Recently I had a conversation with someone about a Mormon friend who was starting to question his own faith. The reason for his doubts was not related to points of theology or history, but rather stemmed from a burgeoning suspicion of religion in general. Interestingly, this Latter Day Saint (LDS) had been watching a lot of Fox News lately and was seeing numerous reports about kids in Islamic nations being raised from early childhood to hate Westerners and chant things about how they would be honored to die as suicide bombers. Our Mormon friend started to conclude that these little Muslim kids were being “brainwashed” and then started asking himself if his repetitious stating of beliefs in the LDS church growing up was fundamentally brainwashing as well. Basically, he is at a point of almost believing that religions are tools to control people and is wondering about his Mormon upbringing.
As someone who respects Mormons but heavily disagrees with LDS theology and historical claims, you might think that I would be relieved to hear that my friend is questioning his Mormon faith. But I am not. While I think that in many cases it is a good thing for one to question one’s own faith, it concerns me when the reason for the questioning is rooted in a growing suspicion of the notion of religion itself. In this essay I would like to make two connected arguments: 1) It is not fair to dismiss the notion of religion in general as non-sensical and ultimately unintelligible, and 2) Using the term “brainwashing” to refer to the ways in which Mormons, Muslims, Evangelical Christians, or any other group teaches their own people is unintelligible, unhelpful, and unfair (I openly admit that the people that seem to love the word “brainwashing” are the people in my own camp—Christians—and I find this troubling).
Dismissing Religion in General
Many people who walk away from so-called “organized religions” tend to walk toward a belief that what is deemed “secular” or non-religious ways of thinking and reasoning are what is “real” and what is “objective.” Such people—who may still consider themselves “spiritual”—may say that religion is fine for the private sphere of a person's life, but in public relationships and interactions religion is inappropriate and secularism is appropriate or at least neutral ground (This view is actually held by many, many people in organized religions in the West as well).
While I wholly acknowledge that it is difficult to figure out how to talk about religion in a society full of different faiths, I would argue that a suspicion of religion in general and the relegation of faith to some “private sphere” of life actually does not make much sense. Christian theologian, Paul Tillich (whom I tend to disagree with on nearly everything), defined religion as any system of belief or thought that deals with "ultimate concern"(See Footnote 1). In other words, any definition or explanation of the ultimate meaning of life or ultimate concerns in life qualifies as religion. By this understanding an atheist’s "faith" in the belief that there is no god and that science and human progress represent the highest good qualifies as religion because it is a belief about how things ultimately or actually are. Any story that tries to explain how life "actually is" is a religious statement. Again, “religion” deals with ultimate meanings and purposes. Tillich states, "You cannot reject religion with ultimate seriousness, because ultimate seriousness, or the state of being ultimately concerned, is itself religion"(See Footnote 2).
With this in mind, a person could become suspicious of Islam, Mormons, Evangelical Christians, or any other traditional religion(s), but where ever this person stands intellectually is already in a place of "religion." That religion might be secularism, science, Americanism, democraticism (yes, I am making this word up), communism, or whatever. "Religion" is simply inescapable. One does not escape the dangers of traditional religions by rejecting or being suspicious of religion in general. Such a person still has all of the same dangers of religion, but has simply traded one system of religious thought for another; this danger is inescapable in this life.
Brainwashing
In regards to the term or notion of brainwashing, I do not find the term to be terribly helpful, fair, or useful when considering the beliefs of groups outside of one’s own. While one can become suspicious of this religious group or that religious group--whether Muslim, Mormon, or Evangelical--one cannot really escape being involved in something that, at root, is similar. One can say that the Muslims are brainwashing their children or that the Mormons are brainwashing their children, but when one uses "brainwashing" language one is assuming that there is a "normative" baseline of thought and reasoning that universally applies to all human beings and that these groups and their brainwashing are deviating from it. I would argue that that is simply a statement that cannot be made. What would be "normative?" Democracy? Science? Capitalism? Communism? Individualism? (Of course I think it is horrible and atrocious that certain Islamist groups would actually teach their children that it is okay to kill other human beings. My point here is simply that "brainwashing" is not technically the appropriate word to use to describe such horrendous, evil teachings.) (See Footnote 3 for instances in which I think "brainwashing" language can be intelligible.)
A person cannot say that particular religions are objectively bad because they continually reinforce what to think about what life means, who god is, about what ultimately matters, etc. ALL systems of thought do this. When you send a kid to public school in this country they are indoctrinated beginning at day one. They say the pledge of allegiance to the flag every single day for years and years. This is indoctrination just as much as making a kid say their prayers every day before bedtime or at the dinner table. Having to take history classes that tell you how America threw off its evil oppressive British overlords for the sake of freedom and hearing this story ALL OF THE TIME in school is a way of getting kids to see history, the world, and "ultimate meaning" as an American. This is fundamentally no different than telling a kid that Moses liberated the Hebrews from the Egyptians or that Brigham Young led the persecuted out West to escape oppression. Whether "secular" American history or religious stories that you are raised to believe are true, they are ALL "brainwashing." "Brainwashing" is inescapable; it is everywhere and in every thought, which is why it is functionally useless and meaningless. The details of the stories and what they encourage may be different—behavior in Islam is different than behavior in Mormonism, which is different than behavior in capitalism or Americanism—but the reality-creating aspect of these systems with their teaching by repetition is the same.
So, one can watch stories on Fox News or CNN about look at Muslim and declare that they are brainwashed, but "brainwashed" only means something in relation to the story that one has in one’s own head about what is "normal" or about how things "really are." Now, quite frankly, I do have "faith" in what I think is the "normative" story for how things really are and that is the orthodox Christian story of the meaning, purpose, and nature of life. I do not know with scientific certainty that this faith is actually how things are--but there is philosophically no such thing as scientific certainty, there are only various degrees of faith--but I have FAITH that this story is true and I try to live according to it. That is all I can do. And I will choose this Christian faith any day over the faith of secular Americanism. If I ever do have kids I will absolutely "brainwash" them with my Christianity, because I would rather do that than "brainwash" them with some secular patriotic story that says that the government or nation or business or democracy are what provide ultimate meaning; I don't believe they do.
So, to end at the beginning, while I would normally think it is healthy for a person to question and/or think critically about their own faith, in the case of my Mormon friend--who is doing so in the particular context that I mentioned--it makes me nervous for him because I think his reasons for walking away from it are actually dangerous and unhealthy in the end. I disagree with Mormonism not because I think they brainwash their kids (they do what every religion on the planet does, they teach their kids their beliefs constantly), but because I do not think their teachings and beliefs about history accurately reflect the nature of how things actually are. I believe that orthodox Christianity does. As it currently stands if my friend walks away from Mormonism because of a suspicion of religion in general, what he will in fact end up doing is replacing it with another "religious" system, whether it is some privatized new age-y belief in god or it is a belief in Reason. My fear is ultimately that becoming suspicious of religion in general can lead to its own form of oppression for all people of traditional faiths There have been several books that have come out by folks that are being called “the new atheists” that have attacked religion aggressively as being bad for humanity. Biologist, Richard Dawkins, in his book, The God Delusion, actually argues that raising children with any religious beliefs at all should be considered child abuse (See Footnote 4). In his theoretical picture of how life should be, governments should discourage religion entirely. Imagine saying that religion is child abuse. Dawkins never stops to think that his viewpoint itself is "religious" and that atheistic regimes have been the most brutal in the 20th century ( i.e. Communist countries). My fear is that my Mormon friend will not only turn on Muslims and his own Mormon background, but that he will ultimately turn on orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Hindus, and any other faith in such away that would wish to change American policy that would harm us all….and that, ironically, he would be doing so from the vantage point of the Western-rooted secular humanism “religion” in which no god is safe, but the god of science and human self-worship.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), pp.7-8.
2. Ibid., 8.
3. I will concede that the term “brainwashing” can have meaning within a particular group. An Evangelical Christian might say to another Evangelical Christian that if a Christian person were lead away from Christianity by a non-Christian group that such a person was being “brainwashed.” The word “brainwashing” in this context of discussion about a Christian between two Christians can be intelligible because all three of these Evangelicals have started out assuming that the Christian story is the “normative” baseline. However, if an Evangelical Christian starts talking to another Christian about a non-Christian person being raised with non-Christian ideas, then “brainwashing” as a term makes little sense; the non-Christian in this context never started out with a non-brainwashed brain to then become brainwashed. Likewise, it makes little sense for a Christian to talk to a non-Christian about another non-Christian group being brainwashed because the Christian talking to the non-Christian person do not even share the same baseline view of what a non-brainwashed brain looks like.
4. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), Chapter Nine. It should be noted that Dawkins' specialization area and training is neither in philosophy or theology, but in biology.
