One of the most insidious spiritual temptations is authenticity. In our culture, we prize "being yourself" over everything else. Thing is, such authenticity often fails to recognize all the ways in which self-deception actually work.
I know myself well enough to know I don't trust myself to be as authentic as I'd like to believe I can be. In fact, the Bible warns quite often how pervasive a problem such self-deception can be: Quite probably the clearest in 1 John 1.8 ("If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us"). But there's also things like Psalm 36.1-4, Jeremiah 2.34-35, 17.9-10, Luke 11.42-52.
Make no doubt about it, when it comes to sin, there are a variety of insidious ways it can take hold.
So I don't trust authenticity language. It's too thin and brittle. It breaks when you give it much use. When I hear others attempt to defend their sin with the language of authenticity ("That's just who I am" or "I never claimed to be holy") I hear pride.
I know myself so I don't trust myself to be authentic. I don't trust myself to defend myself when I'm accused of this or that sin.
Instead, I resort to the wisdom of St Benedict from his Rule (Chapter 67). It deals with how brothers are to be accepted back into the community after having been on a journey. The problem is that brothers on a journey, being outside of the community and the structure of the Rule, would have seen things and did things that might have affected them spiritually. So, when they return, Benedict says, they must "ask the prayers of all for their faults, in case they may have been caught off guard on the way by seeing some evil thing or hearing some idle talk".
There are ways, liturgically, the churches have preserved this tradition. But I've noticed its inconspicuous absence in the worship services of churches I've been attending. Specifically, in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer there's this:
Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.And there's the confiteor from the Catholic Church:
Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.
I confess to almighty GodDuring the lines of the confiteor "through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault" (Latin: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa) the breast may be struck three times. (I still do this in the Episcopal prayer at the line "in thought, word and deed" as an act of contrition and a public acknowledgment of all the ways I sin.)
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,
through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.
Again, sadly this wisdom is becoming omited from any number of churches, and its omission leads us to believe we're being authentically Christian, while ignoring all the ways that authenticity may reflect the world more than it does Jesus.