Individualism

In today's digital age, selfies have become a global phenomenon. Millions of people, especially young adults, spend countless hours capturing and sharing images of themselves. This trend reflects a growing desire for self-expression, social validation, and personal branding. Here are the most current stats as of the end of 2024:

• 92 million selfies are taken every day.
• Individuals spend 54 hours a year (or 7 minutes a day) taking selfies.
• The average “selfie-taker” is 24 years old.
• Women take 1.5 times more selfies than men.
• A full 95% of youth have taken selfies, compared to 63% of those aged 35–54 and only 44% of people over 55.
• Roughly 33% of pictures snapped by 18 to 24-year-olds are self-portraits.
• Millennials are forecast to capture around 25,700 selfies over their lifetime.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Kind of makes you think that the world was a little less narcissistic when we had to pay for film.

Read through the Bible and you will find a positive attitude about having and raising children. Attitudes among our culture today are trending in the opposite direction due to attitudes about careers and individualism as cited by the authors of the book, "What Are Children For?"

Having children is but another possible project, with its own emotional experiences, social obligations, and financial responsibilities. According to a 2023 Pew Research report, only 26 percent of Americans today say having children is important for living a fulfilling life. Whereas 71 percent consider “having a job or career they enjoy to be essential and 61 percent say the same for “having close friends.” As the demographers found in an overview of the forces affecting fertility patterns today.

Increasingly, people justified childbearing in terms of its impact on their personal well-being, satisfaction, and happiness.” When children are seen in this light, it’s understandable that many people, certainly those whose lives feel uncertain and precarious, dread giving up their time, energy, resources, highest ambitions, and—perhaps above all—freedom to the task of raising another human being. When you compare having children—a resource guzzling enterprise that comes with no guarantee of mental or material satisfaction—to all those other possible attractive ends, how could it ever measure up?

Editor’s Note: When using this illustration, let’s be mindful of the single women who long to be married, but are not yet, and the husbands and wives who would love to have children but have not been able to conceive and those who have lost children through miscarriage.

In an issue of CT magazine, author Jen Wilkin writes:

Individualism says that I should do what’s best for me regardless of what’s best for others. Instant gratification assures me that waiting is an enemy to eliminate. At every turn, I am told that I can and should have what I want when I want it.

Earlier this year, my husband and I spent two weeks with an apparent narcissist named Charlotte. From the moment we stepped into her space, it was all about her. She demanded our full attention day and night. Forget rational arguments or the needs of others; it was The Charlotte Show 24/7. She thought only of herself and demanded loudly and often that her needs be met. Our schedules bowed to her every whim. She uttered not a word of gratitude during the entire 14 days.

And we didn’t mind one bit. Because all 7 pounds and 15 ounces of her was doing exactly what she should. Our newest grandchild’s age-appropriate focus is to declare, Me, right now! Any time she is tired, hungry, or needs a clean diaper. Babies self-advocate as a survival instinct. They understand only the immediate need.

But what is appropriate in an infant is appalling in an adult. In its obsession with “me, right now,” our culture doesn’t just worship youthfulness; it worships childishness, legitimizing it into adulthood. An adult who demands what he wants when he wants it is a costly presence in any community, prioritizing his own needs above those of others and of the group. He has not learned to “put away childish things,” as the Bible says (1 Cor. 13:11, KJV); he has managed to grow physically from a baby to an adult without shedding the childish mantra of “me, right now.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

As parents, our first challenge is to meet the needs of babies crying out, “Me, right now.” But our greater task over the years is to train our children to mature and outgrow their entitlement, to resist the narcissistic norms of our age. It is our job as Christian parents to move our children from the immaturity of individualism and instant gratification to the maturity of sacrificial service and delayed gratification.

Journalist Derek Thompson is lamenting the decline of church attendance in America. As an agnostic, one would think he would be pleased. In a piece for The Atlantic, he writes: "Maybe religion, for all of its faults, works a bit like a retaining wall to hold back the destabilizing pressure of American hyper-individualism, which threatens to swell and spill over in its absence."

Thompson paraphrases social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and his book, The Anxious Generation:

Many Americans have developed a new relationship with a technology that is the diabolical opposite of a religious ritual: the smartphone. (To) stare into a piece of glass in our hands is to be removed from our bodies, to skim our attention from one piece of ephemera to the next. Digital life is disembodied, asynchronous, shallow, and solitary.

Religious rituals put us in our body, requiring some kind of movement that marks the activity as devotional. Christians kneel, Muslims prostrate, and Jews pray. Religious ritual also fixes us in time, forcing us to set aside an hour or day for prayer, reflection, or separation from daily habit. Finally, religious ritual often requires that we make contact with the sacred in the presence of other people.

I wonder if, in forgoing organized religion, an isolated country has discarded an old and proven source of ritual at a time when we most need it. It took decades for Americans to lose religion. It might take decades to understand the entirety of what we lost.

The Bible teaches us that it is not good for us to be alone, we need others. Researchers now know that we are wired to be with and interact with others.

Our culture teaches us to focus on personal uniqueness, but at a deeper level we barely exist as individual organisms. Our brains are built to help us function as members of a tribe. We are part of that tribe even when we are by ourselves, whether listening to music (that other people created), watching a basketball game on television (our own muscles tensing as the players run and jump), or preparing a spreadsheet for a sales meeting (anticipating the boss’s reactions). Most of our energy is devoted to connecting with others.

The next time you're signing your name at the DMV or another U.S. Government office, you probably won't notice the black pen in your hand. It, after all, is exactly like the dozens of other black pens you've used in post offices, courthouses, and other buildings throughout your adult life. You certainly won't think there's much of a story behind the unobtrusive implement that, likely as not, is chained to the well-worn desk you've been waiting to stand at.

But like everything, those pens have a story. For over 55 years, those Skilcraft pens have been assembled by blind factory workers in Wisconsin and North Carolina. Each year they make nearly four million pens. The pens must meet rigorous government specifications: to write continuously for a mile, and within temperature swings from 40 below zero to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. The standard length of the pen has helped lost Navy pilots navigate by map. Stories say that the pen can be used as a two-inch bomb fuse, or for emergency tracheotomies. It can write upside down. It costs less than 60 cents (when purchased in quantity).

The pen has a rich, fascinating history, woven together with war, peace, postage, bureaucrats, spies, work, and play. And you'd never know it to look at it.

Much like many of us. In every room, every single person has a story, a rich, fascinating history that few of us ever think to ask about. If we did, we'd be floored, astounded. We'd see each other differently, and with more respect. Just like you'll see that pen differently the next time you pick it up.

Singer-songwriter and author Sandra McCracken writes in an issue of CT magazine:

Greek mythology may not be a guide to the Christian life, but I appreciate the clever commentary the ancient stories offer. I was recently reminded of Narcissus, the young man who neglected all other loves and physical needs so he could stare endlessly at his own reflection. Narcissus eventually dies while sitting by the reflection pool—the tragic and ironic conclusion to his selfish love.

The old, dark comedy still applies—maybe especially applies—to our modern ego and pride. We have more than just pools and mirrors to contend with. ... Aided by our phones and social media, many of us spend more time with our reflections than even Narcissus did. The overwhelming majority of Americans now own smartphones. And with billions of mobile devices in circulation around the world, the situation is the same in many other countries. We are a selfie society, encouraged to view and post about ourselves often, in hopes of attracting more likes and boosting our “brand.”

To see only ourselves and to spend life captivated by our own dim radiance is, in effect, to die. And death is always a tragedy. To see God, however, is to see resurrection and new life. When we look to Jesus to remember more fully our true worth, we gain freedom from vain self-reflection, knowing instead that we belong to the one Source of true delight.

The commune of Christiania, in the heart of Copenhagen, Denmark, was supposed to be like Paradise. But life in this fallen world is always impacted by human sin.

Founded in 1971, Christiania was devised as a post-60s anarchistic utopia. It was a place where people could live outside of Denmark’s market economy, free to build their houses where and how they wanted, to sell marijuana for a living, and to live as they pleased as long as they didn’t harm their neighbors. Denmark’s government oscillated between attempting to bring the community to heel or turning a blind eye as residents flouted property laws and drug laws.

But now, after 50 years, with worsening gang violence and fresh attempts by the government to normalize the commune, some residents see their dream of an alternative society fading. The infamous Pusher Street, once operated mostly by residents but now overrun by gangs, may be the first domino to fall.

One lifelong resident said, “Growing up in Christiania was the best childhood ever. We had freedom. Pusher Street was very nice back then … Five to seven years ago [drug dealers] got much tougher. Now they only want profit. They don’t bring good vibes.”

Christiania has long embraced cannabis while shunning more dangerous substances. But as gangs overtook the drug trade, harder drugs made their way in, along with some of the violence of organized crime. After a recent shooting, Christiania’s residents, who operate a consensus democracy where decisions are made by unanimous assent in town-hall-style meetings, settled on two conclusions: that Pusher Street should be shuttered permanently, and that the state should intervene—an extraordinary step for the anti-establishment community.

Possible Preaching Angles:

This shows the power of original sin. Even when we try to recreate “paradise,” it never lasts for long.

The CDC’s bi-annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2023) showed that most teen girls (57%) now say that they experience persistent sadness or hopelessness (up from 36% in 2011), and 30% of teen girls now say that they have seriously considered suicide (up from 19% in 2011). Boys are doing badly too, but their rates of depression and anxiety are not as high, and their increases since 2011 are smaller.

What are the causes behind this concerning trend? It’s complex, but in a thorough overview of hundreds of studies, here’s how researcher Jon Haidt summarizes the data:

There is one giant, obvious, international, and gendered cause: Social media. Instagram was founded in 2010. The iPhone 4 was released then too—the first smartphone with a front-facing camera. In 2012 Facebook bought Instagram, and that’s the year that its user base exploded. By 2015, it was becoming normal for 12-year-old girls to spend hours each day taking selfies, editing selfies, and posting them for friends, enemies, and strangers to comment on, while also spending hours each day scrolling through photos of other girls and fabulously wealthy female celebrities with (seemingly) vastly superior bodies and lives. The hours girls spent each day on Instagram were taken from sleep, exercise, and time with friends and family. What did we think would happen to them?

Past generations of Americans viewed God as the basis of truth and morality. Not anymore. A new study shows that most Americans reject any absolute boundaries regarding their morality, with 58% of adults surveyed believing instead that moral truth is up to the individual to decide.

According to findings from pollster Dr. George Barna, belief in absolute moral truth rooted in God’s Word is rapidly eroding among all American adults. This is regardless if they are churched or unchurched, within every political segment, and within every age group. Even among those who do identify God as the source of truth, there is substantial rejection of any absolute standard of morality in American culture.

Perhaps most stunning, this latest research shows a rejection of God’s truth and absolute moral standards by American Christians, those seen as most likely to hold traditional standards of morality. Evangelicals, defined as believing the Bible to be the true, reliable Word of God, are just as likely to reject absolute moral truth (46%). And only a minority of born-again Christians—43%—still embrace absolute truth.

The study found that the pull of secularism is especially strong among younger Americans, with those under age 30 much less likely to select God as the basis of truth (31%), and more likely to say that moral standards are decided by the individual (60%).

As Jeff Meyers writes in his new book, Truth Changes Everything, “We live in a world where we cannot go a single day without hearing that truths are based on how we see things rather than on what exists to be seen. Truth is not ‘out there’ to be found; it is ‘in here’ to be narrated.”

You can read the full study from Arizona Christian University here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

A biblical worldview rests firmly on the idea that Truth can be known. It says that Truth isn't constructed by our experiences and feelings. Rather, a biblical worldview says that Truth exists. It is a person. It is Jesus (John 14:6).

The issue of verbal and physical abuse is a problem in high school sports around the country. As an example, a 22 old-year-old man from Polk County, FL, disagreed with the umpire and beat him up. More and more referees are leaving. A study conducted by the National Association of Sports of Officials discovered that adult misbehavior contributed to 75% of high school referees quitting their jobs.

How did we get here?

Psychologist Richard Weissbourd says, “I think it’s because sometimes parents are wanting to compensate for their shortcomings or live out their own fantasies about sports. I think it’s the degree to which we are becoming less communal and more tribal and more individual.”

He goes on to offer us a solution to this prevailing problem. It starts with promoting the value of being part of a community and the importance of both winning and losing. Weissbourd, a secular psychologist, recognizes the benefits of religious practices, instilling values like sacrifice, gratitude, morality, empathy, and the obligation to care for each other. The competitiveness of sport ought to be a catalyst for both personal growth and building community.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Scripture teaches us to use discernment when making judgment calls and to deal with our faults first before judging others (Matt. 7:1-6).

In Oprah Winfrey’s lifetime achievement award acceptance speech at the 2018 Golden Globes, she said, "What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have."

“Your truth.” Those two words are so entrenched in our lexicon today that we hardly recognize them for the incoherent nightmare that they are. Among other things, the philosophy of "your truth" destroys families when a dad suddenly decides "his truth" is calling him to a new lover, a new family, or maybe even a new gender. It's a philosophy that can destroy entire societies, because invariably one person's truth will go to battle with another person's truth, and devoid of reason, only power decides the victor.

"Your truth" also puts an incredible, self-justifying burden on the individual. If we are all self-made projects whose destinies are wholly ours to discover and implement, life becomes a rat race of performative individuality. "Live your truth" autonomy is as exhausting as it is incoherent. Depression is the inevitable result and “the inexorable counterpart of the human being who is her/his own sovereign.”

A recent interview with actress Maria Fabriela de Faria, in Global Heroes from The Wall Street Journal, perfectly reveals our culture of self-centered individualism.

When asked, “What is one good choice that everyone can make to improve the world around them?” She answered, “Look for your own truth, LIVE your own truth instead of repeating anyone else’s.” She explained: “What’s crucial to me is to make my audience . . . [question] old beliefs.” She counsels her fans to engage in a daily practice of asking, “What do I need today?” because “the only person who will know what works for you, is you.”

The last twenty years has seen a dramatic increase in the suicides of white, middle-aged men in the western half of the United States, primarily in rural areas. Poverty and isolation are key factors, with the quick and easy availability of guns facilitating an irrevocable decision. The Centers for Disease Control recorded 1.5 million total attempts and 46,900 suicides nationally in 2023. White men account for 70 percent of all cases. The highest rates are in Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, New Mexico, Idaho, and Utah.

Dr. Craig Bryan, who studies military and rural suicide at the University of Utah, believes a strong sense of independence and self-reliance is a major cause. “There’s been an increase in the ‘every-man-for-himself mentality.’ There doesn’t seem to be as strong a sense of ‘We’re all in this together.’ It’s much more ‘Hey, don’t infringe upon me. You’re on your own, and let me do my own thing.’”

A major piece on the subject, in a recent issue of Rolling Stone, highlights the rugged individualism of the great author Ernest Hemingway as symbolic of this harmful mind-set. With his romantic accounts of wars, hunting down defenseless elephants, fishing in cold streams, and black coffee and cigarettes consumed around campfires, no writer is more responsible for the adoration of the terse, self-sufficient American man than Hemingway. Then, he hit middle age, when the body tires of sleeping rough. His talents diminished. Hemingway killed himself with a shotgun blast on a July morning in 1961. He was 61. … After his father killed himself in 1928, Hemingway commented, “I’ll probably go the same way.” There were other factors—alcoholism and multiple concussions suffered in various crash landings and mishaps. What really killed Hemingway was one of the things killing American men today: a macho fantasy of a man who needs no one but himself.

Editor’s Note: Stats were updated using CDC figures in May of 2025

On an episode of the podcast Under the Skin with Russell Brand, actor and comedian Russell Brand explained his fear of atheism:

My fear of atheism is, that if there is nothing else, if this is all there is, the material, the mechanical, then why not individualism? Then why not materialism? Then why humanitarianism? It feels good because it’s nice to be nice to people. But for me, without some sense of a deeper truth, for me there’s only hedonism, there’s only indulgence.

Editor’s Note: Russell Brand proclaimed his faith in Christ in 2024

Notre Dame political scientist Patrick Deneen’s new book, Why Liberalism Failed, is a challenge to those who want to revive the liberal democratic order.

Deneen argues that liberal democracy has betrayed its promises. It was supposed to foster equality, but it has led to great inequality and a new aristocracy. It was supposed to give average people control over government, but average people feel alienated from government. It was supposed to foster liberty, but it creates a degraded popular culture in which consumers become slave to their appetites.

Many young people feel trapped in a system they have no faith in. Deneen quotes one of his students: “Because we view humanity—and thus its institutions—as corrupt and selfish, the only person we can rely upon is our self. The only way we can avoid failure, being let down, and ultimately succumbing to the chaotic world around us, therefore, is to have the means (financial security) to rely only upon ourselves.”

A Japanese business called "Family Romance" has actors for hire, ready and willing to be anything from your baby to your grandparent. "In an increasingly isolated and entitled society, the CEO [Ishii Yuichi] predicts the exponential growth of his business and others like it, as à la carte human interaction becomes the new norm," wrote Roc Morin in The Atlantic.

There doesn't seem to be any ask too big for Yuichi's company. He's played a dad to children who don't know he's been hired. He's been a groom in faux weddings that the attendees didn't know were staged. His company even provided a baby for a pregnant woman—who hadn't yet delivered—who was desperate to have her dying dad meet his "grandchild."

And as outlandish as the idea might sound now, it's ultimately believable that this trend could one day come to America: if Yuichi is right, the desire to rent loved ones comes from a longing for control combined with a vast laziness—two sentiments alive and well in our current culture. Describing why women choose to hire him as a boyfriend, Yuichi says:

The women typically say that in a real relationship … it takes years to create a strong connection. For them, it's a lot of hassle and disappointment. … It's just easier to schedule two hours per week to interact with an ideal boyfriend. There's no conflict, no jealousy, no bad habits. Everything is perfect.

Pastor Daniel Schreiner from Portland, Oregon received the following marketing piece from a local fitness gym. It was called "The Year of You."

[The New Year] is right around the corner and you're either going to own the year OR the year is going to own you. It's 100% your choice. It's in your hands. That's the first thing. Simply by taking all of the responsibility and putting it on your shoulders you become empowered.

Next, you take that feeling of empowerment. Of invincibility. The feeling you can run through a wall ... and you take action. You take action like you've never taken action before. You become prolific. You become consistent. And you let no obstacle stand in your way ... no matter what. No more pity parties. No more whining about anything.

YOU are in control. YOU.

Possible Preaching Angles: Schreiner went on to say that we are not and cannot be in complete control of our lives. There is only One who is truly in control.

In her book Grapes of Wrath Or Grace, Barabra Brokhoff tells the following story:

A group of American tourists were taking a bus tour in Rome led by an English-speaking guide. Their first stop was a basilica in a piazza, which was surrounded by several lanes of relentless Roman traffic. After they were all safely dropped off, the group climbed the steps for a quick tour of the church.

Then they spread out to board the bus, which was now parked across the street from the church. The frantic guide shouted for the group to stay together. He hollered out to them, "You cross one by one, they hit you one by one. But if you cross together, they think you will hurt the car! They won't hit you."

There is always much to be said for unity, especially unity of the Spirit.

Few Americans today say they know their neighbors' names, and far fewer report interacting with them on a daily basis. Pulling data from the General Social Survey, a recent report found that a third said they've never interacted with their neighbors. And only about 20 percent of Americans spent time regularly with the people living next to them. That's a big drop from four decades ago, when a third of Americans hung out with their neighbors at least twice a week, and only a quarter reported no interaction at all.

Public Policy expert Marc Dunkelman noted, "There used to be this necessity to reach out and build bonds with people who lived nearby." Dunkelman added, "[From the 1920s to the 1960s] there was this sort of cohort effect, in which people … were more inclined in many cases to find security that existed in neighborhoods. They depended on one another much more." Little wonder that his book on this subject is titled The Vanishing Neighbor.