Identity Conflict vs Identity Crisis

We evangelicals identify ourselves by a set of common core beliefs that mostly have their basis in scripture.  Choose any evangelical community website regardless of the denomination and somewhere on that site will be a set of core beliefs.  Looking further into the various faith communities these core beliefs are translated into doctrines that guide the behaviors of the particulars of that faith community.  For example, as a child in parochial school I was taught that the Catholic Church was the one true church.  Later on in life, as part of an independent Baptist community I was taught that Catholics were not really Christians (at least not like us Baptists) and that Pentecostals were deceived in what they believed.  Maybe Pentecostals were Christian but there was something not right with them.  And yet later when I became a Pentecostal, I learned that some Catholics and Baptists were Pentecostal as well, just like us, but not all of them.  This experience alone would lead anyone to conclude that there is an identity conflict within the evangelical community.  The truth of the matter is that this identity conflict has existed for many years and probably always will.  This conflict is a result of different interpretations of scriptural meaning, context or application.  I had the experience of reading the same scriptures as a Baptist and a Pentecostal and understanding them differently according to the community to which I belonged at the time.  These liberties should be allowed according to each person’s measure of faith.  However, an identity conflict is different from an identity crisis.  An identity crisis occurs when an erosion of core values has such an effect on the outcomes of our faith that we are without distinction from people without faith.  The distinguishing values of our faith communities are many and are often repeated throughout the apostle Paul’s epistles to the churches of Corinth, Colosse, Phillipi and Ephesus as well as in his other New Testament writings.  But the simplest and most profound distinction for me as fitting for our times is found in Colossians 4:5,6. “Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time.  Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.”  What Paul is saying is that the biggest impact we of faith can have on those who have no faith is with our words.  Not just any words, but kind words absent of rancor, bitterness, and anger.  It is only when those sorts of words occupy our minds and hearts that God gives us the grace and wisdom to know how to respond, how to answer the many questions that confront us in our nation today.  Paul makes his case that if we make intelligent decisions regarding how we communicate to those who have no faith the result will be “redeeming the time”.  The literal translation means to “buy back” some time.  What Paul is intimating is, that if we speak that way, people will listen and give us further opportunity to speak or speak again at another time.  I believe our nation is desperate for this kind of civil discourse.  We have lived through a season when the discourse from the highest levels of our nation has been absent of grace, kindness, understanding and most of all wisdom, precisely those qualities that invite communication.  No wonder nobody is listening to each other.