When We Harden Our Hearts

Give Us Barabbas! The Consequences of Groupthink, Part IV

Last night, we watched a new BBC film called The Windermere Children that tells the true story of 300 children who survived Nazi concentration and labor camps and in 1945 were brought to Great Britain for rehabilitation. These children were so profoundly traumatized that they were unable to speak during daylight about the horrific harm they endured. The memories, however,  would come unbidden in sleep, haunting them in their nightmares.  

One of the most disturbing scenes in the film was when a group of British teenage boys encountered the children in town. As a sick joke, the ringleader incited the group to raise their hands chanting “Hiel Hitler!” “Hiel Hitler!” Their cold and heartless gestures betrayed a sad indifference to the humanity and suffering of these little ones. One Jewish boy wet himself while witnessing their salutes.  

The movie was quite sobering and left me wondering, yet again, “How is it that so many Germans could be deceived to follow such an evil and tyrannical leader as Hitler? It’s truly perplexing! Truthfully, it is events in history like this one that weigh heavy on David and me and cause us to sound the alarm, with many others—historians, journalists, and political experts—as we watch this current president and his administration grab all the power they possibly can. We know what has happened under autocratic rule in the past. And it can happen again. Yes, even to us!

In Part I, I quoted my German horn professor’s response to the question, “How is it that so many Germans went along with Hitler?” His response was, "I think we didn't know." As I consider his response now, I simply cannot accept it. I cannot accept that those who participated in such evil didn’t know deep in their hearts that what they were doing was pure evil. Their issue, I believe, wasn’t lack of knowledge; it was the fact that they lived at such a distance from their hearts that they were unable to access the knowledge that only their hearts could provide. Knowledge from the core imprint of God's image, from their human emotions, from their moral sense of right and wrong, and their instinctual ethics as those belonging to the human family. They were seduced by Groupthink and displayed the kind of hard-heartedness that often epitomizes this form of collusion and leads to unethical and immoral acts.  

So far, as I’ve reflected on the story of Barabbas (see Part I, II, III), I’ve suggested two characteristics or consequences of Groupthink. In this final post, I’d like to add one more to the list.  

1. The crowd believed what they heard.

2. They stopped thinking for themselves.

3. They hardened their hearts. 

Hard-heartedness is a spiritual condition of being cut off from one’s emotions, one’s inner sacred compass, and shared humanity. The heart hardens through neglect; through disconnection from God and oneself, losing the capacity to be tender, to be moved to pity when encountering suffering. Scripture tells us that we are to watch over our hearts, “ for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23). Hard-heartedness is the consequence of not watching over those life springs. Let’s return to the story of Barabbas and see how hard-heartedness played out.

The crowds that gathered outside Pilate’s palace were manipulated by the energy of “the group,” the foment of the moment, the electricity of knowing that someone’s destiny was in their hands. And all the while, they were oblivious to how the chief priests were using them to carry out evil against Jesus. They were calling for Jesus to be crucified! They knew what that meant. They’d witnessed crucifixions before. They were aware of just how brutal and barbaric this method of capital punishment was! Yet they seemed blind to their complicity; clueless to their own spiritual state; ignorant of their cold, calloused hearts.

Diagnosing a Hard Heart 

If the condition of having a hard heart seems as concerning to you today as it does to me, then you might wonder, “How do you know whether your heart is hard? And, if it is, what do you do about it?” These are common concerns that I encounter as a spiritual director. So, allow me to offer a few questions that I ask myself and my directees:

1. Can you name your own emotions and feelings right now? What do you learn from them? What are they telling you?

2. Can you be yourself and feel what you’re feeling with God, in God’s presence?

3. When you encounter others who are suffering (any, every, and all), how do you respond emotionally and relationally? Do you feel compassion? Do you move toward them?

How we answer these questions helps diagnose whether our hearts have become hard—something I think we can agree is antithetical to the way of Christ. For instance, if we are overidentified with our group’s emotional state but unable to name our own feelings, we are living at a distance from our own heart. If we find ourselves avoiding God or avoiding certain feelings we’re feeling in the presence of God, then we may have drifted from God and certainly from the “self” God wants to know and love. If we encounter suffering in others, especially those we and our group are “against” and feel no compassion or empathy toward them, then we are cut off from our heart and the ethics of Jesus to “Love thy neighbor, no exceptions!” (Luke 10:25-37)

Keeping a tender heart is a safeguard against many things, including the dangers of Groupthink and its consequences! Tenderheartedness is cultivated through a daily practice of prayer and reorienting my heart toward God. It’s maintained through humility and the bedrock Christian practice of confession and repentance. May we each have enough concern and courage to do this work of tending our hearts, the center of our being, and may the springs of our life flow like a river, as poet Ranier Maria Rilke describes below!

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.

I want to free what waits within me

so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear

without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,

but this is what I need to say.

May what I do flow from me like a river,

no forcing and no holding back,

the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,

these deepening tides moving out, returning,

I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels

into the open sea.

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of a Monastic Life, I,12

Warmly, Beth Booram