Jesus and Religion

I was recently directed to this video through a friends facebook post. It is well done and heartfelt. It is right, and it is also wrong. It is well-intentioned but misguided.



Was Jesus really opposed to religion? Did Jesus really come to abolish religion? Is religion really the disease? While I would admit that it is awfully easy to be religious and not be transformed into the image of God by it, it is also impossible to be radically devoted to Jesus without going to church, praying daily - in fact praying moment to moment, reading scripture, reading spiritual books, sharing fellowship with like-minded believers, etc. All of these things add up to "religion". No, not religion as is meant in the image above or among the fundamentalist, born-again, charismatic, non-denominational, emergent, church groups. But religion in the classic sense. Religare meant, "to bind fast" and shares the same root as ligament. To be religious is to have a life bound to an object of devotion and bound to the observance of devotion to that object. The Christian is bound to the worship of God, the Christian is "religious".


The radical anti-establishment, anti-institutionalism that is so much the rage these days is an heresy. But I understand the sentiment of it. I once occupied the same space and spoke the same rhetoric. And for our unsaved society, which is also anti-institutional, it resonates well and cuts through the experience many people have had with religion. Yes, I totally concede that religion often obscures the face of God. But is this because organized Christian faith is bad or because the human condition is separated from God? Is it simply by the fact that religious practice becomes organized that men are separated from God by it? No. Maybe the problem lies within us. And secondarily maybe the problem lies more with our families.

Each person has to make their secret journey into the heart of God and be reconciled to Him. No matter if you are an Evangelical or a Catholic, a Baptist or a non-denominational Christian, the faith you have been raised in has got to become yours. It has to move past the glaze of familiarity to intimacy, from an insulation to vulnerability, from a cloak that covers and hides to a nail and spear that pierce the heart. It is not not a problem with religion, it is a problem with the human heart.

Secondarily it is a problem with our families. It is a problem of fathers who blow off church for golf. It is a problem of mothers who would rather be anxious than pray. It is a problem of parents who are too focused on making ends meet than listening to their children and guiding them into faith. It is a problem when parents divorce and wound the hearts of their kids. It is a problem of parents who want the church to impart to their children what only they can, a living faith. Because if the faith is not living in the household it will not be living in the children. If the faith is disordered in the household it will be disordered in the children. No, parents can't be perfect, but they owe it to God to bring up their children in the faith.

It is not that some people are religious, it is that some are not religious enough. It is that we are not so religious as to allow it to transform us. Instead we are lukewarm. We are not so religious as to reject falsehood, instead we tolerate it. And we are not so religious as to live a life of genuine devotion to our creator. Religion is intended to keep us in relationship with God.