If you've grown up in America--or even if you've just had America imported to you via media and pop culture--the air you breathe with respect to identity and purpose is something along the lines of "be who you want to be," "follow your dreams," "find yourself," "don't let anyone get in the way of your dreams."
Every Disney movie ever has this sort of message. Take Frozen and its triumphant anthem known word-for-word by millions of girls all over the world: It's time to see what I can do, to test the limits and break through. No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free!
Or consider this similar anthem from The Sound of Music:
Climb every mountain, Ford every stream, Follow every rainbow, 'Till you find your dream.
These songs are symptomatic of the supposedly encouraging, empowering, freeing grid of identity-formation which has been imposed upon us by Hollywood and western pop culture. It's a way of thinking that insists that identity is something only we, individually, can construct and govern. But is this really as freeing as it sounds?
In the Tim Keller sermon embedded below, the pastor/author/theologian suggests that any notion of self-made or self-justified identity is really a crushing burden. It may sound like freedom to "see what I can do, to test the limits and break through." Yet if that's the case, our worth and success and value rest completely on our achievement, and then on others' seeing our achievement and valuing it. But that always fails us.
Christianity, says Keller, is the only identity that is received, not achieved. Our identity in Jesus Christ means that our existence is valuable and justified not based on our performance, but based on His.
Keller really nails the zeitgeist in this sermon, which he spoke at an event in Los Angeles, a city which more than any other embodies and perpetuates the "follow your dreams," "be who you want to be" value system.
I strongly suggest that you share this video with anyone you know who may be struggling with the burden of self-justification and self-made identity. Not only does it clearly and compellingly present the gospel, but it makes sense of where we are in this cultural moment and why the issue of identity (even sexual identity) is so confusing and yet critical. Watch it here:
[embed]https://youtu.be/4oTR9HTEckg[/embed]