Those who shower us with praise don’t always have our best interests at heart. “Words are easy, like the wind,” as William Shakespeare warned in the final entry of a 20-poem collection, while “faithful friends are hard to find.” Friendship must be tested, he advised, through loss and ill fortune:
He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need:
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep.Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flatt’ring foe.
This insight closely mirrors the wisdom of Proverbs 29:5, which says, “Those who flatter their neighbors are spreading nets for their feet.” People who seek to manipulate others often start with exaggerated compliments and expressions of admiration. The shady salesman will tell us how smart and well-dressed we are—right before he sells us on a high-interest car loan. We like superlatives, and they can misdirect us away from the truth or blind us to deception.
We’re perhaps most susceptible to manipulation when others make flattering appeals to our group identities. This is why politicians pander to their demographic bases. Our ears itch in pride at hearing how extraordinary we and our people are, and false praise can become a cheap way for leaders to manufacture connection and gain our allegiance.
In a polarized and identity-obsessed society, exalting words about our national identity (“American exceptionalism”), race (“Black is the blueprint”), or gender (“The future is female”) provides a quick ego boost even if the compliments aren’t genuine. Sometimes we feel as if our groups haven’t been heard—and sometimes that’s true. It’s understandable that the affirmation feels good. But what’s beneath this shallow glory?
To be sure, these aspects of our identity are important and acknowledged by God (Rev. 7:9). God has endowed different groups with unique insights and uses us in our skin, in our social locations, and with our differing physical capabilities to serve his ultimate plan.
Look at the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus breaks with tradition to converse with her, and she becomes one of the first evangelists (John 4:1–24). We can’t fully understand the meaning of this story if we ignore her ethnicity and social and economic plight. We can’t fully comprehend the lesson about Jesus’ grace and transformative ministry if we make her a cultureless and genderless abstraction. Her identity played a meaningful role in God’s message to us.
Identity matters. It’s a significant part of the viewpoint from which we see God. But identity theology can also wrongly lead us into theological error. In other words, Christians don’t have to claim colorblindness, yet neither can we let our identities lure us into exaggerating the importance of our groups to the point of self-exaltation.
Flattery often plays a role here, for flattery is just as unfaithful in theology as it is in friendship. Theologies that indulge and center our group identities aren’t faithful. They walk us into a trap of identity idolatry that decenters Christ and belittles our neighbors.
Many of us have come across flattering theologies that actually distance us from the true gospel. For instance, the Christian nationalism of Mike Huckabee so closely intertwines God and America that it’s hard to decipher which of the two Huckabee actually worships. He seems to present America as the unadulterated work of God’s hands. This theology flatters its adherents by giving them a sense of superiority through national identity. It suggests their culture is the standard by which to judge others, misusing and distorting the gospel to whitewash America’s sins and diminish the contributions of outsiders.
And the temptation to center our identities in our theology is no less for groups who’ve historically been demeaned in deep and systemic ways. But it is perhaps more complicated. When your society—including the church—has spent centuries characterizing your people as inherently inferior or particularly immoral before God, the damage is devastating. We must make great, deliberate efforts to repair the community’s collective self-image.
Accordingly, it’s imperative that theologians and church leaders uncover and celebrate how close Jesus is to marginalized people. In the American context, it is good and necessary to highlight the special role women and non-white people play in the Bible and church history. Emphasizing God’s image in and relationship with us can help restore a fractured theological lens and redeem our self-perception. The church need not fear scripturally sound efforts to uplift people who historically have been diminished.
That said, these efforts can overreach and lead to identity idolatry as well. To counter American racism, for instance, the Five Percent Nation movement declared that Black men are gods. And while Christian identity-based theologies don’t claim divinity, they can lead to excessive self-praise or even suggest that God supports what we should rightly understand as sin.
When we’re part of a group that has suffered a long history of malicious critique, it can be easy to believe that any critique is malicious. We may begin to defend ourselves more than we defend the gospel. Under sway of identity idolatry, we start asking, “Does it support my identity narrative?” instead of “Is it true?” Some theologians in the womanist tradition, for example, have used identity to undermine the authority of Scripture.
Raising a people’s self-image while maintaining their sense of humility is a delicate balance. Whether through resilience or pride, we can swing from shame to self-righteousness rather quickly. The gospel disallows this overcorrection, because while the image of God dignifies us, recognition of our sin nature must humble us.
related
That balance of dignity and humility should turn us away from flattery and toward a more complicated truth. The Christian nationalist must understand that the Christian influence on America’s founding doesn’t mean God approves all our military conquests. Preachers can’t overlook bad theology from people who share their racial heritage. And though some have dishonestly demonized female sexuality, the womanist must avoid reacting by claiming that sexuality is without biblical boundaries.
I’m not saying Christian nationalism and womanism are moral equivalents, of course. But they can violate the same principle to one extent or another. Identity idolatry can be tempting for any of us, even with the best of intentions. The Bible takes us all to task, chastising oppressive nations, promiscuous and predatory men and women, and bigoted believers alike (Amos 1–5; Gen. 19; Gal. 2:11–13).
The Samaritan woman’s interaction with Jesus revealed her dignity and value in his kingdom—and the dignity and value of her people too. Jesus used this encounter to declare that, through faith, those who’ve endured generations of degradation can find significance, purpose, and love in him. Their suffering and humility are actually conducive to discipleship (Matt. 5:3).
But imagine how different the story would have been if she’d claimed some preeminent status with Christ based on Samaritan nationalism—or declared that her sinful domestic situation of living with a man out of wedlock was somehow justified based on her womanhood (John 4:17–18). Jesus made her face her misdeeds while he affirmed her dignity.
We should be suspicious of any theology that exalts us above measure. All of us are broken, individually and collectively, and some of our inclinations and cultural preferences are sinful. An identity-centered theology might be comfortable, but it will seduce us into self-justification, self-flattery, and conceit rather than compelling us to die to self (Luke 14:27; Rom. 6:6; 8:13). Our identities are no obstacle for the gospel, but neither do they make us immune to rebuke.
Justin Giboney is an ordained minister, an attorney, and the president of And Campaign, a Christian civic organization. He’s the author of the forthcoming book Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around: How the Black Church’s Public Witness Leads Us out of the Culture War.
