Joy and multiple identities

Abstract

This article introduces the phenomena of multiple identities and their communication channels that today’s individuals have. Upon reviewing the sociological characteristics of multiple identity holders, they are highly connected people. Though all the people hold multiple identities, the context of the modern city connects people to ever more diverse locations. In the Bible, the multiple identity holders used by God can be categorized into the types of early adopters, bridge, guardian, peacemaker, and mobilizer. The church and mission agencies must recognize that these people can become new channels of joy and should help them fulfill their missions according to biblical principles.

Keywords

social network multiple identities mission strategy bridge persons channel of joy

Introduction

It is a natural phenomenon for a person to have several identities. For example, I am a father to my children, a husband to my wife, a customer at the market, and I have various positions in the church. I use Korean as my native language, English as a professor at the seminary, and Chinese as a researcher of culture. Likewise, all of us live with several identities.

The number of people who hold multiple identities grows as people identify themselves with more than one set of circumstances. These people have the ability to selectively work and share their lives in multiple situations. They learn how to behave in different situations in order to act appropriately and increase benefits. In this pluralistic world, those who hold multiple identities develop several layers of cultural patterns by experiencing multiple societies. Particularly in multiethnic environments, people often have so-called “voluntary membership” (Israeli, 1980: 12), which means members can easily transit to a different group if they want to. People can easily have multiple identities because their relationships are clearly not limited by their ethnic boundaries.

This article will identify the concept of multiple identities and analyze their communication channels through a social scientific and theological approach. This will address how the new phenomenon has negative and positive potentials in reconciliation, inclusivism, and opportunities to share the news of joy. To describe a person characterized by the phenomenon of having various identities, I will use the term “multiple identitier(s).”

Emerging of the multiple identitiers

Identity is made and refined in social relations (Stryker, 1980). As society is modernized and specialized, people become more diverse than they would have been in a traditional society (Stryker, 1980). As a person belongs to multiple groups, he or she has multiple identities, roles, and functions. Therefore, people have different identities, or selves, in different groups. William James calls this the “social self” and explains the phenomenon as follows: “a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and carry as image of him in their mind (1940: 294).

The phenomenon of having many identities becomes clearer in (post)modern and urban society because people in cities have more complex and diverse networks than those in the traditional and premodern societies. Urban people today have diverse networks, and each network has its own unique value and information. Moreover, members of these networks hardly overlap with members of other networks (Pescosolido and Rubin, 2000: 54–57). Peter J. Burke and Jan E. Stets describe the phenomenon of people in the premodern era as compared to the postmodern era:

. . . the different identities in the postmodern era have less common or shared meanings compared with those in the premodern era. Thus, not only are there more identities available, but also they have less in common with one another. This means that the verification of these multiple and disparate identities calls for the manipulation of more and disparate meanings across more and disparate settings. (Burke and Stets, 2009: 132)

As a result, modern people have much more diverse identities than people in traditional societies. Paul R. Spickard explains this social atmosphere as follows: “In an era when people move about the globe with unprecedented velocity and in multiple directions, the question of multiple memberships and complex identities has come to the fore as never before” (Spickard, 2013: 21).

Considering the growing number of multiple identitiers, this article seeks to answer the following questions. What should Christians think of the growing multiple identity phenomenon? Are people with multiple identities new agents of God prepared to convey the news of joy to modern people? What does the Bible say about the multiple identitiers? How should churches think about Christian multiple identitiers in order to share the news of joy with other multiple identitiers? To this end, this article will first identify the characteristics of multiple identitiers from a sociological lens and then will introduce the types and persons of multiple identities in the Bible. Finally, we will sort out what we should think in order for these multiple identitiers to become the channels of the news of joy.

Multiple identities from a sociological view

The impact of globalization, urbanization, media revolution, and increasing immigration has led sociologists to become interested in the multiple identity phenomenon. Urban minorities who migrate from rural areas, as well as international immigrants, are living under dual patterns. They live with different identities every day while circulating in diverse environments. In other words, they only can survive if they have multiple identities. Not just because of these (im)migrants, the issue of multiple identities constantly demands the attention of sociologists because most of the people today are exposed to globalization, media, urbanization, and so on.

This section tries to understand multiple identities through sociological lenses. To accomplish this, I begin by introducing terminologies similar in meaning to the concept of multiple identities. I also examine the characteristics of networks and communication channels in order to derive the missiological significance of multiple identities.

Terms related to multiple identity

As a result of studying multiple identities, a number of scholars have recently developed various concepts and words such as transnational subjectivities, translocational positionalities, doing belongings, instrumental identity, and symbolic ethnicity. The definitions of each term differ according to their use and emphasis, but they all attempt to describe several identities in one person.

Anna Rastas introduced the terms “transnational subjectivities” or “translocational positionalities” as a result of studying non-European people who have migrated to Europe (2013). She found that these foreign immigrants in Europe already have two more identities (2013: 50). She thinks identity is neither fixed nor invariable because identity is created by specific people at specific times and at specific places. Since identity has situational aspects, she claims that words beginning with the prefix “trans-” are more persuasive (2013: 51). Rastas mentions characteristics of these transnational subjectivities as follows: They

know two different cultures, . . . enjoy being able to choose things from both of these different cultures, . . . seemed to be quite happy with their double or hybrid identities, . . . were to negotiate and explain their relations to participate places and people and cultures even when there were no real ties and even when the truth of their own roots was not known. (Gunnarsson, 2013: 51)

Serine Gunnarsson of Uppsala University defines multiple identitiers as the people who are “doing belonging,” because multiple identitiers usually do not intentionally belong to one culture (2013). On the contrary, they use their multiple identities to maximize their personal benefits from both or several groups and networks. Sometimes they intentionally identify with a certain culture exclusively, and some other times, they intentionally emphasize another identity. Gunnarsson characterizes these efforts of multiple identitiers as doing belonging (2013: 109). She says that not only ethnic identity but also the social identities as a whole of multiple identitiers are “relying on personal negotiations in everyday life” (2013: 109). People construct their self-image through various strategies in different places, times, and various social groups.

Enzo Colombo and Paola Rebughini introduced “instrumental ethnicity” as a term similar to multiple identitiers (2013: 209). Unlike our predictions, these multiple identitiers do not confuse their identities. Rather, they can integrate those various identities into a single identity. Spickard summarized Colombo and Rebughini who researched Chinese and Egyptians in Italy, and that say they “embrace complex identities—Chinese and Italian, Italian and Egyptian, and so forth—and use these tools in belonging to Italian society” (Spickard, 2013: 24). Colombo and Rebughini introduce these phenomena as “instrumental ethnicity.” This word has significance in surpassing the limitations of words previously used to explain multiple identitiers. In other words, when many other terminologies associated with multiple identitiers describe immigrants, they inevitably portray immigrants as fitting into the surrounding environment. However, instrumental ethnicity is meaningful because it rather highlights powerful, purposeful, and perhaps enduring aspects of multiple identitiers (Colombo and Rebughini, 2013: 208–10). Other academic circles have referred to those with many identities or cultural settings by using expressions such as “multiple masks” (Gergen, 1972), “multiple identities” (Baskauskas, 1977), or “multiple ascriptive identities” (Horowitz, 1975: 118).

Highly connected people

People who have diverse backgrounds are excellent in interacting with many different kinds of people because they have a variety of identities. Their various identities provide a common ground for communicating with diverse social groups.¹ If the other party is also a multiple identitier, and if they have interests and purposes in common, the possibility of connection is very high.

This high connectivity is not just present in immigrants or ethnic minorities. To further expand, we can say that most of those who live in modern society have this connectivity. They have simultaneous identities from their origin and their adopted identities from common society, and they continuously choose which identity to put more weight on according to the circumstances to which they belong. The social identity acts as an agent to bring people with different backgrounds to a common ground. As mentioned in Colombo and Rebughini’s concept of instrumental ethnicity, these multiple identities are neither chaotic nor confused, but rather are free and integrated, and even seem to be managed by a single system.

People in modern societies are connected to various groups, so when they work in different groups, they have to use different identities. They naturally have a variety of communication channels and can create commonalities with other people who also have various backgrounds. At the same time, they expose only small aspects of his life with each of the societies. They can act like a different person with a completely different face when interacting in certain networks. In each network, they give and take completely different types of information. As a result, their relationships may seem to be shallow but broad, which Granovetter named as a weak tie (1973).

In this way, they send and receive various types of information in various places. If they want, they can use these abilities for their own use or deceive others. On the other hand, they are skilled in using these diversified identities to help others or share the news of joy to those with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

Multiple identitiers in the Bible

The Bible contains numerous examples of people with multiple identities. Because there are so many different types and examples of multiple identities, I will limit examples to those who possessed two or more cultures. First, I classify the characteristics of multiple identitiers who were used by God. Then, I discuss the principles that those multiple identitiers held.

Five types of multiple identifiers in the Bible

Among the multiple identitiers in the Bible, there are many who lived with various status or many cultural zones. For example, the Apostle Paul and Timothy lived among the diaspora since their youths, and they naturally grew up as multiple identitiers. Similarly, countless other Jews were raised in foreign countries. On the day of Pentecost, the Bible describes the diaspora who watched Peter and the disciples of the upper room as “God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5), indicating that they belonged to two or more cultures. Meanwhile, people in the Old Testament such as Joseph, Daniel, Mordecai, Moses, and Esther were exposed to multiple cultures as they involuntarily lived as minorities in foreign empires.

We can categorize those multiple identitiers of the Bible into at least five categories through the lens called “spread the news of joy”: early adopters, bridges, guardians, peacemakers, and mobilizers. Here I introduce who they are in the five categories and their roles.

The first type of biblical multiple identitier is the early adopter type. In the Bible, these are people who accept God’s news of joy earlier than others due to their multiple identities. Ruth a Moabite woman (Ruth 1); Rahab, the prostitute from Jericho (Josh. 2); the centurion who came to Jesus and was praised for his faith (Matt. 8:5–13); Cornelius, an Italian regiment at Caesarea who received the Apostle Peter (Acts 10); a eunuch from the court of the Ethiopian queen, who received the news of joy from Philip (Acts 8:26–39) were all early adopters of receiving the news of joy because of multiple identities in them.

The second type of biblical multiple identitier is the bridge type. These bridge types had distributed the news of joy, which had previously remained only within limited believers, to a lightless place. Some of these people include the Apostle Paul and his team, Timothy, Silas, Epaphroditus, Titus, Tychicus (Eph. 6:21), Luke and Demas (Col. 4:14), Artemas, Zenas the lawyer, and Apollos (Titus 3:12–13). The Greek widows in Acts 6 and Moses in the Old Testament certainly played bridge roles with other groups. Their bridging role in the Bible was crucial for the spread of the news of joy.

The third type is the guardian. The guardian represents and protects the people of God from the outside world using their own credibility with outside connections. Key examples of guardian types are Esther and Mordecai. Both were multiple identitiers who came to Babylon as captives and had to live as minorities. They were able to save the Jewish community through their status and abilities during times of trouble. Joseph was also a multiple identitier who acted as a guardian. He introduced his family to Pharaoh through on his unusual trust and loyalty, and eventually guarded them to secure resettlement.

The fourth type of multiple identitier is peacemaking. Peacemaking types utilize long-built trust and credit to facilitate communication and understanding between two groups. A good example is when Abraham goes to the Hittites to search for a place to bury Sarah. Based upon the trust between Abraham and Ephron, who represented the Hittites, those two different ethnicities could negotiate for peace and did trade even in times of trouble (Gen. 23). These peacemaking types in the Bible wisely mitigate the tensions between two groups, or they become a buffer of conflicts. For example, as they settled in the land of the Philistines, Isaac and his family had to dig a well three times due to the obstruction and robbery of the locals. However, even in the midst of such inequality, because of sincere and peaceful attitude, Isaac was able to swear to peace with Abimelech, the king of the Philistines (Gen. 26:28–29). The two then swore to peace. These peacemaking types in the Bible utilize their multiple identities to create peace and understanding between culturally different groups, and through this, they create communication.

The fifth type is the mobilizer. Mobilizers introduce the news of joy they receive from outside to their own group. In Everett M. Rogers’s Diffusion of Innovation Theory, mobilizers tend to be early adopters or belong in early majority groups (2003: 279–82). They are less resistant to socially marginal or new things and are open to accepting them. At the same time, mobilizers have the passion to appeal to the people around them and can thus effectively spread the good news (Rogers, 2003: 279–82).

According to Shirley Achor’s categorization, mobilizers are those who receive good information from the outside for renewal on the inside (1978: 116–21). Mobilizers thus contribute more to their own group than do bridge types. In this regard, the Apostle Paul would be a multiple identitier as both a bridge and a mobilizer. He brought the news of joy to the world for the sake of gentiles. He devoted his life to establishing and spreading the message of Jesus, who came to the Jewish homeland, a small and marginal place in the Rome emperor, but transferred it in an international format, so the whole of the gentile world could understand and accept it (Acts 22:21). The woman at the well who met Jesus was also a good example of a mobilizer (John 4). She did not only acted as a bridge but even spread the news of joy to her community as a mobilizer.

Consistency, good news, and diversity

As we analyze the lives of multiple identitiers in the Bible who were used by God, the following three characteristics are constantly displayed: consistency, good news, and diversity. There was consistency in their lives as they chose a particular identity among their multiple identities. This is because there were always certain principles, clear criteria, and values in their lives. The preceding examples, all glorified God through their lives, had a consciousness that they were living their lives before God and lived as the children of God. Due to these consistent principles, it was possible for these multiple identitiers to produce the same results, regardless of different circumstances and identities.

Second, most of the multiple identitiers mentioned above contributed to the spread of the joyful news of God. In other words, they believed that the news of joy had been spread through them; thus, their lives themselves revealed the glory of God. Among their actions are spreading the gospel, teaching the Word of God, reconciling with others, healing wounds, and having compassion for and loving people. Although through varied means, all these multiple identitiers became channels of the joyful news of God toward the darkness.

Third, multiple identitiers understood diversity. They could connect their identities in various forms to meet the recipients’ situations. They did not limit their identities to stereotypes. Instead, to allow the news of joy to maintain its dynamics, they used various different forms and methods.

These three principles can be easily found in the lives of Jesus, the Apostle Paul, and other biblical multiple identitiers such as Joseph, Nehemiah, Abraham, Esther, Mordecai, and so on. They could easily have used their abilities for selfish purposes, but they choose the uncomfortable way because they had a clear sense of their destiny in their hearts. Their values and philosophy of life were clearly set to the pleasure of God. Those hierarchies of their identities were formed as children of God, as those who obey the will of God, and as those who share the news of joy.

Toward the channel of joy

How can mission leaders help today’s multiple identitiers who are socially gifted to play an effective role in spreading the news of joy? How should mission agencies and churches view those multiple identitiers who are emerging in the (post)modern world?

The emergence of today’s multiple identitiers can be both positive and negative in sharing the news of joy with the world. The multiple identitiers can be negative for missions because of their possibility to be more self-focused. With multiple possible appearances, they can choose to be lazy, filled with selfish and mean thoughts, or hostile to others.

On the other hand, multiple identitiers have the ability to use their diversity positively and constructively. They have the remarkable ability to share the news of joy and to reconcile the world as bridges, guardians, mobilizers, and peacemakers. Today’s multiple identitiers can also be used by God, just as the Apostle Paul, his colleagues, and people among various diasporas in Acts were used by God. When the news of joy was trapped in the Jewish ethnic boundary, God made it possible for other nations to hear the gospel by using these multiple identitiers.

Today’s societies carry the likeness of people’s multiple identities, not only who share the joyful news, but also among those who have received it. As societies have modernized, various new types of multiple identitiers are emerging, even in traditionally monocultural and homogenous societies. Some of these multiple identitiers have much openness to news from outside sources. Thus, they can either become selfish or become channels of joyful news, depending on what motivation governs their identities.

Churches and mission agencies should pay attention to the amazing potential of multiple identitiers. As we have seen, the excellent connectivity of multiple identitiers can be explained biblically, phenomenologically, and socially. Through multiple identitiers, long-isolated groups begin to cross boundaries and start to gain common ground with outside people. Children of historically conflicting people groups may now study in the same schools and in the same language, forming friendships. Some graduates may work together. Therefore, the church should see multiple identitiers as gifts from God for facilitating communication of the news of joy and reconciliation, and the joy of salvation in today’s contexts.

To this end, the church should be able to properly train Christian multiple identitiers. The church must guide them so they can fulfill their divine mission with the three biblical characteristics of consistency, the news of joy, and diversity. The church should work with professional mission agencies and seminaries to help multiple identitiers contextualize the news of joy in their respective situations.

Churches and mission agencies must also recognize that there are remarkably ready people of peace and the gospel among non-believing multiple identitiers. They may be hidden among CEO groups, government leaders, poor people, prostitutes, ethnic minorities, or unreached people.

Conclusion

We have been studying who multiple identitiers are and what missiological implications they have. Churches need to aware that people with multiple identities have both negative and positive potentials in mission. Churches must also recognize that they have the potential to be God’s channel of joy to offer salvation, peace, justice, and reconciliation. The church should train multiple identitiers to have the three biblical traits—consistency, good news, and diversity—rather than leave them to live selfishly. As the Apostle Paul, Timothy, Esther, and many others in the Bible utilized their various faces to become channels of joy, today’s multiple identitiers also can be used by God.

Footnotes

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Enoch Jinsik Kim

Notes

Author biography

Enoch Jinsik Kim earned his Ph.D. at the Fuller Theological Seminary, where he is currently a full-time associate professor in Communication and Mission Studies and a chairperson of the Korean Doctor of Missiology Program. Some of his publications include the Mission Strategy in the City (Pickwick) and Receptor-Oriented Communication for Hui Muslims in China (ASM Monograph Series).

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