What was most useful which I clearly and sadly often neglect is “since you didn’t counter it with any mention of people’s good underlying, heart’s intention,” which I actually fully agree with.

The reason I’m still in UBF because I also believe this to be very true: “though they may have been misled to think that using social pressures is okay, i find many people just want to be used by God for the salvation of souls and development of Jesus’ disciples.”

Though at times I feel shy to show my identity in Christ, slowly but surely I am letting the faith overflow within me. I hope people seek their ways through God. This article is refreshing :)

Most youth of this generation has identity crisis. Many are lost, miserable, vain and broken. They cannot find meaning in life, even those who are born in a christian family. Truly, we have to find our identity in Christ Jesus alone, we are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Our identity is not our past, not our great sins, and definitely not what we do, but what Jesus Christ has done for us.

“Ye’ll understand there are innumerable forms of this choice…there was a creature not long ago and went back [to hell]- Sir Archibald they called him. In his earthly life he’d been interested in nothing but survival. He’d written a whole shelf full of books about him…This country was no use to him at all. Everyone here had ‘survived’ already. Nobody took the least interest in the question. There was nothing more to prove.
‘How fantastic!’ said I.
‘Do ye think so?’ said the Teacher with a piercing glance. ‘It nearer to such as you than ye thing. There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself…as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity they never gave a thought to Christ. Man! Ye see it in smaller matters. Did ye ever known a lover of books with all his first editions and signed copies had lost the power to read them?…It is the subtlest of all the snares.”

In college I roomed with an atheist and I spent a lot of my time arguing. I became pretty good at it, and get phone calls from time to time on the issue. But when I read this I realized that I have been putting more into the idea of proving God, not so much into He Himself. Perhaps it is because I have doubted his existence for most of my life, and it was simply that I could not have loved him with those doubts present. Whatever the reason, it is a sin- a very subtle sin. It is the sin of a good thing gone wrong. “Lilies that fester smell worse than weeds.” It is a good thing to witness to others and testify to God’s existence, but it bad to make the end of my walk with Christ.

– participate in 2 cohort groups (JA and my local church)
– take numerous personality tests, such as Strength Finders
– create an “about.me” page, about me.
– begin a book writing project to tell my narratives
– let myself do anything I want to find out what I like and don’t like

Yes Joe, that is a perfect description of my journey. I started out throwing off everything that was entangling me. And then I began searching for validity and accountability. I found those things, and so I’m not inclined to keep adding articles to my personal blog, which embodies my now deceases prior identity of “Shepherd Brian” which was an identity built on the “priestly nation” ideology. That identity and that ideology is now dead.

Now my journey has moved on to two new things:

1) I seek connection with orthodox Christianity, and right now pope Francis is my window to see the authentic Jesus.

2) I seek connection to my authentic self, the self who experienced a calling to be a priest at age 16, and the “me” who God created.

This Lent is a season for both of those connections

My first comment your article is to say that you express what I was attempting to communicate in our law/grace discussions: “Danaher explains how many Christians (and Pharisees) view sin as doing something bad, such as breaking the Ten Commandments. But their sin is ultimately in finding their identity in something else other than Christ.”

I don’t advocate lawlessness. I do advocate a deeper understanding and articulation of sin. Danaher does this far more eloquently than I ever could.

Over the last few years, I’ve become acutely aware of my need to root my identity in Christ alone. I am guilty of all the bad things you mentioned. The problem has been identified. Now I want to look for positive ways to put off the false identities and accept my true identity in Christ.

One thing I am learning is that this is not merely a personal exercise. If I just pursue this on my own, I am doomed to fail, because much of this false-identity syndrome happens at the level of one’s group or tribe. It is not simply an individual sin, but a corporate sin. Tribalism gets encoded in a community’s DNA, and there is very little that one individual can do by himself to change that. We need the Spirit of God to redeem our relationships, to assemble us into a new kind of human community, a living temple with Christ Jesus as the chief cornerstone. This is a journey that God’s people must take together. Unfortunately, there are not many Christians who seem willing to embark on that journey; most would rather stay within the comfy boundaries of their own tribe and continue to bolster their collective ego at others’ expense.