In this episode, Dan decodes the admonition to “remember who you are,” as well as the related admonition to “remember whose you are” and the question “what would Jesus do”. What are these admonitions intended to convey? What do they presuppose about authority, control, and Christian identity? Decoding these admonitions helps us to answer these questions.
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Hello and welcome to It's In The Code.
This is a series as part of our podcast Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Dan Miller, Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
And as always, I want to thank everybody who is listening to this podcast.
Whether you are a financial contributor to us, whether you support us simply by listening, or you're one of the many, many, many people who reach out to us with thoughts and ideas and feedback, we appreciate it and we appreciate you.
We also appreciate the CAP Center, UCSB, who helps us host the podcast.
And as always, just a shout out to them.
So, as always with this series, it's in the code, decoding a kind of religious language, almost forms of Christian pop culture and popular expression.
And I've said lots of times I want this to be kind of a grassroots thing and people can contact me.
My email is danielmillerswaj at gmail.com and people have been doing that and as always I have to thank you all so much for the great insights, the great illustrations, the great examples.
I apologize that I can't get to all of you but I really do appreciate it.
And today following from that I want to touch on an idea that comes in lots of forms.
Lots of people have contacted me about what I think are sort of different versions of this but a special thanks to Jennifer Who sent me a great articulation of this that really spurred me to to spend this episode sort of taking a look at it But again, it's it's something that in different terms has come up for a lot of people And it's something that also resonates me resonates with me personally as I'll discuss
And many of you will know that I also work with the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery, talking with folks who are working through religious trauma, and I will say that this theme is one that comes up in my encounters with people in that context as well.
So if that's you, as you listen to this, I do encourage you to check out the Center or reach out to me.
I'd be happy to talk with you further.
So what is the idea?
Well, this is how Jennifer formulated it.
This is one version that I've heard, and it is basically the admonition to remember who you are.
And this is an admonition that is given really to, I think, Christian young people, let's say young adults.
You know, those people who are, say, beginning, from the time we're beginning to sort of live our independent lives or exercise that in, like, say, middle school through high school and college, early adulthood, those periods of time in our lives where we're not kids but maybe we're not fully adults either, right?
I think that's where it sort of functions the most and that'll be relevant later, I think.
It's an admonition that's given by Christian parents.
It could be given by friends.
It could be given by pastors and other family members, right?
Remember who you are.
And it captures the idea, basically, of staying true to one's Christian identity.
It's basically a way that says, remember that you're a Christian, remember what that means, and live accordingly.
Okay?
So whatever context you're in, whatever you're doing, whomever you're interacting with, remember to live out your Christian identity faithfully.
That's basically what the admonition is, and that's pretty straightforward.
And stated that way, it may not sound very unique, and I think in its formulation it's not completely unique, right?
We hear this kind of idea in other contexts as well.
People say, stay true to yourself, or remember where you came from, or stay true to your roots, or different things like this, right, that sound a lot like this kind of notion of remember who you are.
So, for a lot of us, this should be familiar, not just from a Christian context, where maybe we heard this, but it might be familiar from other contexts as well.
So somebody said, well, okay, like, yeah, but, so what's different about this?
Why are you talking about this on a podcast about decoding religious language, right?
Here's why.
I think that there is a difference.
I think that this Christian expression does give it a certain valence, let's say, a tonality that's different.
And we can think of this with another way that this sentiment is expressed.
And I used to hear it both ways.
Remember who you are, but also remember whose you are.
Right?
Or remember who you are and remember whose you are.
You hear them together.
What does that mean?
Basically, it was this notion that we belong to God.
That we are creations of God.
That our identity is not something that simply arises from within us.
It is given by God.
In traditional Christian thoughts and evangelical Christian thought which is where I think this language of remembering who you are like most prominently figures You know God came and he sent his son and his son died for you And so, you know sort of you have this this huge obligation to God you are gods you belong to God your Christian identity is given from the outside so to speak and So, and I think this gives it a specific religious valence that is there, right?
When it says, remember who you are, it's something that elevates that, that lifts that up, that gives it a kind of extreme force that is lacking in other contexts.
And, so it's different.
I think it's different than just saying, remember your roots, or remember where you came from, or remember your culture, or something like that.
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