The Religious False Self

“The essential difference between a false self and a religious false self is that the latter brings God into its life.” That line stopped us cold, because it names something many of us feel but rarely say out loud: we can follow Jesus and still run on the same old operating system, only now it’s covered in spiritual language. The outside can look faithful, disciplined, and even “wise,” while the inside is still driven by fear, control, and the ache to be enough. 

We walk through eight traits of the religious false self, using the image of fig leaves to describe how we hide and hustle. Fear shows up as performance, where a sermon, a worship set, or even sharing vulnerably in community can feel like an identity test. Protection can become dogmatic certainty that shuts down honest dialogue. Possessiveness can turn stewardship into ownership in churches, families, and leadership. We also dig into manipulation and ask a hard question: what’s the difference between healthy influence and coercion, especially when someone adds “God told me” to force an outcome? 

From there we name the fallout: relationships erode, churches become unsafe, and people walk away not because community is messy, but because harm gets done in God’s name. We talk self-promotion in celebrity church culture, indulgence reframed as “God’s blessing,” and distinction making that fuels judgment and hypocrisy. Then we hold up Jesus’ alternative in Matthew 3 and the wilderness: he receives beloved identity before he does anything, and he resists every temptation to prove himself. 

If you want practical steps, we end with practices to name your false self, name your religious false self, and ground your inner voice in your identity in Christ. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review if the conversation helps you take off a few fig leaves.

Transcript

Authenticity And The Hidden Self

Katie 0:02

Welcome to Practice, a podcast where we explore how to practice and embody the way of Jesus in our everyday lives. Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. Right now we're in a series on authenticity. While authenticity is enjoying a moment in the cultural spotlight right now, its value is nothing new. It's deeply rooted in the biblical vision of being fully known and fully loved. As human beings created in the image of God, we are wired for relationship. We were made to know and to be known. And yet, so often we hide, we perform, and we manage impressions by burying our weakness. Slowly, we begin living divided and inauthentic lives. The truth is, real relationships are impossible while hiding. Genuine connection requires courage, the willingness to show up vulnerably and authentically. So in this series, we're exploring what authenticity is, what gets in the way of it, and what it takes to pursue it, and our relationship with God, with ourselves, and with others. Today we want to discuss the religious false self. Let's get into it.

Getting Old With Birds And Lawns

Josiah 1:19

I am Mac and I'm Katie. And it's great to be back. It is. It's great to be back. Uh for our discussion today, I wanted to I wanted to ask you all a question. But I realize that my age as a number is making me older. And then I there's some things that are making me seem probably older. So I was curious, what's one of the things that even as like a young quote unquote younger person you find yourself doing that makes you an older person?

Katie 2:03

Is this about Mac pressing the buttons?

Josiah 2:06

No. Actually, I I was thinking more for myself. Uh um I found myself getting slightly excited that it's supposed to rain this weekend. So my lawn will look better.

Katie 2:20

That's old.

Josiah 2:21

That makes me old. Uh so something like that. Like something, you know, shamelessly admit that hey, this makes me getting older. I'm not young anymore.

Katie 2:30

Well, I've gotten really into bird watching.

Josiah 2:32

Oh, that is.

Katie 2:33

And yeah, my husband Alex tells me that that makes me seem old. But it's fun. I'm really enjoying it.

Mac 2:40

Wow. I my mom is really into birds. Yeah. For her birthday this year, which is in January, I uh purchased her one of those um bird feeders that have a camera on it. Wait, when's her birthday? It's in January. And when did you purchase it? I purchased it in January for her birthday.

Katie 3:00

It doesn't mean she had to put it out in January.

Josiah 3:02

Right. Oh, I thought you were saying it's coming up in January and you already purchased it. Nope.

Mac 3:07

This is past tense.

Josiah 3:08

It's like, wow, you're very intense about it.

Mac 3:10

I do love gifts. I love giving gifts. I am a gift giver. Um Yeah, welcome to the conversation, Joseph. So we got her bird feeder that has a camera in it. And when a camera, when a bird lands, it takes a picture of it and sends it to her phone. That's cool. It is pretty neat. And I keep putting my head right by the bird feeder so that when I'm over there, that's good.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

That's funny.

Katie 3:36

Well, Deb, so Deb in our office showed me this app called Merlin. And um, you basically just put it on and it listens. You can either take a picture of a bird and it identifies it for you, or you just hit the record button and it listens to all the birds and it tells you what birds are around you. And our back you guys know our backyard is like tons of trees. So I'll go out there and within like a couple minutes, I'll have like 15 to 20 different birds that are in my backyard.

Mac 4:00

Wow. Yeah, you are getting old. Um, I'm older than both of you, and so I've been in this stage for a while. And perhaps the biggest thing for me that I notice with regard to my age, a couple things. One is um I can get injured pretty easily now compared to when I was like, I will wake up and be like, why does this hurt? All I did was sleep. What is happening here? You know? Um, and so bodily ailments are more frequent, I would say. Um, in terms of interests, here's one of the things I noticed about my grandparents, but also Josie's grandparents, they were obsessed with the next meal. So, like the entire world involved around eating and what you're gonna eat next. So here's what we're having for breakfast tomorrow, and then they eat breakfast. And after, while you're cleaning up, here's when lunch is gonna be, and this is what we're having. And then you know what I mean? It's like uh, but I do notice that like I I will ask Josie before we're le like I leave, hey, what which one are we gonna eat for dinner tonight? Like, and then I look forward to it all day. I'm getting old.

Josiah 5:10

I remember uh she's past now, but my great aunt and and my grandma both lived in like a um like a senior facility. Well, no, it was like a like assisted living type of apartment, but they lived in the same building. And so as a kid, you would just ride your bike over there and hang out in the summer. They were fun. But I just remember if she had if she had more than one appointment for something in a week, she would always say, she'd be like, Oh, I gotta, she'd be like, No, I can't go do this, like talking to my dad, like, I can't go do this, Paul. Like, I've got a haircut appointment on Thursday. My weakest shot. That's great. That's great. My week is shot.

Mac 5:54

Oh.

False Self And Fig Leaves Recap

Mac 5:55

Well, speaking of getting old, um and haircut appointments. Um during our last episode, I called a little bit of an audible. We ran out of time. We were discussing the false self, and um and so we decided to postpone this conversation or make it its own episode. So maybe just to catch our listeners up in case you missed the last episode, the false self, and we're borrowing here from um Robert Mahullen Jr. in his book, The Deeper Journey, and I would highly recommend it. He defines the false self as a self-referenced way of being in the world. So your false self is a carefully constructed identity that we develop to survive life apart from deep trust and relationship with God. It's not who we truly are in Christ. So it's really important that we remember that authenticity is about living into God's design. So our false self is not that design, but it's who we learn to be in order to feel secure, loved, um, feel safe and in control or significant apart from God's presence in our lives. And our false self is formed through these early wounds, these unmet needs, our family systems, family of origin, first formation, and even cultural expectations. And we end up organizing our behavior around self-protection and self-promotion, wearing masks and erecting walls, um, hustling and hiding. And last episode, Josiah, you used this um, well, it's a biblical metaphor of fig leaves that sort of carried our conversation, which I really liked. That we use these fig leaves. Some are performative, some are protective, but we don't just have like one or two protecting our private areas, right? We are covered in fig leaves. We have all these different ways of hiding and hustling in order to carefully curate this false self. And um, when I was reading Mahulan's book, The Deeper Journey, I got through the first chapter where he outlines the eight characteristics we discussed in our lap last episode on the false self. And quite frankly, that chapter in and of itself felt sort of like a kick in the nuts. You know what I mean? Like a total or a punch to the ovaries, Katie. Thanks. Um, it's just sort of like um, I mean, it was hard, it's hard-hitting stuff. You don't read those characteristics and be like, oh, I don't struggle with any of these. Like it's sort of like this mirror moment where you're looking at these characteristics being like, well, crap. Yeah, you know, like this stuff runs deep. Um and then I read the second chapter, which I think it was entitled The Religious False Self. And in the first few paragraphs, somewhere he says this, he goes, The essential characteristics of the religious false self are exactly the same as those of the false self. The essential difference between a false self and a religious false self is that the latter brings God into its life. And I had to put the book down, right? Because basically what he's saying is the old self, the false self, is still fully operable. It's still in operation, it's still in the driver's seat. The only difference now is that we've sort of brought God into our life, but we're doing things now with a construct of who we think God is to use for our purposes, or we're doing things in the name of God, which gives us like the rationalization or justification to keep going and not feel conviction around it. So, what we want to do in today's episode, um, once again, sort of leaning very heavily on Maholland, is walk through those eight characteristics now, showing how the religious false self shows up. We're gonna review these eight characteristics we talked about in the last episode, but show how they take sort of a

When The False Self Turns Religious

Mac 10:30

they take on a religious character, a sort of a it's the false self, the old self with a spiritual veneer on top, but it's still problematic and insidious.

Katie 10:42

Yeah. And hearing you describe that, it feels like the religious false self could be especially deceptive, right? Because you're basically saying, hey, we're doing the same things, we've got the same fig leaves that block our authenticity, but yet they have the name God and spiritual, like spiritual language all over them. So we feel like we're living into who God designed us to be because we're talking about all sorts of religious things. Um but to me, that as you as you describe that, I'm like, wow, that feels like something it could be very deceptive.

Mac 11:10

Right. And this is I think once you have eyes to see this, that up, we have a false self. And then when we put our faith in God, the false self still can be operable and it becomes a religious false self. This will open up, I think, new possibilities in exploring Jesus' beef with the Pharisees and the religious leaders. Because over and over and over again, essentially that's what he's doing is saying, Hey, you're still operating out of the false self. You're just doing it in God's name. And the outside looks really good because you're wearing fig leaves and they appear spiritual, you appear godly, but in fact, the inside is filthy and full of bones and needs to be cleaned out. Right? We need a new self. You need to be born again, you need to be, you need to be transformed from the inside out.

Josiah 12:00

Yeah. You know, a little bit to your your point, Katie, there's this there's this very uh subversive way of of relating to the religious false self in in that we actually take things that are are clearly wrong or bad or effects of sin, and and we turn them as like in into like godly wisdom. So so we can convince ourselves that w we're not only doing like we're living into our false self, but because it's baptized in in the language and in the culture of of maybe whatever Christian circle we're in, it um we convince ourselves we're actually doing the right thing when we're living out of a false self that God's never asked us to live out of. That's right. And um maybe we can just use this as a transition into some of these characteristics um to start with some. I uh, you know, when one I'm looking back at the last episode, we're gonna be going over the same characteristics that that we did for the false self, but we're we're sort of looking at what it looks like for this to show up in the religious false self. Um and the first one is just being fearful. So if the false self, if our if the fig leave in that way is um the world feels unsafe, there's threats everywhere, um, we live braced, hidden, and guarded, um, and withhold, uh, we do the same thing and we just baptize

Fear Disguised As Faithfulness

Josiah 13:30

it in something else, in in our our religious false self. And I think that, and this is where I'm talking about where it sort of twists to be if uh if our if we're living out of fear as a part of our false self, it can actually look like wisdom to live out of fear and isolate ourselves as Christians from other people. Or or we hoard things and call it wisdom, things like that. So it's like uh it's like fear is supposed to be, you know, is something God doesn't want us to live out of, like it's a fig leaf, but we've sort of like drawn a cross over the top of the fig leaf, and now fear can be something that we can wear and it makes us look more more Christian.

Mac 14:11

In our last episode, we when we were talking about fear, we talked about kind of constructing an identity around something we're good at. And I shared how I'm noticing that a little bit in my son Keir with baseball. And we had a conversation about how like baseball involves failure. You're not going to get up and you know hit a home run every time. And and so if you think that your identity is on the line with every pitch or every at bat, well, then it creates this dynamic where if you do well, well, my self-worth increases, I'm good, but if you strike out, like it's an identity crisis. So bring this over into bring the same dynamic and then think about a religious context. And of course, I'm a pastor, and so I often am thinking about what it looks like to do ministry in a healthy way, and I've observed a lot of different people and how they do ministry and so on. Um, take that same mentality and then think about a Sunday morning with preaching. Like I know quite a few, or at least have observed over the years, pastors who treat the Sunday sermon like an at-bat with their identity on the line. And if they speak eloquently with charisma and do beautiful exegesis, and their words sort of strike a chord in people's hearts, and it's a home run. Yeah. Yeah. If it has the impact, if their performance and the impact is something that they feel good about, that somehow increases their identity, their sense of self-worth. Yeah. But if they don't hit a home run on Sunday morning with their sermon, well, then all of a sudden they're got, you know, they get the Monday blues, they're down on the dumps. Well, what's on the line is every sermon is sort of there's an identity component involved. Yeah. If I do well, my identity increases. If I suck, well, it's an identity crisis. And notice now that we've we've essentially taken the same false self, um, earning identity through performance, and now we're just doing it in a religious context for God, serving the church. But it's the same dynamic. It's the same dynamic. What would it look like instead to get up and preach knowing your identity isn't on the line? That no matter how well you do or don't do, uh, God's love for you remains the same. And you're actually orienting to it not to prove something or to get something, but to simply join God's work in that moment in the life of your community. That's a different way of orienting.

Katie 16:58

Yeah. So when we talk about fear, it feels like a fear of disappointing God or losing our identity, right? What would you name it as?

Mac 17:06

Like a fear of well, I would say in that instant, it's it's the fear of being insignificant. Like underneath this dynamic is I'm not enough as I am. And so I need to do something or achieve something or perform in a certain way in order to feel value and significance. And what I'm saying is that if you look at how that shows up apart from Jesus, there's all sorts of ways people do that, not just sports, but their career and so on and so forth. An endless list of ways we see that happening. What often happens though is that people come to faith and that same default is still in full operation. They're not getting their full value, worth, and significance from Jesus. And so now they're trying to accrue it or get it through religious performance.

Katie 18:00

Yeah.

Josiah 18:01

I think we talked about this last week that fear is sort of a it's sort of like a it underlies a lot of these that we're gonna talk about. So fear becomes sort of the motivator for being protective or possessive or manipulating some of us often. And if we don't have a firm identity in who we are in and who God is, then um we start doing all those protective and uh and the fearful measures like we talked about last week. And in church, somehow we baptize those into looking into sort of creating um a whole nother uh layer of performance that ends up going along with it. Right.

Mac 18:43

And I realize that depending on who you are as a listener, like there might be you might have to do some work to connect that to your own life. Because I like I'm a pastor, so I'm sharing with you the work I've done to think about this. But like if you're a worship leader like Josiah, like you could see how, okay, if I perfectly hit that falsetto, right, then bam, my identity skyrockets. Or you know what I mean?

Josiah 19:06

Like everybody had their hands raised today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did not feel like I was, you know, significant. Right.

Katie 19:13

Well, and Josiah, you and I both lead, well, Mac, you too, we lead um year-long leadership intensives. And think about what comes to mind for me is the fear of being exposed that bubbles up in those groups. And how many times are we sitting with someone, or frankly, experiencing ourselves where there's a desire to look spiritual out of fear that I may be exposed as not spiritual, not having together. For example, let's say someone um is really worried about something and really anxious, but in their mind, oh, if I say that I'm anxious, then maybe it'll come across like I don't trust God. So I'm gonna say, like, nope, I'm trust, of course, I've God's got this, I trust God. Like they may present something that's not true to how they're really feeling out of fear that if I show where I'm really at, I'm gonna be seen as not a good Christian, or I'm not trusting God enough, or I'm not um, I'm not as far along as I should be. Does that make sense?

Mac 20:08

Totally. And if you want to get underneath how much this one is active in your life, just spend some time in Psalm 23, where it says, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And consider that God is your shepherd, who is with you every moment, who knows your needs better than you do, and is eager to provide for you as a good, good father. And then just walk through life noticing how often things are happening around you or in you that create fear and cause you to try to manipulate God or operate out of self-sufficiency to get your own needs met. And I'll just say, it's a lot. Yeah. Right? Fear grips us, and we then out of distrust, try to control God or take things into our own hands rather than simply remaining surrendered in love.

Katie 21:04

Yeah. That's a good word.

Mac 21:06

Let's get to the next one.

Katie 21:07

Yeah, closely related to fear, I would say

Protection Through Dogmatic Certainty

Katie 21:10

the word protective comes to mind. And again, I think it's closely related because when we are fearful of being insignificant or being exposed or losing our worth, losing our identity, well, we're gonna be really protective of those fig leaves that feel like they're securing the thing we're scared of losing, right? So if my performance is my self-worth, then I'm gonna become really protective over that fig leaf of performance because if it's removed, all of a sudden then I feel like I'm not I'm not, I don't have worth anymore. Um I think this is in the last episode where I uh talked about Gollum and said Star Wars. Yeah. It's embarrassing. Oh embarrassing for me. Uh please don't. Why would you tell Drew? He needs to be cast. He's like I feel like he likes Lord of the Rings and Star Wars better than anyone, more than anyone I know. He does. To really work on regaining my credibility with him.

Mac 22:02

Yeah. You're going to have to clean up your mess with Drew because that is. I think I am.

Katie 22:06

If you're listening, Drew, I'm really sorry. So yeah, we're clinging on to these fig leaves because, again, if I feel like who I present to the world is this. Okay, that here's here's where my mind goes, especially if we're working in ministry, right? All three of us work in ministry. How many times have we read stories of someone who works in ministry that's struggling with something, um, but they don't feel like they can be honest about it. And so then they become really protective to try to hold together this self-image. And then eventually it spirals and it all falls apart. But for example, like the podcast about um is it Mars Hill? Yeah, the rise and fall of Mars Hill. Yeah, the rise and fall of Mars Hill, the pastor Mark Driscoll um had this huge following, huge church, multi-campus church. It was a national figure. Um, but behind the scenes, you in this podcast, you see how he gets very protective of maintaining the image he's maintaining. And anyone who threatens that image is pushed out.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

Yep.

Katie 23:06

Like he, you know, pushed people off the board or just kind of ousted them from the community or ruined their reputation because they were threatening what he saw as vital to his image and ultimately his self-worth.

Mac 23:19

Josiah brought up in the last episode, um, you kind of use the addiction metaphor of someone who's addicted. If they have an addiction to something, they become really protective of that thing. Um, and Katie, yeah, I hear you saying the same thing um using a um a ministry example. When someone is has got junk in their life, they work really hard to hide it and protect the thing they've built because it's so central to who they are. And yeah, you I think you can see that dynamic. Um, one of the areas I've spent a lot of time studying and researching, uh, given that something similar happened here, is just that dynamic is cleargy malpractice and abuse and the dynamics around that and what you're naming is is there, I would argue, probably close to 100% of the time. Right. And then when it's brought to light, and we've talked about this in previous episodes with our series on Church Called Tove, um, when we're going through that book, usually the board responds not by truth telling and naming what's happening and how they're responding to it. Usually they respond by blaming the victim to protect the organization and somehow trying to preserve momentum and reputation of the church, which is no bueno, right? One of the ways I notice um protection taking on a religious um tone with uh the fig leaf of protection is um um dogmatic certainty. I think that one of the things I notice when people come to faith is they have some new convictions about who God is, who Jesus is, what he's done for them, which are great. And what can end up happening, though, is that people sort of construct a theological system and end up feeling very certain about those convictions. And sort of like what you were saying, Katie, anytime that's threatened, they become angry and protective. And I actually think that's sort of a symptom of of sort of fragility and immaturity around their beliefs rather than rather than being able to hold those with humility and conviction at the same time.

Josiah 25:31

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I think in general, if if open dialogue and conversations with people who see things differently than you um threatens you. Yeah, if like that's a sign of maturity to be able to have a a mature conversation with someone who you might disagree with. And if someone was immature in that, it would be easy to see. But I think what I hear you saying is that in church, we can actually, it can actually flip the script where the person who is unwilling to have conversations about and have open dialogue and maybe discuss um differing theological i ideas or uh doctrines and things. Someone who isn't willing to discuss that and is more dogmatic can sometimes be seen as more mature. And I think that's worth pointing out that that's not true. It's just the it's it's a fake leaf. Right. And we just put a cross on it.

Mac 26:26

Yeah, that's what I mean. I think we did an episode on the problem of dogmatism or something and how we police beliefs and sort of um force people to conform to a certain way of thinking. And yes, what I'm naming is that is a fig leaf of the religious false self rooted in fear and protection. Fear, what if people believe differently than I do? Or, you know, and and protective, we have to believe these things. We got to kind of hold the line and so on and so forth. And yes, to your point, Josiah, people who can get really passionate about what they believe and sort of appear uncompromising often are associated with like strength. And I think you're you're asking the question, is that really strength or is it insecurity? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:14

Yeah.

Mac 27:15

Right. Um, that the third characteristic we talked about, uh, or that Mahullenless is possessiveness. Um, so you remember our false self tries to secure life by grasping, controlling, and holding on again, that image of Gollum turned

Possessiveness In Ministry And Parenting

Mac 27:30

in on himself. Like he's all decrepit and deformed and sort of hunched over, protecting the thing that he currently possesses, namely the ring. And when he loses it, he's obsessed with regaining it. And again, in a in a religious false self, now we just become possessive of, well, our religious identity, the the things and the things that we've used to curate it and craft it. Again, I'm I'm a pastor, so I'm mostly paying attention, at least in my own life. And how does this show up in ministry contexts? And what I notice is that uh some pastors, when they work really hard to quote, build the church, um, they construct their identity around being a successful pastor. It's almost like their identity as a person gets transferred to being a pastor, which then gets equated with or transferred to the church. So I am the church that I lead. And then they grasp and they cling and they hold on to that as the foundation of their identity. And this often shows up in the language they use. I've heard pastors uh say things like, my ministry, right? The ministry they've been called to sort of belongs to them, or my church, as if the church that they serve belongs to them. They own it, or my people, as if the people who comprise their community, the congregants, belong to them. Or my vision, as if what God is calling this local community into to be faithful either starts with them or belongs to them. And then I think it shows up when that's your mentality, it can show up behaviorally as well. So I'm naming some of the language, but also it can show up behaviorally. Uh, one example is the pulpit. Um, I've noticed that uh um um folks who often uh have this particular fig leaf of possessiveness in a religious false self, they only share the pulpit when they need a break. Right. And ironically, it usually happens on the holiday weekends like Memorial Day and Fourth of July and so on. Um, or they they take credit or success when things are going well, because that boosts their identity. But of course, they blame other staff and so on when things are going poorly. Um now again, if you're listening to this, um most of our listeners probably aren't in ministry, some are, but um, think about how this can show up if you're not in pastoral ministry. Um, I've noticed people say things like, Well, God is God told me, right? Or uh so it's kind of like God is on my side, right? Um, or um, I've noticed people who are in an unhealthy relationship but want to continue in it. Like, God gave me this relationship. Like we're using, we're doing what we've talked about before of like using God's name in vain, right? We're we're using God language to justify our decisions and to promote ourselves, right? Um so, anyways, it it it it it shows up in sort of a possessive control where we're using God to justify the things we're doing.

Katie 30:45

Bless our agenda.

Josiah 30:48

Yeah, I wonder, um, you know, I can think of lots of church leader examples too. Um like I I would imagine that this is a primary motivator as to why some churches, church leadership have a hard time passing the torch down to another generation of leadership. It's because there's a possessiveness around like this being our thing and wanting to include the next generation into the leadership can be difficult because you're letting it go to you know to something else.

Mac 31:18

Well, not just letting it go, but um things aren't static. The things are changing at a rapid rate. And so oftentimes, you're right, there's a possessiveness where we don't want to hand things over because we don't want to like loosen our grip of control, but we also don't want things to change. And yet reality is changing, which means how the church is expressing or meeting that reality needs to change, and that makes us fearful. Now we're back into that fear uh deal whereas where where we we get all messed up, right?

Josiah 31:48

Yeah. Maybe for an example, outside of like the church leadership spectrum, I mean, many of us lead families, and I think that uh many of us can see how at least I can see how possessiveness can can sort of eke its way into how I I parent my kids and how I lead my family. Um, and sometimes within the the Christian circles, we baptize this into a way that makes us look smart and wise, that we get possessive, like these are my kids, this is my family, and um making decisions as such, when ultimately, uh a lot of times that's driven out of out of a fear to either pr protect from something bad happening or or um being possessive of as if like these kids are really my kids. And I I I I don't I don't know about you, but I have to remind myself of this a lot. We discuss it in our home. It's like, hey, first and foremost, these are God's children, and we're stewards of that, and and so there's like a healthy of there's a healthy open-handedness of like, hey, these are human beings made in God's image, and they're gonna become who you've created them them to be. And there's only so much control I have over that.

Mac 33:02

Um Yeah, that that's the dynamic that you just named is the difference between stewardship and ownership. Anytime with with this particular fig leaf, anytime we shift into an ownership type posture um for God, that's when this fig leaf in the religious false self is in full operation.

Josiah 33:24

Yeah. And if you and if you think you don't struggle with it, what I would say is observe the patterns of your kids' behavior. Because if them behaving properly, it's gonna make you feel good, right? I mean I'm getting identity from it.

Katie 33:40

Our kids can be feel like a reflection of us, right? In any context. And I think sometimes even more so in a in a Christian community.

Josiah 33:47

Oh yeah.

Katie 33:48

Like you're yeah, whether it's happening or not, I can feel like I'm being um sort of judged or evaluated based on how my kids are doing. So certainly there can I can see that dynamic at play. Um and how it might lead to us to feel possessive over something that, like you said, Mac, we're called the steward, not own or control, because we can't anyways.

Josiah 34:10

Yeah, and you'll know if you're into this, uh if you're if you're wading into this fig fig leaf and you're sewing it on, because you'll know as soon as they misbehave how much of an identity crisis it is. There's something going on with my kids. What's wrong with me? What did I do wrong as a parent? When ultimately it's like, well, it's the child's behavior, you know, and as they're growing up, like they're gonna have to figure that out without me. So what does it look like to without grasping for the control of their behavior? It's tricky.

Katie 34:40

Yeah, I certainly don't have it figured out.

Josiah 34:42

Oh, that's surprising to me.

Katie 34:44

I'll let you know when

Manipulation Versus Healthy Influence

Katie 34:45

I do that. Maybe I'll write a book.

Josiah 34:47

Another one on the list is manipulative. And um, I'm remembering back to last week, we talked about everyone everyone manipulates to a certain degree. There's a certain amount of manipulation that happens psychologically in order to get your needs met. So some of that happens very subconsciously. And the false self essentially is seeking its own gain even at the cost of others. So I guess that that's what I would name as manipulation. It's like you're seeking something for yourself at the cost of someone else. So you're manipulating something out, you're you're getting a better deal than the other person, essentially. And so the religious false self, um this can often have even a more sinister uh outcome, I would say, is because that that ability to manipulate can be seen as uh an influence of leadership. And when you're doing it for God, it becomes even that more important. And how much easier is it to look past the the negative aspects or the negative impact it has on some if you can see all the good work it's doing for the kingdom.

Mac 36:02

You gave us a definition of manipulation.

Josiah 36:05

That was off the cuff, so if it's wrong, feel free to No, I let's just use it.

Mac 36:09

I want to go with it. Uh, but I have a question for us to banter about for a moment. You gave us a definition of manipulation, something along the lines of sort of um acting on someone else at cost to them in a way that's advantageous to me. Right? Something like that. Um But then you talked about how in a religious environment we can leverage leadership influence in ways that are manipulative. And that surfaces for me. What's the difference between manipulation and influence?

Katie 36:43

Should I take a stab? Yeah, go. Here comes the Enneagram 3, Katie, raising my hand in the front row.

Josiah 36:47

Well, yeah, and and that enneagram for me is finding uh very facetious ways of bringing it up. So I I feel a little more uh uh what's the word? I feel um cynical about this topic. Great. So you should go first? So you can go first.

Katie 37:03

Okay, great. I'll give the test answer. You can give the real answer. Um no, I guess as you're saying that, uh, my mind goes to like if influencing someone towards their good, like wanting their good, um, in a way that could be at cost to me. We've talked about this concept before. Manipulation would be influencing them for my good.

unknown 37:25

Yeah.

Mac 37:26

So the telos or goal of manipulation is self-serving, whereas influence is about serving, equipping, empowering others. Self versus others would be maybe one delineation.

Josiah 37:43

Yeah.

Mac 37:44

Anything else? Just curious.

Josiah 37:48

Yeah, no, I think it's a good idea.

Mac 37:50

You've got that cynical look on your face. Like, bring it.

Josiah 37:53

I mean, all it it can feel a little bit like all uh desire to influence is is really manipulating someone to do something they wouldn't have done if you didn't influence them to do it. So is it always self-serving? No.

Mac 38:10

But it is inherently um well, I guess if we're going off of the definition we're using, you know, it doesn't have to be manipulative, but I would want to distinguish between influence and manipulation. I think that God seeks to influence us, um, but I don't think that God uh manipulates us. To me, manipulation carries some degree of coercion and um in acting on someone else that actually violates their agency, that seeks to overtake their agency for a self-serving purpose. Whereas influence is more about leveraging the say-so that I have in someone else's life that they've given to me to inspire them or move them in a direction that is towards their design, towards a kingdom end, towards flourishing in wholeness in a way that gives them permission to choose it or to submit to it, or to surrender to it, or to act on it. Um, so in other words, um, at least that's the way I make sense of it, is manipulation is inherently coercive and controlling and self-serving. Whereas influence, at least the way I'm thinking about it, is about actually using the say-so someone else has given me in their life to encourage them in a positive direction that they get to choose and submit to.

Katie 39:41

Yeah, that like that distinction. That makes sense. Um, and given where you were headed, Josiah, it makes me wonder are there times in my life where I feel like I'm influencing, but I'm actually manipulating.

Mac 39:52

I'm sure there are for all of us. Yeah. Yes. Because these two, the wires often get crossed and manipulation is so ingrained in our false self. But to your point, Josiah, I just think these types of delineations are really important so that we can have clarity about what's going on in us and between us. Um, that then like uh shines the spotlight on that is the false self versus that is a new self that I'm operating out of in Christ. And so many, again, I'm a pastor, I coach pastors, I think about this a lot. This is one of the major ones that I unpack in my coaching with clients, is they're often um manipulating their staff or manipulating people in their church towards what they believe to be a kingdom end. But the means don't justify the ends. One of the ways I notice this showing up with people in general, but pastors in particular, especially with this attractional model of church ministry, which we've unpacked before. Central to that model of ministry is sort of a charismatic leader at the center of the entire thing. And what I've noticed with these charismatic leaders is not only do they have some high, we're all probably on the spectrum of narcissism, but they have a lot of those characteristics. And with that comes like a gravitational pull. Wherever they go, they seem to be able to pull people into their orbit who then sort of get on board with the things that they're passionate about or the things that they're doing. And oftentimes that's celebrated as like this is God's leader for our church. God's He this person's anointed, look at, right? But underneath it is this person is just operating out of a false self in the name of God and controlling and manipulating people who are reporting to that individual to appear really good.

unknown 41:46

Yeah.

Josiah 41:46

Yeah. Yeah. I my cynicalness is not uh, or cynicalness, cynicism is more on the lines of how much uh how much manipulation happens within Christian leadership. And I'm not just talking about big leader, like big leaders. Yeah. I'm talking about even in the smaller areas of how it can seem like um it is very self-sacrificial, but ultimately it's uh it's still more coercion and control. Um, I mean, even think about, I think about um think of a few things. So sometimes we um can manipulate others and call it like a mentoring relationship. We're mentoring someone, uh being in that sort of place, being in that place in someone's life and having say so, I think that it takes a lot of humility to not do it in like, hey, I see something for your life and and I want you to do the thing that I think is right for you. Um it it takes it goes from being a spiritual guide to someone to more of like a you know, like a you're you're manipulating.

Mac 42:56

Anytime you have a group of people coming together where two or three are gathered, not only is Christ there, but manipulation is present. Yeah. There's not us. Um you just look at your small group, look at elder teams, look at the, you know, whatever the environment is, and it usually is going to involve uh the definition we talked about, which is like acting on someone else to get something we want that violates their free will or their agency.

Josiah 43:20

Yeah. We secure religious and church outcomes by forcing people in our lives to think like we do. Leveraging fear tactics to win converts. Uh, when a church leader becomes over author authoritarian and forceful, we can label them as a gifted leader or an apostle rather than just being a jerk.

Katie 43:44

And Mac, in the last one, you talked about the using the phrase like God told me, like that comes to mind. How people can use like, well, God told me to sort of add weight to what they want.

SPEAKER_03 43:52

Oh, yeah.

Katie 43:53

And of course there are times when God can tell us things legitimately, 100%. But but that to me um how easily that could be used to manipulate the outcome that I want.

Mac 44:04

Yeah, we add weight to our words by bringing God into it. And so now we can like force that onto someone else such that if they don't do it or disagree with it, they're not just disagreeing with us. They're disagreeing with God.

Katie 44:19

Yeah. Whew. All right. The next characteristic Mulholland names is destructive. And a lot of these, you know, I feel like are tied together. But

How Religious Masks Become Destructive

Katie 44:30

to me, this one seems to be in a way sort of the the outcome of all the things we've been talking about. Like when you are manipulative, um, you in a you will inevitably do destruction. You will create destruction. So and I think religion the religious false self can be destructive, not because we're necessarily trying to hurt people or trying to cause destruction to relationships. But I think when our faith comes becomes wrapped up in these fig leaves, these religious fig leaves, when we're not being authentic, that will inevitably impact our relationship with God, our relationship with ourselves and our relationship with the people around us by having a destructive effect. Right. So when I'm not being authentic with God, my relationship with him isn't going to grow, it's going to be inhibited when I'm not, when I'm not being myself, if I'm putting on the fig leaf of um performance or you know people pleasing with my spouse or with a friend, that's going to do damage to that relationship because I'm not actually showing who I am. I'm showing something other than who I am, which erodes like the integrity of the relationship. So this one is interesting because again, the the whole purpose I think of the religious false self and our minds we're holding it all together. Like we're keeping these fit leagues and we're holding on really, really tightly to them in order to maintain our sense of self-worth, maintain our sense of security, maintain whatever it is we think that God wants us to maintain so that He's happy with us and so that we can keep moving about in the world, holding it all together. But in reality, underneath the surface, everything's eroding because it's not authentic. It's it's something other than what's really happening. So all of a sudden we look under, we pop the hood and it's like, oh, there's a there's a but there's a lot that's messed up. There's a bunch of worms under here or whatever, right?

Josiah 46:19

All of a sudden you look worms there's worms in an engine.

Katie 46:22

There's worms in an engine. I'm I'm confining two metaphors there. Just go with that. What's something that would be in a rust? There's a rust.

Mac 46:28

Well Star Wars there's that ring thing.

Katie 46:33

Worms in an engine. A friend of mine had rodents in his Yeah that is true. A friend of mine had rodents in his engine and it started on fire.

Josiah 46:39

Oh my God.

Katie 46:40

So there you go.

Josiah 46:40

Um you popped the hood and job of the huts under there.

Mac 46:45

And he got the ring. You get what I'm saying. I do get what you're saying and I think you're right that this uh this it is destructive and it is the impact of some of these other things that are active in our lives. And in a lot of ways I see this playing out in the church broadly this is you know I think we need to distinguish between like genuine church hurt and church just being messy because people are messy. But in a lot of ways there's been we did that series on the sort of the I forget the title it was it was sort of like the great it was like an exodus from the church. Oh deterching the great deterching and and I just think like in a lot of ways at least one variable that's playing into that is is the destructive nature of everything we've been describing being done in God's name. People are leaving the church in droves because people who claim to represent God are operating out of a religious false self and they've gotten hurt and wounded and sort of disoriented in the process they've become cynical and are like I'm done I don't want to do that. I don't want to be part of that. And again I if I had to weigh in I think yeah some there's legitimate church hurt and sometimes I notice like people conflating or confusing relationship that is inherently messy. Name a relationship for me that doesn't involve some mess with church hurt those aren't the same. You know what I'm saying? Like you can't go to a church and expect it to be perfect or for their it never to get messy. If you find that church I'd love to hear about it. My my guess is if you start going to it you're gonna mess it up listen. Because you're not perfect. But you get what I'm saying so we have to delineate or distinguish between hey this is just normal messy stuff that we're actually have to learn to embrace and navigate and mature through versus like this is super destructive and hurtful.

Josiah 48:48

Yeah for sure. Yeah there's just so many relationships get ruined. I can think of people who have had estranged relationships maybe with their children. In fact I was just talking to someone um they were sharing how um one of their kids kind of walked away from faith and it was very difficult for them for many, many years. Um and um as they learned to relate to them differently and uh less with some um some of those manipulative type of tactics less of the control of needing to um control all of that of what they believed um saw so saw their relationship begin to be restored. Um and not not based on you know we can be close now because you're a Christian it's now we can we can sit and talk about our ideas on things and and I don't need to have so much of that that control and this parent was just talking about like being able to to let go of some of that is now helping their relationship be be be be restored.

Mac 49:49

Yeah I love that and again when we look at the the gospels and how Jesus interacts acts with the religious leaders most of what he's doing in those interactions is not only exposing the religious false self but then also highlighting its destructive ripple effects in the relationship with God um on themselves and with other people. And I think if we were to review the gospels through that lens of like how is the religious false self impacting those three spheres, those relational spheres, we might be able to see it more clearly in our own lives right um the next characteristic that Mahulan names in the religious false self is self-promotion. Remember self-promotion, we sort of outsource we outsource our identity to the validation of other people so life becomes performance based we talked about this a little bit with fear and how we can like wrap performance around it. And then we seek uh

Self-Promotion In Church Celebrity Culture

Mac 50:50

validation from other people in order to feel significant. And it seems to me that maybe the current cultural climate with social media and the current predominant church model of pastor centric ministry creates a perfect recipe for the religious false self to operate with self-promotion. I mean you just think about all the people on the social influencers who I I'm okay I'm just gonna be honest I get really irritated with religious social influencers who have a platform and can speak people who follow Jesus and have no responsibility for actually leading them. So for instance, I'm on this topic um when there's uh a significant cultural moment and everybody's stirred up about it and it's politically charged I've noticed social influencers saying things like if your pastor doesn't address this, fill in the blank, uh from the pulpit on Sunday, you need to leave and find a different church. It happened with the Charlie Kirk assassination. If your pastor doesn't address it this weekend you need to find yourself a different church. It happened with uh some of the stuff in Minnesota if your pastor doesn't mention this this weekend you need so it's happening on both the right and the left and I'm sometimes want to pull my hair out because I'm like who are you who who are you're a person talking into a camera that has never led a church before you have zero accountability zero accountability and your entire platform is built on self-promotion with no responsibility right yeah drives me bonkers um it seems to me that this can obviously happen in a deeper way with uh pastoral ministry where um and for the church collectively so pastors can be very self-promoting online and you know the entire model of ministry can be built around essentially them promoting themselves and their gifts uh in order to quote build the church and then churches can be very self-promoting I've shared before that almost every week I get emails um from people who want to help us better promote the cross point brand right um as if like if you can enhance your brand if you can promote cross point more effectively for God um you know and I don't know part of me gets really grossed out by it.

Josiah 53:36

Yeah don't even don't even get me started on the Christian music industry like No I want to get you started what do you mean what you're talking about it it's all it is the money goes to the same pockets it doesn't it doesn't filter back through through church and people are Christian celebrities and they make music and bless people with it right I'm not gonna poo poo on that because I know that it can have an influence at as a musician and people and being able being able to bless people you don't believe in music? I think music is motivational have you ever heard chambawamba they're so motivated being uh being able to bless people at at different times in our church community uh like I know it's a gift however how much how like how do you trust anyone if they're doing it like how do you trust anyone to be doing it for the right reasons when it's so uh when it's when it produces so much financial gain for them. How could you possibly trust their motives?

Mac 54:43

It's an interesting question. Um I don't know.

Josiah 54:50

I just have a I don't know how it is okay I recently was listening to this artist wrote a song uh and they were telling the story about how how they wrote the song and they were just like they were it's essentially like basically like I was just sitting around with some friends and this melody came to me sort of singing they're like that's really good you know and it's like and pretty soon we're all worshiping and it's all great. And it's like it's like and out came this song that's gonna be a platinum hit, you know? And and you know I'm gonna be drowning in these riches for a while. But it's for Jesus. God is still good. It's like how can I try I can't how can I trust that it's not more self-promotion.

Katie 55:34

Yeah.

Josiah 55:35

Would you still write songs if no one heard them I really hope that happens to us next time we're sitting around a bonfire just kind of talking chop.

Mac 55:41

You get out your guitar you start singing all of a sudden the melody comes to your mouth next time it's rapping in the background I hit that falsetto note and ruin the song but somehow it goes platinum.

Katie 55:52

Press the wrap button where's the one where you're rapping a boom botching Yeah there you go.

Josiah 55:56

I thought there was one where you didn't I I want to be like I want to be careful to state that like I like I'm not gonna say that it's it's all evil. No but but it there is so much of this fig leaf in how all of that that works. That industry. Yes and I just have I have I have so I don't have a lot of tolerance for it.

Mac 56:21

Well it's everywhere. I mean so I would love to write a book at some point I have some ideas of how I I used to think I have nothing to contribute. Anything that I would want to talk about I can point to someone who has already said it and better than I I could. And there are there's part of me that still thinks that there are some things that I think I would like to share with the world. But here's what's the stopper for me is in order to get a uh a contract uh oftentimes they're looking at how well you can promote yourself. How many followers do you have on social media? Because you're gonna have to like throw you're gonna have to put yourself out there repeatedly in a really self-promoting way in order for your book to gain traction. And I I struggle with that. I think the solution to this friends this is sort of um I've been paying attention to John the Baptist over the last few years and I was actually in Matthew three today where Jesus goes to John to be baptized and the humility that John consistently demonstrates it shows up almost every time he speaks in John chapter one when the disciples his disciples John the Baptist disciples start following Jesus some of them express concern like oh they're leaving you to follow him and he's like yeah that's great uh he must increase I must decrease then I was reading this morning at Jesus's baptism Jesus shows up John knows who Jesus is and his first inclination was this ain't right you should be baptizing me you're better than I am you're righteous I'm not you need to bat I need to repent.

Josiah 57:59

Yeah I can think of a handful of uh celebrity pastors that would line up to be the ones to want to baptize Jesus and post it on their social media look at me I got to baptize Jesus now again I again this is me being cynical I I don't know these people I only know them from social media um but I just have a really hard time trusting their motives when there's so much gain for it in themselves.

Mac 58:29

The self-promotion is a huge fig leaf with the religious false self and the way it shows up is um becoming a big deal for God is success.

Katie 58:40

And you don't have to be in ministry to do that.

Mac 58:42

You don't have to be in ministry in fact I know people who have um been congregants in our church who have left to start their own ministry in their name and I'm like okay I'm not saying that's all like follow what God is asking you to do like so on. That's fine. But my goodness like underneath that I want to ask the question like is this something God's calling you to or do you have a mental model where becoming a big deal in terms of ministry is the key to being successful that's what it means to be successful. And I want to shift that to say no success in the kingdom is about being faithful and it could involve um some attention.

Josiah 59:28

It could some people are launched into fame and it's not necessarily something they sure sought out.

Mac 59:34

But there's a big difference and we talked about this with celebrityism at at some point there's a big difference between making becoming a celebrity the goal even if it's for God versus gaining attention because of how faithfully you're serving. An example of that for me is like a Dallas Willard or a Eugene Peterson who put their voice out there for sure, but they weren't looking to become someone who's notable or well known. They simply were operating out of their conviction and began to share their transformation in writing and that's how they become well known that's very different than well a a several dozen people I could list who are clearly like I want to become a known so that um you know for God.

Katie 1:00:19

Yeah and I I hear all of that and I would just want to add I would you know again I think this is at play with all of us. I think the religious false self is on its own like about self-promotion because why else would we be presenting something other than what's aligned with what we actually are it's to promote ourselves.

Mac 1:00:36

Yeah and this is all over Jesus' teachings. Like when you pray go into your prayer closet why because right now you guys are praying publicly and when you pray publicly you're praying for the recognition of other people and your reward is here. Right. So there's all sorts of when you give don't give you in visible ways give so no one notices.

Josiah 1:00:53

Yeah I guess maybe that and just having an epiphany maybe that's the distinction is if if someone's reward is already here and they're doing it in God's name, it doesn't mean it can't still have a good effect on the kingdom. But I I have a really difficult time trusting the motive for it all if if if the gain is if your treasure is here, right? It's like you've received your your reward as Jesus said. Yeah. So they've already received it. If you've already received it I've I I don't know I just don't trust it.

Mac 1:01:27

Well thank you for sharing your cynicism with us.

Josiah 1:01:29

Yeah next on the list I think we're almost done right a couple of more um is indulgence. So the false self is indulgent so it seeks personal gain personal reward for things. Um I think that uh as

Indulgence Rebranded As God’s Blessing

Josiah 1:01:50

a religious false self this is where I thought of and I'll see if this lands and see see if this lands with you. I think that the way that we um indulge ourselves in a religious context is by not naming God we names we name God's blessings but they ultimately become privileges. So things that are privileges to us can become the thing that is the norm and then the expectation so we expect God to maintain our lifestyle so we have expectations about how we're supposed to live around here maybe and those expectations of what the people around in lay country would expect God might not like we might we might cry out to God and say you're not providing for us when really when really it could be a heart issue of just being willing to name hey I I can name God's blessings for me and their blessings they're not um I'm not entitled to them as a privilege.

Mac 1:02:59

Okay let me make sure I'm tracking. So it's almost like this is me trying to wrap it wrap what you're saying around my mind. There's maybe a distinction between uh wants and needs and um our wants get fulfilled and we uh consider those um entitled privileges things we're entitled to because of what we've done for God. Is that what you're saying?

Josiah 1:03:24

Yeah yeah and and then there's an expectation that that continues and gets maintained and when it doesn't God where are you?

Mac 1:03:33

Yeah so like look at all this stuff I have and of course this is God's blessing me for my faithfulness or whatever it might be.

Katie 1:03:39

Yeah and I feel like when I've seen that play out in the religious context it's often with some reference to the Old Testament. You know how in the Old Testament oftentimes the Israelites did receive some sort of blessing or prosperity as a direct result of covenant faithfulness or obedience. Um and I'm not saying that can't happen but I I feel like I I've heard that connection being drunk. See I did this and now I have this or I have this and now I have this and all of a sudden what could be um indulgence or excess is actually yeah excess right is actually more like entitlement.

Mac 1:04:13

Right in in God's name because of what I've done.

Katie 1:04:16

Yeah.

Mac 1:04:17

Right. I think one of the things that can happen and again this is for uh people in ministry but certainly people without it too is that non-Christian like behavior that we associate with fun or pleasure or whatever it is becomes a reward for kingdom ministry. So think about all the scandals at play um in church leadership again I've studied this a lot one of the through lines is is like it starts with pastors rewarding themselves with ungodly behavior for all the work they're doing. And I mean you can see that play out in a much less sinister way than like you know an affair or abuse in our everyday life where oh I've worked really hard I'm gonna have this coffee ice cream with heath bars on top um and maybe go back for seconds because I look at what I've done sinful behavior.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:10

I deserve it I deserve it.

Josiah 1:05:13

Sinful yeah I yeah and I I want to name that um even in a less overt way of like a tit for tat, like God I served you so I expect you to provide for me. I also think of the um like we have we have many rights and privileges in America that many other countries don't people who are following Jesus do not get to expect the same amount of God's blessings as we do. And I I I struggle with this just as much as anybody living around here. But um I think sometimes we the way that indulgence shows up in this big leaf is that we have expectations that God is going to maintain our lifestyle. And although there probably is a Semblance of that, like obviously, like if you're not going to be on the street, you're going to be living in a home, and that does require a certain amount of income and all of those things. But I I I think that um I I think of the Apostle Paul saying, like, I've learned the secret of being in being content. Yeah. And and and I just think there's a big part of that uh of this fig leaf of indulgence that like is counter to what it is that God's inviting us into, which is the ability to be content in no in any situation we're in.

Mac 1:06:34

I think it's such a good word, Josiah, um, that one of the the way that this fig leaf of indulgence takes on a religious um turn um or form is we take our indulgence and it and we reframe it as God's blessing. And I think about Jesus' own a parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Imagine the rich man kind of building bigger barns and seeing and having all this stuff while Lazarus is sitting there dying outside of his gate. And and but his narrative is, hey, look at all this stuff I've done for God, and this is my reward. And I wonder, I just wonder, given the inequality that exists around the globe, like how much maybe some of that narrative or framing of it um impacts our care for those who don't have what they need. Yeah. And I think you're you're highlighting that.

Katie 1:07:28

Yeah. All right. Can I dive us into the last one?

Mac 1:07:32

Yeah.

Katie 1:07:32

The last one, Walhalla names, is distinction making. And this is, we talked about it, what it looks like in the last episode, just with the with the false self generally. But man, this one feels especially prevalent with the religious false self, like in religious leaders, using the kind of us versus them categories. And we do that to, I think, grab onto like a sense of moral superior moral superiority. We're the Christians that do these things. Um, they, you know, they do it the other way. It could be denominational, you know, we do it this way, but the Catholics or the Lutherans or Pentecost, whatever. There can be all sorts of spiritual elitism or language around what a real Christian looks like. And we do that to prove to ourselves that we're following Jesus more faithfully. It can show up in parenting. We've talked about parenting before. I can't believe they let, you know, they let their kids do that. Serious Christians would homeschool or serious Christians would send their kids to private school or even public school. I've, you know, I've heard it, that comparison

Distinction Making And Judgment

Katie 1:08:30

made around public school. Um, and it makes me think of that Pharisee tax collector example in Luke 18, where um, you know, the the fair, it's a Pharisee, right? Who says, Thank God I'm not like the tax collector. I'm not, thank God I'm not like him. Um and so we draw lines and we sort of sort people into categories into who's in and who's out in order to make sure we're on the right side of the line.

Mac 1:08:55

Yeah, this is the root of judgment where we sort of detract worth from other people in order to give it to ourselves, um, versus loving people, which is ascribing worth to others at cost to ourselves. And this distinction making that we do in our religious false self, I think is one of the primary blockers to our witness to a non-believing world. Um, because instead of loving uh people or judging them, we feel morally superior to non-Christians because look at how they're living and we have it all figured out or whatever. And again, study after study shows that um, at least in this cultural moment, uh non-Christians tend to associate Christians not with Christ-like love, but with judgment and hypocrisy. And uh all of that is rooted in what you're naming, Katie, which is distinction making. Distinction making. I think it's worth uh at least touching on before we jump into some of the practices for this week that Jesus models something very different for us than all of this false self, religious false self we've been talking about. I I mentioned I was in uh Matthew 3, where Jesus um gets baptized. And it's so significant that um when Jesus uh comes out of the water, there's this moment where the Spirit of God uh um lands on Jesus in the form of a dove, and and then there's this voice that says, This is my son whom I love and am well pleased. And at that point, Jesus has not started, he hasn't done anything for God. And yet he's being, his identity is being fully affirmed. He's receiving his identity, and then before he does anything publicly, that identity is tested. He goes right into the wilderness, and the enemy tempts Jesus three times, which I think not only happened, but sort of represent categories in which we all face temptation, which is hey, turn these stones into bread. Like try to meet your own needs on your own, apart from God. Um, throw your throw yourself off from the temple where everybody can see, and then they'll know who you are. In other words, perform for other people so they can validate who you are, and or uh all these kingdoms can be yours if you bow down and worship me. In other words, uh kind of pulling on that, hey, you could be a big deal. Like you could be in charge, you could control this whole thing. And Jesus uh consistently rejects these options and simply rests in who God already says that he is. And after resisting those temptations, he then begins his public ministry, not to get something, but to express who he already is. I want to just hold that out for us to say, hey, the way forward, the solution to our false self and even our religious false self is to receive from God who we already

Jesus Receives Identity Before Performance

Mac 1:12:00

are. And then um become increasingly attuned to how often we reverse that. We we try to get something rather than express what we've already been given. Makes sense? Yeah.

Josiah 1:12:14

Yeah, we have a saying in our saying in our leadership intensives that um every behavioral issue is ultimately an identity issue.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:22

Yeah.

Josiah 1:12:23

So when you get underneath the surface, the the ways that we promote our false self, uh essentially when we're insecure uh in who we really are, we will continually promote our false self in order to gain love and affection and our needs, essentially needing to be worthy of it. And yeah, when we can learn to recognize how that false self is competing with our true identity, that's where that's where growth can come. But it starts by knowing who we are in Christ first. We have to know that we're that we're the Father's beloved. Um and you know, I I think about this in context with raising my kids. I have a 15-year-old who likes to challenge things. And I often she makes an appearance in every episode. She yes, she really does. Uh she she would love it, by the way. She would love it. She's she's getting uh she's getting airtime. Um, but no, I I often this is what I often say, like like I'm frustrated right now because when you're not being honest with me or we can't talk real about something, um, and it turns into an argument, like it it limits my capacity, our capacity to have a good relationship. That's why I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated because you did something wrong. I'm curious to know why admitting you did something wrong seems so difficult. Um, you know, and so ultimately I I I can see her. I there's something underneath there that feels incredibly exposing just to say, like, yeah, I messed up. And and uh everything's built on so much of our relationship gets built on this performance and the fig leaves. And so I just see how that plays out, like how like God towards us too. Like you're getting in your own, you're you're getting in the way. Like, I just want to be with you and I love you, and there's nothing you can do to add or take away from that.

Mac 1:14:23

Yes.

Josiah 1:14:23

And when we know that, we don't have to keep putting on fig leaves in order to be okay.

Mac 1:14:28

Yes. Let me maybe summarize the last uh two conversations around the false self and the religious false self with this sort of invitation and challenge that Paul gives to the Colossians in chapter three. He says, do not lie to one another. And I thought I remembered, and then I Googled it, and my memory serves me correctly. That word for lie one another, lie to one another is pseudomai, which is where we get our word pseudo from. Fake, false. He's saying, don't be false with each other. Stop lying to each other. What if we began to see every fig leaf that we've sewn on to hide or to hustle, to perform or to protect as a form of lying to one another, and began to advocate for one another to take those off in appropriate ways, and started to do that for ourselves with other people. Um, I just think that would

Practices To Name And Remove Fig Leaves

Mac 1:15:30

be a beautiful um create a beautiful community that works against the destructiveness you were describing, Katie, towards God, towards oneself, and towards others. We have to learn to stop lying to one another, knowing that our lying prevents us from living authentically.

Katie 1:15:50

I love that. That's a good word. Praxis pancast. Yeah, so how do we do that?

Mac 1:15:54

It is praxis time. Uh, here are some practices for you, and I'm going to repeat um the first practice from last time, which is to just go through the eight characteristics Maholland uh describes and begin to describe your false self. We can't name, we can't take off what we can't name. And so the first step is to actually do some reflection. And we all have blind spots. So if you feel like you have a safe person to talk to, you could ask someone else about these characteristics in your life, but you've got to be able to start to identify where they're popping up, where they're showing up in your life and your relationship, so you can begin to take them off.

Katie 1:16:35

Yeah, and then related to that would be just to name or describe your religious false self. So take all the categories that you're seeing, um, that all the fig leaves that you're seeing, and then going, okay, are there areas where I'm cloaking that in religious language or I'm protecting or pleasing in order to preserve some sort of um spiritual image? Or am I using God language to promote myself in a way that's not true to how God actually made me?

Josiah 1:17:01

Yeah. And then practice three is is to essentially get your identity in Christ. Once I mean, it's one thing to be able to name the false self, but you have to have another voice to counter it. Um, like we need we need good news, gospel in our lives. And so finding resources, scripture versus um, things that that we can dwell on that sort of can give us like when that when that false self starts coming up, a voice of shame and guilt or fear starts coming up inside us, we have something to counter it with. Oh, I see that as contrary to the way that um that I am in Christ. Yeah.

Mac 1:17:39

Uh I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. Next time, we're gonna talk about the role of first formation when it comes to um our false self and showing up inauthentically, because many of the characteristics that maybe are prominent in our lives have been there for a long time and go back to the way we were formed in our families. So stay tuned and we will see you next time.

Josiah 1:18:08

Praxis is recorded and produced at Crosspoint Community Church. You can find out more about the show and our church at crosspoint WI.com. If you have any questions, comments, or have any suggestions for future topics, feel free to send us an email. Also, if you enjoy the show, consider leaving a review. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast.