What Do You Think of Me? Why Do I Care?

Whether you wear designer rims and have a "Reading is Sexy" bumper sticker on your car, or you only shop at stores that sell Ed Hardy and have every inch of your upper body inked, you are concerned with your identity. But tied into this concern for your identity is another, perhaps deeper, concern for how you are perceived by others.

This second concern can lead to everything from succumbing to peer pressure and rebellion, to thoughts of suicide, depression and co-dependency. But the desire to fit in is part of being human, and one we all feel. Navigating it and making sense of it in light of God's Word, therefore, is one of the most important endeavors a Christian can undertake.

What Do You Think of Me? Why Do I Care? is Ed Welch's attempt to help guide readers through this task. He begins by identifying the problem of our desire to fit in and appear a certain way to others, then looks at the believer's heritage as part of the family of faith, as well as the universal human identity as worshippers (whether of self, idols, the one true God, etc.).

The next three sections each seek to answer the three major questions of human identity and existence: Who is God? Who am I? Who are they? At the center of the answers Welch offers is the Bible, which he looks at to provide both a corrective to false worldly answers as well as a roadmap for embracing our identity in Christ.

Chapters (and the entire book, for that matter) are short, with several questions interspersed throughout each one to help readers see themselves in the context of the larger picture, and to help them sort out truth from error in terms of who they are and what their responsibilities are as God's people in the midst of a self-obsessed world.

Ideal for group discussion and suitable for individual study, What Do You Think of Me? Why Do I Care? is provocative reading for anyone struggling with issues of identity and self, though it is probably best for teens and young adults, and ought to be required reading for every Christians young person in today's emerging culture of self-worship and cultural conformity.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.