Church-bred hypocrisy

Often the question 'Do you believe in God?' gets no more of a response than 'Yes' or 'No'. And then the conversation goes on to another subject. This may happen because the questioner is not aiming to determine whether God exists or to discover anything about the nature of the Deity; the questioner already has a mind made up and is just trying to find out where to class the interrogatee. Or this may happen because the respondent gives the questioner what is assumed the questioner wants, to win favor or avoid strain in the relationship, and keep the conversation going. Or the respondent gives an answer calculated to send the questioner packing, if building or maintaining a pleasant relationship is not a priority.

In any event, a brief exchange like this is never helpful. Just finding out what side a person is on is, at best, only a half step toward an edifying discourse and is, at worst, a way to dash all hopes of continuing a civil, enlightening exchange of views. Moreover, we cannot discover, in a flash, what every person truly believes.

Such a question as 'Do you believe in God?' should not be asked casually. Nor should it be answered that way. The question is profoundly important, since it addresses, by implication, the origin and destiny, purpose, nature and governance of the universe. The answer to the question has ethical and political implications. Treating the question lightly, if there is time for a penetrating conversation, is irresponsible.

No one will help atheists and people of faith find common ground if they do not take into account some common assumptions of the two groups.

Those who believe in God may also believe and even assert that they have a special sense that puts them in contact with the Almighty. And try as they may, unbelievers will never know God because they lack that special sense. Unbelievers, in this view, are like blind people living in a world filled with dazzling forms and colors but unable to apprehend those realities. As blind people may have no awareness of a truck about to hit them, unbelievers cannot perceive the imminent dangers to their souls.

While this analogy can appeal to believers and is a plausible argument, there is another one that appeals to unbelievers and is equally plausible.

While some people can fail to see things that do exist, some others can dream up things that do not. While some people are blind, some others have hallucinations. Some people can hear voices and imagine threats that exist only in their minds. Some can be afraid to cross a street because a truck, which is nowhere within five miles of their location, is about to hit them. The special sense that believers claim to have may only be a very fertile imagination.

Believers who find the position of unbelievers incomprehensible, believers who cannot fathom how anyone could not share their beliefs, should realize that unbelievers view religious faith as fantasy. No arguments, pleas or threats are likely to move an individual to accept the tales of an evangelist thought to be spinning webs of unreality.

The contrast in positions, the difference of views, is very likely to generate tensions, at the very least, when believers meet unbelievers. Countless relationships have been broken, many wars have been waged, and many lives have been lost over conflicts of religious beliefs and over encounters of infidels with people of faith.

Believers are more interested in spreading their faith than unbelievers are interested in spreading indifference. A sense of certainty produces a formidable psychological strength. This occurs whether or not the certainty is warranted. Thus believers can have a psychological advantage over and feel superior to those who have no faith. Thus they can make unbelievers feel awkward, inferior or incompetent in their presence--if the unbelievers do not know exactly what is going on.

Nevertheless, those who are making assertions bear the responsibility for supporting them. Evangelists may need to add cool, rational explanations to their passionate preaching in order to win allies and converts. Moreover, believers who want to bring those devoid of faith to a full life in the Spirit would do well to avoid condescension, hostility and threats. Furthermore, believers should not regard unbelievers as sick, stupid or recalcitrant: they are not afflicted with disease, nor do they lack the ability to reason and weigh evidence, nor do they stubbornly refuse to confront the truth.

Churches are not filled with strong believers; many passive, lukewarm people are there because of social pressures. Most are too weak to resist the pressures of a few enthusiastic churchgoers, and most people follow the path of least resistance. Even though they do not want to go to church, they find that going is easier than arguing against it, or hurting someone's feelings, or insulting someone's intelligence, or challenging someone's faith--the person's reason for living.

Thus believers, harboring only the best intentions, unwittingly breed hypocrisy. Hypocrisy has its rewards: friendship, respect and even love can be based on assumptions which are untrue. Hypocrisy persists because of fears that friendship, respect and love with be lost if the truth comes out, if people say what they really think.

Churches are being packed with uncommitted attendees rather than thoroughly devoted followers. In one way, this is good for the churches: it brings in much needed revenue. But anyone who wonders why a church is not vibrant, or does not continue to grow, or whose members do not claim to have rewarding spiritual lives, can find the reason here: more people are urged, pressured or bullied into coming to a church than attracted to it.

At least some people in church are there because they are curious; a few are hoping to transform their lives. If doubts are not permitted there, if questions are not welcomed, if arguments are not viewed as opportunities for learning, then everyone is worse off.

Believers can choose among many ways of spreading their faith. In any case, they would do well to attend more to the sincerity of those they bring into the fold than to the sheer quantity of those with whom they become loosely affiliated.