Dictionary.com defines the word "religion" as:
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.
In How (Not) to Speak of God, Peter Rollins writes about the problems with religion as "resolute commitment to a system." (45) He relates this subject to a comparison of "law" and "justice." The purpose of a law is to define justice, if you will. The example he gives is that "those who destroy private property ought to be punished." (45) Most people will agree to this, but what about "people who have destroyed private property (such as military equipment about to be used to bomb cities) in the name of justice?" (45) We can add to our laws to make room for this kind of exception, but here's the problem:
In this way the law is never complete but is always open to change in light of new situations. This means that the law, as a system that attempts to embody justice, always falls short of justice. (45)
The law is helpful in defining some parameters for justice (in a particular society), but the law can never fully define what is just. Rollins says that "the law testifies to justice and is inspired by justice, yet justice is not found in the law." (46) That is to say that we must not equate the law with "justice." The same can be said of "religion" and "God":
Our religion is like the clearing in a forest after a great fire. It testifies to the happening of a great event and without the clearing we would not know of that event, but the clearing does not hold that event. (46)
Religion, then, does not "hold" God and nor do we. As I've said elsewhere, there is a sense in which we can know God and there is a sense in which we cannot. We cannot know God in an absolute or exhaustive way. If I interpret Rollins correctly, he is saying that our commitment should not be to a system pertaining to God, but to a search or desire for God Himself. Psalm 34:10 tells us that "those who seek the Lord lack no good thing." Notice that it is the seeking that is commended in this verse. Along the same lines, Rollins has an interesting take on Matthew 7:7-8. He says this passage "does not refer to two separate moments but rather to a type of present-continuous tense by which the seeking is the finding, the asking is the receiving and the knocking is the opening..." (50)
If we shift our focus from religion (relying on a system about God) to the journey of seeking God, we will be less close-minded about where we will "find" Him. Rollins suggests that we should be engaged in a "dialog in which we treat everyone we meet as individuals who we can learn from and perhaps teach, rather than reducing people to the same massive and clumsy categories such as 'Christian', 'Islamic' and so on." (53)
I think that what Rollins is getting at is that our categories can easily bias our thoughts before we even begin conversing with another person. We are too quick to want to slap labels on people. These categories may be helpful as a short hand way of explaining where someone is coming from, but they can often lead us to make incorrect assumptions about the individual we are labeling.
Rollins suggests that if we want to engage in genuine dialog we must be "prepared to rethink in relation to what the other says..." (53) The alternative is where we "listen" to another person for the sole reason of correcting the error in what they say. I see a lot of this in the blogosphere and am guilty of it as well. Too often, the only comments people make are for the purpose of arguing against a point (or worse, a sub-section of a point). If all we are doing is going around looking for "error" are we really seeking truth? This problem is only exacerbated by the categories we invent because we will automatically have a prejudice against people with certain labels. People who don't use the same "code words" (think Christianese) are treated with suspicion and so on.
Rather than being a sign of weakness, this powerless approach is a sign of strength, for one is committed to the idea that if we genuinely seek truth from above, we will not be given a lie, for God does not give scorpions to the one who seeks bread. (53)
What do you think? How important is it to differentiate between Christianity and knowing Christ? How "open-minded" should we be in our search for truth and/or God? How might "religion" hinder our search?
*********************************
Links to the rest if this series: Heretical Orthodoxy, Conceptual Idolatry, Defining God, 21st Century Pharisees?, Powerless Discourse, Answers & Questions, The Search for God, Doxorthy
I would say I stand in agreement with this idea. Religion is a word with a negative vibe around it(sounds psychadelic :)). I don't want my walk with Jesus to be a steel path that has been defined by a religion. I want to go where He leads...wherever that is. I do believe we can be too open-minded in the journey and wind up following something that we thought was Jesus but wasn't in reality...it looked good, it appealed (much like the apple) but it wasn't what God intended for us. In so doing we may have confounded others or drug them with us, so we need to be cautious, very cautious.
We need to be very sensitive to the Holy Spirit and quiet enough to listen. We need to take a "time out" and devote serious prayer to things that are "foreign" ideas. And we need to measure them up to what God has said, which does not waiver or change. If I hear something that is against "my religion"...I ponder it's validity. If I hear something that is not Biblical (and of course this requires being able to differentiate the 2), it's pretty safe to say I give it little to no additional thought as it requires none.
Jesus took the "religion" of His day and turned it upside down. He spoke with authority and respect but was certainly a panic attack in the making for the religious law-makers and strict law-upholders. He surprised them with what He did and said. I don't want to hold Him in a little box, but I also don't want to be swayed by every breeze that blows. The Bible, prayer and "talking it out with God" (which requires being quiet enough; hushing my own ramblings to hear His) are the best ways I know to decipher truth.
Posted by: Lauraconk | August 24, 2006 at 01:17 PM
I agree we can be "too open-minded" in the sense that we can turn our brains off and just go with what sounds good. I still like the Wesleyan Quadrilateral that I've harped on: scripture, tradition, reason, experience.
In my mind, religion falls into the tradition category. It's saying, "Well this is the way we've always followed God." We can learn from those things, but they need to be held in tension with scripture, reason, and experience.
Posted by: Bill | August 24, 2006 at 04:11 PM