Demon of Consent
Most of what I learned about the religious spirit came a couple of
years before I found Christ. It was late November or early
December 1989, and we were in the middle of what is now called the
Velvet Revolution. For those of you who never lived through such
times, let me describe the atmosphere of that period.
It was an environment of high tension, fear, anxiety, and mass
assemblies. We did not know then what we know now: that everything
would turn out well for us and that we were taking part in the fall
of the Iron Curtain. Looking back, it is easy to forget that earlier
that same year, demonstrations in Tiananmen Square had been crushed
by tanks and gunfire. We did not have the luxury of forgetting that.
We knew very little about what lay ahead. And out of all that anxiety,
people looked for safety in numbers. We were finding our voice and
our ability to speak into the situation, which produced a flood of
declarations and mass proclamations. Most of them are forgotten now,
and even back then, they mattered mainly to those drafting them.
Even though I was there, I cannot recall what that particular
proclamation was about. But I remember the atmosphere vividly.
We were in the Great Hall of the Charles University Law Faculty,
which seats around a thousand people. The building itself is
stern and unforgiving, finished in modern grey and black marble.
Add to that the crowd: the hall was packed to capacity, and
tension, a feeling of responsibility, and the judgement of
ages were all quite palpable. In the middle of the meeting,
someone proposed a resolution on some issue. I was sitting in the
crowd with my brother, who was present as a graduate from the Law
Faculty.
A word about my brother: he is six years older than I am. The age
gap between us was such that we grew up almost like two only
children, so that for example we never fought. Being so much
older, he was someone I looked up to and always tried to emulate.
Back to the meeting. We listened to the draft, looked at each
other, and agreed it was utterly foolish. On the surface, it
sounded sweet and harmless, but underneath, it was hollow. I will
never know whether the resolution was just stupid or if there
was anything even more sinister there, but we both disagreed
with it. When the vote was called, the hall was electric. The
chairman asked who was in favour, and as was typical in those
revolutionary days, every hand in the room went up. Then, purely
as a formality, they called for any votes against. Following my
brother’s lead, I raised my hand. Out of that enormous crowd, the
two of us were the only ones voting no.
I have never forgotten how that felt. The pressure to conform was
overwhelming, even though I knew the statement was wrong. Yet taking
that stand was intoxicating.
The Velvet Revolution gave me many unforgettable experiences, but
thirty-seven years later, that one remains etched in my mind.
Later, I discovered an entire literature on this phenomenon:
the compulsion to conform and surrender to the crowd. Dominik
Tatarka, a Slovak writer, addressed it directly in his book
The Demon of Consent, showing how conformity hollowed out the
intellectual life of his day. There are many reasons why people
in cultured nations like Germany or Czechoslovakia succumbed to
monstrous political regimes. Fear of punishment was one, but the
sway of this demon of consent was just as potent. It was always
so much easier just to go with the crowd.
The memory of that evening has stayed with me ever since.
Whenever I hear phrases like “everyone agrees” or “nobody could
possibly believe otherwise,” my instinct is to dig my heels in.
The dynamic is no different in matters of faith.
That same demon of consent drives the religious spirit. It
substitutes fear of the crowd for fear of God, demanding outward
conformity to popular consensus rather than obedience to the
truth.
Our pastor Kelsie preached to us on a prayer during the Sermon on
the Mount series. The whole Jesus’ sermon looks like a long list
of don’ts, and on the surface, it can feel a bit legalistic, even
preachy in the wrong way. These few chapters from the Gospel of
Matthew have certainly been abused many times in this way. That
sermon was refreshing in that it went straight against that use.
She spoke of how we should conduct our prayer life, mostly that
we should develop that “secret place,” where Jesus encourages us
to stay and develop our relationship with him.
And I can only agree with her. Only by staying in that hidden
place do we find the courage and clarity to resist crowd
mentality. When we dwell there, we carry something of that
sanctuary into daily life. Only through knowing our Father can
we stop and say, at least to ourselves: “This is not the God I
know,” “I do not believe this,” or “My God would never say that.”
The confidence cultivated in that secret place gives us the
backbone to speak up.
In the Parable of the Sower, the seed on rocky ground withered
because it lacked roots to withstand the heat. When truth is
unpopular, shallow faith easily collapses under social pressure.
If we do not listen to our Father’s voice in the quiet of our own
hearts, we will inevitably drift into believing whatever everyone
else believes.
Beware the demon of consent.
Oath v Vow
The usual Greek term for vow is εὐχή (euchē).
It literally means a prayer or a vow made to God.
In the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament), it’s used for promises
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(this sermon was in seriously modified version
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