You’ve heard it a thousand times. Heck, you’ve probably even preached or taught it: “True Christian faith is a relationship, not a religion.” Religion is shown to be stifling, soul-crushing, and destructive.
I used to nod piously at such sentiments, but lately I’ve begun to wonder whether or not the “R” word really deserves such disdain. Let’s take a closer look at this embattled term.
Merriam-Webster offers a succinct definition: “The service and worship of God or the supernatural.”
Dictionary.com is more expansive: “A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.”
Here’s Wikipedia’s entry: “A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner’s experiences of life through reference to a higher power, God or gods, or ultimate truth.”
“Service and worship of God … a set of beliefs … life through reference to a higher power … ultimate truth.”
All of these sound good to me. So why do so many Christians rail against religion?
For starters, they probably aren’t operating with a dictionary definition of the word. From what I can tell, most evangelicals use “religion” to designate legalism, dead ritual, or oppressive institutionalism. It’s used as a foil for fluid and dynamic experiences of faith.
Of course this usage is completely unfair; it acknowledges only the worst manifestations of religion. That’s not to say that all religion is true or good. James distinguishes between pure and impure religion, as must we. But the new definition of religion ignores any such distinction and, in so doing, throws the proverbial baby out with the proverbial bath water.
Now I’d be happy to embrace this redefinition and join the religion-hating choir, but I sense something sinister behind it. I fear there’s a subtle, self-serving incentive for religion’s abrupt demotion. I think religion connotes two ideas with which we’re uncomfortable.
The first is authority. The word “relationship” sounds egalitarian and democratic. But religion is different. Religion means there’s someone or something above you. In the case of Christianity, it’s God and the church.
Religion also implies collectivism. You can have a relationship with God on your own, but religion happens in a group. In a culture obsessed with independence and individualism, it’s not difficult to see why these two associations make us uncomfortable.
So I propose that we keep the word religion around, if for no other reason than that it challenges independence and individualism–two ugly idols of our age.
