The Challenge of Being Authentic.

I am currently reading Go Put Your Strengths to Work (by Marcus Buckingham). In the book Buckingham makes the point that we often research or discover things by working out what they are not. So we find out about health by researching disease we find out about function by researching dysfunction. I am still thinking about authenticity and I’ve been noticing an inclination (including myself) to define what is inauthentic rather than what is authentic. We seem to instinctively know what is inauthentic, but struggle to describe what is authentic. However Buckingham’s point is that if for example we research disease and do or achieve the opposite we don’t necessarily get great health – we just get not diseased.

If we try to achieve authenticity by using our instinctive ability to recognise what is inauthentic and doing the opposite, we run the risk of achieving a mediocre polite middle ground that is not inauthentic but isn’t wonderfully and creatively authentic either. As Christians we have in Jesus and in the biblical narrative our inspiration and guide for living authentically.

A Christian understanding of what it means to live authentically must be rooted in a rich understanding of what it means to be created in and called to live as the image of God. . To live authentically is also embedded in Jesus’ call to follow him. As we seek to follow and imitate the one who said “I am the way, and the truth and the life” we are called to live with an authenticity that reveals the image of God in us, and points to the revelation of truth that is the person of Jesus. In our sound-bite, image conscious society living authentically is as radical as it was in the society of Corinth in the early days of the church. I want to finish with a quote from an address by Vinoth Ramachandra, he tells the story of a Russian philosopher who became a Christian and moved to the US, the contrast between Christianity in the US and Russia was great and led her to state,
“For the first time I understood how dangerous it is to talk about God. Each word must be a sacrifice – filled to the brim with authenticity. Otherwise it is better to keep silent.” (Tatiana Goricheva)