your story? (on the pros and cons of PoMo)

One of the fascinating and troubling things I encountered a few times this week (at Bible & Beach): At times, young people have an over-arching emphasis on "their story".

One of the good aspects of post-modernism is elevating story, context, and narrative-- away from the faux certainties of modernism and scientism, elevating the value of the individual human person vs. the aggregations of socialism and its ilk, and so on.

But, as with anything else, elevating "my story" to a pedestal results in the necessarily painful manifestations of idolatry. "My story" is important, but not over God-- or how Christ and the Spirit redeem my story. Story is not my identity; story is only an aspect of my identity. It's not your story; it's your story-- in Christ.

Confusion here takes one to some very nasty places:

-comparing your story to the story of others and coming up short;

-prone to fleeting feelings, experiences, and emotions;

-building your life on a narrow, subjective, narcissistic sense of.something rather than rooting your life in the Cross, the Resurrection, the Spirit, and the Word.