Adolescence, Culture and the Christian Challenge in the Face of the “Therian” Phenomenon
“It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18)
Adolescence is one of the most fragile and decisive stages of human development. It is not merely a biological transition, but a profound reconfiguration of the self. The adolescent does not only undergo bodily change; their horizon shifts. They move away from childhood, question inherited certainties, seek belonging, experience emotional intensity, and experiment with different versions of themselves. It is a structurally open stage of life, vulnerable to external influences and particularly sensitive to dominant cultural narratives.
Within this context, the phenomenon known as therian has emerged with increasing visibility: young people who claim to identify, partially or profoundly, with animals, not in a playful or metaphorical sense, but as a constitutive element of their identity. Some describe this identification as psychological, others as spiritual, and others still as an intimate experience that resists traditional categories. For some it is an intense affinity; for others, a structural form of self-definition.
This phenomenon must not be approached with mockery or simplistic alarmism. Nor should it be trivialised. When specialists speak of a “self-perception misaligned with the social context” and warn that it may produce “significant difficulties in everyday functioning”, they are pointing to something that demands serious reflection: identity, when radically disconnected from shared frameworks of reality, can undermine personal integration.
The question, therefore, is not only what a therian is, but what cultural conditions allow such forms of self-definition to flourish so rapidly within the contemporary adolescent environment.
We live in a culture that has displaced the centre of identity from received reality to felt experience. For centuries, human identity was understood as something discovered in dialogue with nature, family, tradition, and community. Today, in large sectors of Western culture, identity is assumed to be constructed primarily from subjective interiority. “What I feel” has acquired normative authority.
This shift is not accidental. It is the result of decades of expressive individualism, suspicion towards institutions, and a narrative that equates limits with oppression. The body, which for millennia was understood as a constitutive dimension of the person, is now treated as interpretative material. Belonging ceases to be inheritance and becomes choice. Biology is relativised; self-perception is absolutised.
In adolescence, this cultural turn has amplified effects. The young person is precisely in the process of defining who they are. If the surrounding culture tells them that identity depends above all on inner experience, and if they encounter digital communities that validate that experience without question, the process of identity consolidation may take highly subjectivised paths. What might once have been a transitional phase can solidify into a permanent label.
At this point, an important distinction must be made. Not all identity exploration is pathological. Adolescence requires space for experimentation, imagination, and symbolic expression. But mature identity is not defined solely by emotional intensity, but by integration. A healthy identity is one that harmonises body, affectivity, relationships, and life purpose. When self-perception enters into radical tension with shared reality and begins to interfere with everyday life, this signals fragmentation.
From the theology of creation, Scripture places human identity within a framework that precedes all self-perception. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27, ESVUK). This statement does not merely describe a biological origin, but an ontological condition: the human being receives their identity before saying anything about themselves. Identity is not defined by inward projection, but by relationship to the Creator. The imago Dei is not a subjective experience, but a constitutive reality that confers dignity, limit, and vocation.
This truth is further deepened when the psalmist contemplates the place of the human being within the created order. In Psalm 8, astonishment does not arise from human self-sufficiency, but from the grace bestowed upon humanity: “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands” (ESVUK). The human being is neither confused with the rest of creation nor dissolved within it. Humanity occupies a distinct order of precedence, responsibility, and centrality that does not arise from desire, but from divine purpose. In the biblical vision, human identity is always relational: towards God, towards the world, and towards others. When this hierarchy is inverted, identity becomes disoriented.
It is here that the apostle Paul’s reflection acquires decisive ontological depth. In Romans 1:23, Paul describes the human predicament not as mere ignorance, but as substitution: “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (ESVUK). This is not simply ritual idolatry, but a collapse of the order of being itself. When human beings abandon their reference to the Creator, they inevitably begin to redefine themselves from below, from the created order, from the animal, from the mutable. The loss of a transcendent axis leads to ontological confusion: that which was meant to reflect God ends up reflecting what is lower.
Read within this framework, contemporary phenomena of unanchored identity do not appear as isolated curiosities, but as coherent symptoms of a culture that has forgotten creation. When the human being ceases to understand themselves as creature, every limit becomes suspect and every self-perception claims absolute legitimacy. Biblical anthropology, by contrast, offers a vision that is both more realistic and more compassionate: the problem is not that human beings seek identity, but that they seek it disconnected from their origin and their end.
Yet Christianity goes further still. It does not only affirm that we have been created; it proclaims that we have been redeemed. Here the apostle Paul’s decisive affirmation emerges: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20, ESVUK). True human identity is not constructed from emotional fluctuation or radical self-assertion, but from union with Christ.
This does not erase personality, but redeems it. It does not delete personal history, but reorders it. In the face of identity uncertainty, the Gospel offers a certainty that does not depend on mood or digital validation: I belong to Christ. My life is hidden in Him. I am known and loved by God prior to any self-definition.
This truth introduces profound stability. In a culture where the self feels compelled to reinvent itself endlessly, Christianity proclaims a consoling rest: I do not need to create myself from nothing in order to have worth. My identity is not an experimental project, but a reality received by grace.
This does not mean ignoring the suffering or confusion that an adolescent may experience. It means offering a different foundation. When identity fragments, the Gospel does not respond with mockery, but with anchorage. It does not respond with relativism, but with hope.
The lesson for the Church is clear. First, we must articulate a Christian anthropology that is both robust and existentially meaningful. It is not enough to say “this is wrong”. We must show why the biblical vision of the human being is more coherent, more integrative, and more genuinely humanising than fragmentary alternatives.
Second, we must accompany pastorally with patience. The adolescent experiencing identity confusion does not need condemnation, but steadfast presence. They need adults who listen without scandal, who guide without humiliation, and who gently remind them that true identity is not found in labels, but in Christ.
To collaborate as Christians means creating communities where belonging is real and tangible. Where the young person is not reduced to a category, but affirmed as a person created and redeemed. Where doubts may be expressed without ridicule, and truth may be spoken without deception.
In a time when identity seems to dissolve into self-perception, the Gospel offers a certainty that cuts through uncertainty: I am not merely what I feel in this moment. I am someone called by name, reconciled in Christ, and sustained by a grace that does not fluctuate.
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” That confession is not an evasion of reality; it is its deepest fulfilment. There, identity ceases to fragment and begins to integrate. There, uncertainty finds its foundation. There, the self ceases to be uncertain territory and becomes a dwelling place inhabited by a faithful presence.
