The Devil’s Lasso
The Most Dangerous Question a Christian Can Ask
There is a question that doesn’t get asked in Christian circles. It’s not a riddle from an atheist playbook on how to corner a Christian, a logic trap designed to confound believers, or a scientific fact that contradicts a Bible story. Neither is the question omitted deliberately from Christian discourse— it just rarely occurs to anyone.
If the question were familiar and had a name, it may be called the devil’s lasso. For this noose has a slip knot. The more your faith struggles and attempts to escape, the tighter the grip around its neck — until ultimately it is choked to death.
I would know, because it happened to me.
As an enthusiastic evangelical, I was immune to the lasso. It was only after my faith hit a wall that it ensnared me. It was as I dissected my faith, analyzing it component by component and digging to its core, that I stumbled into the deadly noose. It had been hiding down there all along — a question whispering for an answer:
If everyone in my Christian community were to abandon their faith, would I continue in my own?
The Brutal Truth
I dutifully tried to imagine the scenario. As a college student and relatively new Christian — about 3 years old “in Christ” — my Christian community was limited to a Baptist student club. The Southern Baptist Convention had leased a large house close to the campus for us where we met and socialized. We were a youth tribe and a Christian family. (My actual family was not religious.)
So what if they all just decided to bail? What if I went down to the Baptist Student Union house and they all told me they had given up on god? And then they all stuck together as a social club and started acting like all the other students? Would I still maintain my relationship with god all by myself?
Every way I played it in my mind and heart, the answer was no.
This is the point where I ought to say I was devastated. But at that early stage of my eventual deconversion, I was not. I was simply confused. Here I thought I was this committed, faithful Christian. Having missed out on a Christian education in childhood, I had worked hard to make up for it. In addition to the Bible studies and prayer groups in the BSU, I had read the entire Bible just on my own accord. I was curious. I asked questions (some of which were not appreciated). I had been a summer missionary. I prayed daily. I loved Jesus.
Apparently, however, god was not the main object of my affection. Deep down, at the bottom of the well, my faith was really just about my friends. Without them, I would not have the motivation to carry on.
Surely there are some who could pick up and carry on after such a realization, trying to develop a relationship with god that is truly independent from their relationships with others. But I knew I was not one of them.
Through the Fog
Stepping back to look at my faith and our group from a bit of a distance, I began to see more clearly. Yes, there were other Christian clubs on campus I could join if mine became apostate or dissolved. But none of them appealed to me. They were all very large. They didn’t have any premises to call their own. Their friendship groups were already formed and I knew no one in them. The BSU, on the other hand, was relatively small. We all knew each other, at least by name. We had a house where we could just hang out. We had an adult adviser who counseled us and handled things, like a parent or a pastor.
I realized that Christianity was not something I could do on my own — I needed to do it within a tribe of others. And not just any others. They had to be people I easily related to, that I could bond with.
I also tried to imagine whether any of the others in my BSU tribe of friends would continue in the faith if all of us, along with any believing family and friends they may have back home, left it. Of course, I couldn’t answer for them. But nevertheless my sense was that very few, if any, in our fellowship would be a match for the devil’s lasso. When it came to our relationship to god, it seemed like we were either in it together or not at all.
And that was a problem.
Two or Three
For where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them. (Matthew 18:20)
But what about one?
As an agnostic, I see no problem with a religion being experienced communally instead be of individually. But that’s not how Christianity works. Christianity can be practiced in a group but it is to be experienced as an individual. For this is what the final judgement is based on — the individual’s relationship with god.
Nowhere is this more true than in evangelicalism, where we are reminded that Abraham demonstrated his devotion to god by his willingness to sacrifice his own son to him. We hear Jesus’ admonition: Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. — Matthew 10:37 And we are advised that loving anything, including other humans, more than god is a violation of the First Commandment because we are putting them in the position in our hearts rightly occupied by god.
This was exactly what I had been doing. My god was my faith community — the BSU — not god.
I had been fooling myself. What felt like devotion to god had actually been intense attachment to a particular group of people.
A Fig Leaf of Denial
My faith depended on my having a good relationship with certain other people. I couldn’t go it alone. That meant that other people had a large measure of control over my relationship with god.
This reality is tacitly acknowledged in Christian culture. We search endlessly for the right church, where we fit in, because otherwise it just doesn’t seem to work. When our relationship with a church body suffers, our relationship with god suffers or even breaks. Christian parents are reluctant to send their kids to secular schools because friendships with unbelievers could derail their faith.
Our relationship with god is made or broken by our relationships with other people.
But Christians try to deny the extent of this reality. When believers have been abused or damaged by a toxic church, they are reminded that “That’s not god, that’s just people.” When non-believers and former believers cite the behavior of Christians as the barrier that keeps them out of the church, they are told “Don’t judge Christ by Christians.”
Deep down, on the emotional level, these arguments feel hollow. For how can we separate other believers from god when they comprise the very tribe we must join to belong to him?
Set Up to Fail
The deconversion genre is replete with stories about former believers agonizing over “coming out” to their friends and families about their loss of faith. I’m willing to bet some never do, choosing instead to just fake it.
Because alienating those closest to us is a primal nightmare.
Our instinct to prioritize human relationships over everything else is part of our DNA programming. We are a herd species and we survive by cooperating in family groups and tribes. It’s how we were able to take dominion over the Earth.
So why would the god who allegedly created us therefore judge us otherwise? Why would the creator who designed us to put our relationships with others over everything else, including him, judge us for doing just that? Why would he expect to be our first love when he designed us to put our family and tribe first and foremost?
And why are we judged on our individual relationship with god, when others have such power over that relationship? This means that kids whose faith was destroyed by sex abuse in their church could be consigned to hell for their apostasy while their abusers — and the church officials who protected them — could repent and be forgiven.
Blessed Honesty
As I continued down a path of spiritual analysis and discovery, I began to notice just how much of what we call “faith,” “god,” and “spirituality” is really just people being people. We “follow the call of god” to compete for dominance in our tribe, acquiring titles like “deacon,” “pastor,” or “bishop.” We follow spiritual leaders we love and trust, just as we follow our parents and secular teachers. And we surround ourselves with a protective tribe of like-minded humans, just like any other social group.
My journey ultimately led to agnosticism, and a sense of peace that comes from honesty. My relationship was not with god, it was with my fellowship group. I had been deceived by indoctrination and my own emotions.
I have to wonder, therefore, how many other Christians may be similarly deceived? How many other people have confused their affection and devotion to their church or fellowship group with devotion to god?
We often don’t notice any conflict between the two until our relationship with our Christian community gets rocky, and we find ourselves strangely alone. As for the presence or absence of god, that’s not for me to resolve. I will only caution believers about digging too deeply into the well of their faith. For sometimes the devil really does lie in the details.
