I have been thinking about the value of organized religion a lot recently. I keep hearing people saying that they love God but that they hate organized religion. I can sympathize to an extent. I’ve experienced a certain amount of disdain for the churches that I’ve visited recently. I believe firmly in being involved in your church, so I get involved. The drawback to being involved is that I get to see the less beautiful side of God’s church. I’ve seen the fighting, the false pretenses, and I’ve mentioned in previous posts how I truly dislike the entertainment aspect that seems to have crept into many church services. I’ve seen churches that have become social groups more interested in their own survival as a group than in the worship of God. I’ve also seen churches that were more interested in the generation of revenues than anything else.
The people who are proclaiming a love of God but a rejection of the Church aren’t necessarily complaining about these issues though. More often than not, they are focusing on the angry nature with which many Christians are battling against various controversial issues. They point to extremist groups like the Westborough Baptist Church. They like to talk about the anger with which various church groups protest against abortion. Even when the Church opposes these various issues without the anger, it earns their disdain because the Church would dare to pass judgment. They love to roll these and other arguments into a large straw man argument against the Church, saying that the Church fosters hatred. It is important to realize that (at least in the conversations I’ve had) when those who make this claim say “organized religion” what they are actually talking about is the Christian Church. Also, in my experience, those who make this claim have a very skewed vision of God. Their god is more of a personal invention than the Almighty Creator of the Universe. They take the parts that they like (usually the parts about loving and caring and protective) but discard the parts that they don’t like (holy, strict, just).
I myself am guilty of falling prey to the idea that we can separate God from His church. In the not so distant past I remember having discussions in which I carefully delineated the difference between religion and faith. I would say that religion is an invention of man whereas faith is belief in those things unseen and a true personal choice to follow God. Recently, I’ve been reflecting on my position and I have decided that I was a bit off the mark. The problem, I’ve realized, is that I fell into the same trap that those who are claiming love of God and rejection of the Church did. I was saying, “religion” but what I meant was, “the Church”.
The Church, beyond being plainly identified as the bride of Christ and therefore obviously important to God, does several things for us.
It gives us a body of people with whom we share the same beliefs. If you’ve ever spent an extended period of time with a group of people who didn’t believe as you did, you will know that you begin to tire and even wear down as they argue against your views. The Church gives us affirmation of our beliefs and strengthens us to face a world that is very much against us.
It keeps us in our faith and convicts us. If we spend too much time immersed in the world, it becomes easy to get deceived. The current trend towards Internet piracy is an excellent example. I’ve spoken with Christians who have accepted that it’s fine to download music, movies, and software without paying for it, even though these items were not intended to be free. (Incidentally, all the music on my site is currently still “free”. Please download it and share it with your friends if you like it. I own all the rights so go ahead.)
It gives us collective power to carry out the work of God. I can’t support a missionary alone. I can’t run a food bank alone. I can’t carry out an evangelism ministry or a homeless aid ministry alone. However, with a group of people, it is possible to accomplish all these things. More importantly, as a united group we are a more effective force against the enemy.
Also, organized religion with its rituals and ceremonies can also prevent us from inventing our own God. Of course, if we concentrate on the ceremony for the ceremony’s sake and ignore the meaning behind it then we’ve stumbled off the path. But that doesn’t make the ceremony a bad thing. It is our fault for allowing ourselves to become numb and calloused to the meanings behind the ceremony. One of the issues I have with many modern churches is that they have rejected many of the good things of the older denominations. They’ve forgotten about the value of solemnity and reverence. So many church services forget to concentrate on the power and majesty and might (and even the wrath) of God, choosing instead to simply focus on the pleasant aspects. They forget that we are to work out our salvation with “…fear and trembling.” An interesting side effect of this is that much of the power of God has been removed from the Church. Instead of feeling the power and majesty of God, there is a pleasant but weak ambience with some nice music and a talented public speaker.
A point of concern is the amount of professing Christians who are rejecting the Church. It can be understood, for the reasons stated at the beginning of this post. So many churches fail to uphold the basic tenets of Christianity. They fail to follow the two greatest commandments of loving God entirely and loving your neighbor as yourself. When we consider this, the lack of power, and the constant barrage of statements labeling the Church as an institution of hatred for proclaiming the just judgment of God and there is little shock that many Christians, particularly those who have merely been inoculated against the truth, are rejecting the Church.
My final point is this. We must support the Church. We cannot abandon her. Now as in Martin Luther’s time, strong Bible believing Christians need to step forward and BE the Church. It is true that the Church has fallen asleep. But rejection of the Church is not the answer. Perhaps it is time for a new denomination. I’ve heard it said that the older a denomination gets, further from the truth it gets. The Catholic Church has fallen prey to this. Some of the old Protestant denominations have fallen as well. Additionally, many of the newer denominations have traded in the truth for popularity. It should be common knowledge that God is not Catholic or Baptist or Lutheran or Methodist or Assemblies of God or Christian and Missionary Alliance. These divisions are inventions of man. God is God. His word transcends all these. No matter what the denomination, it must be carefully compared to the Bible to ensure that it is following God’s word. When it fails to do that, however, simply rejecting it out of hand is not the answer. That is the time to work and to bring it back to God’s word.
A final note on “religion”. It might be noted that God himself set up the initial religion. He designed intricate rituals, ceremonies, and customs. There was a dress code even. They had to wear ephods! I’m not even sure what an ephod is, but it was part of the dress code. Of course, I’m talking about the ancient Jewish traditions and the Levites and all that went with it. It’s important to realize that God designed all that. Why do you think He designed it in such a way? What purpose do you think the solemn design of those ceremonies was? It’s worth thinking about.
So, support your local church. Don’t just leave, don’t quit, and don’t give up on God’s church totally. Pray and work and keep your church right with God. Churches are made of humans, and humans are fallen creatures. But churches are gatherings of believers as well, and believers correct and guide other believers. That’s all I have for this post.
Later Days!!!
Recently, I had quite a few dealings with a man who was being very critical of Christianity. In truth he was mocking it. I made a comment about God and his replied asking about which god. Of course, he knows very well that I believe in the One True God. He then made some more disparaging remarks about how God was invented and other remarks about the Bible. He attempted to take parts of the Bible out of context to goad me more, but fortunately, despite being an “ordained minister” and claiming to have read the Bible, he just didn’t know enough to make it a very effective attack. The next day was Christmas and he and another person restarted the attack, this time displaying their vast historical knowledge about how December 25th was some sort of pagan holiday to some sun god and other nonsense. I realize the date is not exact. It’s not important, that is the day we celebrate Christ’s birth. We could celebrate it on July 5th and it wouldn’t reduce the importance. There would just be more fireworks.
Regardless, he was really getting under my skin. So, if you’ve followed me on Facebook or Twitter, you know that another man I know, a devout Catholic, gave me some great advice. He said, “Don’t let him steal your peace.” It was just that simple but it was so clear and so well timed. It can be truly amazing how God can send a perfect message out of the blue just when you need it. And I needed it. I really wanted to hit this guy. After this, I was much better, and as it turned out the guy stopped giving me a hard time.
I took a couple things away from this experience.
One, we need to let God be God. I think this is one of the most difficult things to grasp for me as a Christian. It’s not that I want to take God’s place, I just feel so burdened to succeed in so many aspects. This is especially true after I read James. Very much a works oriented book, James will really make you want to go do “works” for God. I suppose I could look at it from a military standpoint. As a private or even a corporal or sergeant, a person’s ability to do anything effective is limited. You may be able to keep your men alive, or succeed in a battle, but you aren’t going to win the entire war by yourself. It’s similar for us as Christians. We can do our part. We can pray, we can vote according to our faith, and we can spread the gospel. But that is what we can do. We can’t change the hearts of others. Only God can do that. I get so frustrated at times. I will be very honest, sometimes I get very tired of…well…losing. I want to win! I want the Ten Commandments to rest easily in the Supreme Court. I want prayer to be allowed in schools. I want to win. But I have to remember to let God be God and not get frustrated with the rest.
The other thing I took away is that God can use anyone to speak his word. And that just because someone doesn’t follow our exact flavor of Christianity doesn’t mean that they’re deceived and going to Hell. While the Catholic Church certainly has some flaws, I’m beginning to think that God is still working within that church. The Protestant churches have some pretty big flaws themselves, some (if you use the human scale of grading sins) are even more egregious than those which Protestants accuse the Catholics of. Of course, this isn’t endorsing a many roads to Heaven philosophy. There is only one way to Heaven and that is through Christ Jesus. But I really believe that God revealed to me that there are saved souls in all of Christianity, not just Baptists or Methodists or Evangelicals. It’s the belief in Christ that makes us Christian.
This brings to mind a final word. It’s heavily tangential, but it does relate. One of the criticisms I have heard of the Catholic church is that as time wore on and the rituals became more intricate and traditional, the Catholic faith began to believe in its rituals more than in the blood of Christ. I will tell you that the man who told me not to lose my peace does NOT believe his rituals will save him. He believes that Christ’s blood saved him. He defends his Catholic rituals as reminders of Christs sacrifice. More like tools to help guide him in his faith. In a conversation with my mother the topic of rituals and scripted prayers and things came up. The current Protestant church (particularly the Pentacostal movement) tends to reject heavily ritualized traditions. Scripted prayers and things of that nature aren’t heavily used and are more likely to be avoided. Still, those scripts can guide us and keep us on the path. They can prevent us from straying off, making prayers that are actually performances, or talking to ourselves more than to God. The danger is that they can become mechanical and empty. But in rejecting them completely, we run the risk of falling away from the core of our faith. It’s just an interesting thought. Quality assurance inspectors and pilots and many other fields use check lists to make sure that everything is done right. These are professionals that know their jobs inside and out. Yet they still use checklists to prevent them from straying or missing important steps. We could look at rituals and things like that as well.
It’s just a thought.
Later Days!!!
Those of you that know me know that my sons have autism. I just returned from a trip and my youngest keeps saying, “Hey Mom? I don’t want Daddy!” I wonder if that’s how God feels about us. He loves us so much, and we keep saying, “I don’t want God!”
Wow.
Later Days.
I overheard a conversation that was rather sad today. One young man was lamenting to another that his ex-girlfriend was pregnant, and that there was a possibility that he was the father. He continued on to declare that she needed to get an abortion because he didn’t have the time and the pregnancy would negatively impact his life. Another young man (who was ostensibly a friend or at least good acquaintance of the first) objected to that. Unfortunately, he continued on to say, “…it’s just a kid…” as though there was no real consequence to bringing a child into the world.
Neither one of these young men were on track. The first was completely selfish, placing his personal life above the life of an unborn child. The second was equally wrong. He failed to recognize the gravity of bringing up a child.
The conversation was a very sad reflection on the value that people are placing on human life these days. One was more comfortable with the idea of killing an unborn child than he was with facing up to his responsibility for his actions. This seems to be a common theme that the world puts forth. The other had no idea how serious parenting is. Although the world would have us believe that it’s fine to be a single parent and that divorce is perfectly acceptable and that your personal happiness is more important than your responsibilities, it’s simply not true. The lack of a parent significantly impacts a child and stays with them into adulthood. Our society’s failure to address parenting and the family can be seen in many of our societal ills today.
That’s my thought for today.
Later Days!!!
I just had a great conversation with a friend and co-worker. We both share the same faith and we were talking about the state of the Church, being involved in church, and things like that.
What struck me and inspired this post is how nice it was to talk and discuss things with someone who shares my faith. It was good to be able to profess the power of Christ without instantly having to defend or explain it. Even when we reached issues that we disagreed upon, we still shared the same common core beliefs and were able to discuss those issues from that standpoint. The conversation was so much better than the conversation/argument that another co-worker started over whether Christmas is a pagan holiday. Incidentally, whether the date is an amalgamation on the part of the Roman empire or not, we Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, definitely a Christian event.
I believe this is why Paul professed that it is good to congregate with other believers. This is why church is important. It’s not because we have to go to a special building to worship God, but so we can spend time being revitalized and refreshed in our beliefs by other believers. The world will wear us down and erode our beliefs if we’re not careful. There is also the thought of remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy. But that’s another post for another day.
So, that’s my thought for today.
Later Days!!!
One man’s junk is not necessarily another man’s treasure. Sometimes one man’s junk is junk. If you have something that you don’t want, and you offer it to someone else, don’t get offended when they don’t want it either. That’s just silly. Offloading your trash onto someone else is not a great act of altruism and generosity. It’s offloading your trash on someone else. Think about the message you’re sending.
“This isn’t good enough for me, but it’s certainly good enough for you.”
Really?
There’s nothing wrong with offering something that you don’t want anymore to someone else. Half my house is furnished this way. But if they don’t want it, don’t get offended, just get rid of it some other way.
Later Days!!!
I was just working in my basement and thinking about doing a good job. It brought to mind one day, long ago, when I was working for my father. We were painting a house. My father left me alone to work for a while, and I made a rather big mistake. I remember overhearing the conversation that the owner was having with my father. He commented on how the work wasn’t very professional. I had damaged the reputation of my father that day. To this day, I still feel badly about what I did.
How often do we damage the reputation of God? I feel badly about what I did to my dad’s reputation, but do I get that same feeling after I have failed to uphold Christian ideals, either by something I say or something I do? We should feel just as badly about hurting God’s reputation as we do about damaging the reputation of our employers or friends or spouses.
This just popped into my head a few minutes ago, and I figured I would share it before it left.
Later Days!!!
We had a last minute health crisis with our scheduled worship leader, so we had to put the entire music worship service together right before church. I got to play guitar today, which is nice. Usually, I’m on drums. Not that I mind the drums, but it’s nice to do something new once in a while. We were definitely winging it. The songs were songs that the usual worship leader knows by heart, but the guy filling in wasn’t quite as familiar with them. It turned out good. I really do love playing in the praise band.
The message was from James and centered on the dangers of our language. It’s a familiar theme, but as with almost everything in the Bible, it’s good to be refreshed on it. It’s so easy to let the lessons of the Bible slide away. I suppose that’s one reason it’s so good to go to church every week. One of the interesting thoughts that our pastor put out was that our words reveal the condition of our heart. It’s not enough to just guard our words, but we must also change ourselves inside, or more accurately, ask God to change us. If our hearts are right, then our words will be right too. If our hearts are wrong, then even if we remain silent, our hearts are still wrong.
Anyways, it was a good message. It certainly gave me something to think about as my mouth is one of my personal stumbling blocks.
That’s all for tonight.
Later Days!!!
I think I figured out a way to get my posts flowing across all my different accounts. We’ll see. If this post stops at Facebook I will have run out of ideas. It might be time to hang 10 on Google.
Later Days!!!
I’m so frustrated right now. I set up a Facebook account, a Twitter account, and I updated my MySpace account. I then linked the Facebook to my blog, the Twitter to my Facebook, and the Myspace to the Twitter. It worked flawlessly. I could post once and it was propagated across four different sites. Awesome. I then renamed one of my blog categories to “My Faith”. Aaaaannnnnd….everything stopped. I managed to get the blog and Facebook linked. But the blog posts won’t post in Twitter. They stop at Facebook. If I write something directly into Facebook Twitter picks it up.
I’m so frustrated. I’ve about had it with this social media thing. Does anyone want to come over for a FACE TO FACE cup of coffee?
Later Days!!!