How did you learn your beliefs?

When I was in elementary school, I learned to swim. I can’t remember ever being afraid of the water and, in fact, I have a lot of positive memories at the lake or in the pool. (NOT at the ocean. I hate the ocean. Do not take me there on a surprise vacation.) When it was time for me to learn to swim, my parents signed me up for swim lessons at the North River YMCA, where I also played youth soccer. I remember hanging onto the side of the pool while learning to kick. I remember splashing my face in and holding my breath. I even remember, with all the parents watching, demonstrating my new ability to swim by jumping off the diving board into the deep end. It was a great time and I’m glad that my parents let me do it.

But, as I’m learning in my adult years, not everyone got to go to swim lessons. Older generations, as my mother and aunts tell it, were just thrown into the lake. Seriously, I don’t think they’re exaggerating- the sixties were nuts. Some well-meaning adult or older sibling threw them into the water and they had to figure out how to swim or sink until someone rescued them. I’m assuming none of them drowned as they are all old enough to tell me these stories. I have other friends who have never learned to swim at all because going to the water isn’t a part of their lifestyle. There either aren’t any pools or bodies of water near them, or the ones that do exist are inaccessible to them. I even have some friends who taught themselves to swim. Nobody was going to throw them into the lake, they just threw themselves in.

I’m telling you these stories because learning to swim illustrates something really important about our belief development: how we learn matters. If you learn how to swim because someone throws you into a lake, you’re going to have a certain set of thoughts and memories surrounding learning to swim and maybe even water in general. If you learn how to swim at the YMCA with a lifeguard, then you’ll think something completely different, as will those who taught themselves to swim or still haven’t learned. How you learn to swim matters. How you learned your set of beliefs matters even more.

I grew up going to church, it’s what you did at the turn of the century in the American Southeast. I had a mostly positive experience and was given wide latitude to ask questions and make mistakes. I learned a lot and well in that context and I’m grateful for the community and teachers that I had. Some of my friends (and probably some of you) did not have a comparable experience. 

Some of you learned about God, the Bible, and the Christian life through the teaching of someone I’d call a “fire and brimstone” preacher. Someone who thought that they could get to commit to a life with Jesus if they literally scared the hell out of you. Their goal was to make you see how bad you were and how much you deserved to go to hell so that you would raise your hand, walk down an aisle, and/or pray a prayer and everyone could rest assured that you were “saved”. What sort of impact do you think this had or would have on your beliefs?

Some of you learned about God, the Bible, and the Christian life through a less aggressive, but equally destructive, style of teaching I’m going to call shaming. Your teachers and leaders told you what “good Christians” acted or looked like and you were expected to fall in line. If you didn’t, then your membership in the community was questioned. They’d whisper behind your back and wonder if you were really “saved”. Finally, someone might personally confront you with the guise of concern and make you feel so ashamed of yourself that you either started to act the part they wanted you to play or you gave up on church altogether. How do you think this culture would impact your beliefs?

Some of you learned about God, the Bible, and the Christian life in a very structured environment. You did things like confirmation classes or you went through the catechism and memorized a lot of scripture. You still remember most of the information that you learned because it was taught to you so well. But you didn’t learn how to apply that information to your life. You believe it, but you don’t know what to do with it. How do these circumstances shape your beliefs?

Some of you didn’t really learn about God, the Bible, and the Christian life at all in your church environment. The church that you went to was more like a social club than a faith community. Faith and the Bible were talked about, but not in depth, not in a way that kept you up at night or made you ask questions. You likely had a positive experience here and the people were kind and welcoming, even involved in the community and serving people in wonderful ways. What’s the impact on your beliefs from this scenario?

What if you didn’t grow up going to church at all? How did you learn about God, the Bible, and the Christian life?

Whether you have any experience with Christianity or not is irrelevant to my point. It’s the context and framework that I think is most helpful because I believe that what you think about Jesus is the most important thing about you. My point here is that, even if you learn the same stories or same sorts of things, how you learn them matters. How you learn your beliefs is going to shape how you view them, how deeply rooted they are, and whether or not you hold onto them when things get tough. 

If you learned to believe in Jesus through the shame-based culture I described above, you’re always going to be beating yourself up. You’re going to think that God is mad at you and that you’re never good enough. Or, conversely, you’re going to think that you’ve earned your place in the Kingdom and saved yourself because you met all the arbitrary cultural markers laid out for you by those in power. You’re going to think that those who don’t know Jesus yet are the worst and you’re going to hatefully judge literally everyone. Either outcome is devastating.

If you learned to believe in Jesus through a community like I did where there was room to grow, question, and figure things out for yourself, then you’ll likely understand how loved you are by God. You’ll understand your own inadequacies and failures as a person and thank God for loving you anyway. You’ll interact with those who don’t know Jesus yet lovingly because that’s how God interacts with you. 

Both people were taught about God, the Bible, and the Christian life. Both were taught in the context of a church community by well-trained and educated leaders. But their beliefs are actually quite different. How they learned what they believe matters.

If you’ve never regularly attended church, you’re going to have ideas about God, the Bible, and Christianity that are heavily colored by the culture you live in. You won’t have learned anything from the horse’s mouth, as it were. Some of your beliefs about Christianity will be true and some will be false, but you’ll never really know because you haven’t gone to the source. (Unless, for some reason, you’ve taken it upon yourself to do an in-depth study of the Bible and theology. If you have, props to you and let’s talk.)

Even in this scenario, how you were taught about God, the Bible, and Christianity impacts your attitude towards those who hold beliefs regarding them. It impacts what parts of the Christian faith you think are meritorious and which ones you think are silly. It impacts whether or not you’ll listen to or trust someone who believes that the Bible is true and God is real. It all matters.

I hope that you’ll take some time this week to think about how you learned your particular beliefs. If you don’t believe in God, don’t worry about that. Think about what you do believe and consider how you learned it. It might even be helpful to hone in on one or two beliefs that you’re particularly passionate about and think about how you learned those.

I’m excited to get you thinking this way- I promise that your life will make more sense to you if you’ll stick with me through all of this. I hope that, at least, you’ll know yourself more. Don’t shy away from the hard stuff- that’s where the treasure is.