Assaulted Identity
A psychologist named Robert Jay Lifton performed studies on soldiers who had been prisoners of war in Korean and Chinese camps. In every case, Lifton determined that the first stage of conditioning was an assault on identity:
“You are not who you think you are.” This is a systematic attack on a target’s sense of self (also called his identity or ego) and his core belief system. The agent denies everything that makes the target who he is: “You are not a soldier.” “You are not a man.” “You are not defending freedom.” The target is under constant attack for days, weeks or months, to the point that he becomes exhausted, confused and disoriented. In this state, his beliefs seem less solid.
(Explanation from HowStuffWorks.)
When brainwashing succeeded, the prisoner of war effectively gave up control of his identity. At that point his captors could reprogram the soldier’s belief system at will. The objective was firstly to change a hostile prisoner into a docile one and, later, a returning soldier into a foreign sleeper agent — to infect their minds with beliefs counter to those of the country they returned to.
Now tell me if any of these sound familiar: “You’re such a prude.” “It’s so ignorant to believe in a god.” “Don’t tell me what you believe! How could you be so intolerant?” Never mind that they are baseless claims (no reference to facts or definitions), these are clear assaults on the identity: “Who you are is not who you should be.”
At times standing up for your beliefs can feel like walking through an enemy camp. Some are threatened by the consistency of your faith, others by faith itself. Our culture glorifies compromise to gratify one’s self. Faith is depicted as a relic of the unenlightened past. Any solid support of truth is marked for liquidation.
People of faith will do well to mind the oft-quoted words of Eleanor Roosevelt, “no one can make you feel inferior without your permission.” We need to remember who has the authority to define our identity. Who is that? “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (II Corinthians 5:17) If we are followers of Christ, He is the owner of our identity and we are stewards.
Let Him define your identity, and remember that no matter what it is that surrounds you, it cannot tell you who you are.
let us leave behind who we used to be and press toward the mark of who God said we are to become.
“I refuse to let my past define me!” -Rev. Ricardo Gonzales
Thanks Phillip