Religious, Spiritual, Both, Neither?

In this interesting opinion piece on the BBC news service, Tom Shakespeare talks about a new demographic religious category, SBNR: Spiritual But Not Religious. He generally categorizes that group as having "New Age" spirituality, ie sort of non-specific, uniquely personal, touchy-feely, and goes on to quote James Martin when he says that "spirituality without religion can become a self-centered complacency divorced from the wisdom of a community". I realized that even with a very specific spirituality, going the very modern individual route can end up in that self-centered complacency.

I came to believe in the living reality of Jesus and His Father, the God of Israel, a long time ago. I surrendered my life to Him and went on to experience fellowship with other Christians in various groups for the next few years. These groups were virtually unstructured, as we all sought to be led by the Spirit of God, and I, for one, had a very strong dislike of "organized religion" believing it to be full of hypocrites, unbelievers just going through the motions, perpetuating all kinds of erroneous and self-serving ideas about themselves, oppressing women, ignoring the poor, masking their love of worldly goods as God's blessings.

I still believe there are plenty like that in the Christian churches, but after about 20 years being on my own, a sort of christian hermit as I thought, I discovered a church of people that, while not perfect any more than I am, showed me how much I was missing by not having anyone to talk with and pray with, not having anyone push me to help to poor, or otherwise engage the world. Just by being who they are, they remind me that everyone has a different point of view, even those of us who are trying to follow Jesus. We all see Him from where we are, and while the Scriptures put important boundaries on who He is, we can all challenge each other to re-examine the details, if not the core, of our faith in Him, as iron sharpens iron. We can push each other to act on our beliefs and thereby strengthen them.

So while Mr. Shakespeare recommends trying religion even without spirituality, I suggest that religion is a false comfort at best, until you get your spirituality straight, but then don't fail to add religion to that.

What Did the Virgin Birth Do For Jesus?

Most people know that Jesus was born of a virgin, and that he lived a life without sin. At least that is the claim, and I believe it. This is not an answer to skeptics who question whether a virgin could conceive by the Holy Spirit: the question is why did that get Jesus out from under original sin? He was still born of a woman after all. And ALL, men and women, have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, including Mother Mary.

I believe that the answer lies in the difference between men and women, between Adam and Eve. See, it was Adam who was made out of the dust (heb. adamah) of the universe: he was made from the elements of the physical creation. The woman was made from a piece of the living Adam, not from adamah. And so, it was Adam's sin that brought sin into the world (Romans 5:12-14). The woman was beguiled - such a more accurate idea than merely 'deceived' - into eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam did it knowing full well that it was against God's command; he did it simply because Eve put it in front of him, typical guy; but they both received the knowledge of good and evil. When you look at God's reaction to this, you see that the consequences of her sin were visited upon Eve's body, but the consequences of Adam's sin were visited upon the whole world.

So it is that the generations of Adam, propagating out from him like a wave of smoke, inherit the knowledge of good and evil, which causes us all to go astray. Jesus avoided this inheritance by being conceived by God himself. He gained his authentic human nature from Mary his mother, and so was able to live a life, if only for 33 years, in loving fellowship with the Father as we were all originally designed to do.

If all he had wanted to do was set an example, he could have gone on living indefinitely, to the utter confusion of everyone around him; but there was much more to the plan, of course. He voluntarily gave up his life for us, a spotless sacrifice for sin that ultimately broke its power, and God raised Him from the dead a glorified new Adam. Now we too can choose to give up our lives, in a metaphorical way, surrendering our will to the Father by identifying with Jesus the Christ, ie the anointed sacrifice, and God will raise us up too, in Christ. Following Him out of love, we can receive the power to live life rejecting the knowledge of good and evil, abiding with the Father and the Son in the Spirit now and in the world to come.

Freedom of Religion vs Discrimination

Four state legislatures have recently passed bills that make it okay for a business to refuse to serve members of the public its owners deem objectionable for religious reasons. These bills have not become law, and the governor of Arizona, a Republican at that, made some very good remarks on the occasion of her veto. She pointed out that the bill before her, though it was couched as a defense of religious liberty, actually does nothing to protect religious liberty and does open the door to other social problems. Like discrimination.

My focus in this blog is Grace, not Law; but I respect the authority of the US Constitution almost as much as the Scriptures. Applying a similar style of literary criticism, I do not construe "the free exercise" of religion to include absolutely anything. That would be mindless legalism. Just as the right to free speech ends when you cry "Fire!" in crowded theatre, the boundary of the free exercise of religion ends at its interaction with society. Believe anything you want, but you cannot force your belief on anyone else, not under the U.S. Constitution.

Throughout the history of the United States, people have been trying to justify discrimination against one category or another of people citing First Amendment protection of their so-called Christian beliefs; but let me be clear about this: discrimination against either an individual or a whole category of people because of their supposed sins amounts to condemnation, and there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Do I have to cite the Scripture on that one? Do you good church-goers really think that you are somehow better than those people because your sins are not so bad? You do admit that you are not without sin, right? Well, Jesus made it clear that one sin is as bad as another. Adultery? It's just as bad if you merely lust after a woman in your heart. Murder? It's just as bad if you call your brother a fool. All sins lead to death.

You do not have to approve of any sin, but you do have to love your neighbor as yourself. And who is your neighbor? Anybody that God sends into your path. So lay down your self-righteousness, pick up your cross, and follow Him, the Lord Christ, the anointed lamb who gave himself for all of us. When the sins of someone else are revealed to you, the Christian response, that is, the response of those who are following Jesus the Christ, is to love and forgive, as He did and does. His message to a sinful world is not "y'all are goin' to hell!" but rather "your sins are forgiven!"

When you, a Christian, are brought into contact with a sinner, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Be the light of the world.