I Believe In God Because My Parents Tell Me To

5 March, 2018 // in The Coffeehouse Cleric // by Alex Rowe

“Most Christians are just brainwashed by their parents!” asserted my Chemistry teacher one morning. This statement made my fifteen year-old self feel rather uncomfortable. Was he right? Did I really only believe in God because of my parents? The following year, however, my anxiety was abated. My teacher’s son joined the school for sixth form and he was no less militant in his atheism than his father.

Was his son brainwashed too? No, he wasn’t. In fact, I think the word “brainwashed” is unhelpful. Instead, what this story shows is a phenomenon so widespread that it normally goes unquestioned: the social nature of knowledge. We do not learn everything on entirely individual or rational grounds; rather we put our trust in significant others — parents, teachers, friends, etcetera — who help us to see certain ways of living and thinking as more realistic than others.

The social nature of knowledge should not be controversial. This is why we turn on the radio in the morning, why schools employ teachers and universities pay lecturers. This is why we seek advice from experts or counsel from friends. This is why we aspire to be good parents. The simple reality is, we rely on others for knowledge and understanding all the time.

Last month, I read Walter Moberly’s new book The Bible in a Disenchanted Age. One reason he suggests for why people ought to take seriously Christianity and its Bible is because there are countless others throughout history who have done so, and who still do so today. Churches can be described as “plausibility structures,” a concept developed in sociology by Peter Berger and defined by Moberly as follows:

“the social and cultural contexts within which people live regularly makes a difference to the understandings of life that they hold to be true…to be surrounded by a consensus can encourage people to adopt that consensus for themselves.”

So if you think I am exaggerating in my title, you are wrong. The continuing presence of the church in today’s society gives me reason to believe in the God of Christianity. Of course, it might not be the only reason for my belief (it isn’t), but it is surely a necessary preliminary. The church’s continuing existence makes its way of understanding the world a live option, one available for me to assent and embrace.

Put negatively, a major reason for why I do not trust, worship, and follow the gods of the Greeks or Romans is because such communities who did so have ceased to exist — where are the worshippers of Zeus or Apollo? In sociological terms, there is no plausibility structure available for me to inhabit.

Let me try to spell out something of the significance of this all. First, all of us, whether or not we count ourselves religious, must acknowledge the social nature of knowledge. We do not come to know and understand the world in exclusively individual or rational terms. Instead we depend upon the leading and influence of others.

We choose to place our trust — that is, our faith — in other people and places, and in our experiences, for answering many of the most existential questions in life. Christians simply choose to place their trust differently, choosing to privilege Jesus Christ and the Bible as the perspective from which to interpret the world.

This ought to lead us to think carefully about the different plausibility structures that we inhabit, and whether we take them for granted. Some might be good for us; others might blind us to alternative perspectives that merit our consideration, that could lead to our transformation.

Secondly, those who do identify themselves as religious, including myself, must realise that what we say and what we do, what we confess and what we practice, cannot be separated. This should come as no surprise. After all, the English language has a name for those whose way of life does not match up with what they claim: we call them “hypocrites.” Sadly so many of us in the church are exactly that.

If as Christians we wish to present our faith, our God, to the world around us, we must realise that the first place people will look to discern the credibility of our presentation is not in our well-reasoned apologetics but in our shared lives together as the church. On this note, I end with a quotation by Lesslie Newbigin:

“How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross? I am suggeting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it.”

Thank you for reading. The Coffeehouse Cleric is a Medium publication dedicated to asking the big questions of life. It features writing on three main areas: minimalism, spirituality, and learning. If you enjoyed this piece, please do share it with friends and family on social media.