Expressive Individualism: Finding Yourself or Losing Christ?

Show Notes

In this episode of Wisdom for the Wilderness, Pastors Zack and Josh address one of the most powerful cultural forces shaping our world today: expressive individualism — the idea that your deepest feelings define you, and the highest goal in life is discovering and expressing your “true self” no matter the cost.

They explore:

• What expressive individualism really is and how it contrasts with healthy community
• Why it leads people to cut off family, leave churches, and demand the world affirm their feelings
• The surprising irony that “being unique” often makes everyone look and act the same
• How this mindset fuels consumer Christianity, church-hopping, and weak community groups
• The biblical balance between the value of the individual and the priority of the body of Christ
• Why emotions and “authenticity” cannot be our ultimate authority — Christ must be
• Practical wisdom on doing hard things, raising children, marriage, and building life on convictions instead of feelings

Drawing from Scripture (including the early church in Acts and the “one body, many parts” teaching in 1 Corinthians), the pastors show how the gospel offers a far better identity: not found by looking inside ourselves, but received as sinners saved by grace and called into God’s family.

If you’ve ever felt the pressure to “be true to yourself,” wondered why community feels so hard today, or want to help your kids navigate this cultural moment, this episode is for you.

A timely, hope-filled conversation that calls us back to Christ-centered living in a self-obsessed world.

Creators and Guests

JH

Host

Josh Hutchens

What is Wisdom for the Wilderness?

Join Dr. Josh Hutchens, director of Gateway Seminary's Rocky Mountain Campus and pastor at Overland Church in Fort Collins, Colorado, as he explores spiritual faithfulness amid life's challenges and suffering. Through discussions on theological questions and inspiring stories, Wisdom for the Wilderness offers guidance and hope for navigating the complexities of faith in a broken world.

speaker-0: Welcome to Wisdom for the Wilderness, a weekly podcast by the Pastors of Overland Church where we talk about the Bible, theology, practical things for life. ⁓ We really want to discuss things that intersect our lives as Christians and the world that we live in. That's right. And today we're going to talk about something that I think is just a full-blown influences, affects, intersects everybody who's hearing this today.

speaker-1: That's right.

speaker-0: and it's ⁓ something that's been coined as expressive individualism. So Josh, give us a definition of what expressive individualism is.

speaker-1: Yeah, so this question came from a listener who ⁓ sent it in to wisdom at overlandchurch.org. That's right. And so, ⁓ expressive individualism, you want to contrast that with kind of a community ⁓ mindset. You know, in olden days and a lot of cultures today still, ⁓ people prioritize the needs of the community, right? And so,

speaker-0: should do that too if you have any questions.

speaker-1: ⁓ But today we're all thinking in the West about who am I and, you know, what should I be allowed to do? How should I live? I don't want anybody else to interfere with... the way I want to live, if my family gets in the way of who I think I am and what I think I ought to do, then I'm going to cut off my family, I'm going cut off my church, I'm going to... And so, expressive individualism is this idea of, I've got to figure out, you know, kind of the Disney thing, I've got to figure out who I am deep inside, and then I need to express that in my life in the world and display that to everyone. And so, This comes down to the way we dress and the music we listen to and the stickers we put on our car. And it's like we swim in this so deeply in Western society that we don't even see it. It's just the way it is.

speaker-0: And kind of the core of it is that the highest good that one can do is discovering and expressing your truest form of your inner self, who you are. you made me laugh on the inside when you said the Disney thing, because it is like the plot of so many Disney movies and it shows the reality.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: If we talk about expressive individualism on one end and it's where we are as a culture and you talk about like caring for the community and a communal kind of aspect. I want to be clear here. Like you're not talking, say like communism.

speaker-1: Yeah, no, not exactly. But communism is one manifestation of the other extreme, right? In Amish community is a good example of where

speaker-0: What about Amish community? Maybe a healthier one than, say, communism.

speaker-1: There's certain community standards that everybody's expected to abide by for the good of the greater community, right?

speaker-0: So if we look at like communism on one extreme and expressive individualism to the highest end on the other extreme, we can look at both of those and go, yeah, neither one of those are good. Right. Neither one of those are the goal here. But what we can't do is so worship self-autonomy that we do not love our neighbor as Christ has told us to do. That we don't love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind and love our neighbor as ourself. That's where it becomes really

speaker-1: That's right.

speaker-0: problematic. Now, can I just say one of the, think the funniest things about expressive individualism in our local Fort Collins community.

speaker-1: night. Okay, think I have a guess where you're going. Let's see.

speaker-0: Every high school dude who's finding themselves looks exactly the same. Every 22 year old girl who's finding themselves. They have the same haircut, the same septum ring, the same puke looking green blue dye in their hair. Like, you know what saying? It's like, you're trying to, you're trying to express yourself. By looking exactly like your peers as you're rebelling from your parents.

speaker-1: That's exactly where I thought you were going to go. Like, yeah, you're trying to say, I'm different, I'm special by looking like everybody else.

speaker-0: You know, ⁓ I often am at Chick-fil-A at lunchtime when the Rocky kids come in or the Fort Collins high school kids come in and every one of the dudes has the same haircut and they're all bad. It's like, like I'm expressing myself by, by I mean, dying and perming my hair and doing this little frizz thing, low taper fade to the frizz. It's it's just bad. It's bad. Express, you're expressing yourself poorly. Uh, but I joke there, but like when we really get into it, I mean, here, here's at the core of it, my deepest feelings define me. Um, My authenticity and being off authentic is really, really important. It's like the ultimate thing. ⁓ freedom means that I can be whatever I want. that, that freedom means I can be a female or I can be, you know, I feel like a woman on the inside. So a lot of the trends movement comes from that freedom. When you hear somebody and they throw out their their pronouns and like all the, you know, the crazy things that you hear that are just constantly being invented. Yep. That's a real, that's a, that's a real thing. Yes. The idea that any sort of outside authority over me is oppressive and restrictive.

speaker-1: degrees.

speaker-0: That I won't be happy unless I'm able to fully express myself. Like all of those are the have, that is the full negative effect of expressive individualism in our society. ⁓ you know, there's, could, we could do a dive in on like where this influence came from, but if we just want to go one step back, it's therapeutic culture, right? Right. It's, the therapeutic culture. that's really unhealthy. Yeah. Because it ends up on, it's all about me, me, me, me. That's right. And you know when you'll, you'll never find happiness when you are just self-focused going me, me, me, me, me. Yeah. And you can try to express yourself and reinvent yourself a million times over and you're going to end up void and empty. Yeah. Time after time after time. Yeah.

speaker-1: That's right. That's right. And, you know, the problem is, as that's butting up against the needs of the community at large, ⁓ you know, there's an expectation, this is who I am, everybody else needs to adjust and accept me where I'm at. And so, that's why we have debates in our society, for example, about ⁓ you know, men who think they're women going into women's restrooms, right? And women saying, no, that makes us unsafe to have a man, confused, mentally ill man in our restroom. And so then the question becomes, whose rights are more important, the rights of the community of women or the rights of this individual. And then you multiply that out a hundred different ways, a hundred different times. Yeah, yeah. And so then, you you have, like we said, people who are coming into their family, and if their family doesn't...

speaker-0: Look how problematic that is.

speaker-1: affirm their particular political worldview or who they think they are or what they think, then they just write off their family, you know, they write off their church, ⁓ people coming into the church ⁓ and thinking that the church ought to cater to every particular ⁓ expectation that they have rather than saying, okay, there are a lot of individuals here, and we need to be a church that tries to meet the needs of the body rather than one individual.

speaker-0: Right. Yeah, what a... I mean, that way of thinking is so opposed to Christianity. Yeah. Look inside yourself where Christianity says look outside of yourself. Yeah, to Jesus. Right. And after you see Jesus and you look to Jesus, then you start looking to the needs of others. That's right. And in that, you'll live a fulfilled, great life. Yeah. And that's the difference. And so...

speaker-1: That's it.

speaker-0: I don't want you to hear me say like, no, God created you to be who you are. Right. And he gave you the gifts that he gave you. But the important thing is right here that he gave you the gifts and he made you who you are to fit into a larger body. That's right. And to contribute to a larger community. Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah. And, you know, a lot of times people will struggle with thinking maybe the Bible teaches the other extreme, right? So, they'll look at the first chapters of Acts and be like, isn't that communism? They were having all things in common. You know, people were selling their property, giving it to the poor. ⁓ you know, that's the other extreme people thinking, okay, there are no individual rights. Actually, when you look at that, the individuals are doing that voluntarily. not a communistic system.

speaker-0: the government making them do it. That's right. It's a benevolent system in which that's how the church should.

speaker-1: That's right. And the Bible is so beautiful at the way it balances the individual and the community together. It doesn't really prioritize one over the other, but it sees them. As Paul says, it's one body with many parts, and every part is valuable. Every part is needed. Every part is unique, and yet the purpose of every individual part is for the good of the whole. So you can hold both of these things in your hands at the same time ⁓ if you do it rightly.

speaker-0: That's right. One of the things I think becomes a problem for people when they're in the pursuit of this individual idea is that they look within their heart and go, what I want to be, not realizing my heart is deceitful above all things. I'm a sinner. And if the Bible isn't my authority and I'm my own authority, I'm just going to do what I want. And often what you want to do is really, really bad for you. so when self becomes kind of. the ruler or king in your life, person, yourself as who you're your own Lord, which is what we all struggle with, right? But you're throwing out the truth of who God is and who he's called you to be. And you end up selling yourself short of the higher calling that God gives you. So how do you think this plays out and affects the actual local church?

speaker-1: ⁓ I mean, if you want just like one really solid example, it's always playing out in church music opinions, right? Yes. So, you know, people come to church, and their immediate question is, do I like the music? ⁓ And so, you know, I think you have to come to a place of Christian maturity, however, where the style of the music really does not matter to you. Obviously, there's better songs to sing. I'm not saying that whatever what we sing doesn't matter, but you know, I've been in churches, I've served in churches ⁓ where I did not particularly care for the music, ⁓ but I can worship the Lord with a music that isn't my particular taste, ⁓ because that's where God's called me to be, and it's not a big deal.

speaker-0: So interesting enough, like I lead a church that that's true of, So, so culturally, as I've tried to plant a church, right? We planted it with music that would be culturally appropriate. ⁓ and, do we always nail that? I don't think we do, ⁓ within our musicians and what we have, but we want to have culturally appropriate music that's going to like work well for the culture. You know, you know, I'm a old time screaming and shouting, let go up, tell it on the mountain. That's like, you know, that's my, I love the, like, you know, just about what always sing hymns. If I'm the one picking out the music, I'm not picking a modern, I don't pick in many modern songs that are hymns. Right. And so, ⁓ It can't be, I said this in a sermon not too long ago, good, you didn't enjoy the worship, good, we're not worshiping you. And so that's a great effect. would think in consumer culture, we have a lot of people who want to walk into a church, sit, get free therapy, and go home. Maybe throw five or 10 bucks in the plate and go home.

speaker-1: That's right. We don't pass a plate, by the way. Throw it in the box.

speaker-0: Yeah. we, yeah. Yeah. And maybe, maybe the next pastoral switch that up, bring it, bring the plate back. Hey, we had the, we had a, we had little boxes pre COVID, ⁓ we passed little baskets. ⁓ yeah. So, so the consumer culture of it goes, Hey, I want to consume. want to go get free therapy, motivational talk from a week and go home without ever plugging into the body. That's right. You know, I would, you know, we struggle at our church with community groups and having enough people in community groups and have enough people to lead community groups. Most people will go, Hey, yeah, I think we need community. But then a lot of them won't jump, jump in because I'm too busy or I have this going on or have this going on. And the community groups that work really well are people who've given over the idea of, I'm going to show up a community group and I'm going to minister to other people. and be a part of the community. We're going to try to make this little expression as much like Acts 2 as we can. We're going to live life together and those people are going to have a more fulfilling life. So, you know, we talked about Josh a little bit of like the two extremes. We would just both acknowledge that there is a balance. That's right. There's a healthy balance to...

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, that's right.

speaker-0: You know, there, there are, there are things and you'll, you'll hear, ⁓ some of the popular mom culture talk about, we've got to take self self care before helping others. Yeah. And there is there a, there is a reality. Yeah. You take care of yourself. gotta put on your oxygen mask before you put the oxygen mask on your kid. A ⁓ mother has to, has to, ⁓ feed herself before she can, her body can provide the nourishment for her infant baby. Like there's truth in that. But a lot of people who say that, extreme, right? Well, I've got to have my spa day. I've got, you know, I've got to have all this time before I can pour myself out. So there is, there is a reality of like, why are you filling, filling yourself up to pour yourself out, to help others.

speaker-1: take it to Yeah. And this comes into our culture's ⁓ difficulty with doing hard things. ⁓ We don't do hard things because that demands a lot from us individually for a greater good. ⁓ so, we'll look at something and ask, you know, what am I going to get out of it? And maybe the answer is, you're not going to get something out of it, at least not ⁓ the cheap, easy things that you're looking to get out of it. It's to be hard, and you know, this is, this is, ⁓ you know, goes into the avoidance of marriage, the avoidance of having children. Like, ⁓ people don't want to have children today because they want to live the dink lifestyle, and they want to travel, and they want to have all this money, and children are expensive, and they're difficult, and you know...

speaker-0: And then they turn 40 and realize, ⁓ no, I need to have kids.

speaker-1: Yep. Yeah. And so, you know, it really affects then everything down the road. you're right, it goes back to immediately to a therapeutic culture that has elevated our emotions above everything else in every other faculty in our life. know, not our emotions become more important than our convictions, right?

speaker-0: And that's totally flipped up on its head. You don't need to build your life based off of your emotions. You need to build your life off of who Christ is and what He's done.

speaker-1: That's right, and your convictions have to then steer your emotions.

speaker-0: And your convictions should come from Scripture. And so your Scripture is what should go, okay, just because I have emotion doesn't mean I give over to it. Often I have an emotion and go, wait a second. That's not the right response. And that's not how Christ and the Holy Spirit says I should respond. So am I responding in the power of the Holy Spirit or I'm responding in really ⁓ a wrong, sinful emotion?

speaker-1: That's right.

speaker-0: Every emotion you have isn't right and pure and good. That's right. Every appetite and temptation and interest that you have isn't right and good. I want to, this is kind of chasing a rabbit, but I would, I want to say that like, just because you have interest or appetite in something doesn't mean that that's good. Yeah. And that you should just pursue it. Right. Right. You know, There are things that appetites and temptations and interests that you need to put to

speaker-1: death. that's right.

speaker-0: in raising children, your children are going to have interest and appetites that aren't good. And our world says, well, that's just who they are as an individual. So feed it. No, you don't feed it. You stop it. That's right. And so if you listen to me, if you get up, you got a little boy and he's two or three and he likes playing with the neighbor across the street, likes playing with a girl because she's a friend, likes playing with dolls and likes playing dress up, like stop that. Because that's not going to go a good ⁓ direction.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: You know, just like to say, okay, if, if, you know, you're, you, you had a, a ⁓ child that discovered pornography, would you just say, that's who they are. They're a sexual being and just feed it. cut it off. Like you don't, you don't want to expose those things. So just because I have an appetite and I go individually, like this is who I am. Yeah.

speaker-1: No. And it just, you know, as Christians, we ought to see that so clearly, because the world around us has lost their ever-loving mind, you know, because they said, okay, homosexuality is okay, now trans is okay, and now they're pushing the boundaries of what do they call it? Not pedophilia, but child-attracted sexuality, or something like that. where they're saying, you know, this is just the way these people are, and we need to celebrate that ⁓ in some way. I mean, it's, that's how insane that this road will take you down if you follow the lead of the culture.

speaker-0: So don't. Don't. Build your identity on Christ. We receive who we are. God made us to be. And the Bible lays that out for us. man, every one of us is a unique expression. And I want you to hear this. We're not calling for uniformity. But we are saying, hey, we're going to live in submission.

speaker-1: Yeah, that's right right

speaker-0: Under God's Word. Well, Josh, we probably could talk about this the rest of the day because it's such a problem, but we probably ought to land the plane here. Yeah. So Josh, give us a just a parting word of wisdom.

speaker-1: So. Do things you don't feel like doing because they need to be done.

speaker-0: We could do a podcast on that one right there. That's good. That's good. I'm going to say this. I think in our culture, it's right to value authenticity and to be real. ⁓ But we should not let authenticity be our guiding force. Christ should. Amen. And so if we want to be our authentic self, it's by recognizing I'm a sinner in need of a savior.

speaker-1: Yep.

speaker-0: And my identity now is its son or daughter in Christ Jesus after I've believed the gospel and been saved. Amen. All right, so thank you so much for joining us for Wisdom for the Wilderness. As always, if you have any questions, email us at wisdom at overlandchurch.org. And until next time, hopefully we'll see you Sunday. Go and be blessed.