Spiritual and "Religious"

"I'm spiritual, not religious."

"Christianity is a relationship, not a religion."

These statements are commonly used by well meaning Christians to communicate that their faith is not based on dead ritual, but on a dynamic, personal relationship with Jesus Christ...

Of course, this depends completely upon a definition of "religion" that is not based on how the Bible interprets the word.

The word "religion" in the Bible is not "dead ritual". It is, however, a word that describes how one responds to God, or how one honors God. 

Listen to how the apostle James uses the word "religion" in relation to the Christian faith:

James 1:26–27 (NIV) Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

In the Bible sense of the word, religious activities include worship, prayer, baptism, communion, attending church, helping the poor, etc. One's "religious" activities are a given - the question is how honoring to God is one's activity. In the scriptures, the question of religion has to do with how one honors God and cultivates their relationship with God - it's not an either-or situation - it's a both-and. 

The idea that one can have a relationship with God detached fro biblical religious acts is born of a new-age philosophy that disconnects all "religious" practices from one's faith. This is a twisting of the Christian faith that detaches from the activities demonstrated and taught by Jesus and lived out by his disciples. 

Again, if we mean "dead ritual" when we say religion, I agree - there is no place for this in a vibrant, kingdom-oriented Christian faith. However, if we're using the word "religion" in the scriptural sense, a vibrant, kingdom-oriented faith is religious in a God-honoring way based on a dynamic and growing personal relationship with Christ.


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