The Idolatry of Identity

We tend to identify with what is right with us.

Or we tend to identify with what is wrong with us.

Or, some of us are like a ping-pong ball being paddled back and forth between the two: I am bad, I am good, I am bad, I am good.

Various theologies of spiritually tend to identify us with what is wrong: human beings are bad. You are bad. You are totally bad.

For many Christian theologies, our identity as bad people is the reason why we need Jesus. For example, you need your badness to be transferred to someone else.

But.

Is this a truly transformative theology? I mean, humility is important. I understand this. But, is such a negative identity theology truly transformative over the long haul?

On the other side, some theologies (whether religious, New Age, or other) tend to identify us with what is good about ourselves. Actually, truth be told, the Apostle Paul does a good deal of this in his epistles. He talks more about believers identifying themselves as saints, holy, righteous, chosen, loved, etc. than about an identity based on badness. In fact, it is almost to the point that the very definition of a believer is one who believes that he or she is a "new creation."

I think there is something to this, in terms of transformation, but is there something even deeper?

James Finley talks about identifying with what is wrong or right about us. He calls it the “idolatry of identity.”

What we are, says Finley, is “that which arises from a longing for infinite love. Children of infinite love, trapped in the rubble. The illusion is believing that our circumstances define us.”

Finley is in practice as a psychotherapist, working primarily with victims of trauma. He discusses from a therapeutic/counseling perspective the healing and transformation that comes through loving compassion: “always the answer is to touch the hurting part with infinite love.”