We must caution you that group identity can be used for evil as well as good. The Nazis developed a strong group identity in their people. A twisted group identity will produce crooked character. One can imagine Nazis saying to each other, “Stop showing compassion to those Jewish people. We are a people who exterminate detestable people like these Jews.” We should not be surprised how often tyrants and evil ideas create strong group identities. Group power to impact character cannot be overlooked.
My main complaint in this section is it is individually focused look at corporate identity. NT Wright’s biography of Paul suggested that what was new with Christianity is that it crossed multiple corporate identities at the same time. And today we also need not just abstract “our identity is found in Christ” but a much more particular look at how identities that impact us today, especially in an era of polarization matter to the church. We are always Christians in a particular culture, we can’t be acultural. But without real work at identifying the cultural history of colonization, white supremacy, sexism, American exceptionalism, etc, we can’t know whether we have conflated Christianity with culture.
There is nothing here about the homogenous unit principle and the way that that this was particularly taught as a positive way to plant and grow churches. It was an aspect of group identity that excluded others.
