The (In)Authentic Jackass

I am authentic. I keep it real. I am honest and transparent. What you see is what you get. What could be jackassy about that?

The great side of being transparent and authentic is that there aren’t two different versions of me. At least, that’s the way it seems. I appear to be the same in private and in public. I tell you my flaws, I tell you my struggles, I tell you my insecurities and failures. I do it over coffee and from the stage.

But the jackass side of being authentic isn’t about honesty, it’s about how I use my authenticity. I use it to retain control. I hide behind it. I use it as a shield so that you can’t criticize me—I have already criticized myself.

The remarkable feat is that I can be authentic without ever being vulnerable, contrite, or repentant; and as the cherry on top, I can get quite indignant if you feel the need to point out something I’m doing wrong or attempt to hold me accountable. Cause after all, I always keep it 100.

It’s a weird form of pride, but it’s pride all the same.

Sometimes people begin criticisms with phrases like, “no offense.” When someone says those words, prepare to be ridiculously offended. When I share something authentic, it is like me beginning a sentence with “no offense.” It sounds like I’m about to be genuine, but really I’m often protecting myself from true vulnerability.

Vulnerability is messy. Vulnerability is Jesus weeping. Vulnerability is crying out to God to take this cup from me. Vulnerability is the stuff of real relationship, and real connection, and real love. There is no room for pride in true vulnerability, it’s humbling, scary, and ugly-cry-face type of humiliating. NOBODY SEES THAT SIDE OF ME!

There is an odd superiority that can come from “keeping it real.” It’s like a get out of jail free card. I admit some of my sin, and then you know I’m human too. But there is something about it that leaves the listener unsatisfied.

If I shouted in a coffee shop that I had cancer, I don’t cease to have cancer. If I tell a bunch of guys that I struggle with porn, that doesn’t mean I don’t struggle with porn any more. If a serial killer told everyone he was murdering people, that doesn’t excuse him from killing. If I express that I’m insecure, it doesn’t remove the dysfunction that my insecurity vomits on other people.

So my authenticity is jackassery because it keeps others at arm’s length, where they are unwelcome to speak truthfully and honestly into my life because I already did. But it is also jackassery because I equate vague confession with contrition.

I hide behind being authentic, but I am actually very insecure. Maybe the ugliest part of all is that I turn around and judge you for being inauthentic.

It’s all pretty ugly. But it is real.

Jesus said he was the light of the world and that to be his disciple is to walk in the light of authenticity and transparency and exposure just like he did. It’s no wonder, then, that one of his best friends—the very man who recorded those words—also wrote this in his private letter to the early church: “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 Jn 1:7).

What that meant was not simply that we needed to live “out loud” and not in hiding or with masks on, but also that the point of that exposure was to address the disease that the light shone upon. It’s not enough simply to talk about it: let the light reveal it and then allow that same source of light to purify it. Transparency and authenticity are not a means to an excuse, they are a process of rescue.

Walking in light is like rolling out of bed without brushing your teeth, doing your hair, or putting on deodorant. It’s about being seen, being really seen; it’s pretty humiliating.

Jesus hung nearly naked on a cross. Jesus was a man of sorrows. Jesus sobbed at his friend’s tomb, and sweated drops of blood. Jesus wasn’t afraid of humiliation, because Jesus wasn’t feigning authenticity, he was the real deal.

I want to be the real deal.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be as transparent as possible, I think we should. I’m simply saying that when we use authenticity as a shield to push people away and demand that they leave us alone and don’t hold us accountable for our sin, we might be acting like a jackass.

Books by Lance Hahn:

Lance Hahn is a pastor and author. In his two published works (How to Live in Fear and The Master’s Mind), Lance leads with transparent and vulnerability about his struggles with anxiety. He shares how God has reshaped and transformed him through the process. Check them out!