I've seen this around for a little while now. You get the idea, right? It's in the language of Hollywood -- of play acting -- where each person plays a part. "What will my part be? I'll do me. What about you? You do you." The point is "Be yourself ... and like it."
The idea now has a fancy term: "expressive individualism". Expressive individualism is the idea that each individual determines one's own identity, that living out that identity is good, and that everyone else ought to respect and affirm that identity. "Just be yourself." Because no matter what, "yourself" is a good thing. Like "born that way." "God made me this way; it must be good." They might even think, "If God made me this way and I don't live up to it, it would be an insult to God."
Along the same lines as "Follow your dream" and "Don't let anyone get in your way," this seems to me to be problematic as a principle. Jesus made it clear that sinful desires constituted sin (Matt 5:21-22, 27-28). If your individual expression is an expression of sinful desires, it wouldn't make sense to encourage and affirm people to express it. And, let's face it, we all suffer from sinful desires. We all have deceitful hearts (Jer 17:9). We all suffer from the problem of sin. So it seems patently obvious to me that expressing that identity would not be a good idea and encouraging others to do so would not be loving. And encouraging others to
Of course, it's not something that will go over well in our culture. What started (badly) as "if it feels good do it" has become "expressive individualism", where the ultimate good is to just be yourself. "You do you." As if "you" is patently good simply because it is "you". We buy that, but not because it's right or reasonable. We buy it because most of us still suffer from the blindness of the god of this world (2 Cor 4:4). Which is why we desperately need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom 12:2).
6 comments:
It’s all so awesome, then someone steals your TV set.
Just re listening to some stuff a friend sang back in the day and this seems appropriate.
“The disease of self runs through my blood, it’s a cancer fatal to my soul.”
I just can't know what to do because the Bible isn't a rule book. There's no way to know what it means because it doesn't tell us what it is. Only progressives know.
And what's more, "I'll do me, you'll do you, until you do something I don't agree with."
Sorry about your TV, Danny.
Craig, you're friends with D.C. Talk?
Yeah, Marshal, maybe I should stop ... you know ... quoting Scripture like it's ... well ... understandable.
David, are you suggesting a double standard?
I’m friends with Michael, through his sister. She’s been a family friend for 30 years, and I’ve gotten to know him over the last couple of years. Just a great family.
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