Individualism is a belief in the supremacy of individual rights, liberties and responsibility over societal objectives. Collectivism, by contrast, subjugates the individual to the supremacy of a common set of — often very fluid — group ideals. Individualism recognizes that although every individual is part of a group (actually many groups), these groups have no permanence and by no means overshadow the individual, who is in fact permanent. In the body of Christ, we are first and foremost individuals created in God’s image, filled with His Spirit, and personally accountable to Him alone. We are also members of His body, the church. We’ve been joined together as living stones as part of His mystical temple. Yet we also individually are His temple. Each of us is uniquely designed and gifted to be a blessing to other believers and to fulfill a role in His church, but that role (calling) is assigned and ordained by the Lord Himself, and not by the church.
I’ve heard Christians say that individualism is purely an American invention that negatively taints our perspective of the Scriptures. They claim instead that God desires to relate primarily in covenantal relationship with the Church as a collective, and only secondarily with us as individuals. Both of these notions are false, and reflect the growing tide of progressivism (i.e. Marxism/socialism) that, along with other doctrines of devils, has swept over nearly all modern nations, including our own, and has significantly infected the church.
First of all, America got its individualism from the Bible and not vice versa. The founders of our country were influenced more by the Bible than by any other source. The country was founded during a time when Biblical literacy was at an all-time high, and at a time when each man, whether he was a devout Christian or merely a “deist”, knew the Scriptures inside and out. While our founding documents don’t directly quote from the Scriptures, they reflect the thoughts of men who were bathed in the Scriptures both personally and culturally. As Victor Hugo said “England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made England.” Our founders were, by and large, Englishmen. John Locke was an English philosopher whose writings greatly influenced the founders, and he himself drew his inspiration from the Scriptures.
The Bible is saturated from cover to cover with individualism. The entire Bible is basically a collection of the stories of individual men and women of faith (as well as some without faith). 2 Corinthians 5:10 says of believers, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” Likewise, Revelation 20:15 warns unbelievers, “And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” When we stand before the Lord, we will stand alone. The very concept of an individual judgment is predicated on the notions of individual liberty and responsibility. How can you hold a person who is not free to make his choices responsible for those choices? Jesus’ parable of the talents expresses God’s economy and focus on the individual. In fact, nearly all of Jesus’ parables address the individual, not the collective. Today’s progressive society attempts to strip individual freedoms in order to eliminate the consequences of bad decisions. They do not realize that they are suffocating the souls of men in their futile efforts to keep them “safe”. But, one may say, wasn’t Israel judged as a collective? Perhaps, but not for “collective sins”, but rather for individual sins that went unjudged and unpunished by the collective. Even during the forty years in the wilderness, the judgments that came were directed primarily at the ones who specifically had sinned. In addition the nation of Israel was an easily definable collective consisting of the descendants of Jacob living together in a particular geographical area. The church of the New Testament was organized so loosely and so organically that only God Himself knew who was in or out at any one time. The rigid soul-crushing man-made hierarchy was a later development of the church that eventually led to total apostasy resulting in the Reformation. Jesus addresses specific geographical groups of believers in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, but once again making His appeal almost exclusively to individuals within those congregations.
Collectivists wear a cloak of compassion and chastise individualists for only caring about themselves. In so doing they ignore the fact that our individual heavenly reward is based upon our individual success in following the unction of the Holy Spirit in expressing compassion and love for others. Thus the individualist by definition has a greater motive and greater drive to do good works, knowing he will be individually judged in accordance with them. By contrast, collectivists like to hide behind and take credit for the collective accomplishments of the group rather than being judged on their own merits. Unfortunately for them, the Day will reveal all the places where they padded their resume with the accomplishments of others.
Collectivism, not individualism, is the new kid on the block. The ideas of the atheist Karl Marx in the mid-nineteenth century sowed the seeds worldwide progressivist thought and gave rise to unionism with its mob violence and totalitarian communist experiments across the world leading to the deaths of tens of millions.
The group ideals of the collective rarely remain those of the members. Instead, they morph over time to reflect the interests of the self-appointed leaders, who use the masses to solidify their own power and privilege. Thus the sacrifices made by the individuals for the collective interest only bear fruit for the demagogues in power.
One might say, what about team sports? Isn’t that an example of positive collectivism? To be sure, all the individuals work toward a common victory, and individuals are inspired and made better by the greater purpose of the team and by the team members around them. But the team itself is transitory. At the end of the season it is every man for himself securing the best available contract and he’ll be just as committed to the “collective” next year when he shows up for training camp in a different color uniform ready to play for the division rivals. The collective is transitory and ethereal and has no permanent existence. Individuals are forever.
Another example of collective might be a corporation. Everybody who works for the corporation is a “team player” doing their part for the collective to help the bottom line. But stop paying them and see how committed they are to the team. Ultimately individuals are committed to their own interests and survival. The collective is a myth.
Or how about the nation? We are all patriots. “God bless the USA” we say. We’ll even put our lives on the line to defend the country. However what about when the nation no longer represents the ideals we grew up with? Ultimately, every relationship that each of us has with a group or collective is merely a marriage of convenience. Ultimately we are all individuals who stand or fall before the master of heaven.
Surely the church is a permanent collective to which our devotion is undying, right? We all attend church on Sunday. We may lay our lives down for the brethren. And just like with a sports team, we are individually inspired, challenged, and made better by the believers that surround us. But what if the leaders of our congregation take a wrong turn theologically and trample sacred Biblical truths? We’d run out of there like a house afire. Sure, we would join ourselves with other believers, but the body of Christ in its universal entirety is only discerned and discernible by the Lord himself. We submit ourselves to godly leadership, we encourage the brethren, we use our gifts for mutual edification, but it is the Lord Christ whom each of us individually serves and we are (and must be) individually connected to the head, that is Christ. Our primary devotion is to Christ Himself. His promises are to us individually. Historically, the church took on the form of a surpassing collective only when the dynamic life of and power of the Holy Spirit gave way to hierarchical authority structure, mindless ritual, rote recitation and slavish asceticism. Under this anti-Biblical pattern, individualism and individual creativity and expression were crushed, giving rise to the aptly named “Dark Ages”. This darkness only persisted as the common man was held in the bonds of fear and deprived of light of the Scriptures. The New Covenant is not made with the church. It is made with individual believers who together comprise the church. As Jeremiah declares concerning this covenant, “they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.” The very word “church” (ecclesia) means “called out ones”, that is to say, “called out individuals”.
The irony that collectivists don’t seem to recognize, although it has been repeated time and again on the world stage, is that while individualism benefits the collective, collectivism crushes the individual. Thus collectivists never fail to kill and devour the goose that lays the golden eggs. In both society and in the church, individualism is the only viable foundation for progress and achievement. Individualism dominates the pages of the Bible. Individualism is the natural perspective of anyone who reads and believes the Scriptures. The claim that American Christianity has been weakened by American individualistic ideals has no basis in reality. It would be more accurate to say that the inherent principles of Christianity and the Scriptures, including the primacy of the individual, made America a great nation.