victim mentality leads to weakness, self-doubt, apathy, failure, timidity, depression, misery, poverty, sickness, ineptitude, shame, submission, and lethargy. It’s not a practice that reflects the mindset of an Orthodox Christian.
The second problem with identity-politics, is that it eats its own, ultimately proving its overall destructiveness to humanity. Its identities are perceived characteristics between a person and a group of persons...whether ethnic, racial, national, religious, cultural, gender-based, or sexual orientation. These identities enable a person to regard themselves as part of that group. These pertain to what a person believes about the totality about their self, their roles, and their perceived group...yet they’re ever-changing, capable of being constantly remolded into any number of forms and taken in any number of directions. Thus, there’s always some new fragment of identity, whereby ever smaller and more besieged minorities feel victimized by the rest, who must be punished, and from whom reparations must be taken.
The third and most significant thing is that identity-politics focuses upon identities that are far too small to sustain us throughout our lifetime...much less throughout eternity (Galatians 3: 26-28). And then, it’s an incredibly frustrating experience for us because, once we have our identities stolen, of course, it creates chaos in our life…and it’s all the more difficult to go through the hassle of getting our true identity back.
Remember, we were created in the image of God toward God’s likeness (Genesis 1:26), which brings us to this strange paradox: God is infinite...therefore we too are infinite in a limited way. In other words, to the degree that we participate in and allow ourselves to grow into (2 Corinthians 3:18) Christ-likeness, denying ourselves (Luke 9:23) and dying to ourselves daily (Galatians 2: 20), we too partake (2 Peter 1:3-4) of the infinite in God’s divine nature. But to the degree that we separate ourselves from the image of Christ into other identities we become all the more finite—limiting ourselves to the shallow and terminable.
Our true identity (that for which we were created) is the identity of being in Christ. When we take the unique qualities that God gave us and we fit them into Christ-likeness—dying to our own passions—only then can we become who we truly are. That timeless identity in Christ is the only one big enough and worthy enough and life-giving enough to sustain each of us through our lifetime and throughout eternity.