In his 2018 book, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), Francis Fukuyama studies the theme of identity in the rip-tide of today's churning politics. As a political systems analyst, Fukuyama notes that there was a rapid surge of democracies from 1970, when there were only about 35 electoral democracies, to nearly 120 by the early 2000s. That surge shows signs of receding to authoritarian rule, led by China and rippling across the globe. He attributes this recession to issues of identity with political dimensions.
Citing the Greek word thymos, already used in Homer and Plato to express emotions, desire, or an internal urge, Fukuyama pursues the concept to express an internal urge for recognition. He posits social-psychological applications of thymos (craving for dignity), isothymia (the demand to be respected on an equal basis as other people) and megalothymia (the desire to be recognized as superior). “Entire countries can feel disrespected,” Fukuyama writes, “which has empowered aggressive nationalism, as can religious believers who feel their faith is denigrated.”
A threat to democratic governance arises as the drive of tyrannical ambition (Caesar, Hitler, Perón) “latches on to the resentment of ordinary people who feel that their nation or religion or way of life is being disrespected. Megalothyia and isothymia then join hands.”
When we view biblical religion through these categories we can observe the ebb and flow of identity as foundational in understanding the motivation behind individual and group behavior as related to collective identity.
Marvin L. Sensenig in “Duhm, Mowinckel, and a Disempowered King: Protestant Liberal Theological Analysis in Jeremiah's Construction of Jehoiachin” argues that “the rise of modernity (and, by extension, the rise of Protestant liberalism) began with the impulse within Protestantism to do away with the foolishness of the cross. This effectively denied the hermeneutical category of disempowered king to 19th- and early 20th century Protestant biblical interpreters” thereby submerging an important part of the editorial framing of the canonical book of Jeremiah. Contemporary scholars have opened up new paths for understanding the political processes that, through editing over time, shaped the text we have today. By its elimination of the category of disempowerment, liberal Protestants attempted to fortify biblical interpretation against diminished credibility at the cost of ignoring a critical aspect of canonical formation.
David J. Zucker, in “Rebekah Redux: The View from Jubilees,” demonstrates the recasting of Rebekah from a manipulative, scheming woman who undermines her husband's wishes (Gen 27), characterized in a similar light within rabbinic, medieval, and modern evaluation. In the early extra-biblical book of Jubilees, she is celebrated as a heroine. In keeping with the major theme of Jubilees and as the most prominent woman in Jubilees, she actively advances the work's major theme of the promotion of endogamy (marriage within the family) rejecting the practice of exogamy (marrying outside the family). She thus serves to fortify family solidarity and rejection of compromised identity.
Victor H. Matthews in “Spatial and Sensory Aspects of Battle in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Texts,” combines spatial and sensory evaluation of biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts that describe events leading up to, during, and after a battle. The study reveals the physical space of battles, armies in motion, their traversing of a liminal and unfamiliar world. Their topography, occupying respective locations, denotes their conflicting identities. The cacophony of sensory stimuli contribute to the creation of mass confusion and the compartmentalization of space. This study leads to an awareness of the possibilities for sensory and spatial analysis opening up new insights.
Fergus J. King and Selwyn Selvendran add further emotional dimensions of ecstatic language and speaking in tongues, two distinctive forms of emoting, as explored in a study Acts 2:1-6 and Corinthians 14 and attested in modern neuroscience. In “Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Alleluia, Amen: Xenolalia, Glossolalia, and Neurophysiology” the authors highlight the differences which Paul himself discerns (Cor 14) by faintly praising glossolalia as edifying the speaker but by its apparent inability to deliver substantive communication of meaning or intelligibility. Both forms reflect the sensory expression of identity and a call for the dignity of their awareness.
Sin Pan Ho, in “Politeuma as a Hybrid Patriotic Identity in Christ: A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of Philippians 3:20,” utilizes the concept of an honorable patriotic civic identity to construct a new hybrid social identity in the group/intragroup rivalry discourse (Phil 3:17-21) as a possible social identity. Paul thereby “awakens in the first readers a dormant past possible social identity of being friends of the cross and urges them to distance themselves from the rivalry group, ‘enemy of the cross of Christ.'” Paul thereby “makes use of their existing honorable patriotic merchant identity to construct a more desirable and glorious hybrid identity in the future,” becoming “Christ-citizens running with the King of Kings with transformed bodies forever.”
