In his book The Mindchangers,   Em Griffin describes an experiment  with groups of 12 people. They were brought into a room where four lines of unequal length were displayed. They had to decide which two were the same length and publicly vote for their choice. Person after person after person (11 in all) voted for the wrong line–because they had all been told to ahead of time. The one individual who was in the dark couldn’t imagine how in the world all these seemingly normal people could all choose the wrong line. When it was his turn to vote, he had to decide, “Do I go with what I know my senses are telling me, or do I go with the crowd?”  One third of those tested caved in to group pressure and changed their vote to agree with their peers. 

If you have ever been in a similar situation, you know how powerful peer pressure can be.  The pressure to conform to the world around us is a constant challenge.    That is one of the reasons the Apostle Paul wrote Romans 12:2, which says: Read the rest of this entry →