Pure Religion

Cook County News-Herald        THE GOOD NEWS for 5/15/2010

People have opinions, in case you hadn’t noticed. I read an article this week about current Supreme Court justice nominee Elena Kagan. The AP article by Tom Breen noted that if Kagan is confirmed there will be no Protestants on the Court and that would mean “none of the justices would be rooted in the Protestant Reformation traditions that shaped the country from its earliest stages.”

While that has intriguing implications which Breen’s article explored, what I found more intriguing were the blunt comments that followed the article on the Yahoo! page. Most of the remarks were fired like flaming arrows at “religion.” One amateur commentator defined religion as one of the world’s great problems. He cited his reasons for his opinion: “genocide, child molestation, 911, stoning of women, etc.” These atrocities comprise “religion” to that person. Those atrocities define “religion” for a lot people.

And frankly, if those acts of indecency, immorality, and injustice were in fact a full and adequate description of “religion,” I’d be hard pressed to have much faith in religion either. Fortunately (or “providentially”), though sin and human moral failure do cloud both the expressions and experiences of “religion” they do not encompass the real, true religion which God by His own testimony affirms and accepts.

Did you know God has an opinion about “religion”? Did you know that He actually sets out in writing what tenets of “religion” He finds acceptable and pleasing to Him? The New Testament letter of James provides a stark, bold faced definition of “religion”: Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world (James 1:27, ESV).

Religion, according to God, should accurately reflect two essential characteristics of God Himself: active compassion towards the culturally, physically, socially, economically vulnerable in their need, and persistent, personal, practical godliness. True religion is not one or the other, according to the Bible, but both together. Perhaps the general public’s view of religion has been twisted because those who practice “religion” have been tilted toward one or the other to the exclusion of one or the other.

Some have understood “religion” strictly in terms of one’s personal relationship with God without concern for compassionate interaction in the lives of those around them. Others have understood “religion” solely on the basis of social intervention without considering any personal relationship with or accountability to God. Both situations are inadequate expressions of true religion, from this New Testament standpoint.

When a man came to Jesus and asked him what was the greatest commandment, a question not unlike “what’s your opinion of the best religion,” Jesus answered, “The greatest commandment is this: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, and your strength.” But he did not stop his answer there. He continued, without being asked, “And the second is like to it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” True religion, pure and undefiled before God, the Father, loves God and loves others. There is not one or the other. There is both or there is not true religion. Jesus would not let us get away with thinking otherwise.

True religion, then, excludes genocide. It leaves no room for molesting children or destroying buildings and lives with airplanes, or ignoring the poor, or ignoring the condition of one’s own heart. True religion, though still subject to being rejected by the selfish or uninformed, lives to love. Just like Jesus. There is love for God and there is love for people, and that love is neither theoretical or hidden, but active, open, public and powerful.

I suspect there is a great deal of opinion about “religion” based not on truth but on failure, the failure of some, even many, to live a “true religion.” It is never wise, however poor the prevailing example might be, to “throw out the baby with the bath water.” Don’t settle for the regurgitated disgust of some disheartened complaint. Come and see for yourself. Come and see the love God offers in Jesus Christ.

Jesus exemplifies true religion and offers to live the life of love in and through those who put their faith in him.

That’s the Good News.