In response to the Fight Clubs book, I recently received an inquiry about a particular sentence I wrote in the introduction:
“I can tell people my sins because my identity doesn’t hang on what they think of me.”
I wrote up a response, which Boundless published on their blog. In it I argue that most people approach others from one of two places, above (strong pride) or below (weak pride). Self-doubt sets us off in search of approval and pride sets us up for applause. We need something to free us from our search of approval and applause in order to confess our sin. Here is an excerpt and you can read the rest here.
When our identity is hung up on what people think of us, it becomes difficult to be honest with them. Some of us approach others from below, fearing their rejection or disapproval. In order to keep their approval intact, we refrain from allowing them to see the real, broken us. We may not lie to them (though we probably do), but we certainly don’t confess our sin to them. Why? Because we treasure their approval more than we treasure Christ.