Killing Religion?

I recently received notification of a new follower on Twitter and the “about” portion of this person’s profile says, “Love killing religion one life at a time” and then goes on to describe the founding pastor of such-and-such Church.

So, you’re a pastor and your bi-line on Twitter is “Love killing religion”?  How’s that working out for you?

Maybe I have just gotten tired of the “relationship versus religion” cliche.  I don’t see the hidden code in it anymore.  If you are a pastor and your vocation is to tend a flock of people who gather in whatever habitual manner for this event called worship...you aren’t killing religion.  

I’m not speaking of the newly broadcast phenomenon of the “nones” or the “spiritual but not religious” era that we are now comfortable talking about.  I have no issue with folks who claim to be in either of these categories because I have been one of those people.  I was a self-avowed free-range spiritual type who would not be stuffed into any cubby-hole.  I get that.

I have just lost my patience for the whole “you need a relationship more than you need religion” thing.  Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s maturity, maybe I’m just comfortable calling the demonstration of a relationship what it is: Religion.  

In my first church I had a parishioner come up to me and say that she didn’t like the way I did the communion service, that it was too ritualistic and she didn’t really care for ritual. (Of course she told me all of this by using the royal “we”... or it might have been the covert “some people.”) But what I shared with her is that she actually did like ritual; she just liked different ritual.  

When I arrived at the church I was told that the last Sunday of the month was “Birthdays and Anniversaries Sunday” where members of the congregation would come up and put coins into a little church, all the monies went to mission. 

I was also informed of several other little traditions of “how we do things here” -- all of which were rituals.  Rituals are patterns of behavior that become part of a culture.  Local congregations are full of little rituals, and sometimes a distinct lack of Ritual is part of their rituals.

So when I encounter folks who take pride in “Killing Religion One Life at a Time” and they are in the employ of the Church, I have to wonder if there are actually people out there who still need to hear those code words.  And I want to say something like, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

I think of it like this.  Religion is to a person’s relationship with the Divine, like demonstrations of love are to your significant other.  Of course, if you have never been in love AND if you have no real belief in the Divine then this analogy is probably lost on you.  But if you have either one then stick with me.

I have been married for 15 years. After this amount of time you would think that my wife and I would be rather comfortable in the knowledge of our love for one another.  We have a very healthy and secure relationship.  That being said, I still say to her pretty much every night before I go to sleep, “I love you, baby.”  And when we have been separated due to work requirements I have said it to her picture.  Why? Because love needs to be expressed.  If my wife ever stopped saying, “I love you” when I left for work, I would wonder if something was wrong.  Depending on how long a time passed, I would ask her about it.  And if she said, “Wow! Do you really need me to say that all the time? Can’t I just say it when I feel like it?”  If she said something like that it would hurt and I might wonder if she still loved me--and I know she would feel the same way if it was the other way around, too.

So why is it that we take this tact with our relationship with the Divine?  Some say that religion is about doing specific deeds to earn the love of God.  I think that’s a pretty petty and judgmental thing to say. Do folks get into ruts and go through the motions from time to time?  Sure.  Ever talk to a couple that has been married for 50 or 60 years or more?  They will tell you that they aren’t hot and steamy in love for each other all the time.  There is an ebb and flow to being “in love” but one thing is certain little rituals like, “I love you, baby” never went away.

And so it is with religion.  There is an ebb and flow, and there are time when we go through the motions.  As one pastor put it, “There are times that the Daily Office feels like sand in my mouth” but religion is the action that draws us to the water of life over and over and over again.  

What I know of our body’s need for water seems to be the way my spirituality needs practice.  If I go without water for an extended period of time, dehydration sets in, the body doesn’t function the way it needs to.  Pretty much everybody knows, you have to drink a certain amount of water every day whether you feel like or not.  In case of point, most folks know that if you feel thirsty you’ve gone too long without water.

This is the way I see the “Killing of Religion” from those who would call themselves Christian.  You’re inviting people to live in spiritual dehydration, telling them it’s okay to only drink when they are thirsty and hurting them spiritually in the guise of doing something good.