Rituals, Habits, & the Human Brain

We are beings of habit. Our successes and failures are contingent on the habits we make and those we break. We aren't only speaking of physical habits, like remembering to brush your teeth each night, but also habits of mind. I remember speaking to a counselor once who suggested one such habit to reverse my anxiety patterns. He said to seek out a regularly occurring sound in my environment. Every time I heard that sound, I should close my eyes and have a silent moment of stillness and peace. Eventually, my mind would automatically become relaxed on habit.

It's easy to see the rituals, feasts, ceremonies, and regular sacrifices in the Bible as facets of an ancient world separate from our own. Some will state that they were only for remembrance of God and how He walked with His people in the past, present, and how He will walk with us in the future. That's only partly true. I'm convinced that they were also created to create a habit of mind.

"How do your voluminous sacrifices benefit me?" the LORD is asking. "I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts. I don't enjoy the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing useless offerings! Incense is detestable to me, as are your New Moons, Sabbaths, and calling of convocations. I cannot stand iniquity within a solemn assembly. As for your New Moons and your appointed festivals, I abhor them. They've become a burden to me; I've grown weary of carrying that burden. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I'll hide my eyes from you. Even though you pray repeatedly, I won't listen. Your hands are full of blood, your fingers drenched with iniquity." Isaiah 1:11-15

"For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year." Hebrews 10:1-3

On the one hand, the Israelites were being constantly reminded of their past sins so they weren't doomed to repeat history. On the other hand, God didn't want empty rituals done by mechanical repetition. They were made to make people more conscious not less. They were a type of meditation. Better yet, these rituals were like mental practice for greater things.

One source states:

"People tend to think that what differentiates religious people from their secular counterparts is that they believe different things. But that is less than half the story. People in most religions behave distinctively. They engage in ritual. They do certain things like praying, over and over again. Ritual is the religious equivalent of “deep practice.”

We can now understand why. Constant practice creates new neural pathways. It makes certain forms of behaviour instinctive. It reconfigures our character so that we are no longer the people we once were. We have, engraved into our instincts the way certain strokes are engraved in the minds of tennis champions, specific responses to circumstance. Prayer engenders gratitude. Daily charitable giving makes us generous. The “thou shalt not’s” of religion teach us self control. Ritual changes the world by changing us.

This would not have surprised Aristotle or Maimonides because that is how they believed virtue is acquired, by constantly repeating virtuous acts. “Habit becomes second nature,” as the medieval thinkers put it. That does not mean that genes have no part to play. I think I always knew that with my height and lack of body coordination I was not destined to be a basketball champion. But neither talent nor virtue is determined by the lottery of birth. Hard work beats lazy genius every time.

Far from being outmoded, religious ritual turns out to be deeply in tune with the new neuroscience of human talent, personality and the plasticity of the brain. The great faiths never forgot what science is helping us rediscover: that ritual creates new habits of the heart that can lift us to unexpected greatness." (rabbisacks)

We may no longer do the same rituals or have to sacrifice lambs for our sins (since the great Lamb Jesus did the last and most meaningful sacrifice). However, as Christians, we should implement ritual to our everyday routine in order to ingrain the habits we want to sustain in the name of God.

People don't wake up after baptism being excellent disciples. We are what we do repeatedly. Start somewhere. Donate, practice empathy in your next interaction, read the Bible, set an alarm at a certain time daily and do something for someone else. Research says it takes twenty-one days for a habit to form. It will literally change your mind.

Let's practice being disciples together and amaze the world with God's greatness. Even if we fail most days, look at all the good we could do in the meantime!


Sources other than Bible:
https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-13-ritual-versus-reality-romans-225-29
http://rabbisacks.org/credo-ritual-develops-habits-that-can-lift-us-to-greatness/