The only reason I have said yes to Christ’s offer was because someone has always been there to tell me I could be a Christian without being religious.
Growing up, I was always in and out on Jesus. It’s really sad to think of it now—to have a friend like Jesus, so powerful, so humble—to invite Him to come in and take over, and then a few months later to swipe the keys back from Him and escort Him out. That He would allow me to repeat that cycle several times shows His humility and yes, love, for me—He would have it no other way than I choose to give Him my heart.
But I came to Christ at a big church service that was not in a “church,” but in a convention center, not as a result of a powerful evangelistic message (heard plenty of those, and since) but as a result of hearing a testimony of two people, one a Christian artist, the other a Christian businessman. And the invitation was to a new way of life, a new way to walk with God, not to a religion. Then there was a guy named Ranger Gary Horton who came and talked tough to a bunch of us cadets about a faith in Jesus apart from religion, “Religion,” he said, “is a lie. I grew up in a town where one church said, ‘There ain’t no hell.’ And the one across the street said, ‘The hell there ain’t.’” My experience, too. Of course, he exhorted us to a relationship with Christ. And then I remember a good friend gave me a copy of a book called How to be a Christian Without Being Religious, a little paperback based on the book of Romans. I also remember getting hold of another book by an author of a brand of Christianity I was a part of for 10 years, without which I doubt I would’ve joined the brand I was a part of for 10 years, called No Wonder they Call Him the Savior. There’s an outstanding chapter in there called “A Candle in the Cavern” where he talks about of all the dark things Jesus came to save people from, religion is the most treacherous. This author reminded us of the hope we have for God to raise someone up at the right time to light a candle in the dark cave of religion, to show us the way out:
There is still a sizable amount of evil that wears the robe of religion and uses the Bible as a sledgehammer…And it is still often the case that one has to find faith in spite of the church instead of in the church.
But they have also observed that just when the religious get too much religion and the righteous get too right, God finds somebody in the cavern who will light the candle.
I know, I know. Walk into any church today and they will tell you that they believe in being a Christian without being religious—that it’s about a relationship with Jesus Christ. But walk into any church today and see if even that is practiced. Walk into any church today and ask them to change their order of worship, to change their style of music, to change the way they do “ministry”, to alter their current views on homosexuals, or drug abusers, or other deviants, to meet every evening instead of Sunday morning or something strange like that, and see if it’s not a religion. See if they will take a different stance on some doctrine that other churches in their denomination take, or other evangelical churches take or shoot, different than the Church of the last 2000 years has taken. Walk into any church today and see if they act like Jesus—cleansing the temple, having real compassion for people, intervening for the ones in bad situations, saying things like “How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” or “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” or “Will he not leave the 99 and go after the 1 that wandered off?” or “My house shall be a house of prayer.” In the last church you visited, did it go like this: “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need”? Did they have a lower divorce rate in the last church you visited than in the “unchurched”? Did they know anything of the lost art of one anothering? Like: greet each other with a holy kiss, look out for each other’s interests, accept one another, agree with one another, lay down your lives for each other, confess your faults one to another, rescue each other, love one another, wait for each other…? And I’m not down on churches—not at all—it’s just that the faith I profess has been hijacked by a religion called Christianity, and it’s suffocating it. And I don’t just see it—I feel it. We have started a new church, and the pull to keep the same religious plates spinning that we’ve always known is enormous. No, this is not about finding the perfect church—I’m amazed that it is exactly that pursuit which has created most of the schisms in the last hundred years in American church: every group is wanting to be “righter” than the church they break away from. Who cares who’s righter? (If you’re backpedaling now because I’m talking about not being righter, see if you’re not defending your religion rather than Christ.)
This is why there are a growing number of people who wouldn’t claim to be Christians, just followers of Jesus Christ. Christianity has in fact become a religion. Ask the rest of the world what being a Christian means—you may be surprised. Many of them know what’s really going on better than many Christians: Christianity is not about Jesus Christ, it’s about Christianity. It’s become a system of belief, and like any system of belief, it helps some and destroys others.
Strangely enough, though, some who come to Jesus Christ…live their lives with every step moving forward and with every fiber of their being fighting for the heart of their King. Jesus Christ has become the all-consuming passion of their lives. They are not about religion or position. They have little patience for institutions or bureaucracies. Their lack of respect for tradition or ritual makes them seem uncivilized to those who love religion. When asked if they are Christians, their answer might surprisingly be no, they are passionate followers of Jesus Christ. They see Christianity as a world religion, in many ways no different from any other religious system. Whether Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, or Christianity, they’re not about religion; they’re about advancing the revolution Jesus started two thousand years ago.
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