What is Religion?

[HKHaugan]

What is religion? As disciples of Jesus we really need to ask that question especially in these times when ‘religious hostility’ makes headlines and secular governments have to deal with its consequences. How do we sort out what is true, real, spiritual and personal when it comes to making decisions about what we believe? Let’s give it a try. What is religion?

Religion is man’s attempt to put a face on ultimate reality. The face doesn’t have to be a human face. It can be a structural denominational face or a name or a concept. It doesn’t make any difference what name you put on a religion it is still an organized method of painting a portrait of whatever is believed to be behind all existence. Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, Mohammedanism, Confucianism, Mormonism, Deism, Catholicism, Protestantism and all the rest have arisen as the result of some intuitive reasoning based on someone’s personal experience. Yes, and we must include even Atheism whose followers provide a prime example of religious intensity. Belief in non-belief is that consuming gathering of ‘non-belief’ believers into an organization with outreach, programs and lobbyists.

The assumption is made by a person that their unusual, out of the ordinary, extra-normal conclusion about the unseen, the supernatural, in some way makes it necessary to lift it into the sphere of fear, adoration and exclusive identity demanding all others bend their knee to it. There is a set of concepts, a collection of storied lore, an ethical structure built around the experience magnified and elaborated upon by followers in succeeding generations. Architecture is undertaken by which assorted assembly and education sites are built to provide the means for worship and training.

Religion then is the sum total of man’s intuition, his inner sense of reason, its conclusion and his need to explain what he doesn’t know about what he cannot see. Intuition gives him a sense of superiority in having something different, intellectually controllable and emotionally comforting.

Now hold on, don’t believers in Jesus do the same? Fair question. Yes and no. This is where we draw the line between being a disciple of Jesus and being a religious devotee. Of course, like all human beings we organize, build buildings and have programs of worship and education. But what makes being a disciple of Jesus is precisely this, Jesus Himself. Call it Christian if you need an adjective but the reality is this, each of us who calls ourselves a disciple has a personal relationship with a risen-from-the-dead Savior and Lord.

What being a believer in Jesus is not, it is not an admiration society built around a dead historical personage or an intuitive speculation. It is not a fearful stepping into the dark expanse of the unknown trying to create an ethic to placate some force or forces. It is not developing a logical personal belief or non-belief system to handle both the intellectual and emotional stress in each day.

Quite the opposite, it is a personal relationship of faith, faith in a living Person who revealed Himself as the Son of God, was unjustly executed on a Cross, died and then miraculously rose from the dead. It begins with the factual historical existence of the person of Jesus whose recorded brief life and teachings define all things visible and invisible. It is a personal relationship as opposed to a religious system with a structural membership. It is defined by faith, His faith and faith is a capacity built into every human being. But He had faith is the way we allow our faith to be shaped.

Let’s look at what God says about religion. In the Bible there are ten verses that contain the noun and the adjective, religion and religious. Of the ten, nine stand out as negative in some way and one is positive. James contains three of them only one of which is the positive. That one is James 1:27 which says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Note: it is spiritual, personal and interpersonal. It’s like God is saying, “OK. If you want to be religious, you say you want to honor me, well ditch your religiosity and get outside yourself and feel the loneliness, the relational needs and the importance of the least able of those who are hurting images of me---love them.”

So it’s not about religion, it’s about relationship, relationship with God and relationship with others.

It’s not about me trying to put a face on God. It’s about God revealing His Face in Jesus His Son. But it’s not the face of paintings or constructed images but the face of character definition; faith, love, peace, confidence, self-assurance, intellect, sensitivity, spiritual presence, emotional care, strength of purpose, integrity, clear meaning, personal destiny and commitment. It’s all contained in one person. It’s about His mind, His heart and His Spirit and His Father’s Word in which He placed His faith.

Above all there is no sense of aloneness, fear or indecisiveness about Jesus. He is everything people look for in the invisible realm of motivation and the invisible qualities that make it work. He is the foundation for every detail of what it means to be human, to be a person and to be a person with an identifiable source, purpose and relational expression. This is why He builds on our capacity for faith because He is The Faithful One. It was and is His faith in His Father, His Father’s Word, will and purpose and His faith in the Spirit and their relational being that reveals the face of God.

So, as disciples of Jesus, let it be our desire and our prayer to embrace the words of Psalm 27:8, “Your face, O Lord, I will seek” so that when others see us they will say they have seen the face of God.