Identity Delusion

Not Self or Secularism

For decades, the moral landscape of the United States has grown increasingly secular. Our political, educational, and religious institutions have adopted policies promoting behaviors of self-affirmation. As people look within themselves for answers to morality and identity (including race, gender, and sexual orientation), Almighty God and His Word are suppressed as the true means of objective, ultimate authority. This essay will examine identity delusion and demonstrate a Christian apologetic to show how the gospel of Jesus Christ, not self or secularism, saves sinners.

The Modern Self is Identity Delusion

To understand the notion of the modern “self,” theologian Carl Trueman defines it as a “deeper notion of where the ‘real me’ is to be found, how that shapes my view of life, and in what the fulfillment or happiness of that ‘real me’ consists.”1 To make the connection between self and identity delusion, Trueman continues, “The modern self assumes the authority of inner feelings and sees authenticity as defined by the ability to give social expression to the same.”2

Restated simply, as long as an individual acts on the outside what the individual feels on the inside, the individual is therefore an authentic person. This definition is the beginning of unpacking the delusion of identity expressed through autonomy. This framework arguably sparked the sexual revolution, which has accelerated since the 1960s, through a series of events seen as benignly “making a lifestyle choice.” With the declining influence of Christianity in the twenty-first century, Carl Trueman writes of transgenderism,

The trans person who was born male but claims to be a woman is to be lionized because that is an act of courage and honesty whereby the outward performance is finally brought into line with the inner reality, despite what society might say about such. All of this derives from authorizing—indeed, valorizing—that inner voice of nature and then expecting or even demanding that the outside world, from the public square to the individual’s body, conform to this.3

But the rise of identity delusion has hamstrung itself by praising sexual desire through unfettered autonomy. The subjective nature of pursuing internal feelings for definitive answers about identity sharply conflicts with the authority of God’s Word. In Jeremiah 17:9, the LORD God says, “The heart is deceitful about all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”4 This passage indicates individuals cannot discern their own internal motives without the assistance from an external source of objective authority such as Scripture, illumined by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14).

How Identity Delusion Impacts Culture

Embracing emotionalism to define identity gives rise to secular thought, where subjective lived experiences are exalted above objective truth. While society is deconstructed and reconstructed through varying degrees of cultural Marxism and other forms of idolatry, pursuing God is still deemed authentic but appears as a spiritual hamster wheel—a quest of perpetual searching, never arriving at the destination: the resurrected Christ as revealed in the Bible.

Conversely, there are several character qualities that benefit individuals and societies from taking inventory of our inner selves, including the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. Although these qualities serve as helpful guides in building a better self, even a biblical self, the qualities themselves cannot provide the single capstone for crystallizing our identity. Only the born-again life, transformed by Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, and sanctified by God’s Word can serve as a complete identity (John 3:3-6).

How Identity Delusion Impacts Congress

Zooming in from culture to Congress, the Equality Act was introduced in the House in June 2023. This bill includes ambiguous verbiage around the usage of gender identity, which parallels a rejection of God’s created order in Genesis 1:27. The rise of the modern self and the allowance of inner feelings to govern identity and set it free creates a paradoxical standard for secularists. Although this bill may be in a dormant status for now, Christians should not slumber when it rises for possible passage again.

In his book, A Free People’s Suicide, philosopher Os Guinness wrote about the “grand paradox of freedom.” He summarized that our society values freedom so highly that we cannot see how the greatest enemy of freedom to be (unrestrained) freedom itself.5 Apologist Francis Schaeffer adds similar commentary from his vantage point in the 1980’s. He wrote in The Great Evangelical Disaster, “The titanic freedoms which we once enjoyed have been cut loose from their Christian restraints and are becoming a force of destruction leading to chaos.” His perceptive insight pointed to compassion “swallowed up by self-interest.”6 With the decline in Christian consensus, identity delusion is the natural secular substitute.

From Self Delusion to Sound Doctrine

Christians wisely understand truth, not as an abstract concept, but as a Person (Jesus Christ). We have the revelation of God’s written word, truth that we are sanctified by (John 14:6; 17:17). Jesus is the incarnate living Word, and He is full of grace and truth (John 1:14-15). Apart from repentance, 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 says,

“For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.”

Likely the notion of secular identity defined by unfettered emotions has been the deluding influence on our real identity, the Imago Dei, especially as individuals continue to wrestle with answers to this life and the hereafter.

To strengthen our understanding of biblical identity, the following passages come to mind: In the apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he writes “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The best attempts of the secular identity cannot transform an individual spiritually into something new; the sin remains as well as the sting of death when it comes.

In the apostle Peter’s second letter, he writes that believers in Jesus Christ have become partakers of the divine nature. He relates our biblical identity as intricately connected to God by the gift of salvation through His son (2 Peter 1:4). A repentant, Christlike identity is free from sin and will experience resurrected life forever. Paul makes a comparison to believers being “alive with Christ” in Ephesians 2:5, and in Romans 8:29 believers were predestined to become “conformed to the image of His Son.” No secular identity can make such promises with grand assurance.

Replace Delusion with Discernment

Although identity delusion appeals to our inner feelings, Christians ought to build a system of discernment to test the claims of secularism. The biblical worldview has an enemy, Satan, and he continues his schemes, deceptions, and the blinding of people’s minds (2 Corinthians 4:4). He promotes the self-affirmation of finding the “real me” within, the feelings-oriented identity. By contrast, when a Christian’s discerning abilities are anchored by God’s Word and the power of the Holy Spirit, the fog of delusion lifts and biblical identity comes into clear focus.

To handle false claims, ideologies, and worldviews, the apostle Paul asserts, “We are destroying arguments and all arrogance raise against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Much of our culture’s identity challenges involve allegiances. Our allegiance will either be to the self, to the Savior, or to something else. Whatever we pursue, we build bricks into those allegiance kingdoms.

Practically, building discernment around these issues and others is a noble task. Biblical counselor Jay Adams says that discernment is the process of distinguishing truth from error through the sieve (or filter) of Scripture.7 As well, 1 Thessalonians 5:21 says to test all things and hold fast to what is good. Believers in Christ already possess discernment; however, this is an area that can utilize more growth. Through knowledge, desire, and prayer, Christians can grow a new pattern of regularity in discerning the times.8

God has given believers the Spirit of truth to discern spiritual things (John 15:26; 1 Corinthians 2:14), including identity. So then, it is essential for believers to know the whole counsel of God and apply it to their everyday lives. This discerning approach serves the Christian as a strong framework for fighting against the subjective self, the lies of antichrist culture, and advancing the gospel among the nations (Mark 16:15; Colossians 1:23).

1 Carl R. Trueman, Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022), 18, Kindle.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., 42, Kindle.
4 Unless otherwise noted, all biblical passages referenced are in the New American Standard Bible.
5 Os Guinness, A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 18-19.
6 Francis A. Schaeffer, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer, vol. 4, A Christian View of the Church, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1985), 310.
7 Jay E. Adams, A Call for Discernment: Distinguishing Truth from Error in Today’s Church (Memphis, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2021), Chapter 5, Kindle.
8 Ibid., Chapter 6, Kindle.