Identity and Idolatry

Created in the image of the Trinitarian God, human persons are essentially “social” in their identity. We find our significance and security in relationship to others. Created in the image of the Living God, we nonetheless find ourselves in relationship to images we have fashioned as an alternative means of finding significance and security. Tragically we chase after the very idols we have created. Highlighting the social connections between human identity and idolatry will help us understand the church as a “community of identity” and the distinctive manner in which “belonging together” lies at the heart of the Christian life. It may also unveil the radical character of reconciliation at the heart of the Gospel.

Biography:

Richard Lints is the Andrew Mutch Distinguished Professor of Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he has taught for the last 22 years. In addition he has taught as a visiting professor at Trinity College (Bristol England), Yale Divinity School, Westminster Theological Seminary (California), and Reformed Theological Seminary. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago. He has authored or edited: The Fabric of Theology, Westminster Dictionary of Philosophical Terms for Theology, Identity in Theological Perspective, and Radical Ironies: Religion and the Rise of Postmodernity in the 1960s. He is also an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church of America and has church planted in Concord, MA. He is married to Ann and they have three grown children.