So there's a lot of buzz over the terms "religion" and "spirituality". It's not necessarily a new social conversation. It's at least 40-50 years old with the Jesus People movement and it's been going on ever since. I believe this has been going on as a correction to what many have experienced as "dead religion".
Let me qualify that.
Yes, religion has Latin roots in legare which means "to bind," but this doesn't carry the terrible connotation that many unfairly give it. The word "religion" starts with re having the connotation of "again". So what I believe to be a more proper interpretation of religion's etymological roots is that religion serves to bind us together as a community (horizontally) and to bind us together with God (vertically). If I say something like "I am bound to the Kurians" or "I belong to the Kurians" I don't speak as a slave. I say that something connects me to my family, I am responsible to them, and they are responsible to me. They care for me and I care for them. Something connects us.
Is my family perfect? No. I love them though. I wouldn't give up on them because they may have done this or that, just as I would hope that they wouldn't give up on me. There is unity there. Just because we see something bad doesn't mean we jump ship. We're bound through thick and thin. So this discussion that Jesus didn't come for religion (which apparently is characterized by only bad things) doesn't make sense. Jesus built a church after his resurrection (Matthew 16:18). That church is expressed through binding individuals to one another, with a focus on Christ. Call it want you want, but the unity found there is ontologically a religion.
Jesus didn't come to build a church that hurts people or for a church that disregards its commission to care for the poor. That would be a religion deviating from its intended design. These are our mistakes and we need to own up to them. So we continually work on them. But to say that Jesus didn't come to make a religion misses the point of what a religion is supposed to do--bind people in unity to one another and to God. And that's a bad thing?
Shouting about a new Christian spirituality like it's something new doesn't fix anything (Ecclesiastes 1:9). It divides. It spits on the tradition of 2000 years of Christians who have lived and died following Christ. What kind of hotshot are you to not listen to those that came before and might have an idea of what it's like to serve God in a world where people don't want to hear about Him? Are the rest of us in our churches completely missing what it's like to serve God? If the Church has been twiddling its thumbs for two millenia, then yeah, you might have a point.
But I'm going to venture that most churches are sincerely doing their best to follow Christ. Albeit imperfectly, but still trying. A church is supposed to be open to correction by Scripture and by those bound together as brothers and sisters. I'd be so bold to say that multiple denominations are helpful in this way by correcting one another from becoming too myopic and by being diverse enough to reach diverse populations. By removing yourself from religion, you've removed yourself from even wanting to be united in this conversation. And that helps who?
I follow Paul. I follow Apollos. I follow Cephas. I follow Christ. We were warned about this sort of division all throughout 1 Corinthians. This would be one of those times. We're not helping ourselves out by ragging on religion. We're shooting ourselves in the foot so we can make a loud noise for attention and we need to put the gun down. We're bleeding all over the place.
No comments:
Post a Comment