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When authenticity becomes an idol
Because American evangelicalism often sees trends in what churches go after, it’s not uncommon to see common themes emerge in a cultural sense. One of the interesting things in working with so many churches is getting to see those themes up close and personal.
For instance, a decade ago, there was a massive theme of COMMUNITY. You couldn’t go to an evangelical church without hearing something about the desperate need for community, whether it was a sermon or a call for everyone to join small groups, etc. Community, community, community.
But somewhere along the way, community seemed to become the end in and of itself. Not what community would get us to.
And now, it seems, perhaps, that AUTHENTICITY is the new thing. Again. Not a bad thing. Authenticity is great. But we always want to know what the point is, right? Where is authenticity meant to lead us?
Here’s what I mean.
The call for authenticity is a call to being yourself, being transparent, the call not to put on a shiny mask or veneer around the junk in your life. Just be honest about who you are and what you’re struggling with with people that you trust. But sometimes we make the GOOD thing of authenticity a GREAT thing. And as Tim Keller would put it, when we make a good thing a great thing, we’ve turned it into an idol.
Authenticity isn’t the end goal. Discipleship, the process of becoming like Jesus, is the end game. We find that authenticity is key in the discipling process and that we become more authentic the more we become like Jesus. But the point is discipleship, not authenticity.
So what does it look like when we see authenticity move from a good thing to a great thing?
At least in my experience, I’ve seen people who are actually inauthentic in one part of their life when they make authenticity the “great thing”…the place where God is actually breaking in, bringing healing and amazing things are happening. What slowly happens is because there has been so much emphasis on being authentic, it becomes code for something else: Be open about the junk in your life, but we may not trust the good stuff you say is happening.
Why?
Because the call to arms for authenticity is usually a reaction to people in the church putting on the shiny veneer of “everything is perfect in my life, everything is good.” So when people actually do share about good things happening in their life, there seems to be an inherent distrust of this. People worry that it smacks of the shiny/happy Christian that people don’t necessarily trust.
So what happens?
We tend to share the junk happening, but feel more than slightly uncomfortable sharing where God is breaking in, healing and bringing resurrection in our life.
It’s so important to embrace authenticity, but to not do so in a reactive way, right? We don’t want to jump from ditch to ditch. In one ditch, you have people putting on the shiny, happy, uber-Christian face and covering up the junk. But in the other ditch is only sharing the junk and never feeling terribly open about sharing where God is breaking in.
We must continue to live in the tension of the middle. Being authentic, but realizing that authenticity is part of the bigger picture of discipleship where we are allowing God to break in and change us as we continue to be open to people that we trust and allow into the mess of our brokeness.
Once again, we see the tension of living in the paradox of the Kingdom of God.
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4 Responses to When authenticity becomes an idol
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So, I’ve said, recently, to those who are GUNG HO about the “post-modern” church “relevancy” movement…that if you become “relevant” to a sinful world…are you not at risk of being sinful? I think you have to have “ground rules” on relevancy, that you need to establish, to make sure you are still living IN the world and not becoming OF the world…which is basically what you are saying. Still, a good watchword for us all! Thanks!
My friends in AA have a protocol for authentic sharing that avoids the ditch to ditch approach, which I think is relevant to a discipleship culture. When a recovered alcoholic shares, it is along the lines of experience, strength, and hope. i.e. “My experiences was . . . (this is the messy side of “authentic,” such that the newcomer can identify with it), but I took action . . . (this corresponds to working the steps, or, in a discipling culture, the learning circle-a changed way of thinking resulting in faithful action), and the result . . . (there is hope for the newcomer that things can change for me because things changed in this case).”
Good stuff! John Wimber would say that living in the “Radical Middle” is the place of maturity and becoming like Jesus. Thanks!
I can’t help but wonder if there’s more to the correlation of Community to Authenticity. As there was a greater push for community, and small groups, etc; what do you do when you find that you have what can easily be labeled a community, but lacks that real ‘sense’ of community? When people begin to get bored and see that many of these communities are lacking in… you guessed it, authenticity. I can see how there probably was an assumption that focusing on community would create authentic community, but if it wasn’t a naturally happening thing, then it does make sense for it to be the next ‘thing’, the next step.
I like your message in this. We should always have a next step. As people, as communities, as a Body we should be stepping, going, moving, fruiting; our mission is to happen ‘as we’re going’. Your words are, as is often the case, quite timely for me.
Lately I’ve been processing the difference between reaction and response. If we’re only ever reacting, our reactions, our jumping from ditch to ditch will become our object of worship by simply demanding and hoarding all of our attention and by stifling our message.
Great work again, Doug! I always love your ability to teach what Dad is leading you in.