He writes:

The badges of identity paradigm really intrigues me. For one it seems to fit reality more than others (like the merit paradigm for instance). Even when we discover within ourselves various seeds of trying to earn approval, many times it isn’t straight this-for-that earning anyway but rather an identification with a perception of success or achievements. We have an idea of what success or piety is and we do stuff in order to identify with that idea. Unfortunately we even do this when we attack those who we view as hypocrites, or ourselves when we “humbly” interpret all our actions as being vain attempts at earning our salvation or proving our worthiness. We are actually engaging in pinning badges of identification on ourselves that we think associate with the good guys. Being a Christian becomes building an identity that is self-critical, skeptical of all good works, and takes total depravity to the extreme. We interpret this as the gospel call and are proud of it. But that isn’t the gospel. In fact, Jesus spends his time calling people away from these false identity constructs and toward identifying with himself.

And two, it seems to fit the Bible better. Try reading through the NT with party politics and pietistic philosophies in mind rather than strict works righteousness. The story comes to life and the applications become more varied and useful (instead of the same theme played out a hundred times). The Pharisees were concerned about being Pharisees, not so much about earning salvation with their works. The works were just a part of identifying with the group they considered to be on its way to salvation (not necessarily in the spiritual sense). In some ways, being “Reformed” is much closer to being a Pharisee than Arminians are. We pin the badges of the solas and the five points of Calvinism on our vests and identify with the group we consider to be the winners instead of applying the wisdom of the Reformed tradition in identifying with Jesus our King and being a subject in his kingdom.