Why Religion Fails

Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.

G. K. Chesterton

Why does religion fail? Leonard Pitts writes in the Birmingham News today (March 16, 2009) under the title "Losing our religion: Why are so many people turning away from God?" Pitts is pretty much on target in pointing to modern day "organized [institutionalized – br] religion," and the fact that "God and religion are not synonymous," as major contributors to the growing lack of interest in religion and God.

There is no substitute for the simple, true Christianity revealed in the New Testament. It is not found in institutionalized religion, as Pitts well states; "Religion is what men and women put in place, ostensibly to worship and serve. Too often, though, religion worships and serves that which has nothing to do him [God - br], worships money and serves politics, worships charisma and serves ego, worships intolerance and serves self." It is for this reason many people have found religion difficult and leave it untried or having tried it turned away from God!

Maybe it's time for those professing to be New Testament Christians to wake up, not to smell the coffee and donuts in our assemblies (while that could, no doubt, be literal in some assemblies, I mean it metaphorically to refer to our view of the church as some kind of social club) but to heed the call to "preach the word, be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching." (2 Timothy 4:2) We need to quit playing religion in our assembling and worship Almighty God. It is not about us; it is about Him! Until we quit playing religion in our assemblies, our lives will never seriously reflect the faith that turned the world upside down! Let your light shine.

A Thinking Man's Religion

The New Testament is a way of life for people who are willing to think. However, to be sure, thinking is not the sine non qua (the essential element without) of only those who possess a degree of higher education. In point of fact, many with a lesser degree of formal education often grasp the meaning of the text, with greater ease, than some who have attained a higher degree of education (cf. I Cor.1:26-31).

Among the apostles and writers of the NT only a few of them possessed a higher education by academic standards. A fact, duly noted by the opposition to Christianity in the first century, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13 NIV). These men at times, were impulsive, impetuous and ignorant of the “bigger picture” of God’s purposes. However, no one can read or study their lives and seriously regard these “unschooled” men as credulous simpletons.

The academic and so-called religious world (and on occasion brethren) often fear what they are either unwilling to admit they do not know and/or honestly examine a contrary position to their own. Consequently, they disdain those who are humble in their confidence of what they believe.

Jesus taught the people to think for themselves with regard to the message of the OT as it pointed to the Christ and “the common people heard Him gladly” (Mark 12:37). Read carefully the gospel of “Mark chapters 11 and 12” noting the arguments advanced by Jesus contain no trace of esotericism (an understanding for only the enlightened or intellectual). One only needed to know what the OT said and to think about it in a proper way to come to the truth.

We must encourage independent study and thinking with regard to God’s word. Paul’s admonition to Timothy is: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15 NRSV). Our faith is not dependent on what another says the Bible teaches. It is to be determined by the Word and to that end we must think for ourselves. Some would discourage independent thinking because it puts them at risk. After all, one who is honest and truly thinks independently may end up differing with them.

The unifying factor of all truly faithful people is found in the truth, not in their agreement! Agreement in error is not a unity that is pleasing to God! However, if we reverence the Bible as God’s word, and we are honest in our pursuit of the truth, such like-minded people are obligated to examine their differences without regard to personalities or resorting to insults and innuendos. Independent thinking seeks neither to be right for right’s sake (I’m right you’re wrong) nor for the sake of winning an argument (I’m smarter)!

True independent thinking, in the midst of differences, seeks to be right for the sake of humbly submitting to it. This is true religion for all thinking people – it is for truth’s sake and not for self!