Identity | Ted Dekker

There's a part of you that's shattered. You feel isolated and lost. You don't know who you are, so you try to be what they say you should be, and that leaves you incapable of coping... You've lost your true identity and are desperately looking for a new one even though that's impossible.

This book leading into Ted Dekker's new series kept making me think of a quote from the Preface of Spitz' The Renaissance and Reformation Movements:

Contemporary man is suffering from amnesia. He is drifting along in a state of mind that Søren Kierkegaard once referred to as 'a kind of world historical forgetfulness.' ... 'Western civilization has begun to doubt its own credentials.' This condition is part of the price paid for modern man's pathetic attempt to live entirely in the 'specious present,' seeking relevance only in those fleeting moments that glide so quickly into the past. The loss of history means the loss of identity. The knowledge of history gives man 'divine perspective.' 'Who I am... and where I belong, I first learned to know from the mirror of history.' ...

And, history points us back to the One who changed history itself (Christ).

Without a solid foundation, it's no wonder people go crazy.

GKC's The Everlasting Man does a great job of jogging back our historical memory.
(You can read most of it for free here)

Get Identity for free here.

Check out more about Dekker's tour here. (With a great video by the author)

Or, here's a letter from Ted himself.

***Chapter two of Identity is also a great reminded of Descartes and his Meditations. If you are unfamiliar with them, make sure to read this before/during/after reading chapter two of Identity.