Religion vs. Love

[trentlogain2]

seemingly super spiritual people have told me that i need to throw religion out the window. i understand where they are coming from with statements like that. however, the word religion is used in The Bible in James 1:27. so at least in certain terms, "religion" is credible in the sight of God. it's traditions of men and being boxed in to a certain set of beliefs (denominational standards) that set people in bondage. we need The Holy Ghost to open our eyes.

 

[Ukrainia]

I've just started a book called "Bad Religion: how we became a nation of heretics." Really enlightening so far. It charts the rise of institutional Christianity in America after World War II, to what it's become today, which is so associated with moral therapeutic deism, at least by many who are nominally Christian.

Anyway, love is good, but the term becomes kind of vague and meaningless in today's culture without a grounding in the life, death and ressurection of Jesus Christ. What is love and if we should do it, why? Who best embodies love? Is it more important to love ourselves or others? You're going to get radically different answers depending on who you ask. Love is, I agree, vital, but there is more to the story than nice catch phrases, and the term shouldn't be seperated from what Christ has done for us.

 

[Sketcher]

I know people will think I'm being judgmental here, but when I see a lot of Christianity today, I see the Pharisees and how brutal they were with keeping in the law. And I believe even Jesus said in Matthew 23:13: "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in."

I have a blog written here on CF called "The Girl Who Wears Pants" and it's about a friend of a friend who had written about her first experience wearing pants because she was always taught in her church that women can't wear anything but dresses. And how when our church had a biker rally to preach the gospel, a group of bikers accidentally went to the wrong church and were kicked out because they weren't wearing a suit and tie. Or even the teenage girl who was asked not to come back to church unless she wears less "dark" clothing as she was a goth. That girl cried to me as she asked me why Jesus hates her so much because of how she dresses.

This is the state of Christianity today. Members are fighting over pews vs. chairs, they have a strict dress code and exclude members. My own mother once was turned away by a church because she didn't tithe.

The Christian church today goes about all these religious rituals and feasts, thinking they make us holy or bring us closer to God, but we turn people away. We aren't acting like ambassadors to Christ. We act like the Pharisees. And that's the idea behind Religion vs. Love. Because how we treat the least of these, is how we treat Jesus Himself. We totally forget the purpose of our faith and what the gospel preaches...that love is the greatest commandment.

Just as it has been said, "why should the devil have all the good music?" I will ask a similar question: Why should all the bad churches be the ones identified with religion? I'm religious. My religion, which is based on what Christ taught and what the Holy Spirit taught through the apostles, forbids me from acting like that.