I'd like to thank the Academy

Authenticity isn't quite a Christian virtue. PLUS: My favorite awards season, explaining Donald Trump, and rituals to practice getting better.

I always laugh at Oscar award winners because they don’t have what I have.

They might have contributed to some big movie, earning some kind of global recognition for their efforts on an awards show hosted by some comedian—but all that pales in comparison to my two trophies, one with my name misspelled.

In high school, I participated in a two-credit Social Media and Broadcasting class at the district’s vocational technology center. My brother and I had already grown up as budding filmmakers, so I brought with me a bit of experience but then got to hone my skills with much better technology.

Throughout the year, I made stop-motion films, short films, documentaries, a music video, and even assisted as a boom mic operator with the advanced class feature. But my crowning achievement was clearly a live TV soap opera parody I wrote and acted in that we did in our studio. This was broadcast to a local channel in the area and could be watched live by anyone eyeing the TVs in the halls of the vo-tech center.

At the end of the school year, it was that cheesy soap opera that was remembered by my fellow students. When it came time to vote for the end-of-the-year awards show, they chose me as Best Actor and Best Writer for the year, both, I believe, with that soap opera parody in mind (I think I played an overbearing father or something). And I received two small statues as my award, one of which misspelled my last name. Who needs an Oscar now!

I had already professionally retired from stage acting at the time and had begun to explore myself as a professional writer, so the awards fittingly cemented the end of one era and the start of another.

Even though they got my last name wrong on the Best Writer plaque.

Whether stage or screen, I’ve done my share of performing over the years. I hate memorizing lines, but inhabiting a new identity, a new accent, or a new costume is fun. The process of convincing someone that you are a different person—even for a night—is exhilarating and a really interesting challenge. It’s high-stakes make-believe.

That’s the chief perception of performance: it’s fake. It isn’t real. It’s not authentic when you are being someone else, playing by a different script, purposefully going through the rhythms to become something you aren’t.

And in a culture that praises authenticity, it seems sometimes the worst sin imaginable is being performative because it’s not “real.”

Yet I want to push back on this and remind us that playing a part—going through the motions—can help us become better people, even if it doesn’t scream “authentic” how the world likes. Ritual is more helpful to our spiritual formation than spontaneity and “being real”

Authenticity isn’t a Virtue

In her book Where Goodness Grows, author Amy Peterson writes about the world’s obsession with authenticity as an explanation for many of the shifts in our culture. She notes particularly a confusion that spontaneity is somehow a marker that something is more real. In general, everyone is now chasing “real”—or so they think.

I’ve seen this firsthand as a teacher and volunteer foster care worker. When the kids talk to me about their interpersonal problems, the one that commonly comes up is that a friend is being “fake.” They would rather their friends be straight-up mean than pretend to be nice but harbor some kind of ill will. To not be authentic, to not be how you feel inside (whether good or bad), is the biggest of sins.

Peterson observes this taking place beyond teenage girls. In fact, she notes that much of the appeal of Donald Trump can be traced to people loving that he “tells it like it is.” His spontaneous, unfiltered, not politically correct attitude is exactly why people like him, as it is contrasted against politicians who carefully choose their words, actually read off their teleprompters, and bother to fact-check their statements. Trump is seen as “authentic” because he doesn’t play by the rules, and some people find that quality very compelling.

While authenticity in the sense of honesty and sincerity is an admirable quality, the world’s definition of authenticity is far from this. Authenticity means “you do you,” regardless of whether that unformed central part of you is really a healthy version of yourself. As long as it doesn’t scream “prepared” or “packaged,” people seem to think it’s better (maybe that’s why weird people want to drink raw milk now?). It doesn’t matter that someone like Trump just makes things up—he’s “speaking his truth.” Ironically, it was the conservative right that once warned me about moral relativism, and now moral relativism seems to be their highest value.

Calling out Protestants as especially victims of this cultural revolution over authenticity, as they pendulum swung away from Catholic rituals, Peterson remarks:

“What’s important to note here is that several hundred years ago we got authenticity all wrong. When we connected authenticity to spontaneity, and to spontaneous emotional outbursts, that led us to value emotional outbursts over truth. That may be why we fell for Trump’s shtick. An appearance of being spontaneous, of speaking off-the-cuff, seemed a sign of authenticity. But if that’s authenticity, then forget about it. That’s not a virtue at all. I don’t want to be ‘real.’ I want to be better.”

I’ve long believed that the best metaphor I can come up with for spiritual formation that works in the modern day is that we are to learn our part in the play. God has cast us in this drama, and we need to learn our lines and blocking. A certain amount of improv might be acceptable, but there are other people on stage with us. We are working together on a project with a specific aim, and too much individual deviation messes up other people’s lines.

For the Apostle Paul, as I noted in my master’s thesis, he liked the metaphor of growing up from a child to an adult for similar reasons.

“Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?”

—1 Corinthians 3:1-3

In ancient times, children were socially ambiguous. They weren’t “good for anything.” Becoming an adult meant being a functioning member of society with a part to play—that’s why he wanted his readers to stop suckling on milk and eat some solid food. We have to eventually grow up and inhabit our role, with Christ as our archetype.

Peterson goes on to explain that for Christians to be authentically who we are supposed to be, we will need to stop thinking of spontaneity as the highest sign of sincerity and instead understand that ritual and rhythm are our new best friends. She writes:

“The part I've been called to play is that of disciple, and like a method actor, I must live into the role as best as I can. I can't expect the right response to emerge spontaneously—I have to practice and memorize until, yes, the lines become so familiar to me, like the lines of the prayer book, that I can speak them without even thinking about it. This will not lead to mindless conformity, but to my unique embodiment of the role.”

As my mom often reminded my brother and me, brutal honesty is not the same as honesty. Blurting out whatever awful thing is on your mind is not “just telling the truth.” Christians are called to be better than that. It’s not “fake” to hold your tongue. Neither is it fake to recite a prayer or Scripture over and over until it’s implanted on your soul, nor rehearse kind words to another when your heart isn’t quite where it should be.

To again quote Peterson, the goal is not to be a more real version of yourself but a better version of yourself. That will take practice, intentionality, and discipline. The fruits of the Spirit aren’t cultivated overnight but require water and sunlight to grow over a season. At the start of this cultivation, it might look like a lot of vain repetition, but eventually, we become the role we were born to play.

Our authenticity derives not from spontaneously doing whatever our brain says but in submitting to a higher plan and the will and mission of our great Director, God Almighty.

Inhabiting the Role

We’ve just entered the Christian season of Lent at the publication of this article. This is a season that trains us to “remember we are but dust” as well as to repent and turn back to God. Sure, we can reflect on those concepts any time of the year—but the historic church has provided us a special time with plenty of rituals and rhythms to help us shape these virtues inside of us. Might as well take advantage!

Repetition is also going to be a key tool as you seek to shape Christ-like virtues in your life. Just like for a play we say our lines over and over until they stick, or to prepare for a race you run the block again and again, we repeat as a part of training. Christian training is no different. Memorize that prayer, keep reciting that Scripture, read that Bible story for the 45th time, keep showing up to church even when it seems you’ve heard it all before. If you want the result, you’ll put in the work—even if it’s tedious and repetitive.

That’s how we inhabit our role in this cosmic production called life.

Authenticity, in its most basic sense, is great. I’d love to see Christians show they are a little rough around the edges sometimes, because let me tell you, our young people think the church is only a museum for perfect people who figured it out. Being real can serve you if you are real in that you are an unfinished creation in need of redemption just like anyone else. Yet, our primary goal is to become better. We can come as we are, but we shouldn’t stay as we are forever.

It’s too easy to make spontaneity and “being real” idols in our lives because that’s what the world says is valuable. But in God’s calculus, that’s far from our goal.

In fact, those “who tell it like it is” without filters—be they politicians or celebrities or coworkers—don’t deserve our respect but our pity. It’s sad that they have such ill-formed disciplines that they give in to their base impulses, their so-called “lizard brains.” It means they’ve stopped growing and getting better, being content with lounging in whatever subpar condition they found themselves in. It means they are fine steamrolling over others as long as they get to say their “truth.”

Pitiful. Embarrassing. Put them at the top of your prayer list.

We believe in discipline.

We as Christians are performing, and that’s not a bad thing. Because we seek to become like Jesus each and every day, we are going to put time and effort into the work. Spontaneity won’t magically get us there, but repetition can.

With some notes from the Director and plenty of rehearsal, maybe we’ll be well on our way to winning a Best Actor award too. I think that’s just “getting to Heaven,” though…

I just hope they spell your name right!

Life Updates

• Subscribe to the Smashing Idols podcast on your favorite podcast platform.

• Currently working on my book “The Inefficient Gospel” about how the Gospel calls us to the slow and people-centric path.

I preform this way,

Jake Doberenz

---

Thanks for reading Smashing Idols. Please share this publication with others!