identity / worship
8.6.09

“we become what we
behold...”
Marshall McLuhan

create
“we become what we
behold...”
Marshall McLuhan

“we shape our tools and
then our tools shape us.”
Marshall McLuhan

define identity

Noun
identity (plural identities]
1. The sameness some individuals share to make up the
same kind or universal.
2. The difference or character that marks off an individual
from the rest of the same kind.
3. A name or persona—the mask or appearance one presents
to the world—by which one is known.
This criminal has taken on several identities
4. Knowledge of who one is.
I've been through so many changes, I have no sense of identity.
This nation has a strong identity.
5. (algebra, computing) Any function which maps all
elements of its domain to themselves.
6. (algebra) An element of an algebraic structure which,
when applied to another element under an operation in that
structure, yields this, second element

1 , , a case of mistaken identity
an identity of interests
2a [ ] , ; , admit[reveal]
one’s identity b , , lose
one’s identity
3 ·
4 ( )( );
5 ·
6[ old ~] · · ( )

Identity may refer to:
Philosophy
Identity formation
Identity (philosophy), the sameness of two things
Identity (social science)
Identity theory of mind, in the philosophy of mind, holds
that the mind is identical to the brain
Law of identity, a principle of logic
Personal identity (philosophy)
Mathematics
Identity element, a special element in a set or structure
with respect to an operator
Identity function, a function that does not alter its
argument
Identity (mathematics), an equality that holds regardless
of the values of its variables
Identity matrix, a square matrix with ones on the main
diagonal, zeros elsewhere

Social science and psychology
Cultural identity, a person's self-affiliation (or categorization by
others) as a member of a cultural group
Gender identity, the gender with which a person identifies (or is
identified by others)
Identity In Organizational Communication, organizational
communication scholars look at how our membership in different
organizations shapes our "selves", both in our workplace and in our
group affiliations
Identity politics, the focus of political debates around questions of
group identity
Identity (social science), stemming from cognitive theory,
sociology, politics, and psychology
National identity, belief in membership of a nation
In some countries where there is more than one "nation" in the
state or identity is otherwise confused, there may be a debate over
what the nation's real identity is, see:
Britishness, Scottish national identity
Canadian identity, Québécois nation motion
Online identity, established and used by computer network users
(see also Digital identity in Computer Science)
Psychological identity, an individual's unique identity that develops

Business
Accounting identity, a basic accounting relation that must hold by
definition
Corporate identity, the physical manifestation of a business brand
False identity
Identity theft, the deliberate appropriation of someone else's identity
(without that person's permission) for criminal purposes
Illegal resident, a spy assuming the false identity of a national
Computer science
Digital identity, the representation of identity in terms of digital
information (see also online identity in social science)
Federated identity, identity management with defined trust relations
between independent principals
Identity column in SQL Server, a database field whose values uniquely
identify a row in the table
Identity (object-oriented programming), a property of objects that
allows those objects to be distinguished from each other
Law of identity, laws that define a unifying identity metasystem
Religion
Christian Identity, a Christian religious movement

gender nation profession culture
race spiritual ethnic family
economic age church
a multitude of identities

self
the modern understanding of
self

gender nation economic
race spiritual
self
culture age
family ethnic church

self
self selects identity

spiritual
self
self takes on master identity

self
identities serve the self

the postmodern
effect
the individual self is no longer the center

self
self is not static nor individual;
identities are not divisible

self
self
self is not static nor individual;
identities are not divisible

self
self
self
self is not static nor individual;
identities are not divisible

self
self
self

crisis of identity
occurs when we lose our voice and awareness
of self;
i.e. we lose the power to define ourselves or

the korean
american
experience
begins with this very
sense of
disorientation, loss,
and haunting, just as
much as it does
success, prosperity,
determination, and

alvin lau : poet

sense of loss
similar to amnesia or other trauma

do our churches address
this loss of identity?
or is ethnicity simply the platform for
gathering?

close your eyes
open your ears

audio
1

audio
2

audio
3

“The primary concern of the
Bible is our identity
formation, that is, who we
are in the grace of God
rather than moralistic

Asian American Biblical
Interpretation must move beyond
idealized and essentialist notions
of culture and a tendency to utilize
the immigrant experience of
marginality and liminality as
normative of all Asian Americans
to emphasize particularity,
contradiction, and complexity in
order to counter oversimplified
personifications of what
constitutes Asian American.