Oppression is the Flower. Flawed Identity is the Root

Unpacking the Source of both Cultural and Personal Crises and Offering a Path Forward

“Herr Hitler is a terribly frightened man.” That’s what Martin Niemoller, a German pastor, said after meeting him in 1933.

Yes. And so are all leaders with a lust for power and authoritarian rule. You will find these leaders everywhere: in politics, the church, business communities, and families. They’ll usually be men, for reasons I’ll get into sometime in the future. If you’ve seen ‘Wicked’ or ‘The Wizard of Oz’, or Rick Steve’s marvelous movie about the rise of Facism, you understand what I mean. Beneath the veil of bombast, there’s a weak little man, but he never let’s his weakness be seen (in the real world, such leaders don’t even allow themselves to see their own fear, insecurity, and lust for approval that drive both their rise to leadership and their strategy for keeping it).

They’ll always present as strong, confident, never in doubt of their views. To reinforce the popularity of their views, they build propaganda machines which weave some facts in with lots of fabrications, always with an eye to presenting the leader as all wise, all powerful, worthy not just of trust but praise.

Because opposition is punished thoroughly to an insecure leader is met met with threats, mocking, and retribution, other insecure leaders quickly conform, marching straight on the party line, and often silencing their conscience in the process. These conformists are also insecure. They’re not sure what they would do if the leader opposed them. They might fail to get re-elected so, ‘better to just go along’.

Surely we both know that insecurity among leaders resides on both sides of the political divide, so let’s get that out of the way. Right now, though, the leader is insecure enough that he seeks universal conformity (seeking to overturn, vilify, censor, and ignore the rulings of judges, watchdogs, and financial controllers). This is unprecedented in our lifetimes, and we need to know how to respond.

There’s good news embedded in this, though. Our response provides an opportunity for us to grow, and become more fully the people our Creator desires us to be: fully free, living creatively, graciously and with love, but always remaining aligned to our convictions and deepest values. Those living out from such a place are rich indeed, whether they have wealth or poverty, reside jail or a mansion. And what do all those people have? A rock solid identity!

Rooted and Grounded: The Primacy of Identity as a Source of Wisdom and Courage

When you look at resistance movements throughout history, in Germany, Rwanda, El Salvador, and the United States, especially the ones that were able to build something better on the far side of chaos and loss, you find that these movements were populated by people driven, not by rage regarding the present, but by both compassion for those oppressed and by a ‘Shalom-based’ vision for the future.

People who have a compassion and shalom based vision also, almost universally, have a deeply rooted internal confidence and sense of self. This is nothing like the bombast and boasting that is really a search for approval by the masses. Grounded leaders aren’t searching for approval and power. They don’t need it because their cup is already filled to overflowing. They know they’re loved, gifted, called to serve others.

They’re not kind of leaders who say “I am your retribution” when they gain power. They say, “Let’s move toward reconciliation”, as seen in the powerful book and movie “As We Forgive” about the Rwandan genocide and the subsequent reconciliation movement.

They don’t line their own pockets, and those of their rich friends. Realizing that the best way forward in any system (family, church, nation) is to look toward the health of all people, they lead with a vision for the well-being of everyone regardless of ethnicity or skin color, regardless of sexual orientation, regardless of physical ability or disability, regardless of political affiliations. They aren’t threatened by those who view the world differently. Why is this?

Secure People Value Diversity

Most of them understand, not intellectually, but at a core level, that they are loved infinitely by their Creator, and blessed with gifts which they’re called to freely share with others. But they also understand that they’re just one thread in the vast tapestry of their community, so they delight in empowering others and hearing their voices. And when they disagree, they don’t call the other person silly names, because they know that, in spite of disagreements, the other person also has value. They are confident enough to lay down their rhetorical weapons. They realize that just because someone opposes an idea of theirs, that doesn’t make them an enemy.

Secure People believe that there’s a core identity that is unshakeable by circumstances. They seek to live out from that unshakeable place

They’ve come to understand what one author expressed so well:

“Life is not a matter of creating a special name for ourselves, but of uncovering the name we have always had.” (Richard Rohr) They know that their truest, eternal identity isn’t earned through performance or the validation of others. It’s given freely by our Creator. They then spend their lives seeking to get the fears and insecurities of the ego out of the way so that the real light can shine through.

Secure People are Rare. Here’s why:

Our economy is built in fostering insecurity. All the advertising to which we’re subjected promises that we can bolster our sense of self through the car we drive, medications we take, clothes we wear, media we consume, skin products we use, exercise regimes we do, et al. Hidden in plain sight though, is the not subtle message that ‘we’re not there yet… not until we buy the next thing’ and this makes us feel insecure. Then, perhaps, we buy things, and feel a rush for a minute. But when the credit card bill comes we’re insecure again. “I don’t make enough.” We go to work and our performance review indicates more “not enough”…

Our family systems our broken

Many struggle with feeling unloved at home too because the relationships intended to foster intimacy and security are broken. Abuse, abandonment, infidelity, harsh words, performance orientation, praising accomplishments more than character traits; these are all ways we can shroud our deepest identity is a cloak of insecurity and fear of rejection. Lots of leaders who rose up to become authoritarian, whether they were running a household or a nation, had unhappy home lives as children.

I can also tell you that people with enough courage to challenge authoritarianism and stand against the stream, willing to risk loss of reputation and job, almost always grew up in an environment where they experienced not just love, but a strong measure, somewhere along the way, of unconditional love! This is the kind of love that fosters a strong enough sense of self to instill the courage to ‘do the right thing’ no matter the consequences.

If your family environment wasn’t that affirming, keep reading. There’s a way forward for you too.

Our faith communities are neglecting the primacy of identity

We go to church and perhaps come home thinking, “I don’t serve enough, pray enough, give enough. I’m not holy enough, pure enough.” Whether pastors intend it or not, the images we’ve too often portrayed for some people is that we need to do some certain things if we’re going to gain approval within the community. It’s a tacit way of saying that our value and acceptance in the community is predicated on conformity.

Summary statement: The breakdown is a failure at the root

Yes, we need to buy shoes, and perhaps a car, and choose this one or that. Yes, we need to show up at work and be diligent in working to achieve our goals. Yes, in any family system, whether nuclear family or church, there are certain behavior norms that are expected (“in our house, we don’t throw food” “in our church, we don’t denigrate immigrants”, etc). But such norms only remain acceptable when they foster the values of justice, shalom, beauty, truth, creativity, hope, and the dignity of all people. When the norms carried out by people in power move away from these values, there’s a need to resist. And, as we’ve seen throughout history, and in this present moment, resistance can be costly.

Here’s the secret. The ones who resist have what I call a bombproof identity. They know, at the very core of their being, that they’re loved unconditionally, forgiven preemptively for their failures, and have at their disposal an internal power source that enables them to live with integrity and let the consequences be what they will be, as seen in the moment of courage from Charles Schulz’ life shown above.

Your Bombproof Identity: A Gift from Your Creator

In spite of religion’s current obsession with nationalism, capitalism, and sexual ethics, the major theme of the Bible is God’s unconditional, infinite love for all of humanity, God’s pursuit of us, provision for us, and the reality that God’s spirit infuses our very being through the life of Christ.

The list of truths from the Bible related to a bombproof identity is very long. But here are a few:

God is seeking you. When Adam sins in the first story, the one with the apple, Adam’s instantly filled with shame and on the run. But God seeks him out and the first question in the entire Bible is God calling out, “Adam, where are you?” He’s not calling out in order to destroy them, but rather to make provision for their failures. He knows we’re weak, unable to perform perfectly, but the good news is that we never needed to perform for love from God. It’s freely given. This builds a bombproof identity because even when every relationship in our world is broken, God’s love remains the same. To experience this is to gain a sense of security inwardly that frees us from become affirmation junkies, or people who need to ‘fit in.’ It’s these liberated souls that are able to bless and change the world for the better, and find joy in doing so.

God has given you gifts. The Bible tells me that each of us have been given unique gifts so that the light and hope of the creator can be displayed through us, pouring out into a darkened world to light it up.

God has empowered you. You have all the resources you need to live the life for which you’re created. Those resources will be there regardless of your next performance review or whether your next speech gets boos or applause. It’s a longer story, but the Bible says that the same power that raised Christ from the dead now resides in you, infusing you with divine power, and giving you the courage to speak, serve, love, create, build, reconcile, confess, and more.

God’s not mad at you. Again, the Bible is replete with promises about how God has taken every step possible to invite relationship between humans and their creator. That Christianity has so often become a performance-based, anxiety inducing system, is one of the great lies and tragedies of history.

People who receive these declarations from God by faith, and believe them to be true, activate them in their daily lives and they become their experiential reality. Knowing they’re loved, filled, empowered, come what may, they are freed from the fear of rejection and lust for approval that lead most of humanity to ride a perpetual roller coaster of pride (when they feel the approval of others) and shame (when they feel rejection or failure). They know that the love of God, like the speed of light, is one of the few constant things in the universe.

I wrote recently about our need for a fourfold reconciliation if we’re going to build a better future for our families, churches, nations. What I’m writing about here has to with us being reconciled with ourselves and with God. I’ve written about this more extensively in my book “Forest Faith” which you can buy here if interested.

We need to know that no matter what’s happening outwardly: approval, rejection, fame, obscurity, wealth, poverty, health, sickness, life, death, affirmation, criticism, one truth remains. Our significance and love isn’t based on any of this. Love, empowerment, affirmation, the kind that matters, is an unconditional gift given us by our Creator. All we need do is open it, give thanks by faith, and begin to live ‘as if’ we’re loved forever, no matter what happens.

There’s a challenge that comes with this bombproof identity though. If we live that courageously and honestly, with that much vulnerabilility and integrity, there’s a good chance we’ll lose something(s): reputation, money, influence, standing in a community, our job, friendships… in some cases people have lost their lives. They were the ones, though, who pioneered paths forward and they did so because they knew that, though they might lose outward ego things, their truest identity would not only remain, but would thrive, because it was finding expression in the real world rather than remaining in hiding, as so often happens in our world.

For me, an adopted kid with abandonment issues who lost his dad (who was also his best friend) at 17, this bombproof identity has been my anchor. It’s given me the courage to try new things, the confidence to speak truth (still working on developing this), the freedom fail, and peace to know that in spite of criticism, rejection, and challenges, I’m held in the arms of one whose love will never, ever fail.

This is the kind of confidence people need if they’re going to hold power well, or protest well, or rebuild well after a collapse. I hope you subscribe so that, together, we can work on building this kind of confidence and a better world for all

Shalom