Good Religion, Bad Religion
But of course, worship has another dimension. To worship, to pray, to teach, to build churches, to feed the hungry—all of these are religious acts. We often say that we mustn't confuse being a Christian with being religious, but it's impossible to be a Christian without being religious. God uses religion—especially preaching, worship, the sacraments, prayer—to communicate himself to us.
So we have to "commit religion" in order to be Christians. This is almost, but not quite, like saying that when we commit sin, grace abounds. As we commit religion, grace will abound. Sometimes when we commit religion, we will be trying to justify ourselves—and for that we need forgiveness. Sometimes we will be rightly using the means of grace given by God. In either case, we should agree with the atheists in the hope that someday we will "grow out of it"—or more biblically, that God will abolish it. For someday, we will not need rituals or preaching or sacraments to know and be known by him. Someday (Rev. 21), God will be in our midst.
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Related Elsewhere:
For more on the Cognition, Religion, and Theology Project, see the University of Oxford's website.
Go to ChristianBibleStudies.com for a corresponding Bible study on "Good Religion, Bad Religion."
Additional coverage of religious zeal and atheism includes:
How to Become a Successful Religion | A marketing consultant advises early church leaders. (August 19, 2010)
Taming Religion | Why we need to keep The Extremist in check. (May 13, 2010)
Jesus Is Not a Brand | Why it is dangerous to make evangelism another form of marketing. (January 2, 2009)
Puncturing Atheism | Fourfold God Squad brilliantly takes on Dawkins, Hitchens, & Co. (October 31, 2007)
Christianity Today also has more editorials on our site.
Star Trek Into Darkness
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Ryan Friend
Christians don't have to be religious at all. Religion doesn't have to be a bad thing but ritual for ritual sake is a sign of Vanity and is also misleading. In fact, if Christians would read their bible and study the Gospels, time and time again the disciples tried to establish religious rules and Jesus told them they were missing the point. The pharisees established rules and Jesus called them out. After Jesus resurrection then the Catholic church established even more rules. Thanks to religion the human mind is forever a victim to being manipulated by theology and apologetics. I've met many Christians, some my close brothers in Christ, who have very different interpretations from each other. What I realize is we all believe in the same God but we lack the same way of worship, the same doctrine. Doctrine is man made but faith is God made and takes a lifetime to figure out. I think some atheists and agnostics have stepped up to the plate as Jesus did. Now it is time to change.
Mark Miwerds
John A, I always saw those accountability groups -- foisted mainly on the men in the congregation -- as faddish and just another and minor "wave" in evangelical Christianity. In my experience, it was rife with gossip, nosiness and an excuse to violate a believer's privacy. I read the long and drawn out justification you linked only to discover that most of the Scripture used as support was a real stretch at best. These accountability groups I thought were long done away with, because they were largely pressure groups functioning under the assumption we were all about to "go off" and sin our lives away. Never happened. Also, these sorts of groups were unheard of in the early church. Maybe it was just me and I wasn't some confused young adult or newbie Christian, but I hardly ever felt tempted into any sin besides perhaps occasional laziness. They had a sort of cultish feel to them and I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. Tempted? Talk to your pastor, talk to God. They're the real pros.
Marc Cawood
There is a good argument that the belief in a benevolent God is dishonest: just as we would deduce that the invisible man present when a child was abused is either implicitly or explicitly in the wrong, the (omni)presence of a good deity when the abuse continues daily is self-refuting. But this has always been realised and religion has stayed. The likely reason is that humans do not believe God is benevolent. This state of fear is the ideal condition for religion to be self-sustaining: we fear, thus we believe.