Editorial

Openness of identity

Knowledge of one's identity is essential to survival.

Jan Paulsen, Ph.D., is president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

Who or what am i? How frank or candid do I have to be about my own identity? Is it important that my identity is clear?

Knowledge of one's identity is essential to survival. Disclosure of one's identity is essential to relation ships. A life spent either denying one's identity or pretending to be uninterested in it or searching but never finding is probably unsustainable. At best it is an unfulfilled life spent in the shadows, always short of reality and longing to find the elusive truth. Life itself becomes frustrated, and it is not a good way to try to live it.

Identity is more than "Where do I come from?" and "Who are my parents?" It is more than qualification and profession; more than likes and dis likes, smells and tastes. In part, it may be all of the above, but it is the inner reality of my selfhood. My identity is my soul. It is what makes me "me," and it provides me with compelling reasons to be clear about myself and to be hon est with myself. It also compels me to look for and acknowledge characteristics outside of my person that confirm an identity linkage. We are all part of something that is larger than ourselves. In that sense we find a community of shared identity.

As believers, our primary identity is in Christ. By the faith He has given birth to in us, He has laid claim to us. As believers we belong to Him. My identity cannot fairly or accurately be stated without a comprehensive affirmation of what Jesus Christ is to me and what his presence in my life does for me. Herein lies the difference that conversion makes in a person. It radically changes one's personal identity. Herein also lies the difference between a believer and a nonbeliever. Their identities are worlds apart.

But "identity" is even more specific than that. Hence, some believers choose one community in preference to another. When I enter the pulpit to deliver and interpret the Word, it is most important that I remember that before me sit individuals who have come to recognize their identity as belonging to this particular community of faith rather than to some other.

How are we at disclosing and expressing our identity?

I am not thinking primarily of the evangelist who, in planning his strategies, chooses initially to focus less on who he is than on what he has to say, although he also needs to know for himself, fully and honestly, why he makes that choice. Nor am I thinking of the person who chooses not to use the opening fleeting moments of a first contact to focus on 'who I am,' either because "in 30 minutes when the flight lands we shall be going our separate ways" or because a broader communication surface needs to be established before "identity" becomes an issue. No, I am thinking more of our relationships and contacts over the longer haul—the long-term nurture of our identity and the deliberate way in which we choose to express, or not to express, our identity. Yes, I am thinking of such ministries as come from our pulpits, classrooms, institutions, and services.

Why should not the identity of the deliverer of those ministries, services, and messages be clear? And why should there be any tension between the declared identity of the deliverer and the identity of that which is being delivered? Why should a worshiper in the pew, listening to the sermon, wonder whether this is an Adventist, Baptist, or Lutheran church? Or whether the material for today's sermon came from yesterday's newspaper or a textbook on psychology? This is a Seventh-day Adventist church. Let the message reflect that identity. It is the Word of God that is being pro- j claimed. Let the biblical identity show. It is the ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist Church that is being trained at this institution. Let that community's identity be reflected in what I as a theologian or historian or counselor teach. Surely, this goes without saying. It is reasonable. It is also honest.

Over the longer haul, identity is either affirmed or denied; it is not just forgotten. Identity ignored becomes, by default, denied simply because, with the passing of time, it no longer accurately reflects who we are. Something has happened along the way. It may say who we used to be, but somehow we have moved beyond that, and we do not comfortably wish to continue to be identified quite the way we used to be. And something happens to the journey that lies ahead; it becomes marked by disaffection and distance, and we become strangers to what we used to be.

This is traumatic when that happens to us individually. It is destructive when that happens to our community as a church or to the various services or ministries we provide. At the end of the day, we all need to know who we are and where we belong. A "halfway house" may be a point in transit; it cannot be a permanent home.

Is it important that one is clear about one's identity, about "Who am I?" and "Where do I belong?" Yes. One's survival may depend on it. Failure to find it and assert it leads to the lonely life of a stranger. And that, clearly, is no way to live.


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Jan Paulsen, Ph.D., is president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

October 1999

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