I think I have mentioned before that I am rather terrible at expressing myself. I always tend to say things in a way that I don't mean them! Like today I was talking to my brother and his girl about religion, books and all of the other random things we talk about. The last thing I want to do is discourage my family from church, but I have found in the past couple of years I have been a little discouraged when it come to "religious" people. I have mentioned before my issues with having an open mind when it comes to "closed minded" people (I know irony). The thing is I have a passion against the religious mindset. The mindset that there is a set of rules that must be followed. Or that there is a specific denomination that knows the way to heaven or whatever else the religious set is convinced of. Gosh even now I feel like I'm saying the wrong things. Bare with me and I will try and explain.
I most definitely seek to be a Christian. I believe the gospel. Jesus came to save us from our sins. (That being the gospel in a nutshell). But here's what I think we miss. Jesus didn't just do us this great favor of opening the gate to heaven and if we try hard enough we will get there... Here's the way I see it. From the beginning God created us to have a RELATIONSHIP with him. In the beginning Adam and Eve walked and talked with God. Now no surprise we ended up getting distracted by discontent and separated ourselves from God. However, the whole old testament shows God not only as a god of judgment and wrath but as a God of pursuit. But what about all the things that we read of and think "now why would God allow that to happen" or "yeesh that seems a little harsh"? Well I don't claim to know. God explains that He is a god of justice and I just have to believe that. But in so much of it, even the really terrible things, I see that it was all in pursuit of us. It was a pursuit of the relationship that we turned away from in the beginning. So God gently and not so gently sought to show his people that he is God and that he is to be worshiped above all else. We still turn away and we ignore him. So He seeks to remind His people of who he is and he gives them the law... Well they start to do ok with this instruction manual they have been given. The problem is we now depend on our own obedience of the law to ensure our salvation. Well we get to Jesus and He has come to fulfill the law so that we can gratefully realize that all God want's (and has ever wanted) is a relationship with his creation. Relationship as it should be full of the things of God (Love, Joy, Patience, Gentleness, Meekness, Self-Control...) Well we have been doing this law stuff for a LONG time and we are pretty used to it. So we don't want to give it up... So in essence we are still trying to please God by doing things that are no longer necessarily because they have been fulfilled by Jesus. So now all our works are void. This is where we stopped I think. Jesus spent a lot of time teaching against religion. That's why the religious leaders hated him. He was saying that all of there efforts were now worthless. They hated that because if all you needed was a relationship with God then that meant that they were on the same level as everyone else. How can you judge if you are the same as everyone?
In saying all that I guess the point I am trying to get at is that we are in a never ending cycle. Either we are at the point of being discontent and seeking other god's... or we are so caught up in what we can and can't do. Religion is this to me... It is a state of seeking to be good enough. To pursue "perfection". Now religious people may be some of the most moral people that you may know... There's nothing wrong with having morals. The problem is when we focus so hard on the rules we miss out on the relationship. Jesus told us to "come follow me". And we teach that in our churches. Then we come up with all these formula bible studies to attempt to "look like Jesus". What we miss is what Jesus looked like. Jesus hung out with the down and out. He was so outside the norm of his time. People didn't always think highly of him... a lot of people thought he was a drunk or crazy. He didn't fit in. He didn't pay attention to all the religious practices. People came first to him no matter where they were at (in church or not) Jesus never would turn someone away because of their appearance or previous choices. He did not snub others because they didn't follow the same rules as him.
Gandhi once said "I love your Christ but I hate your Christians". Some people will be really upset that I quoted a man such as Gandhi because that is taboo in being a religious christian. So they will probably ignore how very sad that statement is. Christian means little Christ... If this man can honestly say that He loved Christ but not the people that are supposed to be representing Christ we should be asking where we are going wrong! I have watched too many religious christian's drive people away from Christ because they didn't fit the mold religion has created. This is unacceptable.
So maybe we should re-examine our goals. If we are focused on effort rather than seeking then something is wrong. If we are giving up on people because we think they could never "change their ways" then something is wrong. If we are more focused on our appearance than Christ's appearance then something is wrong. Everyone's relationship with Christ is their own. It is between them and God. We have no room to judge what God may be speaking in their lives. I am not even allowed to judge "closed minded" people. That is not my place. My place is allowing Christ to cultivate a relationship with me. He will teach me in ways that others may not understand. My place is also to love others because I am seeking to be like Christ and He IS love.
I hope some of that made sense and you got what I was trying to convey. I struggle with anger against religious christianity because I have seen it hurt so many people I love. God will heal my heart from this and I will learn to love them as Christ does. However, I stand firm in my conviction that we are meant to be Christ followers and not rule followers. I will study the life of Christ and who He is not someone else's idea of what a christian should be.
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