Who are you? What is your identity?

Identity is a buzz-word in our time. For example, there’s a lot of talk about “identity theft”. This, of course, is when someone steals your numbers (e.g., social security, bank accounts, credit card accounts, etc.) in order to steal your stuff. “Identity theft” seems like an exaggeration to me. Is stealing your numbers really stealing your “identity”? I’m sure it feels that way to those who have been victims of this crime, but is “identity” something one can steal?

Psychiatrists and philosophers are debating issues of identity like no other time in history. What characteristics and qualities define a person’s identity? What factors influence who we are over time? There’s an entire science called “identity formation” that studies these things.

Seems like people everywhere are discussing things like gender identity, cultural identity and (one of my personal favorites) online identity. My favorite modern poet, Brad Paisley, wrote a song called “Online”. It paints a picture of how the “online identity” has invaded our world:

I work down at the Pizza Pit
And I drive an old Hyundai
I still live with my mom and dad
I’m 5 foot 3 and overweight
I’m a sci-fi fanatic
A mild asthmatic
And I’ve never been to second base
But there’s a whole ‘nother me
That you need to see
Go checkout MySpace

’Cause online I’m out in Hollywood
I’m 6 foot 5 and I look —- good
I drive a Maserati
I’m a black-belt in karate
And I love a good glass of wine
It turns girls on that I’m mysterious
I tell them I don’t want nothing serious
’Cause even on a slow day
I could have a three way
Chat with two women at one time
I’m so much cooler online
So much cooler online

Back to my original questions: Who are you? What is your identity? These are not only important questions for individuals. They’re important for churches.

The word identity comes from the Latin word that means “repeatedly”. It’s the idea of who you are “repeatedly”. Who you are over time, no matter what outside forces influence you. The dictionaries have several definitions for identity, but let me share my favorite:

“The sense of self, providing sameness and continuity in personality over time and sometimes disturbed in mental illnesses, as schizophrenia.”

In other words, our identity—our sense of self—is who we are “over time”. That can be blurred by such things as schizophrenia. Even churches can become schizophrenic. Churches find themselves in an anti-Christian culture and they become schizophrenic: trying to “be” what the Bible says a church is, and trying to “be” something to the culture around them that is more appealing. Less offensive. Pretty soon they don’t know who they are. They have no clear identity.

That’s why we’ve adopted certain labels—as a church—that nail down who we are. “Labels” is an unpopular concept these days, but labels can be good and helpful. Imagine walking into the soup aisle and finding no labels on the soup cans. You wouldn’t know what you were getting. I can hear it now, “Churches are not soup!” I agree. Churches are not soup—it’s just an illustration. But, the point is, we want you to know what you’re getting in Community Bible Church. We want to be clear. We want to be on the up-and-up. No bait and switch.

A lot of churches today are being very vague about what they believe. The reason is so that no one will pigeon-hole them and say, “Oh, you’re ‘that’ kind of Christian/church.” They don’t like being labeled so they avoid stating what they really believe. One church website I visited recently tells us, “We don’t want to be a brand church. We are a community of people seeking to follow Jesus in faith and freedom.” I’m sure these brothers and sisters have good intentions, but you can’t not be a “brand” of church. In fact, brandless is a brand. They’re a non-brand church. In 20 years, we’ll probably see it posted on church signs: “First Brandless Church of Lawrence.” But, that same church calls themselves “orthodox”. That’s a brand (as opposed to neo-orthodox or liberal, etc.). You can’t truly be brandless.

In reality, if you believe anything, you are “branded” by that belief. You can try to hide that in order to “bait” people into your church for a while. But, eventually you’ll have to pull the “switch” and say, “Surprise! Actually, we believe ___.”

To try to be brandless is really not Christian at all. It is saying, “We don’t really believe anything except you can’t know anything for sure. Let’s discuss philosophical ideas about truth; let’s be ‘a community in theological dialogue with the past and the present’ but let’s not label something as absolutely true or else we’ll be branded as such-and-such kind of Christian/church.” That’s the post-modern mind—not the Christian mind.

We are followers of One who claimed to be the Way, the Truth and the Life. The One who claimed to be the Only Door to God. The Only Source of eternal life. We have a message to proclaim to the world. The good news for the postmodern world is that yes, indeed, there is truth you can know!

“Brands” or labels or statements of belief (whatever you want to call them) are merely tools for proclaiming our message. They are not to be feared. In a sense, they are to be embraced—if they are clearly understood.

That’s what this series of blogs is going to be about. As Christians, we have an identity. We want you to understand who we are. What we have to say to the world. We believe it is a matter of life and death—no exaggeration whatsoever! We don’t want you to label us just for the sake of labeling us. If you stick a label on us then hopefully that label will be accurate—an informed description of who we really are. But if you stick a label on us that is inaccurate that’s a problem. Either we’ve failed to communicate clearly or you haven’t listened carefully. We can’t do much about the latter. But we can do something about the former. We can try to be clear.

You’ve probably heard some of the more common labels that would describe us: BibleChurch. Conservative. Evangelical. Maybe you’re wondering: Are you reformed? Are you Dispensational? Are you orthodox? Denominational? Ecumenical? Some other questions are not as easily defined by a label: What do you believe about spiritual gifts? What are your ideas about worship? Who leads your church? What exactly is the gospel?

Maybe your question is, “Who cares?!”

Hopefully you’ll return to read future posts. Hopefully I’ll be clear in communicating why I think you should care. Hopefully you’ll find this “theological dialogue with the past and present” also helpful for your future.