A Little Religious Etymology (part 2)

Finishing up my thoughts from the other day on "Religion." If you haven't already, check that out so this will make sense.


Having disected the word "religion" pretty thoroughly, we have a choice. We can try to salvage the word to mean what is once did, or we can accept the popular definition and say “Christianity is not a religion.” I don’t like either of those, so I choose the third option: drop the word. The Bible doesn’t mention it except in a few places. So, stop talking about religion, because it’s lost all meaning except for a vague, bad sense in the pit of your stomach. In our generation, I believe this word is beyond repair, so I suggest using it as little as possible.

The one exception I will make for this is if I put an adjective in front of it. So, I can say, “This is a hallmark of dead religion.” Or “People like this are living in legalistic religion.” If I put it in those terms, what I’m saying becomes more clear: I’m talking about outward-focused, legalistic behavior. I would even go so far as to say, “That’s dead religion. Living religion is something wholly different, something most people wouldn’t even consider using the word ‘religion’ to describe.”

Come up with a better way of saying what you’re trying to say. If you’re talking about legalism, put it in those terms. If you’re talking about an empty following of commands absent from a living, vital relationship with God, then at least toss on the adjective “dead.” Both believers and nonbelievers are pretty tired of hearing how “Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship with Jesus.” That phrase has surpassed its “best used by” date and has ceased to communicate truth. Pray to the Spirit of God to give you language to communicate the gospel to this generation.

How about this: “Commandments and rules form the periphery, the very outermost part of Christianity. It’s like how you can’t cheat on your girlfriend if you want to have a healthy relationship with her. The solid, stable core of Christianity is a living, breathing, love affair with Jesus.”

Now, can someone popularize that phrase and pay me royalties on it?

A Little Religious Etymology (Part 1)

                At work, a conversation between two coworkers.

                “Your sister’s really cute.”

                “But you know, she’s also really religious.”

                “Yeah, well…” his intonation finished the sentence.

                Our culture hates religion. Even the church speaks disparagingly of it. In fact, we hate it so much that the very word is makes us cringe! Why bother figuring out what we hate? It’s much easier to use the word as a universal insult or curse.

                The world is a step ahead of the church in this: they at least have a good idea of what this thing called religion is which they hate. To them, involvement in any organized faith constitutes religion. But as long as you only are involved on a Sunday, you’re not really very religious. Truly religious people change their lifestyle due to your beliefs (organized faith or not).

                So, when the church uses one of its favorite un-think phrases, “Christianity is not a religion,” people stare at us in disbelief. I made up the word un-think for situations like this. It sounds a little dumb, which I think communicates its own definition really well. Anyways, we have big buildings. We meet and do religious things (like sing, study, and pray). We don’t do certain things like live with the girl you love before marriage. We give money to this “non-religion.”

                How is that not a religion from the world’s perspective? To say otherwise sounds hypocritical. We fail to communicate with the world, which means we fail in our job: communicating the gospel. We have refused to become all things to all men, because it’s just so hip in the church to trash talk “religion” (whatever that is). In fact, when we insist that Christianity isn’t a religion, we actually sound very religious. It’s like how a cult-member will tell you very strongly, “I swear, I’m not in a cult!” If they admitted otherwise, they may still be in a cult, but at least we would respect them for their honesty.

Definition

                What does religion mean? I hate it when people pull out dictionaries during sermons, so I’m going to wing it.

                My definition of religious beliefs has always been beliefs about the meaning of life, the existence and character of God, life after death, the morally correct way to live life, and the spiritual realm. A religion then is an organized society based on similar religious beliefs. In this sense, atheism is a religion as much as Christianity as much as Wicca.

                Of course, that’s not what we’re talking about when we talk about “religious.” The word has become twisted in the last century as a result of a boom in secularism, agnosticism, and the omnipresent postmodern worldview.

                Nowadays, a religion is a society organized around a belief in a god and a set of rules. In another un-think move, atheism steps out the picture here, because by definition it doesn’t believe in God. For some reason, secular humanism has categorized itself in a separate category from “religion,” and has made itself the de facto church in American schools and public debate, despite the fact that it answers all the same questions of life as a religion. Incidentally, this is one of the reasons I dislike the popular definition of religion: it lets some religions get away with claiming they’re not religions.

                Colloquially, “Religion” contains a nuance of an organized religion (i.e. someone with a  vague, new agey spirituality might not be part of a religion). It also contains a nuance of someone who is dogmatic, unreasonable, and disrespects people with different beliefs. But more commonly, we have pictures of Crusaders indiscriminately slaughtering Jews, Muslims, and Eastern Orthodox Christians. We have pictures of people bombing abortion clinics. We have pictures of a preacher in a nice suit publically disowning his pregnant daughter as a shame to the family name. “That’s religion,” we say. Whatever the technical definition, those images characterize the popular definition.

                And this is why preachers across the nation spout the phrase “Christianity is not a religion.” Because who wants to be associated with that word?

                In the more traditional terms of a few centuries past, a religious person was one who followed the commandments of the Bible. Someone who cared for the homeless was religious. Someone who spoke in anger was not. In these terms, the Crusaders were some of the least religious people in history, because their actions so contradicted the faith they claimed to follow. It used to be a very positive word.

                This is how the Bible uses the word: “Religion that God our Father honors 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.” (James 1:27)

                I’ll throw out one more definition, which is how we usually use it in the church. You could substitute the word “legalism” for “religion.” In these terms,  religious activity is activity that has the appearance of holiness without true holiness. It can also be an extra-Biblical command that people treat as mandatory. A religious statement is that Christians should never drink alcohol at all. A religious attitude is that dating is inherently wrong. A religious person is the man who doesn’t drink, smoke, dance, or cuss, but he speaks disrespectfully to his wife and children. I’d sum this definition up with the verse about the Pharisees, “You wash the outside of the cup, but the inside is full of greed and self-indulgence.” (Matt. 23:25b)

Rebuke your neighbor

Rebuke your neighbor

Lev. 19:17 "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him." 

Lev. 19:32 "You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the LORD."

                I think I’m finally at the end of my observations and rabbit trails of Leviticus 19. In the words of the iconic old lady in the back of the Southern Baptist church, “Mercy, Lord!”

                Some laws that we read of in the Torah are basically the same in New Testament times. Lev. 19:17 and 32 are a couple of these, I believe. This isn’t because we’re bound by the Torah, it’s because these are examples of the law which we are bound by: love God and love your neighbor.

                Many translations use the word “rebuke” rather than “reason frankly” with your brother in verse 17. Here’s how life works. An early-rising, timid brother of mine wants to love others. And I call him at 9:30 at night, right after he’s drifted into the bliss of sleep. He forgives me and ignores this.

                Months pass, and every once and a while, I call him at 9:30, wake him up, and offend him. He gives subtle hints about it being too late, but I completely miss them. Still, he feels good about not talking to me about the issue, because didn’t Jesus allow Himself to be killed for us? I mean, it’s not like the Savior ever argued with anyone (little sarcasm there on that last part. Just a little). Anyways, my friend feels like Jesus wants him to ignore the problem, because that’s what love looks like.

               

                And yet, somehow, my brother has this deep bitterness in his heart. He repents and tries to forgive me, but bitterness remains. From the outside, all I see is that he is slowly distancing himself from me, not returning my calls, and not wanting to hang out. The relationship cools, and I’m not sure why. All this time, he thinks he’s acting like Jesus because he doesn’t tell me that I’m a jerk for calling him so late.

                I ask: is that love?

                If he confronts me after the second or third time I call him at a bad time and tells me plainly when it’s OK to call him, our relationship can continue. If he doesn’t do that, it will not. To avoid those hard, awkward conversations, he is communicating that our friendship is not worth the difficulty of them. He does not value me enough for confrontation. Is that what love looks like?

                But this is haaaard. Some of us like the meek and mild blond-haired Jesus who never argues with anyone and holds a lamb in one hand with a big smile on his face as the ethnically diverse children of the world gather round. We like Him because that Jesus doesn’t require much of us. He doesn’t require us to confront relationship-damaging sin in the people we love so that we can truly go deep with one another.

                Aside from hippie Jesus, we have this weird concept that if we just allow people to beat us up, we’ll have a healthy relationship. In reality, this leads to deep bitterness, gossip, and passive-aggression. If you don’t confront the person, you’ll take that anger and tell someone else. If don’t establish boundaries with people, you can’t trust them, because they keep hurting you. You can’t become close. And your friends also become frustrated, because they want to be close to you, but they don’t know how, because you won’t tell them!

                That’s why Lev. 19 puts the alternative of confronting your brother as hating him in your heart and incurring sin because of him. Often, you choose one or the other.

                The flip side of course is that these rebukes have to be well-timed. Confrontation usually shouldn’t be after the first offense. Most of the time, that should be forgiven silently, because maybe your friend was just having a bad day.

                Rebukes also must be in love. And when someone has hurt you deeply, that’s not easy. It’s easier to just bail on the relationship. It’s also easier to get really mad and confront wrongly. It’s hard to confront calmly with love and patience and without telling half your friends about the problem. And yet, we have no choice. If a loving church is our priority, which it must be, because it’s God’s priority, we cannot let hidden conflict simmer beneath the surface. That will tear a community to shreds. “Better open rebuke than hidden love.” (Prov. 27:5)

                Also, “Whoever rebukes a person will in the end gain favor rather than one who has a flattering tongue.” (Prov. 28:23).

                And finally, standing in honor of gray heads. It may not be standing up in our culture, but it’s still a priority on God’s heart, because it’s an expression of love. Sadly to say, I failed in this a few days ago. I had just gotten my drink at Starbucks and was unpacking my laptop. I saw a white-haired man wearing a “World War II Vet” hat. His weathered, loose skin covered an face. The lady at the counter knew him by name, and he only stayed in the store for a few minutes. I had the sudden impulse, of God, to say hello and thank him for serving in WW2. But I didn’t. And then he left. There’s an example of showing (not showing, tragically) respect to the elderly in our generation.