YES, IT'S STILL iDENTITY POLITICS WHEN YOU DO IT:

Undermining biological realities and legitimate callings.

One of the dangers of "identity" is to pit the body against the self. Like the Gnostics of old, modern critical scholars like Simone de Beauvoir view of the body as "something to be overcome" through technology rather than something good and God-given to be embraced.

In contrast, Christianity has always offered a middle ground between absolutizing the body and dismissing the body. On the one hand, Galatians 3:27-28 relativizes our this-worldly situatedness as less important than our union with Christ ("You are all one in Christ"). On the other hand, 1 Corinthians 7:17 teaches each person is assigned a particular place to live, a gender, and set of life circumstances to steward faithfully rather than flee: "let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him."

Since "identity" tends to be used as a vacuous category, it places a premium on choice through the negation of other identities such as man, brother, father, and son. Thus "identity in Christ" is often used to wrongly undermine legitimate biblical callings, such as gender and nationality. Scripture teaches that we are born into relationships of mutual obligation, as sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers, regardless of our personal choices. To insist, "I'm not American because my identity is in Christ" ignores the boundary lines of geography and time that God has allotted for us (Acts 17:26) and calls good (Ps. 16:6). To say, "I'm a stay-at-home mom but I identify as a creative writer and thinker" downplays the legitimacy of motherhood as a divinely sanctioned vocation (Gen. 3:20; Titus 2:4-5).

If identity is chosen, what place is there for any other obligation than being faithful to yourself? In contrast, Scripture teaches that we are embedded in given relationships of mutual obligation to faithfully steward and embrace.

Preaching a therapeutic gospel

The modern use of identity as dignity catechizes us to seek recognition and see the self's sense of worth as the primary goal worth pursuing. As Carl Trueman explains in his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, "The question of identity in the modern world is a question of dignity."[15]

But rather than starting with God's glory and holiness, the contemporary "therapeutic gospel" often makes God a servant of man's sense of well-being and Christ's atonement primarily a statement of man's worth and loveliness.

This is one of the dangers of the baptismal testimony that says, "I used to find my identity in sports" but I now find my identity in Christ." To modern ears there is nothing scandalous, objectionable, or surprising about such a personal narrative. It fits the modern mold of life as a quest for personal fulfillment and self-discovery, and is most likely to earn the condescending encomium, "Good for you!" That leads straight into the third danger.

Subjectivizing faith as feeling rather than objective reality

To say that "I now find my identity in Christ" falls into the trap of reducing morality to feelings and emotions. Following Alasdair McIntyre, Trueman discusses how "emotivism presents preferences as if they were truth claims."[16] But the Bible always talks about our position (to use a theological term) in objective rather than subjective terms. When Paul wants to emphasize who the Corinthians are, he tells them, "you are not your own" (1 Corinthians 6:19). And because reality is given or assigned, it places obligations on us: "you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body" (v. 20).

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