“A Chorus of Wrong” – A United Church of Christ StillSpeaking Daily Devotional by The Rev. Kaji Douša

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God. – Romans 12:2 (NRSV)

I love it when one brave person changes the room. But I’m more concerned about what happens when the room changes the person. 

Social psychologist Solomon Asch once showed people a simple image and asked them to identify which line matched another line. The answer was obvious. People named it immediately. 

Then Asch changed the room. 

He placed one test subject among a group of people who had been instructed to give the wrong answer. One by one, the group chose the obvious lie. The room filled with confident wrongness. The lie gained volume. The truth started to sound lonely. 

Some people held the line. Many did not. More than 1/3 of the time, people chose conformity over what they knew was correct. 

There’s a soul-warning in this. 

Belonging is such a deep human need that it can make truth-telling feel too costly. Social pressure can train you to the point that you stop trusting what you know. You start doubting what God has already shown you. 

That’s how conformity becomes a stronghold, which is something that strongly resists God. Strongholds summon fear until choosing wrong feels safer than choosing truth. They know how to work a crowd and make compromise sound reasonable. They know how to make fealty to truth feel…lonely. 

There are loud voices calling wrong right. Do your best not to let those voices come from your people. When wrong gets close and loud, it can start discipling your soul. 

Faith interrupts this by making God’s truth louder than the room. But that’s a discipline.  

So ask yourself today: Who are your people, and what kind of courage does belonging require of you? 

Prayer

God of truth: give me people who help me speak faithfully and choose well, even when it feels lonely. Amen.