altercasting a net.

I was talking with a friend last week who pointed out that sometimes, we become the people our audience expects of us.

Psychology calls this "altercasting"--the idea that we are cast into roles for which we are culturally-trained to fulfill. It's why you're not confused when the server comes to your table. Why you know who has rank in the room. And why Jesus was so beyond revolutionary.

She was sharing about how she felt at times that she had been altercast into a very particular role.

I'm wondering if the same has happened to me in the church. Do I do what I do because I feel pressured? Do I go to church, and volunteer, and pray, and praise Him, because I've been pushed into a role I now feel an obligation to fulfill? Or because I truly want to? Because it's truly me?

There's another question. If under pressure, does it make the truth of God any less real?

We are all altercast into a great many roles daily. Wives who make dinner, and mothers who give baths, and teachers who are smart, and pastors who are wise. To name a few. I don't always feel like being smart. But that doesn't change my position as the instructor of a bunch of undergrads needing to learn statistics. I don't always feel like being a roommate, but that doesn't change my responsibility to love my roommate by cleaning up the kitchen, and getting my stuff out of the dryer. The truth of my positions as an MSU instructor, and roommate to Natalie impel me to fulfill those roles whether or not I always want to be in them.

I wonder if faith is the same. I feel pressured sometimes, to consider certain view points, and to show kindness to conservative Christians who say stuff that boggles me. But that sense of role responsibility, of having been cast into these very specific expectations, doesn't at all change the logic or the faith of my truth in God.

In fact, the idea that we should be so free to choose our roles so entirely (perhaps to abolish our roles?) speaks of a peculiar kind of individualism that breaks down in the face of brutal logic.

The real issue seems to be one of where we find truth. Whose truth will cast my light? In which truth will my heart find its rest?