Religion is a Lie

That was the catch-phrase around a youth group I used to go to.  It may seem strange at first, to the uninitiated, but the motto of that group was that they weren't there to do religion but to have a relationship with Christ.  Viewed that way, it makes sense.  Religion is something that Pharisees or Mormons or other people who don't know Jesus but follow a lot of rules to make it up to God do--but us, we know Jesus and have a relationship with Him!

Really?

I have had to ask myself that, starting a month or so back when the fire came down the mountain into Colorado Springs.  That fire was an act of God--just ask any insurance company.  The Bible backs them up, in fact, telling us that God is the cause not only of prosperity but also of ruin.  This isn't what I learned in church though.  In church, Jesus was all sappy smiles, cuddling children, and delivering theological discourses on the nature of the Trinity.  He wasn't the sort of person you'd think capable of creating roiling thunderclouds and veiling half the sky in rolling smoke while his fire ripped down the side of a mountain.  God simply didn't do that sort of thing.  He was too polite, and besides that he was only supposed to come out on Sunday mornings and during Bible studies.  If I've heard it once I've heard it a thousand times, a Christian is never supposed to be afraid of God...all those "fear God" verses only mean we're supposed to respect him because he's high and holy and all that, but never terrifying.  But seeing smoke cover up the sky and black clouds roll overhead filled with hail and lightning--that's terrifying, and if the Bible is true, that's also God.

Do I really know this God?  Do you?  If we don't, do we know the real God at all, because I assure you, those flames were real.  The thunderclouds that darken the sky every afternoon now around here are real.  If the God we know is only real when we show up for Bible study or quiet time or worship on Sunday, he's not really real at all and he's not much use to us either.

I picked up John Eldredge's latest book a few days ago.  It's called Beautiful Outlaw and it's all about Jesus, parts of Jesus we never saw before.  For instance, did you know that Jesus had a sense of humor?  Oh, I'm sure someone has said it to you before, "God must have a sense of humor because of thus and so," but did you really believe it.  I doubted it.  I mean, can you really picture the pale, gentle, mild Jesus of so many religious paintings pulling a prank on someone?  But how else can we explain what happened on the Emmaus road.  Here are two disciples, grief-stricken and confused, plodding along the dusty path and Jesus meets them.  Only He doesn't let them know it's Him.  He walks with them for hours, feigning ignorance of what's just happened in Jerusalem, going through passages of scripture, and then He pretends He's going to go on.  They beg Him to stay the night, He consents, and the moment they realize it's Him--Poof!  Gotcha!  He's outta there!  It's hilarious in retrospect.  The two of them totally got punked!  The problem is I never read it that way.  I was always too busy looking for some deeper meaning.  I've never heard of any reading that found any humor in the situation at all, come to think about it, nor one that commented on the cleverness of Jesus as he pulled the wool over these two guys' eyes only to reveal Himself at the last second.  But isn't that how the story reads?  How it really goes?  Why then, when we read it, do we approach it with our somber Sunday faces on.  Seriously, the God who invented squirrels and gave them an insane urge to chase each other up, down, and sideways around trees came to Earth in the flesh and we don't think He ever once pulled a practical joke?  I'm sorry to say it, but picturing God with a mischievous gleam in His eye is difficult, even more difficult than seeing Him as fierce.  It's just not something that ever seems to come up at church.

All of this makes me question how much of what I know of God and interact with Him is religion and how much is relationship.  Consider a typical prayer: "Dear Jesus, Thank you for this day that you've given us.  Thank you for bringing us together.  Please help us to [insert request here].  In Jesus' name, Amen."  I mean, really, what does any of that mean?  Do I talk to my friends like that?  My father?  The Bible directs us to call out to God using terms that Aramaic children used to address their daddy's.  Can you imagine one of them going up to their father and uttering some formulaic request phrased like some messed-up verbal letter?  Does that sound like relationship or religion to you?

Beautiful Outlaw is basically a book about how religion lies about and distorts who Jesus is, interfering with our relationship with Him.  Eldredge argues that religion isn't just a lie when its done by Pharisees or Mormons, or Catholics, or people from some denomination we don't like--it's also a lie when it's done by us, and here's a list of times and places from the book where we can identify it at work.

• When loving Jesus is considered optional
• When knowing about God replaces knowing God: "Members can explain to you theories of atonement, or seven steps to success, but can't name one intimate encounter they've had with Jesus."
• Power displays are confused for intimacy with Jesus: "Do people chase the next miracle, or do they chase Jesus?"
• Religious activity is confused with commitment to Christ: "To draw near to God requires a church function of some kind.  Church activities are considered more important than any other type of activity.  Those who do not engage regularly in religious gatherings are suspect."
• Christian service substitutes for friendship with Jesus

Let's stop right there.  My experience is this is those last two are big in the modern church, especially in its youth ministries.  In my college ministry I regularly had people beat themselves black and blue with guilt because they missed a meeting or had to leave early for homework.  It was thought that missing Bible study because you had a midterm in the morning meant you were putting schoolwork above God.  But really, if you're not doing the schoolwork for God what's the point of it?  Why are you doing it anyway?  And if you are doing it for God is it better to serve Him privately in your work or to go publicly to a meeting where everyone can praise your piousness for being there in spite of the test you have in the morning?  I think Jesus addressed this question when he said that it was better to pray in your closet where no one would know than to sound a trumpet and proclaim your supplications from the streetcorner.

There are other things too, related to this.  Who are the "spiritually mature" people in your youth group or ministry?  Wouldn't everyone say they're the one's who are most involved?  The leaders, the people who show up early to set up and stay late to tear down?  Now maybe those people legitimately are the people most committed to Christ, but let's be honest, don't we see it the other way around?  "That person leads a Bible study, attends three small groups, has two quiet times a day, disciples six women, and bakes snacks for everyone after the service--ergo she must be a committed Christian!"  Really?  Does it actually mean that, or is this perhaps just the portrait of a really busy woman who might actually be to busy for a relationship with God (I'll tell you one thing, she's certainly too busy for a relationship with a man)?  And what about the delinquents of our groups?  Are they people who legitimately don't know God, or do we lump into that category anybody who's only marginally committed to our particular group.  Maybe their waffling between two campus ministries.  My goodness they must be a heretic!  We can tell without even looking into their daily life and relationship with Christ, of course: we know because they're not totally committed to seeing our little corner of the religious kingdom grow and prosper--and that's all God really cares about, right?  That's religion.

• Holiness is substituted with rule-keeping
• A trivial morality prevails

Eldredge uses an enlightening example of the former.  Consider a stop sign in an empty parking lot at 2AM.  Do you run it or stop?  The purpose of the stop sign is to protect life and property.  That's the spirit of the law.  There's no one and nothing around.  All is protected.  The spirit of the law is in no danger here.  Are you compelled to keep the letter of it as well?  Jesus certainly didn't feel so when it came to the Sabbath day.  He was absolutely famous for breaking the letter of that law, while preserving its spirit.

Which brings us to the next point.  The Jews were more upset about Jesus violating the Sabbath then they were about there being demoniacs in their congregation.  What about us?  Which would upset us more: a girl who walks into church in cut-offs and tattoos dropping F-bombs (at things which, let's be honest, are best described by F-bombs), or a well-dressed woman who comes to church every Sunday with the best of manners and just can't stop telling other people about the things the woman she disciples has told her in confidence--with the result being that the woman she disciples suffers relational fallout with several of her closest friends and small group?  My guess is that we'd be most offended at the former.  That girl would be lucky to last an hour in most churches.  The woman--she'd be right at the heart of the church until she died or it did, and it wouldn't matter how many people's lives she'd crushed with her gossip.  Is that not trivial--to strain at appearances and swallow a strifemonger who turns brother against brother?  I know one church I attended was so trivial.  There to have feelings for another human being was a more serious offence than to betray a secret and sever close friends (Proverbs 17:9).  The former was called lust and treated with severity.  The latter was called love and was lauded.  Jesus would have been disgusted.  And what about drinking and smoking?  My mother is a teetotalist, bless her heart, but Jesus' first miracle was to supernaturally bring a keg of the best stuff in town to a wedding that had run dry.  But in our churches today, any mention of alcohol brings ire from the congregationalists.  Many will defend their anti-alcohol stance from the Bible.  Others will say that God hates booze because it's not taking care of our body's properly.  Usually, they will say this around a doughnut they are shoving into their frame that's already a hundred pounds heavier than it ought to be.  Seriously, when was the last time anybody in church ever talked about gluttony?  Apparently we're too busy indulging it (which the Bible does condemn), but thank God we don't smoke (which the Bible doesn't even mention).  Is this not a trivial morality based entirely on rule-keeping?  Is this not religion?

• The system operates on the fear of man

While we're thinking about morality in our churches (or perhaps the lack of it, as the case may be) let's look at what's behind it.  Really, why do we do the things we do?  Why am I tempted to go back and delete some of that last paragraph?  I may have been harsh, too harsh.  I want to go back so I don't upset anyone.  Really?  Was Jesus concerned with upsetting people?  Gee, I better not heal this guy on the Sabbath, the Jew's got pretty upset the last time I did that and I don't want to offend anybody.  The very idea that they would be upset by it was infuriating to Him--it's one of the few times the Bible says He got angry.  Frankly God doesn't seem to give a darn who He upsets in the process of being Himself and doing good.  We do.  What's our problem?  We don't get this from a relationship with Him, we get it from a religion of fearing man.

One of the youth ministries I was a part of were experts at this.  They were clannish to a fault.  If someone stopped attending their group for any reason, they simply never saw or spoke with their old friends again.  If someone came in who didn't meet their expectations, he got a fairly effective cold shoulder.  If someone walked to the beat of a different drummer in their personal lives and relationships, peers would come down on them and hammer them with pressure until they mended their ways (even if their ways weren't out of line with scripture to begin with).  If someone was debating an important decision, they wouldn't take some time alone to pray about it, they'd go to their peers who would tell them what to do.  I can't name how many times someone from that group said they were going to this conference or that retreat because so-and-so told them to.  And what did God say about these plans?  I don't think most of them knew.  When God did show up and make His opinion known (you can't altogether keep Him out), He was overruled.  As one of the pastors told me, the will of God is most accurately determined by what your peers think.  Following His actual voice and trusting Him alone will only ruin your life.  Your best bet is to follow the system and do what your peers tell you.  Really?  Is that the voice of a man who has a close relationship with Christ and knows religion is a lie or a man who says "religion is a lie" with his mouth but with his life says religion is true and the relationship is a lie?  You be the judge!  A friend of mine was more distressed that his leader had expressed concern at his tardiness to an event than he was that God was upset at his ongoing addictions to pornography and lust (come to think of it, I never heard about the leader being upset about those things at all--just about being late to worship: can anybody say "trivial morality?").

Whom do we really fear here: God or man?  Whom do we follow: the Spirit or our peers?  Whom do we worship: God, or our religious institution?  I'm sad to say that--although a lot of people in that ministry did love Jesus--overall more love and devotion was lavished on the religious institution than on a relationship with our Savior.  In fact, some of them will be more upset that I attacked their little religious corner of the world than they will be that I shone a candle on aspects of a the personality of God very few Christians know about yet (earlier in this post).  They would rather I kept my mouth shut about the former and went on about the latter--because not knowing Jesus isn't a problem, not having religion is.  I know this will be their gut reaction because the last time I posted something about their group--wherein I simply quoted a statement from their religious leadership admitting that they had some problems to work out (which mysteriously had not been worked out yet or even addressed, 21 years later)--I received more than one response from someone who was more upset that I'd sullied the good name of their church than by the fact that their church (according to the written confession of one of their own leaders) was guilty as charged.  In fact no one presently attending that church or its affiliates seemed the least upset that their religious community had suffered the same admitted problems for a generation--they just wanted me to stop talking about it.  Seriously, people?  Which is worse: that I pointed it out, or that I was right?  Would you rather I'd allowed the hypocrisy to go on in secret for another 21 years and said nothing about what I knew and what I'd found?  Jesus never had any problem exposing hypocrites for what they were, but you're afraid I'll offend somebody!?  Whom do you really serve, then: God or man?  You'll fear whom you serve, and you'll serve whom you fear.

• False humility is honored
• There is safety in distance

We're good at this as Christians.  I know I certainly am.  If someone points out a mistake I've made, I'll say "sorry" a dozen times before they can get me to shut up.  If someone pays me a compliment I'm speechless.  I stammer lame excuses for why they shouldn't compliment me at all.  Really, how hard is it to say, "Thank you?"  We're very good at saying we're sooo unworthy--but we still manage too look down our noses at people less fortunate than ourselves.  And when it comes to God, what's our interaction with Him?  What do we call Him?  Are our prayers like that example I gave earlier: stiff formal things that have more in common with telegram messages meant to cross an ocean and greet a business partner than conversational dialogue with a trusted, intimate friend? Let's be honest with ourselves: what's the real end of our self-deprecation and reverential displays toward God?  If we really see ourselves as untouchably low and God as unreachably high then we're not living the gospel.  We were sinners, we were low, but God came in the flesh, as one of us "base worms" to touch the untouchables and make beautiful princes and princesses out of filth and mire.  Do we really want to tell Him His mission was a failure?  Do we really want to try to work counter to the incarnation and put God back up in the unreachable heavens--when He has expressed the intent to come dwell in our hearts?  Or is there something different at work?  I mean, personally, if I'm a worm, than I guess it's okay for me to act like one. And if God's up in the heavens, high and utterly out of touch with my minute-to-minute daily existence--well then he's far too busy being holy and unapproachable to interfere with me running my own life.  So are we really displaying humility and reverence, or do we just want God to go back where He came from so we can rule over our own lives?  If it's the latter, it's religion, because it certainly isn't a relationship with Jesus.

I imagine by now I've stepped on a few toes and upset a number of people.  I know I was among them.  The question I guess is what we're going to do about it.  When we see aspects of God's character that are clearly real but with which we have no experience, are we going to embrace them and explore them in our relationship with Him or write them off because they threaten our religious image of Him?  When we see religious nonsense and hypocrisy in our own lives and churches (Jesus said to beware the yeast of the Pharisees--do we really think that warning lost significance with the passing of that religious subgroup?) are we going to investigate it and scrub it from our hearts so we can have a freer clearer relationship with God, or are we going to whitewash it so that we don't have to leave our religious comfort zones?  When it comes right down to it, will we live out our statement that religion is a lie, or is it really our relationship that's a fraud?