Taking from sociology the concepts of socialization and social conditioning, it’s fair to say that my 20 years of being socialized in a conservative Christian family has had a huge impact on my life. Both of these concepts emphasize the transmission and internalization of beliefs and behaviors from an individual’s broader social context to the individual. The complexity or simplicity of how a certain belief or behavior got established can be case specific.
These concepts explain why we have values such as saying “bless you” after someone sneezes or excusing ourselves after a burp. There really are not any reasons behind it other than that these are social behaviors that have embedded themselves into our society and are considered the courteous thing to do.
A more specific example from my own life is the value of praying before dinner meals. My dad would always do it with my family, and now I do it with mine. I will also often close with the same refrain that he did: “And help us to honor you in all that we say, think, and do. Amen.” Had I grown up in a different family, this behavior could have been lost on me. Even more so the specific way in which I conduct the behavior.
So what aspects of my Christian upbringing do I think are important to note?
I can begin firstly with emphasizing the conservative part. It is a notable distinction from liberal, progressive, or whatever other alternative you think of. The conservative Christian culture in which I was conditioned contained many contributions. Not all of the contributions have stuck with me over the years, and some of them I saw combat their counterparts for my attention during my upbringing. Here ae some of the conservative beliefs that were in my social orbit: pro-life, complementarianism, male eldership, no cussing, kissing dating good-bye, no premarital sex, marriage reserved for one man and one woman, satanic panic against D&D, skepticism towards metal music, young-earth-creationism, Biblical inerrancy of a 66-book canon, moderately reformed and Calvinistic, Christian exclusivism, work-fare vs. welfare, and – everyone’s favorite – vote republican.
Many of these ideas were then stuck under the label of “Biblical Christianity.” The effect of this labeling is far reaching and deserves a post on its own. For now it is fair to note that it constructed an immediate division with an “us v.s. them” mentality and contributed to an in-group bias that flirts with the “No True Scotsman” fallacy as needed.
Due to how socialization works, some of these beliefs and related values were not anything that my parents, pastors, or Sunday school teachers explicitly taught. For some issues, they may have had nothing against anyone who disagreed and maintained respect for that difference in opinion. However, as for myself and what I internalized, these were the ideas that I picked-up on – that is, how I was socially conditioned.
A second part of my Christian upbringing is to emphasize that it was protestant. This is to be contrasted with Catholicism and Orthodoxy. I was conditioned to believe that the Bible has only 66 books, praying to Mary or other saints is considered sinful, that icons don’t belong in the church, and of course to adhere to the five solas of the reformation: Sola scriptura, sola fide, sola Gratia, solus Christus, and soli Deo gloria (Scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, glory to God alone).
Though the reformation did eventually bring about great and necessary changes to corruption in the Catholic church as it stood at the beginning of the 16th century, any theological or historical divisions that separated catholicism from protestantism still deserved anathematization. My in-group did not identify ourselves as “protestant” under the Christian umbrella. We were “Christians” and those other people were “Catholics” – i.e. they were not really in the Christian camp. And they believed they had to work to earn their salvation which is no salvation at all. This is, once again, at least what I was led to believe in my younger years. Rather intentionally or unintentionally communicated it was nonetheless truly and deeply internalized.
The third point worth emphasizing is the non-denominational evangelicalism component of my conservative upbringing. Within the protestantism camp this stands in opposition to Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Anglicans, or Lutherans. Probably the largest impact on me was the idea that unless somebody has a clear memory of conversion and can pin-point the moment when they gave their life to Christ then they might not even be truly saved (bonus points for a “strong” testimony that entails radical life changes or strong emotional experiences). The second largest belief was a memorialist view of both credobaptism and the Eucharist.
Regarding salvation it didn’t matter as much if someone is believing rightly (orthodoxy) and behaving rightly (orthopraxy), they must also have been converted rightly (orthometanoia, if you will). This particular idea was challenged during my two years of doing campus ministry as I encountered Christians of other traditions that would have all the right answers to the question, “What makes you a Christian?” though lacking a conversion experience story. Just because they didn’t have a story detailing how or when they got adopted, does that thereby render their adoption into God’s family illegitimate?
The last and most obvious point that probably doesn’t even need spot-lighted is that my upbringing was distinctively Christian. This is opposed to all the other possible world religions that I may have been socialized under given a different country, city, neighborhood, or family. Consequentially I internalized beliefs about the trinity, Christ’s duel-nature, means of restoration with God, and what counts as authoritative Scripture.
In my previous post I highlighted how many of the beliefs and ideas that are in my head were largely outside of my control. In my earlier years I did not choose my teachers nor what kind of information I got exposed to. It just happened. And I internalized those beliefs. That is how socialization works. Nor did I choose to grow up in a conservative nondenominational evangelical protestant Christian context.
This specific sub-culture contributed to the internalization of many beliefs and behaviors that have one way or another strongly influenced the beliefs that I hold today. And I must again belabor the importance that some of these ideas, while internalized by me, may not have been explicitly taught. I may have drawn incorrect conclusions from how some ideas were emphasized over others or may have improperly synthesized information from a variety of sources. All the same, it is still because of the specific social environment of my upbringing that contributed to the formation of my beliefs.
Reasons For My Reason 