From antiquity, identity politics has been the number one battle arena. Pagan creation myths made mankind into slaves serving the gods, meaning the ruling families. Scripture corrected this, claiming mankind was made in God’s image, sharing together in his dominion over the creation. This humanity is not to be subjugated.
Fast forward to the Reformation, and the priesthood of all believers became the focus. Again, it’s about human identity: To be subjugated to central rule, as a mere cog in the machine, or to flourish through the discovery and advancement of innate giftings. Thus, protestant nations prospered and so did true democracy, or shared contribution.
Academics still put the advancement of these nations down to Greek principles, but democracy and prosperity were rooted in scripture. Here again, it’s about human identity. The immorality, elitism and warfare of the pagan Greek system, or human identity springing from the gospel of mutual service.
The counter-Reformation struck back with a detailed and brutal plan. Part of this was the launching of the Jesuits, whose primary aim was to take back control over human identity, to cut people off from the freedom of information brought about by the translation and printing of scripture in local vernacular. This advancement in human exposure to truth, to discover our liberating identity in God, had to be stopped.
Documents of that time reveal one of the Jesuits’ strategies was to infiltrate universities, to control the central narrative within education. An aspect of this was “modern cosmology,” which posited a heliocentric universe (today, multiverse), relegating earth, and thus humanity, in insignificance. The Genesis counter-narrative undoubtedly puts earth and humanity at the centre of creation, with massive consequence for human identity. You can see here that true biblical faith is brave and corrective, not retreating and self-preserving. It addresses and counters false culture.
The originators of new cosmology were cultists (Copernicus, Keppler and others, later Newton), drawing on ancient sun-worship elitist vs. slavery cultures. This “science” was advanced further through the “billions of years” of Darwinism, relegating humanity as a mere accident of chance and time, ultimately back to slave class, as we see emerging again in neo-pagan cultures today.
What’s this identity crisis largely about? Well, in ancient pagan creation myths, it was about wages and centralising wealth, just as we see today. Like in Pharaoh’s Egypt. You can’t manipulate low wages without building a slave identity. Humanity was degraded by evil morality, all kinds of sexual deviance, breakdown of families, cultism, child sacrifice, satanic worship. It’s to degrade human resistance to becoming pawns of the gods. It’s no coincidence that we see the same strategy across the world today. Human identity is reduced to consumerism, self-pleasure seekers.
Identity politics plays a big role in colonialism. The world today is in the grip of Cecil Rhodes, who, through his system of resource control in Africa, his Rhodes Scholarship and sister networks, set out to dominate all nations through globalism. Thus, our national identity had to be taken away. Resource rich nations, like those in Africa, had to be cast as backward, with infighting and corruption being the main factors in their lack of progress, hiding the truth of global financial control, terrorism, political assassinations and regime change from abroad, and resource theft.
Some Africans bought into this identity constructed by elite narrative, or maybe became political agitators, who can be manipulated by personal power interests. The way out is an awakening to our true identity in Christ, like in the first Reformation, not just using faith as a personal advancement program.
It’s the same now as it has always been. We accept false narratives about our designated identity and succumb to the power structures of imperialism, or we rise up against them like the Essenes or Barabbas in Jesus’ day, or we educate our societies in the priesthood of all believers, developing a community building faith in our nations that bravely impacts politics, economics, science and the morals of our nations, rebuilding a biblical identity of the human person – which delivers from slavery to vice, and to self, and slavery to the lies of our day.
The answer still lies in the truth, which means in the church, “the pillar and ground of truth.” But not a church mirroring the self-centred cultures of our time, but the church that cares about the real purpose of the gospel: Nature change, restoring humans made in the image of God, and bringing justice to communities and nations.
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