On being religious

Or, why I love Jesus AND religion

Photo by Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash

During my high school years, there was a big movement among prominent Christians to reject the label of “religious.” 

You can probably remember the books, the viral YouTube videos, and the other provocative media that was inspired by that trend. “It’s not a religion,” they would say. “It’s a relationship.” 

And while I won’t deny that a personal relationship with the Godhead is certainly a central tenet of Christianity, I think it’s actually selling the long, illustrious history of Christendom short to deny everything that looks “religious.” 

I understand what the Christian influencers of the 2010s were getting at: They wanted to encourage a generation of believers to invest personally in their faith, avoiding the pitfalls of lukewarm, thoughtless adherence to rules and instead fully grasping the gravity of a God of love who would step onto Earth and die on their behalf. 

That’s a good thing to want! Once you know the truth, once it’s really sunk in to the deep recesses of your heart and begun to transform you from the inside out, it’s only reasonable that you will want others to understand it in the life-changing way that you have. 

But, I think the message ultimately misses the mark and begins to work in the opposite direction. These “religious” things—attending a church regularly, participating in sacraments like baptism and the Lord’s Supper, dedicating time to personal study and prayer—are extremely important (and I would argue necessary) practices in the life of the believer. 

In an effort to ensure that believers aren’t trying to work their way into salvation by adhering to “religious” mandates, I fear we’ve thrown out the baby with the bathwater. You can’t just do the right things—you have to be doing them for the right reasons, too, or else you’re another one of the nominally “religious” ones, resigned to a fate of going through the motions but never really attaining the holiness or oneness with God that you seek.

Religion is good!!

Regardless of what they may claim, humans are inherently religious. Now, I’m not saying that humans inherently believe in God or adhere to religion because of something biological and deterministic. What I’m saying is that people seem to have an innate tendency to tie themselves to specific communities with rules, practices, and rituals that define their lives. 

A few things we act religiously about that aren’t themselves religious: 

• College football

  • Yes, I know all the words to “Yea Alabama,” and my Saturdays in the fall are planned around college football schedules

• Political ideologies

  • I’ll withhold comment for now

• Musicians and celebrities

  • Sacrificing time and money to attend concerts, tracking their every move through social media, joining communities of fans dedicated to discussing their art and lives

• Fictional properties

  • The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, The Hunger Games, Harry Potter…even the discussions about which texts or films are “canon” borrows the language of established religion 

These aren’t inherently bad things, and the excitement, entertainment, and community we derive from them aren’t inherently bad, either. I don’t want my point here to get lost, though; I’m not trying to draw your attention to the things themselves, but the rituals we create around them. 

Learning all the words to a song. Reading and rereading texts to understand what an author was trying to convey about the world. Rearranging your schedule to attend an event. Planning your weekend around a known commitment. Gathering in communities of people who love the same thing as you. Buying and wearing merch with references that identify you as one of the “initiated.” 

Whether we mean to or not, we will behave religiously about the things we care about. I kind of think that’s by design. So, when we have the opportunity to practice our faith—which, by necessity, should be our highest devotion—through religious activity, why wouldn’t we? It’s really the most natural thing we can do. 

Everything in its proper place

You cannot earn salvation through the things that you do. This is the thing that makes Christianity distinct from virtually every other religion on the world stage today. 

But…

Scripture tells us time and time again that we will be identified by the things that we do. Not that we will be saved by them, per se, but that our outward actions are indicative of the posture of our hearts. 

I understand that this dichotomy is perplexing. Or at least, it has been for me. That’s why I talk about it so often in this forum. I think that it’s a tension that you have to live out to really understand…but that’s not helpful when you’re at the beginning of your journey and trying to figure out how to navigate the world as a Christian. 

It’s a bit easier to conceive once you introduce directionality. That is to say, at this point I envision a sort of call and response between God’s gift of salvation and the religious things I do as an overflow of that. 

I don’t go to church because it will make God happy and keep me in his favor; I go because I love him, I love his people, and I want to hang out with them and learn from them while we worship together. 

I don’t study the Bible because God will smite me if I don’t; I study because through it, I can learn about the character and nature of God and the story that he’s telling through humanity. 

These “religious” actions aren’t fear responses or sacrifices to appease an angry and harsh master; they’re my obedient and faithful response to the overwhelming faithfulness of God.

Obedience and intention

But, how do you keep from “just going through the motions?” We know that’s bad, right? 

I don’t necessarily think so. Here’s why I say that: Obviously, intentions matter. Doing the “right” thing for the “wrong” reasons isn’t something to strive for. 

But, does that mean you should avoid that “right” thing simply because your heart may not be exactly in the “right” place? I don’t think so at all. Intentions matter, but there are many times in which my only intention is to be obedient. 

I don’t always want to get up early on Sunday or read through verses upon verses of genealogies and censuses in the Old Testament. I do want to know God and return love to him.

Ideally, I’d be fully emotionally and intellectually engaged every time I do these things, but in reality I’m just not. I get sleepy, I get distracted, I get bogged down in wondering what we’re having for dinner and what tasks I need to complete tomorrow morning at work and when was the last time I did laundry? That sometimes results in task completion that looks something like “going through the motions.” 

That’s okay. 

The amazing thing about partnering with the God of the Universe is that even my adherence to these religious acts doesn’t fully depend on me. C.S. Lewis puts it this way when discussing the Biblical mandate to “be ye perfect” in Mere Christianity: 

“...this Helper who will, in the long run, be satisfied with nothing less than absolute perfection, will also be delighted with the first feeble, stumbling effort you make tomorrow to do the simplest duty. 

…

The practical upshot is this. On the one hand, God’s demand for perfection need not discourage you in the least in your present attempts to be good, or even in your present failures. Each time you fall He will pick you up again. And He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection. On the other hand, you must realise from the outset that the goal towards which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal.” 

Even our imperfect attempts at honoring and obeying him—our “mere religion,” so to speak—can be supremely useful when willingly offered in submission to God. Anything you invest will multiply and reap dividends far beyond your wildest hopes and dreams. That does not mean it will be easy, or natural, or flawless. But it does mean that you are not doing this alone. Hallelujah!

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