More on Identities

As I noted a few weeks ago, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen points out that everyone has multiple identities, and that these identities slip into the foreground and background in different settings. At a family reunion, our family identity is prominent. At a political rally, family identity recedes as we join with others of similar political opinions. At dinner, the fact that one is a vegan is important; at an academic conference, his vegan-nature doesn’t matter, but his expertise in his subject area does.

Sen also emphasizes the role of choice in identity. Not only do different identities emerge in different settings, but we choose which among our various identities is going to identify us, and those choices too can vary from setting to setting. A politician may have specialized tastes in wine and food, but he chooses to subordinate that identifying characteristic in his campaign. You may be a Republican, but when you sit at the Lord’s table with Christians who are Democrats, you choose to subordinate one identity in order to express the common identity you have in Christ. None of this is not deceptive, but something everyone does quite regularly.