He writes:
RELIGION: I obey-therefore I’m accepted
THE GOSPEL: I’m accepted-therefore I obey.
RELIGION: Motivation is based on fear and insecurity
THE GOSPEL: Motivation is based on grateful joy.
RELIGION: I obey God in order to get things from God
THE GOSPEL: I obey God to get to delight and resemble Him.
RELIGION: When circumstances in my life go wrong, I am angry at God or my self, since I believe, like Job’s friends that anyone who is good deserves a comfortable life
THE GOSPEL: When circumstances in my life go wrong, I struggle but I know all my punishment fell on Jesus and that while he may allow this for my training, he will exercise his Fatherly love within my trial.
RELIGION: When I am criticized I am furious or devastated because it is critical that I think of myself as a ‘good person’. Threats to that self-image must be destroyed at all costs
THE GOSPEL: When I am criticized I struggle, but it is not critical for me to think of myself as a ‘good person.’ My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on God’s love for me in Christ. I can take criticism.
RELIGION: My prayer life consists largely of petition and it only heats up when I am in a time of need. My main purpose in prayer is control of the environment
THE GOSPEL: My prayer life consists of generous stretches of praise and adoration. My main purpose is fellowship with Him.
RELIGION: My self-view swings between two poles. If and when I am living up to my standards, I feel confident, but then I am prone to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. If and when I am not living up to standards, I feel insecure and inadequate. I’m not confident. I feel like a failure
THE GOSPEL: My self-view is not based on a view of my self as a moral achiever. In Christ I am “simul iustus et peccator”-simultaneously sinful and yet accepted in Christ. I am so bad he had to die for me and I am so loved he was glad to die for me. This leads me to deeper and deeper humility and confidence at the same time. Neither swaggering nor sniveling.
RELIGION: My identity and self-worth are based mainly on how hard I work. Or how moral I am, and so I must look down on those I perceive as lazy or immoral. I disdain and feel superior to ‘the other'
THE GOSPEL: My identity and self-worth are centered on the one who died for His enemies, who was excluded from the city for me. I am saved by sheer grace. So I can’t look down on those who believe or practice something different from me. Only by grace I am what I am. I’ve no inner need to win arguments.
RELIGION: Since I look to my own pedigree or performance for my spiritual acceptability, my heart manufactures idols. It may be my talents, my moral record, my personal discipline, my social status, etc. I absolutely have to have them so they serve as my main hope, meaning, happiness, security, and significance, whatever I may say I believe about God
THE GOSPEL: I have many good things in my life-family, work, spiritual disciplines, etc. But none of these good things are ultimate things to me. None of them are things I absolutely have to have, so there is a limit to how much anxiety, bitterness, and despondency they can inflict on me when they are threatened and lost.
As Christians we have to deal with religion. The word shows up in the Bible at least a couple of times - and in more vague references even more. We have to deal with it in the same way that we have to deal with predestination and free will. Because it's there.
We waste a lot of breath and ink and pixels trying to separate ourselves from religion - but when census time comes around again, there's still no box that says "relationship with Jesus Christ". We check the box that says "religion - Christian"
We're not going to fool anyone. We shouldn't bother trying.
Instead we should try and figure out what James meant when he said "relgion that God the Father finds pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep itself unstained from the world."
It's easy to say toss out religion. But we're not the first people to think that. They did the same thing a generation ago. Ever heard "Jesus is just all right with me" or "Spirit in the Sky"? This isn't new.
And unless we learn from our mistakes, we're going to hit the same wall.
We need to stop spending our energy trying to trick people into thinking we're being relevant by abandoning religion (that's what the rest of the world is doing, so let's speak that language) and start being relevant by doing religion properly.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has noticed a trend of trying to define religion such that it does not include Christianity. I consider it at best a well intention-ed misunderstanding and at worst intellectually dishonest.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed another group trying to define religion such that it excluded things traditionally considered religion. The line of argument goes "X faith (usually Islam) is not a religion because Y therefore we can ban it without conflicting with freedom of religion."
I don't think anyone would want ban Christianity as a bizarre "gotcha" in reaction to comments by people like Timothy Keller but considering yourself to part of a religion does give you certain social and legal protections. I know legal definitions and colloquial definitions of things like religion are different but it is still annoying when people try to have it both ways.