Mob Mentality
Acts 17:1-7
I am out of town this week in Washington, DC attending a conference and decided to go to the Holocaust museum on the National Mall.
The fourth floor of the museum begins the exhibit, and narrates the rise of the Nazi party and the advent of Adolf Hitler’s chancellorship. Exhibit after exhibit displays the antisemetic propaganda used to whip Germans into a frenzy. Boycotts, book burnings, and violent antisemitic actions occurred with frequency. Fervent speeches by Joseph Goebbels or Adolf Hitler were played from speakers—speeches about the universality of Hitler’s leadership or the evils of “Jewry.”
It was eerie.
It brought to mind for me the scripture passage we will hear this sunday from Acts where Paul and Silas arrived in Thessalonica to teach in the synagogues during the sabbath. His teachings, however, were controversial. “Others were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city.”
It’s scary how quickly things can change with crowds. As human beings, we seem hardwired to fall victim to mob mentality—giving into a fear or a rage that isn’t our own but some collectively owned thing. Saying words or behaving in ways we never would in a more personal conscious state.
The many exhibits on the fourth floor depicted crowds who cheered book burnings, or cheered the antisemitic remarks of German political leaders.
I wonder how terrifying this all was for Paul and Silas in Thessolonica—being targets of a mob whipped up out of fear. Or how it felt to Jason, who was accused of harboring Paul and Silas.
The museum is emotionally devastating to experience, but it also feels incredibly important to pass through this story in such vivid and graphic ways. We need to never forgot what humanity is truly capable of doing—both in the sense of cruelty and evil as well as kindness and heroism. We need to remember all parts of this story—and not just the gruesome images, but also the silence of bystanders.
But there are other parts of this story of the holocaust to consider, just like in our passage in worship for this week. We need to acknowledge the stories of those like Jason in our scripture. Jason harbored Paul at risk to his life, since the mob went after him when they couldn’t get to Paul! One part of the museum had a wall full of the names of those who are recognized in Israel as offering aid and relief to jews during the holocaust. It was absolutely full of names.
Names continue on the other side of this incredibly long wall.
Even the worst stories of human depravity have hope if we search for them. In this chapter of Acts where Paul experiences a mob, we could choose to only focus on the fear and anger of the crowd. Or we could focus on those who are helping. Those who get Paul safely to Berea, and then safely to Athens. There is always good news.
At the end of it all, despite mobs and fear and riots—despite the horror and atrocities of war and genocide, good news persists. Thanks be to God.
