We live in times of anxiety about identity. Philosopher Charles Taylor suggests that modern people are especially pressed to play some active role in determining who we are. We construct our identities not only in conversation with others, though this is an important part of the process. We are also involved in a "self-conversation," as the story of our lives will often be an uneasy weaving of various threads. These threads are born out of the transitions of our attachments and allegiances over time. Moreover, some new threads will be defined by overcoming earlier ones-i.e., the new, fit, and productive me supersedes the lazy couch potato.

 

How these threads remain together may itself be an important moral task, a task of proper story construction, or integrity. We face a great temptation to protect our identities against attack. It's a strange war we wage when fighting for our identities, for we project outward a war raging within. It is difficult to locate one's enemies in such confusion. For instance, I was raised in a Catholic church, a tradition from which I was in a sense orphaned (or, at least, put up for foster care). Later on, I was taken in by a Protestant community. How do I narrate that story? Dark to light? We are tempted, even here, to do violence to ourselves.

 

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It's ironic that, as we participate in the sharing economy, more and more of our lives get ceded over to the domain of the transactional. Where previously we might have a couch or spare room for a guest to crash in, now we rent it out. Where previously we might have offered an unused desk space in our office for a friend needing a place to work, now we list it and charge by the hour or by the day. Where previously (in antiquity, it seems...) we might have given someone a lift if we were headed their direction, now we charge for a Lyft. Interestingly enough in Lyft's case, what started off as a suggested donation has moved toward fixed charges as the service has matured.

The core issue, as I see it, is that despite our best efforts, we continually get bent toward relationships characterized by transaction or exchange- what Jacques Ellul, the French sociologist and theologian, calls the Law of Money.

Meet Heather Bunce - one of our new EP Board Members!  Heather and Ryan are happily married with two children. Their daughter, Shelby, is 11 and son, Riley, is 9. They live in Lansing, Michigan where they are members of their house-church, Delta Community Christian Church. Heather teaches part-time at Great Lakes Christian College in Lansing, MI after having completed a Masters degree in biblical studies in 2012 that was partly inspired by conversations that began at EP. She especially enjoys teaching Biblical Hebrew. Heather first started attending EP in 2007, a couple of years after others in her church discovered the conference. She has developed relationships through EP both with people who identify with her Church of Christ/Christian Church background and those who bring the richness of other traditions. She first met members of Englewood Christian Church at EP and was excited to discover others from her tradition who were also developing practices of radical discipleship in their community. That relationship has flourished, as have many others as she continues to meet new people at EP to share her story and listen to the stories of others.