Challenge of Authenticity

Here is an article published in the local paper under the Parson to Person byline.

 

Authenticity seems highly valued today, but it remains a challenge.

I have my degrees on my wall in the office. Some people call it a pride wall. I have a degree from Marion College (Indiana Wesleyan) for my Bachelor’s Degree, Asbury Theological Seminary for a Master of Divinity, and McCormick Theological Seminary for a Doctor of Ministry. I also have my ordination documents on my wall. I value the education I received at each place. Of course, life experience since then I value as well. These documents represent work and plenty of prayer that took me from age 18 to 31 to earn.

Recently, I came across some old notes I had taken about Harrington University, a diploma mill that went under other names as well. One need take no classes. One can “earn” a PhD in 27 days, crediting your life experiences. It will cost a couple thousand dollars. Well, given it took 13 years to receive my degrees and around fifteen years to pay off the debt, so I can appreciate the appeal.

But still.

By 2002, some 70,000 Harrington degrees had been “granted” to online applicants, which made the operator more than $100 million. Much of this is relatively harmless, although it can become a matter of life or death, especially in the medical profession.

Authenticity is not so easy when we want others to think we are better than we are and want to receive honors that we do not deserve. Humanity is broken.

In the sphere of religion, we think we can earn the religion diploma through how good we are. We cannot fake it with God. Yet, what ails humanity is so deep and broad that we will try.

Eugene O’Neill (The Great God Brown), said humanity is born broken, lives by mending, and the grace of God is the glue.

C.  S. Lewis (The Four Loves) said that in all of us is a tendency to exaggerate our depth of character while treating our flaws leniently. The Bible calls this tendency hypocrisy. We tend to put forward a better image of ourselves than really exists.

Justification by faith is the theme in Romans 4. Please read this passage. Properly understood, Paul moves us toward genuineness in our relation to God and others. We need to admit that we cannot justify ourselves with God through anything we do. We are sinners in more ways than we can count.

Frederich Buechner in Wishful Thinking, used the image in printing that to justify means to set type in such a way that all full lines are of equal length and flush both left and right. The printed lines are in right relation to each other. He points out that the religious use of the word “to justify” is similar. Justification is about God making right what we could not, turning our lives toward what God has done in Jesus Christ, and living our lives out of that relationship.

 

           Authenticity like that will never go out of style.