thoughts about authenticity

26-May-2025

For the past few months, I’ve attended Church and fellowships regularly. I write now not to preach spiritual salvation or a panacea to decadence, but to note a simple observation. Amongst the religious, I have found something that I have unconsciously longed for and sought: authenticity.

Our contemporary culture has been widely characterized as an “Age of Irony.”¹ Largely influenced by a generation that came of age online, irony serves as both flail and shield in digital spaces where withering criticism became the norm. Unlike previous eras where embarrassing blunders may fade from memory, the internet ensures that every misstep is permanently archived—searchable, shareable, and ready for renewed ridicule at any moment. YouTube, for instance, spawned an entire genre of commentary channels where creators built careers dissecting the flaws of others.² This phenomenon was present throughout the internet writ large,³ creating a cumulative effect where people grew up under the ever-present threat that their past could be excavated and transformed into public ridicule.⁴

The byproduct of this digital panopticon was complete and total irony. Sincerity was vulnerability, so authenticity became a liability. Consequently, many either withdrew from self-expression entirely or descended into layers of irony so deep that distinguishing genuine conviction from performative stances has become nearly impossible. “Trolling,” “baiting,” and “rage-baiting” became commonplace, allowing us to probe for others’ genuine beliefs while maintaining plausible deniability about our own—testing sincerity while preserving potential escape routes.

This is no way to build real relationships. When everyone operates behind layers of ironic detachment, you’re not building relationships with actual people—you’re interacting with fictitious personas. The person who perpetually hides behind sarcasm and performative ambiguity becomes unknowable; their true thoughts, fears, and desires remain forever obscured. Years may pass and you will never understand what they genuinely care about or who they are beneath the defensive posturing. Paralleling true connections, these relationships—or more aptly, elaborate farces—are intimate in proximity but fundamentally hollow. Real connection requires vulnerability and reciprocity, qualities that ironic detachment systemically corrodes.

The contrast with my recent experiences in Church communities could not be starker. I have witnessed people sharing deeply personal stories without shame or fear of judgement—news about parents losing jobs, childhood insecurities, present-day difficulties and comforts. The response is invariably welcoming and supportive, even if the speaker only recently joined. I don’t mean to suggest that religious communities necessarily or sufficiently foster such amenability, but in my experience with nondenominational Christianity—though I suspect this applies to many religious traditions—they seem uniquely effective in creating them.

Religious gatherings normalize vulnerability through both their ritual practices and structural design. Consider the simple act of an entire room bowing heads in submission and singing songs together. Could you imagine such a scene with young adults—sans mockery—in any other context? Without immense difficulty, I certainly cannot. Such communal openness extends beyond worship into the liturgical structure itself, which creates repeated opportunities for confession, testimony, and shared reflection that would feel awkwardly performative in secular settings. This environment proves particularly effective because all attendees—believing and non-believing alike—are expected to respectfully receive vulnerable testimonies and reciprocate with their own, making performative detachment antithetical to the community’s recognized purpose. For believers specifically, the implicit belief that ultimate judgment belongs to God, combined with the explicit call to practice grace and humility, provides psychological safety that enables both the receiving and offering of such transparency.

Initially, I found this openness jarring, which forced an uncomfortable realization: while I was once proud of my authenticity, believing that I was who I was regardless of company, this pride was no longer supported. I had become so accustomed to defensive cynicism that authenticity felt foreign. A few months ago, I was asked to say grace at lunch. My first instinct was defensive—laughing and brushing it off—but my friend persisted. I assumed mockery—that he was prodding at some ineptitude—but as I paused, I recognized his sincerity. He didn’t see a target for ridicule, but a friend. I obliged with hesitance, curtailing my words to minimize harm if he were truly mocking me. Instead, he thanked me, and we moved on.

I spent a moment wondering when the jeering would begin. Then it struck me. I’d grown so accustomed to irony that I’d forgotten what its absence felt like. My defensive habits had reshaped how I thought. Scales falling from my eyes, I saw my thought processes and was disquieted. A course correction was required.

Within these religious spaces, I’ve found the freedom to be genuine without calculating social costs. Beyond the opportunity to be myself, it was a reminder that a self still existed beneath the layers of irony I had accumulated with time. To engage without armor, to speak without incessant measurement, to exist without performance; authenticity was recovered.

Religious communities succeed not merely because of their theological commitments, but because they’ve preserved certain social technologies—regular gathering, shared ritual, explicit norms around grace and confession. These elements aren’t inherently religious; they’re fundamentally human needs that have been systematically eroded by our contemporary culture’s emphasis on performative perfection and viral punishment. Whether found in religious congregations or elsewhere, find environments where vulnerability can build. In a culture that has made ironic detachment our default mode, perhaps the most radical act of faith—whether religious or secular—is simply being genuine, and creating conditions where others do the same.