The Religion of Religion
November 26, 2008 1:30 pm Blogs
San Diego is a very beautiful and diverse city. We have some of the world’s nicest beaches, zoos, parks, and museums. Our whether is perfect 364 days of the year. We have a huge navy, marine, and coast guard military presence. We have four major universities: UCSD, USD, SDSU, and PLNU. And we are one of the top vacation spots in the country.
San Diego is also a melting pot of religions. There are several Jewish synagogues, Islamic worship centers, a bunch of Catholic and protestant churches, a major Bahá’í center, a Taoist sanctuary, a brilliantly white Mormon temple, we’ve got Hare Krishna temples, Buddhist temples, and we’ve even got a new age self-realization temple up in Encinitas. Those are just the official religions, without even considering all the fringe spiritualists around from Tarot Card readers to Psychics to crystal channelers…who get together for readings, sayonces and special book readings.
Considering this strong religious presence combined with the very outdoorsy nature of most the people who live in San Diego makes it a very spiritually minded and spiritually conscious city. It is no wonder that the most popluar idea around about religion here is that each one is sort of touching one part of an elephant…some have a got a leg, some a trunk, some a tail…we all got a piece of the elephant its just that most of us don’t know we’re holding on to an elephant.
But what is religion? Is there a common principle of religion, a religion of religion? An elephant or a fundamental equalness? If so, is that present within Christianity? Is there actually any merit to the claim of Mahatma Gandhi that, “all religions are fundamentally equal.”
Religion. What is it? Richard Dawkins says it is a dellusional cop out. Sigmund Freud said it is an illusion resulting from sexual frustration. Karl Marx said it is the opiate of opressed people. Maybe they are all right?
Many religious people do seem to be religious just because their parents were. Religion is tradition and a cop out from wrestling with real things.
Most religions do seem to care about sex. You are either not having it as much as you want, with whomever you want, in whatever way you want…or you are having it too much, with the wrong people, in the wrong way and you ought to surpress it.
Most people are religious in some way, in fact the majority of the world considers themselves religious.
What about when you line the major religions up. Are there similarities? Seemingly so.
In orthodox Judaism, the Judaism most like the one during the times the book of Romans was written and the kind of Jew, it’s author Paul was….that Judaism is about being born a Jew and following and obeying the Torah perfectly, with a perfectly crossed “t” getting all the rules and regulations down just right. Then you’re saved.
In Islam it is all about your deeds. At the end of your life your good deeds are put on a scale on one side, your bad deeds on the other and they are weighed. And hopefully, there’s no guarantee, but hopefully your good deeds will outweigh your bad deeds and you’ll be saved.
In Buddhism and Hinduism it is about recognizing that you are one with the world, atman is brahman. You detach yourself from suffering, empty yourself, and become one with everything and you are saved.
In Taoism you must balance energies. In Confucianism you must make sacrifices to connect with your dead ancestors in order to reach harmony. In Shintoism you need a Kami Dama in your house, a little god shelf for incense and other offerrings to ward off impurities.
Those are just some of the major ones…but what we begin to notice is a great and similar strain, that in every religion there is something, we as humans must do. There is a condition a problem and each of us is trying to work out somehow…in order to be or become a good person.
Even the person with no religion…the popluar spiritualist who endeavor to simply do whatever makes them happy and be free, is still stuck in a rut of having to work for their salvation.
This seems to me to be the principle of religion, the religion of religion. The natural inborn quest of the human life which attempts to save itself.
Just asking a few questions can usually demonstrate this, questions like… “Why are you here? If you go to school or work, why and how did you choose what school/job and what major/place of employment? What are you seeking? What is your motive for being here? What really is the driving for behind your life, why you do what you do and make the decisions that you make?” Ahhh. This is where we begin to find religion. In the motives.
Maybe you are merely attempting to make your parents or someone else happy? So your salvation is found in meeting the expectations that are put on you? Maybe you are here because you have great aspirations to be successful in life and make money? Maybe you want to do something really great for people or for this world in someway? Why? What is the motive? Whose recognition are you looking for?
You see we cannot escape the desire and the craving for recognition from someone. We either want credit for what we do or acknowledgment that we are better for not bowing down to anyone’s demands. Tim Keller says religion is, “I obey therefore I am accepted.” It seems to me we are inescapably bound by this curse. The religious person connects this acceptance with God or with some nebulous force in the universe and the irreligious person flips it and tries to say I don’t need acceptance and therefore I don’t have to obey.
If we accept the religion principle then we try and try and try obey…whether it’s obeying the demands of some official religion or whether it is obeying the demands of a person, school, country, or some self-imposed expectation. Whatever it may be, the principle of religion which runs through everything.
If we don’t accept this religion principle, and instead reject the imposing demand for some obedience…then we become angry or at least think it is wrong that someone or something has put this stipulation on us.
Either way, whether through accetance or rejection, through obedience or disobedience…what begins to rise to the surface is our deep seated sense of morality. From there, we either slip into pride thinking that we’ve done a decent job for our attempt to get the moral monkey off our back or we get mad at him and because we think everyone should have the freedom to determine their own right and wrong. We tend to either become prideful of moralistic achievements or of our moralistic autonomy…and still either way we are saying we out to be accepted because of it.
Many Christians today have been sold a Christianity which is really an invitation to get more religious. Like you believe in Jesus for salvation at the end of your life but after you become a Christian your life becomes one where you are really saved by the good things you do.
Christians must ask themselves question like… Do I think I am better than people who are not Christians? Do I think I am better for reading or knowing Bible? Going to church? Spending time praying? Do I think those things make me Christian? If so, I’m afraid we’ve have slipped back into religion…the cycle where my acceptance is based on either how well I do or on how vehemently I reject doing anything.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is something entirely different than religion. I started out asking, What the religion behind religions is, the principle of religion? The principle of religion is the human desire and effort for our own salvation through some means we accomplish.
The gospel is something entirely different. In the gospel Jesus does something. In the gospel Jesus is something. In the gospel Jesus accomplishes everything and then gives it to us. That’s different. The gospel is a complete life of trust in Jesus in every area of life…whether it be discouragement, suffering, sex, family, identity, race, culture, the envirnoment, authority, guilt, joy, truth…it all has to do with the gospel and gets touched by the gospel.
What we need more than anything is the gospel. Where and how do you need the gospel to work in your life this week? Turn to Jesus and allow him to administer the only thing which can truly minister to us, his gospel.
- Pastor Duane