Why Apologetics matters: Homosexuality, Cults, and Conversion

Social science shows that most people convert their religious views when the social capital (important valued relationships) within a group outweigh those outside of the group.  So if your friend from high school is suddenly in some wacky church with weird beliefs, then he or she probably made a new group of friends or started seriously dating someone.  Or if your youth group friend goes off to the military, he or she may come back as an atheist.  Research shows that it's the social life that caused the change.

Even when people do convert, they convert in such a way as to maintain as much of the old religion/beliefs as possible.  Baptists will become Pentecostal or Seventh Day Adventist, but not Hindu or Muslim.  This only makes sense because they are still valuing what it previously meant to them.  They just want to make room for the new thing too.

This is huge when you come to think about it.  Cult groups like Jehovah's Witnesses have a lot of rules.   If you have any political stance, then it is a sin.  And if you are even found with a voter registration card, then you are disfellowshipped.  This means that your family and friends will completely cut you off and never talk to you again.  This of course keeps people from leaving.  Think of how many people might leave if it didn't come with such costs?

But are these costs so abnormal?  Are they unique to strict religious sects?  Or are they really more commonplace in social life?  Pretend that you are homosexual.  People will automatically assume that you are not, since about 99% of people are not.  A large portion of homosexual males have a female brain development.  This makes them have a strong adversion to risk taking and impulsive behavior.  If all of your relationships in life are operating under the assumption that you are not gay, then coming out will be damaging.  People will naturally feel mislead and lied to.  Of course they merely made what was a probable assumption about you.  You also sort of didn't really lie to them.  Furthermore, you weren't the type of person to drop huge bombs into a relationship.

It would be way easier for a gay man who is unable to keep it secret.  If he was so effeminate that everyone knew, then he risks much less by coming out.  But a man that could pass for straight would probably be afraid to take the risk.  Over time, this would create a web of relationships and coming out would be a huge risk.  Furthermore, being in the closet would also carry a totally separate set of gay relationships.  This would be a really conflicted life.

My point is that the official rules of the Jehovah's Witnesses aren't all that different from normal relationships.  Everything affects the relationship.  Why are you friends with a person unless you have something in common or hit it off somehow?  If such things form the bond,then they can also damage the bond.

Once you understand that, then you understand my point about Apologetics.  Most people base their life on relationships.  Most people believe what they do about religion as well as other things because of the social connections.  This isn't all that irrational.  When your car breaks down, you take it to the mechanic.  This is an expert who will tell you what to do.  When you get sick you go to a doctor.  When you want to know what happens after you die, then you go to people you believe to be trustworthy.  People place immense value on social connections and they aren't irrational for doing so.

This is where it gets interesting.  Most people aren't really converted through Christian Apologetics.  In fact, no one is completely.  But for some people, they will tell you in no uncertain terms that it was a huge part of their conversion.  These people tend to be the engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc.   Look at this situation.  Most people will just believe what the people they trust believe.  But some people will be persuaded by ideas.  Now I ask you, who are the leaders and followers here?

Like it or not, Apologetics converts the smart people.  And most people follow these people.  It is of course more complicated than that.  Often times people will judge a smart person as untrustworthy because of character issues.  And it's possible to judge someone's character incorrectly.  Furthermore, a new religion is more of a risk than an older one.  So this, along with numerous factors plays a role.  It's been said that the defining characteristic of new religious movements is that they fail.  It's the tiny minority that continue to grow past the founder's first push.


There is a battle of ideas going on.  William Lane Craig shares something a missionary told him about his debates.  Craig travels the western world debating Christianity with professors at universities.  The missionary said that these are really westernized versions of what missionaries call "power encounters."  This is when the supernatural abilities of the missionary and local religious leaders are put to the test and the people see who passes.

So let's take an issue and see how all of this plays out.  Homosexuals of course have a community that's in the closet and another that's come out in the open.  This group sees the Biblical condemnation against homosexuality as terrible.  To them, it's like how Muhammad owned slaves.  For many of us, this alone makes Islam a terrible religion.  Christian Apologetics can come in and give a defense of the Bible's stance.  It may be perfectly reasoned and irrefutable.

But would it do any good?  According to what we know, probably not.  People are basing their views on their social relationships.  Just like they don't want to come out and damage their public friendships, they also don't want to accept the Biblical view and damage their homosexual relationships.  People base what they believe on their trusted relationships.  You don't convert people.  You convert groups.

So how does one convert the group?  In theory, the group looks to someone or even a group as a leaders.  They are looking at the people.  They are looking at the group, not the ideas.  The irony is that their leaders are probably looking at the ideas.  Therefore, if you figure out who the thought leaders are, then you can convert them.  By doing so, then you will convert the remainder.  For example, in the Methodist and Catholic church, they have something called Confirmation.  When you are 13, you go to special classes and learn what the church teaches.  You profess in a special ceremony and you now belong to that religion.  Baptists, who oppose such a thing, have a very similar thing nonetheless called Vacation Bible School.  Again, a child is just sort living under an understanding.  She will go to VBS, learn the core doctrines, and then be converted.  They even give you a diploma.

I personally never went to VBS.  I was converted at 13 at church summer camp, which is a similar coming of age ritual.  But I grew up with a strong understanding that I cannot trust my parents.  So I was very hesitant at the thought of just believing what I was taught.  I tossed the idea back and forth quite a bit until I made up my mind to become a Christian.  Afterwards, I still struggled with it and sought confirmation that it was true.  In the long run, I become someone who really seriously thinks it is true.  It's hard for me to be ashamed of believing it.  People often assume that if I am in a different social group that holds different views, then I will be ashamed of my religion.  But I am not.  This is because, as a teenager, I was far more ashamed of it on my own than they could ever make me.  And yet it emerged as the truth.  Apologetics was essential.

I don't know if the people who get converted by Apologetics are really smarter.  Perhaps we are just more focused on ideas than social connections.  I do know that this is often times not the best thing.  I get caught up in an idea and ignore the human element of people.  Another person who was a difficult convert was CS Lewis.  A college professor and world renowned writer, he was a devout atheist.  Yet he came to Christ through Apologetics.  Think of the impact that one man had.

So how on earth do we draw a conclusion from all of this?  First, don't get frustrated when you defend the Biblical view on sex to homosexuals or if you show atheism to be false.  Don't get frustrated when people don't convert.  Let me guess.  They thought that it was some how relevant to let you know that they are members of a social group that disagrees with you perhaps?  That's exactly what they are statistically likely to do.

But they have to have some sort of leader.  There are always thought leaders.  Names like Newton, Plato or Lewis stand large over history.  Certain quirky terms and phrases from such people get repeated seemingly forever.  And whoever these leaders are, they might not be the best person.  It's possible that this social group found it simply easier to say, be gay, and simply wanted a leader to get behind.


But wait, there's more!

Another interesting phenomenon is that religious leaders can often times not be the thought leaders.  There is a natural tendency for clergy to become professonalized.  Whether it be Wizards or Preachers, you'll see a benefit in someone who does it professionally.

But as you can see from the social research, people's religious demands tend to be pretty static.  It's fairly easy for Apple to create a lot of demand for some new product.  Sports video games seem to be slight variations on the same thing each year.  And yet people keep buying them.  Religion is a totally different animal though.  Because it is connected to deep social relationships as well as life's deepest questions, then demand is pretty stagnant.  Shifts do happen, but they happen slowly.

This leads to a problem for professional clergy.  How do they increase their pay?  Let's face it, people are motivated to make Spaceballs 2, the search for more money.  What you find is often a circus that's trying every trick in the book to sell you the same old thing as though it isn't.  Pastor David Hughes in Florida had a special service for the end of Game of Thrones.  But usually what happens is more simple.  If you can't increase demand, then you can decrease supply.  If you can limit who gets to be the preacher, then you get paid more.  This is because demand is inflexible.  It can be made a benefit if used correctly.

For example, Methodist clergy used to face a lot of competition from free preachers who farmed all week and preached on Sunday.  But they managed to make it a rule that you had to be seminary trained.  The denomination had opposed it up until then.  And guess what?  Their pay increased.

Another example:  I work with a youth group.  We did a series on love an marriage.  Kids wrote in all of these interesting questions.  And there was this video series from the guy who earlier did "True Love Waits."  It was incredible.  The man clearly had nothing to say.  Specifically, he had nothing new to say.  And that's the whole point.  Ask yourself this.  Why come out with a new video series?  Won't that give people the false impression that you have something new to say?  And didn't the previous series really just come up with a new catchphrase to label a really old idea?  The answer is simple.  He didn't have anything to tell you.  He just wanted to be the one telling it to you.

You see, demand is static.  It won't move up or down much within a lifetime.  But you can increase your pay by decreasing and controlling supply.  Too often I've heard youth pastors preach a message that kids have heard a hundred times.  They want to do a review and ask the kids, "What did we learn?"  The kids are always confused because the guy said nothing that they hadn't heard many times before.  But he wasn't asking his real question.  What he really wanted to ask is, "What did I say?"  He didn't want them to learn things.  He just wanted them to learn what specifically he said.

I don't want to be overly cynical and bash all clergy.  I think that a person in such a position is able to do a great amount of good.  Good people will therefore be attracted to it.  But perhaps clergy should be approached with distrust until they prove themselves?  Let's face facts, the Bible gives a lot of space to warnings about false teachers and prophets.  It doesn't warn about false police or false parents.  There's some stuff on that. But Jesus literally tells us that many false Christs will come.

So Ben, how does this relate to Apologetics?  Simply put, the person who might be the thought leader might simply be in place because he (or she) is the clergy.  Better qualified people may be waiting outside in droves.  Supply has been controlled by the establishment.  Is this not analogous to the issue of female pastors?  I wonder how many immensely qualified women are unavailable for the job simply because of yet another way to control supply?

So get this.  If the guy in the official position is in there because of shenanigans, then he probably takes his ideas from someone else.  He most likely is a thought leader for others that simply regurgitates what he can piece together.  This is a sad but dangerous environment because a layperson of a congregation can so often become the thought leader simply by making sense from time to time.  Therefore the official structure of shenanigans must get in gear to keep rational people from upsetting the controlled supply.  You can't let anyone else make sense!  I'm supposed to be the only one that gets to do that!

So how does one convert a church that's gotten off track?  With random people in society, they have a group of friends and some sort of structure they look up to.  But in a real religious order, there are shenanigans to deal with as well.  Some cults actually limit contact with outsiders.  Hmm I wonder what on earth they are worried about?  Maybe it's all of their shenanigans?

I guess all you can do is tell people the truth.  Understand that you'll get smeared in private and public.  But focus on telling the truth and the non-morons will appreciate it.  Those are the people that will see that you don't care about your image as much as putting the truth out there.  Then they will begin to respect what you have to say.  If you can find a thought leader, then change this person's mind.  Ideas are hard to keep in a bottle.  If they are good, they will have an effect.