The Hostile Crowd

I just  reread the Abilene Paradox, by Dr. Jerry Harvey, a professor of organizational management at George Washington University. Using parables drawn from history, fantasy, the Bible and everyday life. Harvey makes a deeply profound point about human nature. His central thesis is that peer pressure does not really exist.  It is a figment of our imagination created to cover up  our fear of separation from the crowd. Most of us  will do almost anything to avoid being separated from the group. So we go along with the crowd, sometimes doing things we know to be evil, not because anyone makes us or says anything to pressure us, but just  because we fear standing out and being "different."

Harvey begins with  a story of his family's trip to Abilene which turned into a disaster. After it was all over, each person in the family admitted they did not want to go to Abilene.  From this, Harvey argues  that it is possible for a group  be stampeded into  none of them wants or desires.  From that little story,  Harvey goes on to talk about lynch mobs and the holocaust.  The holocaust would have been impossible without the complicity not only of the German people, but some of the Jews as well.  If no one stands up to an idea that is wrong or evil,  then it inevitably becomes reality.

What causes us to go along, even when we hate where we are going?  Harvey says it is loneliness.  We were created to be in relationship with others.  The fear that others would not accept us drives us to conform--even when that fear is groundless.

This has a profound and truly frightening implication for the church.  As you probably know, America is the most church-going major country in the world.  Until recently,  forty percent of Americans attend once a month. Today that figure is going down, at a rate of about one percent a year. 

The reason, I believe, has a lot more to do with conformity than theology.  Many, if not most church-going people in America do so less from theological conviction, but because they come from church-going families and live in church-going neighborhoods.  They go because they always have, and because they are part of a church-going crowd.   They are part of a church going culture.  The desire to fit in keeps them going--at least for now. 

We have built our churches on the desire to conform.  Our youth and music programs have are built largely on peer-pressure.  We have reasoned if we can get the crowd, we can get the individual.  So we use mass-media approaches to attract a crowd so will have a place to belong.

Here's the problem with this approach, as I see it.  The church crowd is really one component of a larger crowd which is louder and more encompassing than our crowd ever could be. If the church demands conformity, then the world surrounding the church demands much greater conformity.  Our goal is to move people to inner, individual spiritual experiences. The goal of the larger crowd is simply get people to conform.

That larger crowd,  which we call "the world,"  is better at manipulating people to conform than we ever were.  We do not have the television, radio, or mass media capabilities loud enough to drown out the insistent calls for Christians to become part of the conforming community.  Until now, we have always assumed in the church that the larger community was friendly to us.  But now it is becoming unfriendly to us.  Religion itself is falling into disfavor with the world.   This has been brought out by a pair of studies from Pew Research, one showing the growth of the non-religious, and another showing the worldwide increase in religious persecution.

For centuries, we could comfortably say without embarrassment that we attended church without embarrassment.  But now,  that generally welcome feeling towards church is disappearing.  Those who come to church because as a means to conform, are going to other place.  They are seeking their conformity elsewhere. 

If we rely upon conformity to be our friend,  we are in trouble.   As this anti-religious movement picks up speed,  churches held together mostly by superficial activities and social conformity will be threatened.  We  will become like the unpopular schoolgirl who threw a party and nobody came.

If Harvey's thesis is right (and I believe it is) then it is not outside pressure which threatens us but our inner fear of ostracism.  No one is saying to us we cannot be Christian, nor are the likely to.  No one is threatening to pass laws banning churches or to gather up Christians for internment.  The most annoying thing we face are to be thought peculiar. But it does not matter, being thought peculiar is enough to make many Christians head for the hills in dismay.  Our biggest fear is to stand out as different. 

Harvey suggests that fear of loneliness is a spiritual issue.  We must have faith and courage to overcome fear.   We to clearly and boldly live out our faith even when others may not understand why. We must teach our children not to fear being peculiar. 

Harvey also realizes that we cannot stand against the fear of loneliness without support.  For Christians,  he suggests heeding Jesus' words in  Matthew 28:20  "And lo,  I am with you always, even till the end of the age."

Necessity requires us to put our relationship to God before the crowd. When we do so, we must remember that Jesus also had to stand along before the crowd.  It is part of what it means to live with integrity.  Our relationship to God must be more important to us than life itself.  Along with that, Christians need to support each other in a hostile environment.  

The pressure to conform does not exist, except in our own minds. Nevertheless, we must seek help from God and form others to keep from allowing the crowd to steal us of what is mot precious in life--our faith and our integrity.