Dead to Religion (pt. 1)

UGHHH!!! I love writing my blog, but boy has it suffered the past month! My career as a performing artist has reached a new level, and my blog has paid the consequences. I'm frustrated by my lack of posting, so the only way to remedy that...is to post! :)  I've been daydreaming about something for the past few years that God's been teaching me through various outlets of his truth, and as I was reading Romans 9 today, I felt I needed to flesh out this daydream...

Are you a religious person? I used to think I was. I've known God my whole life - in a constant, steady relationship with him all along - and it's because of this that I've come to know something about him: God is NOT a God of religion.

Whoa, HELLO!! I bet that rang your bell! Right now, you're one of two things: 1) Absolutely appalled, or 2) Pretty darn confused. Maybe you're both. So that leads me to one thing: an explanation. Eh, what the heck, I guess I'll go ahead and explain myself. I owe ya that (wink, wink).

You heard right - God is definitely not about religion. Religion is not in his agenda. He didn't send his son into a broken world as the ultimate scapegoat in order to preserve the continuity of a religious system. If that shocks you, you need to rethink God. Brazen? Bold? Nope, truth. So many of our perceptions about God and Christianity and what it means to follow Jesus is based on what we've been told, or what we've heard is "right," not based on Jesus' actual mission as described in biblical accounts. Think about it: the Bible is read by humans. Check. Humans, by nature, are imperfect beings and oftentimes intentionally or non-intentionally misconstrue the truth. Check. Humans teach/instruct/correct other humans "truth" based on what they themselves have heard/experienced. Check. The problem goes back to the second check mark: humans are imperfect beings. We don't always interpret "truth" accurately, and whether intentionally or non-intentionally, we end up feeding someone a lie. The recipe for a lie is a partial truth, so it sounds good and we eat it - often in a state of mind ignorant of the truth. Thus the young and impressionable are formed by a train of thought -potentially truth-filled, potentially faulty - until they mature one day and hopefully seek the whole truth by God's help (who is, by the way, the Truth, the Whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth...the source, remember?)

Now, let me clear the air a little: I'm not saying that parents and sunday school teachers and friends/relatives are deviously spoon-feeding us lies, watching with a devilish grin as we take the bait. Far from it! We are all the product of what's been passed on to us or what's shaping us in this moment - culture and generational doctrine mostly, what's been passed down to us from someone else's teaching, a chain of teaching with many links. This chain can be very strong...if based on something more foundationally sound and greater than itself, such as God's word. Even teaching passed on from human-conceived concepts are dangerous - many a cult have been founded through these ideologies.

I'm also not saying that truth is relative. Far from it! Truth is absolute - anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't met the Truth yet, and that's the Christian's mission: to introduce people to the Truth. That's one reason I have this blog. If truth were relative, society would be like a dog chasing cars - trying to find what's real and what's right in every worldview, every dependency, everything! Those who sought the truth would be hard-pressed to find it in this kind of cultural climate, and those who held to the truth being relative wouldn't care to find the truth at all...mostly because to them, truth is relative, which means there is no truth. Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like the world we live in right now.

The point is, we struggle with truth...and that's ok! Truth is worth wrestling with. That's when it bears the best fruit - a farmer doesn't produce good crops when he hardly lifts a finger to cultivate the ground! Good crops - in this case, truth - come with the sweat put into it: asking the hard questions, seeking fullness among the fillers, knocking on doors that have been closed to most others. God's heart beats for the askers, the seekers, those who knock on truth's door. It's a passionate pursuit, not for the passion-less. Truth-seeking is a journey, not a routine. It's not for those who would rather settle for going through the motions, not for those who think God respects the outer works of humans. God is more interested in the heart of humanity. That leads me to my original point: God is NOT a God of religion.

Real quick, when you think of religion, what comes to mind?...chew on it for a few seconds.

Ok, now what were those thoughts? I'll give you a little of what comes to my mind: I think of robes and rituals. Silly, ornate garments. Motions and mechanics. Traditional barriers, rights of passage, exclusive clubs called churches. I think of swinging lanterns and pride renamed as "piety." And see, like I said before, the lie is not far from the truth. Most people think "holiness" and "piety" are the same thing. Most people think God is keeping tally of their prayers and building a case against them on the basis of how often they act good or not. This God is a God of score-keeping. This God is a God of payback. This God is a God of paranoia. This God...is a God of religion.

But this is NOT the God of Creation, the Father God so many have come to misunderstand. This is NOT my God. My God is NOT a God of religion. What are your thoughts on this kind of God? Comment and let's discuss, we'll transition to Part 2 soon...