7 Reasons to Leave Religion

Recently it has become “hip” for a Christian to say, “I hate religion – I just have a relationship with Jesus.” Any reasonable person looking at their life finds this ridiculous, because the “non-religious” person often attends church, reads her Bible, prays, and feels bad when she doesn’t. That’s a religion. This person is extremely religious, she just wishes she was “cool-er” than the other christians…which happens to be another strike against her. She seems to be subconsciously trying to climb the religious heap by claiming to hate people who climb the religious heap, much the way a Presidential candidate will make a campaign out of their distaste for politics and politicians. Both the politician and the “non-religious” person cause thinking people to be disgusted and put off by their whole clique: politicians/politics and christians/Christianity, respectively.

Admittedly, “religion” is not the popular group to be a part of, but one can hardly call himself a Christian without it! There is no Christian mentor to be found who isn’t highly religious: Jesus – highly religious, Paul – highly religious, Mother Theresa – highly religious, Abraham – highly religious, John – highly religious, all the disciples and early church leaders – highly religious, Martin Luther – highly religious, Augustine – highly religious. These people may have fought against others who were highly religious, but the fact still stands that they were highly religious themselves.

If both groups (the Christian examples and the religious detractors) were highly religious, religion is neither the cause of a healthy spiritual life nor the cause of an impotent one. Simply being opposed to religion, therefore, does not advance a person’s spiritual potential - instead, it may greatly hinder it. In fact, when Jesus corrected the religious people of his time, He says, "You think you're so good because of your religion, but your hearts are wicked, you're unjust, and you don't take care of the poor.  You should be doing all those things AND keep your religion." (Luke 11:42) Although hating religion does not make a person more spiritual, being aware that religion does not cause a healthy spiritual life may inspire a person look elsewhere for their spiritual validation.

So where does religion hurt and where does it help?  To explore the former, here are some of the reasons I have been put off by the religion in church:

1) the church has once again replaced people’s conscience
2) church vocabulary is suspiciously hard to understand
3) christians are boring
4) requirements for salvation are too strict and often ridiculous
5) the church often tries to control and rank its customers
6) the church’s message is irrelevant
7) religious people often act as if they are superior to non-religious people

1) Church has replaced people’s conscience: people feel a conviction to live the christian life they hear about in church instead of finding out what kind of life God wants them to live.

Examples flood the life of anyone trying to attend a church regularly.  Three of them easily come to mind:
- “I used to drink before I got saved.”  As a drug and alcohol counselor, I understand that freedom from an addiction is a major advantage to submitting to a higher power.  However, equating consumption of alcohol with qualification for salvation is ludicrous.
- The “F” word versus the “G” word: the Bible explicitly and repeatedly commands us not to use God's name when we're not using it to address Him or show Him honor.  Still, most Christians freely use the phrase "Oh my God!" but will ground their kids for two weeks without hesitation if the "F word" comes out of their mouths.  I'm not trying to endorse either of these phrases, just point out that Christians are listening more to their Christian culture than their Bibles to decide their actions.

- Someone in church will say, “We’re praying for him to get saved, but he’s been a heavy smoker all his life.”  Hopefully my frustration on this one is obvious, but the occurrence of similar statements is frustratingly common.

Both the church and the people benefit from a church-led religious rule set. The people don’t have to bother with the time-consuming task of hearing from God, and the church gains God’s position. The Jews did this in the desert, as Moses was leading them. God wanted to speak to the people, and they told Moses, “How about you talk to God and then tell us what he said.” Fortunately, Moses, unlike many church leaders, hated leadership and did not want more friends. Those two qualities allowed him to play such a role perfectly, but leaders who don’t want to lead and are not looking for people to praise them rarely become leaders unless a burning, speaking bush threatens their lives. Good pastors would agree: Christians need to hear from God, not just their pastors.

2) Church vocabulary is suspiciously hard to understand.  Christians, like any other social sector, find much of their belonging in their ability to use the vocabulary of their clique.  It's what separates them from "the others".  Using words like grace, mercy, the Word of God, and faith make the christian feel like one of the family.  However, unlike other cliques, these words constantly get redefined in churches. If you ask 10 different christians what "grace" is, I can guarantee you will get at least 8 different answers.

Conveniently, a church’s mission often something like: “You must have faith in the saving grace from the mercy of the Word of God.” The pastor then tries to define each term for the congregation, perhaps with a sermon series on any of the above poorly-defined terms. The people are desperate enough to do good in the eyes of the church (therefore, God) and/or they are uneducated enough that they will accept what flows from the pulpit as if it were the very utterance of God Himself.  Meanwhile, Christians who are studying their Bibles, reading, and hearing from other Christian leaders find that definitions for many of these words often conflict with each other, rendering someone wrong.  (Admittedly, it must be difficult to have to come up with a new sermon each week that provides an "aha" moment for the patrons.  If fighting for the attention of people who mostly want to sit there and get attendance credit must be mind-fraying, how much more the task of inspiring them to action!)

3) Christians are boring.  Many Christians seem to slowly devolve from being excited, motivated Christians to being religious people with the religious vocabulary and the religious answers, having memorized the religious verses, with a Stepford religious outlook: I’m happy about life because that’s the way my religion says I should feel. They may be going through a divorce, feel lonely or suicidal, but when you ask them how they are when you see them at church, they’ll say, “I’m blessed.”  I want to avoid whatever it is that makes a person like that.

4) Requirements for salvation are too strict and often ridiculous.  None of the disciples said the sinner’s prayer. Jesus does not give a list of things to do in order to be saved like the church does. Jesus forgives the sins of the people who believe He is better than them. They come to Him for healing, and at the point that they believe that He is the kind of person who can heal them, He says “Your sins are forgiven.” He does not give them a list of tasks to accomplish. He usually does not even define their sin. He says to a woman, “Go and sin no more.” He and she have an unspoken understanding, so he gives no definition of what that means at all. Without a single doubt, had ANY of the religious leaders (or the religious leaders of today, for that matter) followed that woman home, they would have found her in violation of Jesus’ command. After all, she may have stopped hooking, but she still drank; or she stopped stealing, but she still didn’t tithe. The problem for the religious leaders is that Jesus said, in essence, “Don’t violate your conscience,” instead of, “Don’t violate the church.”

5) The church often tries to control and rank its customers.  There is no Biblical pre-requisite for evangelism. At what point did the disciples attend their seminary or get their theological training? Jesus did not send the church founders to a formal training or require ANY certification before he commissioned them with great responsibilities. Jesus did not ensure the disciples would not fail before He sent them out. The only prerequisite for ministering seems to be the commitment to His sovereignty.

6) The church’s message is irrelevant.  It can’t decide who the target audience is. The gospel is only useful for the desperate, the hurting, and the confused. That's the target audience. There is no use in trying to appease the rest. Part of the reason Jesus was free to turn away the rest (the rich and others who were 'considering' following Him) was that He could afford to turn away their money. He didn’t need to use the right words to keep the people who would help him pay the electrical bill. Churches often do. Thus, the church becomes double-minded: it must preach a gospel which is only good for the desperate in such a way that it does not offend the non-desperate, who make the preaching of the gospel possible in the first place.

7) Religious people often act as if they are superior to non-religious people. (While this is not a great reason to reject religion, it makes the whole idea very distasteful.)  This idea is more greatly supported in the post "Christians are the Worst".

In spite of all of these great reasons to toss religion aside, Christians are still without a non-religious leader. I think this is because the religion is necessary. The rituals, the works, the habits, the duties – they cannot be separated from a Christian life even though the people who do them most professionally are usually revolting. I find this to be equally true in love: I cannot keep a love relationship without keeping the appointments, the celebrations, the acts, the gifts, and the rituals; but the people who do those things with the most flare and the most expertise are often the players, the hustlers and the pimps who make the whole thing disgusting. They mimic the effects of love, creating a counterfeit relationship to gain a position of power over the recipient. This is the same thing Jesus accuses the Pharisees of doing to God: completing all the good works they can to force God into accepting them despite their cold hearts.

Thus, the answer and the real challenge for a religious person is to stop looking at their religion as a way to please God, and use it as an indicator about the really important things.  For example, if I'm not praying, the solution is usually not to just spend more time in prayer - the Pharisees prayed constantly.  The real problem is that I don't have a desire to pray.  I know there's a problem when my religion fails, but I shouldn't look to fix the religion.  I seek to change from a works-based method to a works-based evaluation.