Collectivism and when my faith became my own

Introduction:

I was born into a Christian family with a strong heritage of faith. I accepted Christ when I was five, but it wasn’t until I attended a camp when I was thirteen that my faith became my own….Or at least that’s the testimony I’ve given for over 30 years. But after 17 years living in the cultural setting of Beirut, Lebanon and 20 years in a cross-cultural marriage, I’m beginning to rethink how I tell my story.

Individualism and Collectivism

I was raised in an individualist culture; as a member of a social-economic class that emphasized self-sufficiency. The message I absorbed from school, family, and society was that I was being prepared to engage the world, on my own, by 18. To a large extent, that’s what I did. I travelled over 2,000 miles to attend a college with other 18-22 year olds. I returned home from time to time, but through this process, I was encouraged to become my own man; to forge my own path.

The unspoken counter-message was that young people that lived at home; that relied on their parents; were stunting their growth, developing an unhealthy dependence, burdening their families, and failing to carry the responsibilities of adulthood.

The messages I received about my evangelical faith mirrored those of my culture. As a young person, I was exhorted to make my faith my own; to read and understand the Bible in a personal, individual quiet time; to distinguish my faith from that of my parents and, through this process, to become a mature disciple of Jesus.

Again, the subtle (or not so subtle) counter-message was that inherited faith was nominal at best and ingenuine at worst.

As early as 13, I started asking questions about my identity and the authenticity of my personal faith. Who was I? Why did I believe what I believed? Did I want to carry the burden (and blessing) of an inherited faith?

My perspective changed when I moved to Beirut and experienced a different way of seeing the world. In Lebanon, young adults, for the most part, are expected to live at home until they are married. For example, my Lebanese sister-in-law was married in December and is living outside of her family home for the first time at age 32. The overwhelming majority of students I taught at the American University of Beirut never felt the pressure to strike out on their own or develop their own identity; to distinguish their beliefs from those of their parents. In fact, the opposite was often true. My students were largely pursuing their parents’ dreams in line with their family’s expectations.

Broadly speaking, this is the difference between individualism and collectivism. Individualists tend to think in terms of “I” and perceive themselves as separate from their social/family group whereas collectivists think in terms of “We” and understand their identity as part of, or representing, a social/family group (Hofstede, 1997). In an individualistic culture, a person is expected to determine his or her own identity, and success is often measured by individual decisions. In a collectivist culture, your last name tells you who you are, and your success is primarily measured through representing your family well (Ayyash-Abdo, 2001).

The differences between individualism and collectivism are nuanced. There are positive and negative aspects of both cultural orientations (Triandis et al., 1990). Without diving deeply into this discussion, I’d like to outline a few ways that I believe collectivism can help inform the overly individualistic message of faith that is often communicated to many American evangelical youth.

The Burden of Individualistic Faith

A few years ago, my wife and I were visiting a Christian, small-group Bible study in the US. Around desserts, we listened to parents talk about sending their kids away to college. Phrases such as “its best for her and us” and “we’re all ready for him to move on” summed up the sentiments. It was at that moment, that I realized my paradigm had shifted.

In the US, we send our young adults into the marketplace of ideas, beliefs, and values at public universities, often disconnected from their families, and tell them they are equipped to decided who they want to be. If we overvalue individualism, self-sufficiency, and becoming your own person, we may be reinforcing the mechanisms that empower our young people to decide that they no longer want to identify with Christ. To counter this trend, the evangelical world has developed Christian camps and universities where we rely on other followers of Jesus to help our sons and daughters develop, and in some cases hang onto, their Christian faith (Ribbe & Stetzer, 2021).

In contrast, young people in Lebanon rarely change their religious identity (Joseph, 1993; Khalaf & Khalaf, 2009). They are told who they are from birth. They are an Itani, a Sunni Muslim from Beirut. They are a Chamoun, a Maronite Christian. They are never asked to determine their own identity. In fact, in evangelical western missions, collectivism is often seen as a problem to be solved. In collectivist cultures, the cost of disassociating with one’s group identity is often too high for those who might be interested in following Jesus. As a result, strategies have been developed such as targeting the patriarch of the family or making a distinction between the religious identity of becoming a Christian and the journey of faith in following Jesus.

Collectivism is much more than a problem to be solved; it is a collection of attitudes, values, and beliefs shared by the majority of the world (Henrich et al., 2010). I believe collectivism has something valuable to contribute to our individualistic faith culture.

To conclude, I would like to outline three observations for individualists based on what I have gleaned from my experience in collectivist, religious context.

1. Making your faith your own is an unnecessary burden to place on young hearts and minds.

Through faith, we identify with a community of like-hearted believers that spans millennia (Hebrews 12:1). We are part of something much bigger than ourselves. It is not a young person’s responsibility to try to make their faith their own; to try to discover answers to life’s most difficult questions; to navigate life’s difficulties; to defend what they believe in the marketplace of ideas in order to demonstrate the authenticity of their faith. On the contrary, I am discovering that my faith was never my own; it has always been about identifying with something bigger than myself.

I have stopped telling my children that they need to make their faith their own and, instead, started telling them that when they doubt or question or face life’s problems, they can lean on and trust in the faith of their parents and grandparents and generations of believers before them. When they face difficult questions at the public university, I want them to have the freedom and confidence to say “I might not know the answer, but I know that I am a part of a community of faith that has faced similar questions for thousands of years, and still believes.”

2. We are not autonomous individuals; we represent our families and community of faith in this world.

In collectivist cultures, the cost of changing your religious identity is enormous. Perhaps in our individualism, we have elevated and overvalued the importance of choosing for yourself without consequence. In some ways, we have lost the positive side of shame which is almost always framed in negative terms as something to avoid or escape. A healthy sense of shame can help us stay on the right path and contribute a proper weightiness to our decisions (Richards & James, 2020).

We, and our children, are not autonomous individuals. We have all been shaped and formed through our experiences and families of origin. I find myself telling my children, “Remember that you are a Merrifield. The decisions you make don’t only reflect on you, they reflect on the whole family.” I want my children to understand that if some day they decide to leave our family’s faith, it is not a trivial choice. I will always love them, but also want them to think long and hard before choosing to walk away from their heritage.

3. Our goal should not be self-sufficiency.

I was raised as a member of a social-economic class where we buy our own tools, fix our own problems, and plan for our own futures. We google and watch youtube for answers and only ask for help as a last resort. Nothing is more contrary to the message of the gospel than self-sufficiency. At the heart of faith in Jesus is dependence (Proverbs 3:5-6; Matthew 6:11; John 15:50). We raise our children to be independent, to rely on themselves, and then we are surprised to discover that they feel like they don’t need God. Self-sufficiency is a lie perpetuated by wealth. It contradicts the heart of the gospel and is the delusion of the privileged. In fact, interdependence, not independence, is the prevailing norm around the world (as is collectivism) (Henrich et al., 2010; Hofstede, 1997).

I tell my children all the time that we need help. I need help, they need help, refugees need help, the struggling need help. It was much easier to reinforce this message in Beirut as we walked by Syrian refugee women and children on the way to school every day. It is much harder to communicate that message in the suburbs where all we see are the closed garage doors of lifeless houses and where I can go online (or to Home Depot) to solve all my problems.

Conclusion

We moved back to the US two years ago. My youngest children will spend most of their childhood being told that they need to forge their own paths; to be their own people; to rely on themselves; to make their own choices. I no longer have the values of a collectivist culture to help reinforce their commitment to our family and our faith. I hope that by changing my message, our family can retain the positive aspects of collectivism that we experienced in Beirut in a US culture dominated by individualism.

I am now ready to tell a new story. I was born into a Christian family with a strong heritage of faith. Throughout my childhood, I grew in my understanding of what it means to depend on Jesus and represent my family and faith well, but it wasn’t until I attended camp when I was thirteen that I began to realize the depth of my impotence and of my need for a savior; that I was not meant to walk the journey of faith alone, and that I am part of a historical community of faith that has persevered, and will endure, forever.

References

Ayyash-Abdo, H. (2001). Individualism and collectivism: The case of Lebanon. Social Behavior and Personality, 29(5), 503. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2001.29.5.503

Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2 3), 61.

Hofstede, G. H. (1997). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind ([Rev. ed.]). New York : McGraw-Hill.

Joseph, S. (1993). Connectivity and patriarchy among urban working-class Arab families in Lebanon. Ethos, 21(4), 452–484.

Khalaf, S., & Khalaf, R. S. (2009). Arab society and culture: An essential reader (S. Khalaf & R. S. Khalaf, Eds.). London.

Richards, E. R., & James, R. (2020). Misreading scripture with individualist eyes patronage, honor, and shame in the biblical world. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press.

Ribbe, D. R., & Stetzer, E. (2021, April 21). What About Summer Camp 2021? The Exchange | A Blog by Ed Stetzer. https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2021/april/summer-camps-are-needed-now-more-than-ever.html.

Triandis, H., Mccusker, C., & Hui, C. (1990). Multimethod Probes of Individualism and Collectivism. 59(5), 1006–1020.