“Organized Religion”

I’ve been wanting to write something that helps explain why so many people are averse to looking at Christianity or getting involved in any kind of faith, Christian or otherwise. First, I looked at Merriam-Webster’s definition of “Organized Religion”:

“A belief system that has large numbers of followers and a set of rules that must be followed.”

Well, no wonder people usually react negatively whenever you try to tell them about your faith! As soon as you share the fact that you follow any prescribed “religion” (especially if it’s Christianity), they often raise their eyebrows, take at least one step back from you, and politely (or not) declare: “I do believe in God, but I don’t subscribe to any ‘organized religion'”. That statement pretty much stops you dead in your tracks. Then again, if your stated “religion” is anything other than “Christianity” they may take a slightly more encouraging tact because they think it’s “cool”, less restrictive, and probably more fun than Christianity. Granted, there are countless Christian denominations, and a good share of them contain extra-biblical doctrine, rituals, practices, procedures, allowable behaviors, shunned activities, etc. This is legalism (the bible…. plus other things that we think should be required). On the other hand, some of them have very few guidelines at all and leave almost entirely to us, what is “good”, “bad”, “right” or “wrong”. This is liberalism (the bible….minus the things that don’t suit our lifestyle or worldview)

Neither of these approaches describes true Christianity!

Having said that, there is a pretty well-established “guide” (The Bible) to living which does emphasize some things we should and shouldn’t do. Actually, one of the things the Bible says is that each of us comes to know what these things are, even without any book or religious doctrine explicitly outlining them for us. Paul the Apostle gives us a very detailed explanation of some of these things in the first couple of chapters of the book of Romans in The New Testament. Basically, he says that we can know and understand God in several ways. One way is through the wonder and beauty of nature, aka, His Creation of everything in the universe, including us. Another way we understand God is through our own conscience. This is how we—somehow—know intuitively, what is truly right and wrong. Our conscience is present at birth and is developed (and often dulled) extensively as we grow up. This might be termed “The unwritten law’.

A third way in which people could know God in ancient times as well as today, was through the Hebrew scriptures–that is, “the written law”–which was given to the Jews by God through His servant, Moses. Paul shows us in the book of Romans that the “Mosaic law” was given to people primarily to show us what would be required in order to live a perfect and Holy life; something which we most certainly are not capable of achieving, but which should remind us that we desperately need God’s Grace and that we must live by Faith, knowing that He alone can save us from our shortcomings.

Of course, this barely begins to explain what Christianity is. I’ll have more things to say about that in other posts. Anyway, at this point I’m not trying to explain what Christianity IS but, rather, what it is NOT. And what it surely is NOT, is “Organized Religion”.