Heartbreaking news: one of my friends has begun to identify as both a “husband” and a “father. Doesn’t he know his identity is in Christ, not his sexuality? I am worried that he has begun to identify as a “straight Christian.”

I tried to confront him on identity language, and it is so much worse than I originally thought. In the course of a conversation, he quoted one of the theologians he has been reading lately and called himself the “chief of sinners.” How can he identify with his sin?

He also apparently identifies as an “American” and a “white man”—painfully broken and sinful history behind those identities, by the way—as well as a “baseball fan”. I just wish he would leave all these identities behind!

Especially frightening was when he began to use these identities as modifiers—“American Christian,” “white Christian”—as if race or nationality should ever modify our identity in Christ!

What’s next? An “American gospel”? “American Christianity”?