A reader writes:
Today I got to thinking: Why is it that people like Lee Strobel are so eager to believe Christianity?After all, from reading his books I’ve come to conclude that he must be somewhat dishonest with himself: He’s jumped to a conclusion, presumably because he wants to believe very badly.
Why do you think he finds Christianity so attractive?
This looks puzzling at first, but I think the answer’s pretty clear: Strobel became an Evangelical Christian because his wife did. At most, his much-touted “journalist’s investigation” was a matter of having a little trouble swallowing the things his wife’s church was teaching him, and then setting out to convince himself of it because he was emotionally committed to doing so.
As a general matter: Rodney Stark, before he started doing really embarrassing attempts at history, did sociological work showing that this is how conversions mostly happen: through a person’s social network. Even groups known for trying to evangelize complete strangers, like the Mormons, have much higher success rates trying to convert friends and family of the already-converted than they do with “cold” evangelism.
Looking at Strobel specifically: if you want a better idea of his story, pick up a copy of Strobel’s first religious book, Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary (go to a library if you can, but a used copy is only $4 on Amazon). It wasn’t published until Strobel had been working as a pastor for six years, so he obviously had some time to refine his self-presentation before writing it, but it gives a more detailed explanation of his conversion than you get in his later books. There, it’s really, really clear that Strobel decided to convert after attending a few church services for his wife’s sake, and before doing any “investigation” of Christianity. Though this requires a little more reading between the lines, plus knowledge of the available religious apologetics at the time, you can also work out that his “investigation” mainly just consisted of reading Evangelical apologetics and creationist tracts: some of the things he says he “discovered” are just the Cliff Notes version of Josh McDowell (who has been around longer than Strobel) and when he talks about having “looked at” other religions, he’s just repeating what other apologists say about those religions, and doesn’t seem to know how those religions defend themselves.
By the way, the story with Josh McDowell seems to be similar: the official Campus Crusade biography of him describes how he got going to church because of his social network (IIRC there was a girl involved), though his “I investigated Christianity” story is even more dubious.
I think you are on the right track. Even though I am a secular humanist, I still attend my wife’s church for the simplest reason, it makes her happy. She understands and respects the fact that I do not believe the teachings of the church and I have no fear that I will be re-converted but the power of love can make different people do different things — it’s possible, Strobel’s wife gave him an ultimatum concerning belief and the cognitive dissonance that set in motivated Strobel to work harder to assert the beliefs. I am fortunate in that my wife and I can mutually respect each others beliefs. I meditate in the Zen tradition (secular only, yes, you can do that) and I don’t expect her to adopt my beliefs and I’m glad to attend a service with her because of my love for her. Also, by understanding what is being preached weekly, I can better help offer her alternative beliefs. Wouldn’t it be cool, if Strobel’s religious conversion was all part of a huge investigative journalism project? No such luck…
Not to defend Lee Strobel’s particular case, but we should be careful to not dismiss the epistemic value of being influenced by one’s fellows. After all, with systems such as religions or political orientations or ethical stances, it’s hard to know about them, certainly in any detail, unless we are presented with them in some way. The most obvious route is our friends, associates, family, and so on. There’s nothing particularly unusual or cognitively suspect about this fact.
Joshua–fair points. What’s interesting about Stark’s research is not simply the being influenced by peers, but that people are influenced by their peers far more than they let on when telling their conversion stories, even more than they seem to realize themselves.
I suspect people are influenced by all sorts of non-rational sources more than they are willing to let on. And this again would extend to virtually every area of belief. Surely growing up in the West has effects for my scientific beliefs, but I would never attribute those beliefs to my upbringing in a study. I would have to think carefully about it and eventually parse out what is the result of non-rational sources and what isn’t. Or what is overdetermined by both non-rational sources and my personal epistemic journey.
(I’m now using non-rational in a pretty wide sense. As I said above, in fact I think being influenced by peers, upbringing, etc… is perfectly rational in many cases)
It is interesting that peer-group influence is downplayed when converts recount their stories. People don’t want to admit how susceptible we are to such non-rational vectors for our ideas and beliefs. Of course it helps to have the whole society working on the individual through language, custom, and law from birth to become a convinced christian in the West, muslim in Asia and Africa, or shinto in Japan, etc.
It often happens (in my opinion) that we make our decisions first and rationalize them afterwards.