If someone were to ask you, "How do you define Christian identity," how would you respond? I recently heard an insightful comment on a podcast I listen to regularly. At one point, the participants discussed the issue of identity, a hot topic in our day and age. One of the participants observed, "Augustine (of Hippo, the esteemed theologian) would have never known how to answer questions of identity. The topic would have bewildered and confused him." 

I rather suspect many of us feel the same way. Having grown up in a different time, we may have never considered how to answer the question, "Who am I?" But in a day and age when people define themselves according to their sexuality, or their gender identity, or their choice of pronouns, or any number of other possibilities, Christians must have an answer prepared. Postmodernist Roots The evolving views of personal identity are rooted in what's known as postmodernist philosophy. In the 1950s, European philosophers (and some American philosophers) grappled with what the world experienced in World War 2. The philosophy we call postmodernism emerged, a critique of Western Civilization. 

French philosophers impacted postmodern philosophy more than their contemporaries: Foucault, Derrida, and Leconte. But, for the most part, their writings are pretty challenging to read, and their philosophy was impossible to live by. Because it was so inaccessible and tended toward nihilism, postmodern philosophy seemed to die away by the late 1970s and early '80s. 

In the early 1990s, feminist and black intellectuals breathed new life into postmodernism. Women's studies and black studies programs in universities began adopting tenets of postmodern philosophy. It crept into other disciplines like sociology and psychology, and education. Eventually, its growth led to creating additional "studies" in American universities such as queer studies, gender studies, etc. By the 2010s, postmodern philosophy was the prevailing ideology undergirding much of the university experience in America. Two Core Principles These disciplines managed to adapt two principles of an unintelligible philosophy into simple but powerful and persuasive axioms. First of all, the truth cannot be known or attained. Therefore, in their estimation, absolute truth does not exist. Truth is left to the individual to define through such means as "lived experience. Since one cannot know the truth, power and hierarchies coalesced in societies to determine what can be understood and how it is known. Simply put, there is no absolute truth. Therefore, the powerful define the truth to serve their ends.

These two principles lead to four important themes retained from the philosophies of the postmodernists mentioned above. All boundaries are blurred.  Categories like "male and female" are not real; they are inventions. Sometimes you will hear the phrase "social construct." The powerful invent these "social constructs" to marginalize and oppress women, gays, transgender, and other minority groups. Language is a part of the power structure.  The powerful use language as a tool to acquire and maintain power. One shifts the balance of power in favor of the marginalized by changing the language. Therefore, either changing pronouns or inventing new pronouns takes power away from the oppressor and puts the power in the hands of the marginalized. All cultures are equal. No one culture is superior to another. Those in the Western world have not risen to prominence because of a superior culture. Instead, we have used the oppressor's tools better than our rivals. Superior ideals and values do not exist. All explanations for success in any realm reduce to power. The concerns of the individual are of less value to society than the concerns of marginalized groups. If I, out of conscience, object to the pronouns chosen by a person, I am in the wrong. Therefore, I must subordinate my rights as an individual,