To
be a Christian means to be counter-cultural, to stand out from the
crowd, to not conform to the world around us. To be outside the “norm”
is often frowned upon. As a matter of fact, most people will do almost
anything to fit in. Remember Milgram’s experiment? Sometimes it is easy
to see when someone is trying to conform, and sometimes it is not.
There
is a felt need to conform. It manifests itself in many forms, and is
usually a result of a person’s desire to get along with others. People
want to be accepted, and conformity is usually the quickest route. The
Bible teaches that we are all descendants of Adam and Eve. It does not
matter in the context of this paper whether we believe they were real
people or representations in Hebrew poetry. Although I do believe in the
more literal version, for this discussion they are an image that helps
us to understand the origins of why people conform. If we are all
inter-related as the Bible teaches, then the desire to go along in order
to be accepted is an action based in our need to belong. Belonging also
fulfills our need for consistency of behavior by saying, in essence, we
are following the same rules as everyone else, and we are not a threat
to the group. When we conform we help others by being more predictable
in our behavior. Usually the overall outcome of conformity is an
increase in our self-esteem because by conforming we have been accepted,
and therefore we feel better about ourselves. In church this can become
a mind numbing experience. I have seen members who take conformity to a
dangerous level.
When
members of the group (those who have conformed) obtain their identity
from the group it becomes easy to overlook their own shortcomings. They
find their self-worth from within the group, and with so much good going
on with the group they will often relax their own standards and obtain a
faulty self-image by live vicariously though others. The social impact
theory tells us that people obtaining a faulty self-image, and making
decisions they would not normally make is increased greatly with church
size. The more people the more sheep-like they become. How important the
group is to them only makes decision making worse, and a sense of
belonging in a religious community is a strong motivator of behavior.
However, there is a more insidious element to conforming to the extreme.
Group-think
is probably the most dangerous trend we face as Christians, the church,
and a nation. When conformity leads to a style of thinking where the
maintenance of the group’s cohesion becomes the highest priority,
dangerous thinking will usually result. Conformity that leads to
unanimity as an overriding principle and motivation that acts as a
filter through which everything the group does is passed thru can lead
to disastrous outcomes. This is why we often see people from the church,
and the political world, acting as if they are invincible,
rationalizing what they do, believe they are correct in the face of
facts to contrary, get upset when others point out their errors, and
pressure others to conform to their beliefs. Over-conformists tend to be
dogmatic (past convictions to insanity); they justify irrational
behaviors, see themselves as morally superior to others, and will
stereotype or vilify outsiders. Most of the time over conformity stems
from pluralistic ignorance. That is when people adopt the norms of
others even when they run in opposition to their own beliefs. For the
sake of remaining within the allotted space, remember that to be a
Christian does not mean we have to check our brains at the door. We are
to love God with our heart, soul, and mind.
"It is not death that a man should fear, he should fear never beginning to live."
Marcus Aurelius
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