The Myth of a Christian Religion Read online

  I was right. Fortunately, I came to realize that religion doesn’t save people. Religion, in fact, may be one of the greatest obstacles to being saved. To participate in the fullness of Life that comes from God, we must revolt against the idolatrous life offered us from religion.

  IDOLATRY AND RELIGION

  At this point some readers may be getting upset—or at least confused. Isn’t Jesus the founder of Christianity, the one true religion? How can a Christian author suggest that Kingdom people are supposed to revolt against religion?

  Please hear me out. It is a crucial, though subtle, point.

  When I speak of religion, I’m referring to any system of beliefs and behaviors people embrace and engage in as a means of ascribing transcendent worth to themselves. It’s a means for people to experience a worth that they believe goes beyond what anything in this world can give them. As I use the term, therefore, religious people feed the hunger of their heart by striving to impress whatever picture of God or gods they embrace with the rightness of their beliefs and behaviors—in contrast to the wrongness of others’ beliefs and behaviors.

  While wealth, power, and sex are the most prevalent idols in Western culture today, religion is historically the most common idol people latch onto. It’s also proven to be the most dangerous.

  Here’s why. While all idols instill a particular version of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil within us, religion often inclines people to give their version of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil divine authority. And while all idols incline people to act aggressively to protect and advance their “good” and resist what they judge to be “evil,” religion often gives this “good” and “evil” eternal significance. Religion significantly “ups the ante” on idolatry and judgment. So it’s not surprising that religion has often inspired violence throughout history and continues to do so today.

  For the same reason, religious idolatry is particularly resistant to the Kingdom of God. It’s no coincidence that the main opposition Jesus faced in establishing the Kingdom came from the guardians of the religious status quo—the Pharisees, religious scribes, and the like. So it should not surprise us that the main opposition to advancing the Kingdom in our own day comes from contemporary guardians of the religious status quo.

  To establish and manifest the beautiful Kingdom in his day, Jesus had to revolt against religion. To advance and manifest the beautiful Kingdom today, we must do the same.

  THE KINGDOM AND THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION

  But isn’t the Christian religion an exception, you might ask? After all, in contrast to all other religions, this religion professes the truth.

  I don’t dispute that Christianity professes important truths. Nor am I suggesting that faithfulness to the Kingdom requires followers of Jesus to revolt against any particular Christian doctrines (or even reject true things they find in other religions, for that matter).

  The Kingdom’s revolt against religion, including the Christian religion, is on a totally different level. It is a revolt against all attempts to get Life from particular beliefs—including true ones. For where God truly reigns over an individual or a community, their only source of Life is God, not the rightness of their beliefs.

  THE ALL-IMPORTANT CRITERION

  If you’re still puzzled, try thinking about it this way.

  In the last chapter we saw that the New Testament teaches that expressing Christlike love is the most important aspect of the Kingdom, compared to which nothing else really matters. In this light, what are we to think of the Christian church when, in the name of Christ and for the glory of God, it engages in violence against its enemies? 2 The Church that tortured and murdered heretics, Muslims, witches, and Jews was certainly orthodox in its core beliefs. Yet—call me crazy if you will—it seems to me this barbaric activity wasn’t expressing Christlike love. And since the New Testament teaches that anything that doesn’t express Christlike love is devoid of Kingdom value—no matter how true and impressive it might otherwise be—we can only conclude that the Church that engaged in this anti-Christ activity was not the Kingdom.

  Jesus never tortured or murdered his enemies. He gave his life for them. Insofar as Christianity motivated people to torture or murder enemies rather than die for them, it wasn’t following Jesus. It wasn’t part of the Kingdom.

  It really is that simple.

  WHO’S THE REAL HERETIC?

  If love is above every other consideration, and if everything without love is devoid of Kingdom value, as the New Testament teaches, then it seems we should regard the command to love to be the ultimate test of orthodoxy. To fail to love like Jesus is the worst form of heresy, regardless of how true one’s beliefs are. Demons believe true things, James tells us, but their true beliefs are worthless because they are not accompanied with works that reflect God’s love.

  In the sixteenth century John Calvin had Michael Servetus burned at the stake for denying that Jesus was the eternal Son of God and for rejecting infant baptism. 3 Servetus’ denial of Jesus’ deity was indeed unorthodox, but in light of the all-or-nothing emphasis of the New Testament on manifesting Christlike love, how can we avoid concluding that Calvin was himself guilty of a far worse heresy?

  Church history is full of people being tortured and put to death for such heresies as not acknowledging the authority of the Church, baptizing wrongly, and denying the Trinity. Yet we don’t have any record of anyone so much as having their hand slapped for embracing the worst heresy imaginable—namely, failing to love and do good to one’s enemies, as Jesus commanded. That leaves me speechless!

  Defenders of the tradition sometimes argue that we can’t hold ancient Christians to modern humanitarian standards. Life in the ancient world was just more violent, they claim.

  This argument, however, is not very compelling. Jesus and the early church lived in eras that were at least as violent as any in Church history, yet they managed to love their enemies rather than engage in violence against them. The same could be said of a number of individuals and groups throughout Church history. For example, when Calvinists, Lutherans, and Anglicans tortured and killed Anabaptists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the victims followed the example of Jesus and refused to fight back. Their faithfulness to the Kingdom bears witness against the faithlessness of those professing Christians who persecuted them. 4

  This is not to suggest that we can pass judgment on Calvin or anyone else in Church history. We are ourselves sinners who have planks sticking out of our eyes, so we must leave all judgment up to the One who alone knows the innermost hearts of people. But this doesn’t mean we can’t discern what is and is not the Kingdom. We can’t place ourselves above others—not even those who murdered “in Jesus’ name.” But we can and must clearly separate torturing and killing in Jesus’ name (or for any other reason) from the beautiful, Christlike Kingdom. Insofar as the Church engaged in activities like this, it was involved in the most heinous form of heresy imaginable—its orthodox beliefs notwithstanding.

  Whenever we get our worth, significance, and security from the rightness of our personal or national religion rather than from God, we will inevitably fall into the heresy of failing to love. We can only manifest the beautiful Life of the Kingdom if we receive this beautiful Life from the King.

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF HOLINESS

  One of the most shocking aspects of Jesus’ ministry is that he befriended tax collectors, prostitutes, and other “sinners.” He even went to parties with them! They seemed to want to hang out with Jesus. This tells us something important about the Kingdom of God.

  Prostitutes and tax collectors were ranked at the bottom of the righteousness scale in first-century Jewish religion. These two groups epitomized everything this religion stood against. Prostitutes were viewed as undermining the moral fabric of society, while tax collectors were seen as traitors because they worked for the oppressive Roman government, which most Jews despised. No wonder Jesus’ association with these groups ruined his r
eputation among religious leaders (see, for example, Matthew 9:11; Mark 2:16; and Luke 5:30).

  The contrast between Jesus and the religious leaders of his day gets us to the heart of the difference between the Kingdom and religion. Though Jesus was sinless, prostitutes and tax collectors wanted to hang out with him. His kind of holiness didn’t repel sinners. It attracted them. By contrast, prostitutes, tax collectors, and other sinners stayed far away from the Pharisees and other guardians of the religious status quo. The “holiness” of the religious crowd repelled them.

  Why this stark difference? Because Jesus and the Pharisees had two radically different ways of being holy.

  The word holy means “consecrated,” or, literally, “set apart.” Jesus was set apart by living in perfect submission to God and perfectly manifesting the Life of God. This is the Life everyone hungers for, so prostitutes, tax collectors, and other sinners found themselves drawn to him. Something about the holiness of Jesus made them feel more fully alive than they’d ever felt before.

  The “holiness” of the Pharisees and other religious leaders was of a different sort. What “set them apart,” in their view, was how they contrasted with people like tax collectors and prostitutes. At its core, their idea of “holiness” was predicated on their religious idolatry.

  While the holiness of Jesus ascribed unsurpassable worth to people, the “holiness” of the Pharisees detracted worth from people as they ascribed worth to themselves. The holiness Jesus manifested fed people, while the judgmental “holiness “of the Pharisees fed off of people.

  Jesus’ holiness manifested the unique and beautiful holiness of the Kingdom, and it contrasts with the ugly, idolatrous “holiness” of religion in the strongest possible way.

  THE WARFARE BETWEEN THE KINGDOM AND RELIGION

  Religious leaders of Jesus’ day knew that if Jesus’ way of living and loving reveals what God is truly like, they could no longer feel special and worthwhile before God on the basis of how they contrasted with robbers, evildoers, adulterers, tax collectors, and prostitutes. The same is true today.

  If Life can only be received from God for free, then all the other ways religious people try to find God’s Life are worthless.

  If God’s estimation of people is based completely on what he has done for people on Calvary, not on what people do for him, then religious people can no longer get Life from the fact that they are set apart from others because of their right beliefs and behaviors.

  If the way Jesus attracted sinners is what it looks like when God reigns, then the way religious people repel sinners must be against God’s reign.

  If Jesus manifests the Kingdom of God, then, as Jesus explicitly taught, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of religious idolaters like the Pharisees (Matthew 21:31). Nothing could have been more shocking to a first-century Jewish religious audience than this statement.

  The Kingdom revolution cuts to the heart of religion and forces idolaters to make an important decision. They must either repent, which means turning from their religion as a source of Life, or they must cling to their religion as a source of Life and resist, at all costs, the movement Jesus came to establish.

  The majority of the religious leaders in Jesus’ day chose the latter—which is why they crucified him.

  WHERE ARE THE PROSTITUTES?

  Let’s bring this closer to home by asking: What kind of holiness does the Western Church manifest today? To answer this, we need only ask: Are the prostitutes and tax collectors of our day attracted to us or repelled by us?

  While there are wonderful examples of Kingdom communities who attract, embrace, and transform those who are most judged and marginalized by society and religion today, on the whole today’s prostitutes and tax collectors steer as far away from Christians as they did the Pharisees in the first century.

  Nothing could be a greater indictment of the modern Church than this.

  Jesus was known for the scandalous way he loved. The religious people viewed him as an anarchist eroding the moral fabric of society because of his refusal to recognize their all-important distinction between their “holiness” and all they judged to be “unholy.” Tragically, Christians today often see themselves as the primary defenders and promoters of this very distinction. Rather than viewing themselves as “the worst of sinners,” as Jesus and Paul command, many view themselves as the morally superior guardians of society who will protect it from those they judge to be “the worst of sinners.” So, instead of being known as outrageous lovers, Christians are largely viewed as self-righteous judgers. 5

  No wonder the prostitutes and tax collectors of our day are repelled by us.

  It’s time for the Church to free itself from the religious holiness of the Pharisees and begin to manifest the holiness of the Kingdom. It’s time for us to realize that our calling is to serve people sacrificially—including prostitutes, tax collectors, and enemies—rather than judging them. It’s time we cease getting Life from the rightness of our beliefs and behaviors and return to getting it from the one true source of Life.

  Viva la revolution!

  CHAPTER 6

  THE REVOLT

  AGAINST INDIVIDUALISM

  If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten

  that we belong to each other.

  MOTHER TERESA

  No man is an island, entire of itself;

  every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

  JOHN DONNE

  FROM QUASI-AUTISTIC LONER

  TO COMMUNITY ENTHUSIAST

  A friend once described me as “charmingly eccentric.” I’m not sure about “charming,” but I can’t deny the “eccentric.” I’m not eccentric like Howard Hughes or “Rain Man.” Just, perhaps, a wee bit short of completely normal. In fact, I’ve had two experts on autism tell me I have certain “autistic characteristics.”

  It’s weird. While the Myers-Briggs Inventory test lists me as an introvert, I instinctively act like an extrovert around people. I genuinely love people, and even love being around them—in limited doses. After any prolonged social interaction, however, I have to retreat into my “cave” (as my wife, Shelley, calls it).

  When Shelley and I were married in 1979 we had two major issues to work through. First, we had to negotiate how much time I spent in my cave versus how much time I spent with her. We’ve been married twenty-nine years, and we still at times have to negotiate that one. Second, we had to negotiate how much time I spent in my cave versus how much time we as a couple spent with other people. It took awhile, but this one we’ve actually resolved.

  You see, like most normal people, Shelley wanted us to make friends with other couples. I was fine with this, theoretically speaking. But when it came to actually doing it, I usually resisted. The books in my cave just seemed more stimulating and less draining than actual people. But one must make sacrifices to keep a marriage working, so Shelley on occasion managed to drag me to these get-togethers.

  Then, slowly, a curious thing began to happen. I discovered that every now and then I actually enjoyed visiting people rather than staying in my cave. I even discovered, slowly but surely, that people could sometimes be more interesting than books—just in a different way.

  Over time, I actually began to feel I needed to get together with people. A certain vacancy in my life, which I wasn’t even aware of before, seemed to get filled when I was in close relationships with people.

  Today, I can’t believe how my life has changed.

  For the last sixteen years my wife and I have belonged to a small community of people that has become so close that I can’t imagine living without them. Our community has evolved over the years, but four couples, including Shelley and myself, have consistently formed its core. We have an extended small group that includes about thirty people, including our kids and some younger friends.

  Once a week (on average) our group gets together to pray, worship, minister to people in our neighborhoo
d, go to movies, play games, go out to eat, dance, or just hang out. We usually have a great time. If I may modestly say so, we’re so much fun our kids (most of whom are now young adults) often want to hang out with us.

  Over the years we’ve laughed, cried, fought, made up, shared hopes and disappointments, and grown together. We’ve helped raise each other’s children, fix each other’s homes, work on each other’s cars, and mend—and sometimes rescue—each other’s marriages. We’ve helped each other work through personal issues as well as a vast array of relational conflicts and spiritual struggles. We’ve helped refine each other’s politics, construct each other’s theologies, and grown in our commitment to radical Kingdom living.

  When the husband of one of the couples lost his job, the rest of us pooled our resources to support the family for the four months it took for him to get back to work.

  At least once a year we take a weeklong vacation together. Our kids often join us.

  The guys in the group are all musicians, so we formed a band that plays ’70s and ’80s classic rock as well as some contemporary worship music. I’m the drummer. We’re called Not Dead Yet. We’re not great, but we have a lot of fun and raise a lot of money for charities.

  One of the couples in our group felt led to start a ministry to impoverished children in Haiti, so we all pooled our resources to help support it. Out of this ministry several other ministries in Haiti have evolved that we’re also involved in. 1 At least once a year those who are able travel to Haiti to tend to these ministries, sometimes taking their kids with them. A few of our kids and friends have lived and ministered in Haiti for extended periods of time.