How to Find Yourself: Why Looking Inward Is Not the Answer

A Christian Answer to the Identity Angst of Our Culture 

In the 21st-century West, identity is everything. Never has it been more important, culturally speaking, to know who you are and be true to yourself. Expressive individualism―the belief that looking inward is the way to find yourself―has become the primary approach to identity formation, and questioning anyone’s “self-made self” is often considered a threat or attack.

Prompted by his own crisis of identity, Brian Rosner argues that personal identity is formed not only by looking inward, but also by looking around to your relationships, backward and forward to your life stories, and upward to God. In How to Find Yourself, Rosner equips readers to engage sympathetically with some of the most pressing questions of our day. Challenging the status quo, he offers an approach to identity formation that leads to more secure and joyful self-knowledge: being known intimately and personally by God and following the script of Jesus’s life story.

• Challenges the Status Quo: Examines and critiques expressive individualism―the leading strategy for identity formation
• Gospel-Centered: Identifies an approach to identity formation in Jesus’s life story and God’s personal knowledge of his children
• Accessible: Helpful for a wide audience of laypeople, students, and church leaders
• Foreword by Carl R. Trueman: Opens with a message from the author of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self

Brian Rosner (PhD, Cambridge) was principal at Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia from 2012–2024, where he now lectures in New Testament. He previously taught at the University of Aberdeen and Moore Theological College. Rosner is the author or editor of many books, including How to Find Yourself: Why Looking Inward Is Not the Answer. He is married to Natalie and has four children.

Carl R. Trueman (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is professor of biblical and religious studies at Grove City College. He is a contributing editor at First Things, an esteemed church historian, and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Trueman has authored or edited more than a dozen books, including Strange New World; The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self; and Histories and Fallacies. He is a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.