Authenticity? Some thoughts from 1/26/04 discussion group

We had a lively discussion starting with reality tv and getting into the issue of authenticity.  It got me thinking and jotted down some thoughts. 

Some Thoughts On ?Authenticity In Our Time:  Reflections Upon Our Discussion At The RUF Open Forum Discussion Group 1/26/2004 by Kevin Twit

• Authenticity is most definitely a buzzword and an aching desire for many many people.  You see it in the clothes, the music and popular culture, the cynicism about politicians and most authority figures.  It is the search for the elusive holy grail of our age.
• Yet, it is a difficult concept to define.  Most people are content with a very vague notion of it, they seem to believe they will know it when they see it, but are hard pressed to define it more precisely.  They know they are looking for something, seem to trust they will intuitively recognize it, but mostly seem to be able to spot the lack of it more easily than to define what authenticity truly is.
• Some try to argue that everyone is authentic.  They argue (in an existential manner) that whatever you do, it is you doing it.  Thus you can?t help but be authentic because you are who you are. 
• Yet I don?t think this is really adequate.  I think most people mean something more than just doing what you want to do at the moment.  In fact, I think the desire for authenticity implies a sense of responsibility to some sort of design ? are we true to what we?ve been made for.  Discussions of authenticity imply we believe that there is some standard, something we must be true to.  Christianity says we were made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever and to fail to live in this kind of freedom is to fail to be authentic.  And while some would argue we must be true merely to our genetic make-up and sociological conditioning I think most would argue (ala John Mayer) that we are ?bigger than our bodies give us credit for? or as Francis Schaeffer put it, we are more than just a mass of pink protoplasm that responds to stimuli.  The artists and the poets know this, the rest of us go back and forth between hoping this is so and fearing it is so.
• When we begin to seriously discuss authenticity, we soon discover that we can?t get very far without talking about being authentic to something.  Even if we think it is being true to our genetic make-up or our choices, authenticity is connected to something or else we are back to the existential nonsense that we can?t help but be authentic no matter what we do.  But when people praise authenticity (or more typically, condemn the lack of it) they mean more than people just being.
• My contention is that authenticity is a cry for transcendence and a cry for community.  We want to be part of something bigger and we want to know why we are hear and what it?s all for.  We are looking for people with courage to be true to something bigger than just their temporal wants and lusts.  It is a cry as well to find someone or something that will remain true and not let us down.  We fear disappointment at an epidemic level.
• But why is this quest for authenticity so intense in our day?  While the question of authenticity is a perennial one since it is really just another way to ask ?Why am I here?  What is man for??  In our day the question has grown in intensity to being the defining issue of many young people.  (Perhaps this is because the advertisers and media hype this to sell us stuff, but I don?t think that?s the whole story.)
• I think we are seeing the failure of modern Enlightenment philosophy ? trying to find the true inner self defined apart from anyone else except the autonomous individual.  This is a dead-end because the autonomous individual does not exist in reality ? no one is immune from influences and the attempt to remove all bias and be purely objective is a dead-end.  The postmodernists have shown at least this much.
• But, Postmodern definitions of man in terms merely of his tribe are reductionism as well.  In contrast to both of these worldviews, Christianity proclaims that man is both made for community (and thus he can never define himself in an autonomous manner) and an individual created by God.  We are more than just a product of our genetics and social influences.  The cry for authenticity is part of this more.

• Perhaps it is helpful to consider Jesus as the true authentic person.  His friends described him as ?full of grace and truth? (John 1) and He described Himself as the way, the truth, and the life.  He said it was his meat and drink to do the will of His Father.  Jesus was the most free and the most compelled person who ever lived.  He had the courage and wisdom to be true in every situation.  Sometimes calling religious oppressors white-washed tombs, sometimes eating with the outcasts and despised ones of His day who always felt free to linger in his presence.  He was fully in touch with His emotions too ? raging at death by the tomb of his friend Lazarus, being sorrowful unto death as He contemplated the horror of the cross but submitting to it out of love, even while crying out ?why??
• Seeing Jesus? authenticity, humbles me and makes me bold.  It humbles me because I realize how poorly my life shows the world what Jesus is really like.  I mourn my timidity and lack of sensitivity in particular.  I long for people to taste what Jesus is truly like, full of grace and truth, whenever they relate with me.  But such is too rarely the case.  But, when I see Jesus? authenticity it makes me bold too.  I know that His promises are true ? that His character stands behind them and thus when He says all who come to Him will never be cast off ? I can really believe it and put all my weight on it!  And seeing the cross, and pondering how He refused to take the easy way out because of His love for His people, gives me incredible courage.  If He didn?t desert me then, He never will.  We can be sure of that. 
• Ultimately, it is the bad news and the good news of the gospel that sets us free to be authentic people.  The gospel says we really are worse than we think ? that we deserved what Jesus got on the cross ? death and hell.  So why are we so afraid to let people see that we are real sinners and broken people.  To claim the name Christian is to proclaim that we deserved the kind of death Jesus took for us!  Who do we think we are fooling when we try to put on a ?everything is fine? face?  Jesus didn?t just die to save us from our inauthenticity, he came to make us authentic people!  But the good news of the gospel makes us authentic too.  If what the Bible says is true, we already have everything we need in Jesus and thus we don?t need to lie or cheat or steal to get anything!  If we have the secure love of Jesus - we don?t need to try to manipulate other people into loving us in the way that only He can.  Most of our struggles with authenticity personally come from fear of being exposed or of not getting something we feel we need to survive.  But the cross delivers us from both of these traps.
• So, why do Christians so rarely live authentic lives?  We must be bold to say that many Christians do a terrible job of living this stuff out.  Why?  For too many, there is a failure to understand and appropriate the gospel as something which continues to function to free them from the traps of fear and pride and lust.  For others, they have fallen victim to the tragedy of a Christianity (so-called) that encourages hiding instead of coming into the light and the freedom of repentance, that encourages blind unthinking obedience (legalism) rather than honest wrestling with the difficulty of living as an authentic follower of Jesus in our day.  To do so requires thinking and courage ? thus it requires mind and character shaped by the Word, the sacraments, and prayer.