To thine own self be true

I was carpooling a long distance with a university administrator, and as the hours passed, she shared details with me about her recent difficult divorce.

“I gave myself to that marriage,” she said, her face getting dark. “I trusted the notion that you give yourself to the relationship. But I got badly burned.”

She paused, and became much brighter. “Then I realized Shakespeare was right: ‘To thine own self be true.’ From now on, I trust no one but my own inner voice.”

This fear of being lost in something that turns out to be fraudulent is hard to shake. On impulse, we can become self-protective and hardened towards others. The positive side of this is that we may become more assertive and stop trying to please everyone. We stand up for our convictions and willingly risk not affirming others’ opinions.

The liability of “to thine own self be true” is that it makes teamwork, not to mention a partnership like marriage, rather difficult. That mentality exacerbates what is already a deeply lonely culture.

Turn inward

Just out this year is Canadian sociologist Sam Riemer’s book Caught in the Current: British and Canadian Evangelicals in an Age of Self-Spirituality (McGill-Queens 2023). His argument is that concerns over church decline, sexual ethics and the exit of youth from church are just the surface of our cultural sea. The underlying current that drives all the visible issues is self-spirituality, and, more specifically, a shift from a locus of external authority to internal authority.

Other sociologists have called it “expressive individualism” (Robert Bellah), “individualization” (Ulrich Beck), “subjectivisation” (Peter Berger), “a massive subjective turn” (Charles Taylor) or “the spiritual revolution” (Heelas and Woodhead). New York Times columnist David Brooks just calls it “The Big Me.”

Reimer’s book suggests that many of our debates have misdiagnosed our deepest cultural challenge. We have argued about Bible verses, disputed theology, pressed for the unity of the church, and enlisted the natural scientists, but there has been less talk around this shift in which the individual becomes the final authority for law, church, media, education and politics.

CC’s own Roland DeVries’ column on identity entitled “Who Are You?” touched on the issue. He remarks on the trend now that each person is the foremost authority on their identity. “I am the only one who can speak the truth of who I am.” This radical sea change in Western culture no doubt has hundreds of years of history, and even arguably a connection to Christianity’s emphasis on individual dignity. It is also a reaction (as DeVries says) to instances in which people were told who they were by external authorities, and the consequences were atrocious. Think slavery.

Reimer helpfully explains that this self-spirituality is not simply the result of individual rebelliousness or cultural narcissism. He points directly to structural change: namely the proliferation of multiple cultural sources for the self. Church, home and school used to reinforce one another through a common worldview. Today, the multiplicity of diverse messages assailing individuals through media, school, home, church and state requires that individuals make choices. When individuals pick and mix their loyalties, the locus of authority shifts to the self.

Reimer says this erodes the fabric of the faith community and the self becomes sovereign and even sacred. The inner voice of a person is good, if not divine, and all that obstructs or even questions this sacred self is suspect, if not oppressive.

This self-spirituality, says Reimer, is the underlying doctrine of the Zeitgeist that drives our culture, and it powerfully influences Christians and diminishes the authority of church, clergy and the Bible in everyday life.

Side by Side

Global Scholar David Koyzis has written a book on the notion of authority, We Answer To Another (2014), and in it he laments how people pit individual authority against institutional authority, as if they are incompatible. Building on the neo-Kuyperian tradition, he argues that all authorities have their appropriate sphere. Overall, society is a diverse place with a pluriformity of authority, and life flourishes best when each keep to their designated sphere of authority.

So if one entity claims authority over all spheres, whether it’s the state, the individual, the military or the church, they have overturned a God-given order in favour of an idolatrous one. Only God is authoritative over all. This delegation of authority to different cultural realms is one of God’s good gifts.

“To thine own self be true.” This line in Hamlet comes from a rather hypocritical and pompous character named Polonius and may in fact be either satirical, or intended to mean “to thine own self be beneficial.” Seek your own interests first. It has become cliché.

For some this may sound liberating – and it often is, at first, for those who have been burned by institutional life. But it can in time become a lonely burden to generate your own spiritual life. We belong in life and in death to Someone Else, and He wants a relationship with us that includes our confession, surrender and a thorough transformation toward sacrificial service. In community.

We can’t return to the heyday of church life, but we must resist the current of cultural atomization and pixelation. Small groups, neighbourhood events, reading clubs, exercise classes and shared meals can be a lifeline. Sunday worship can shape us for such a lifestyle. We need to be true – true to our calling from God, and that is best done side by side, sharing life together.