For our purposes, let us define religion as an institutionalized set of beliefs practiced by a large group of people or sects. Our discussion will focus mostly on the Christian religion (protestant and catholic).
Since the inception of the religion we call Christianity—the organization that follows the teachings of Jesus—the church has been degenerating. As an obvious principle of history, the Christian institution gradually gravitates away from the principles taught by Jesus. Periodically, a “revival” attempts to reconcile the institution to the teachings of Jesus and restore the act of worship as it appears in the new testament.
Each successive revival may or may not restore the institution, but in time any genuine expression brought out by the revival is institutionalized as the organization once again gravitates toward error. In the scope of history, revival has only been successful at increasing the number of factions in the institution.
Whether the church is trending towards the true teaching of Christ or away from them in our current century is debatable. Overall, it seems to only be new and interesting forms of deviance coupled with temporary genuine expression.
At some point preservation of the institution begins to take precedence over preservation of the expression.
Such is the state of much of our organized religion today. Although genuine expressions exist within the catalog of “Christianity”, and genuine followers of Jesus exist within every sect, the system as a whole is institutionalized and broken.
Together with heavily publicized corruption of the mainstream forms of Christianity, the public is losing faith, no pun intended, in the system.
A realignment is necessary. Nuggets of the true teachings of Christ are hidden throughout the institution as a whole. As a group of free-thinking individuals we must strive to find the true message and put it into practice.
Americans are disillusioned by the Christian organization. There are so few examples of the faith put into practice as it’s preached that the popular perception is shifting from “principles that we don’t put into practice” to “principles that can’t be put into practice”.
The obvious question that’s begging to be answered – what are the principles and how do we put them into practice?
“As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’
Jesus relpied, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’
He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’
But the man replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’
Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’
Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.’
Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’” Luke 9: 57-62.
Jesus consistently calls for 100% throughout the gospels. If we don’t have Jesus’ words to rely on then there isn’t much point in continuing.
If we truly believe in Jesus’ message, then what’s our excuse for not giving 100%?
We believe that all people on the Earth, including our best friends, are condemned to suffer for eternity. We are among the few people with the cure, the truth that will save them from such a fate. What excuse could I possibly have for not doing everything I can, devoting 24 hours of every day to saving them?
If heaven is real, then this life is truly worthless.
God’s favor can not be bought with two hours a week. Faith and civic religious duty are not synonymous.
We’ve created a system to suit ourselves. Uniformity is easy, but the Lord “desires mercy not sacrifice”.
So much of what we learn is not based on sound interpretation of the bible. It’s time to re-evaluate the things that we blindly accept as accurate religious rules and rituals to determine if they are from God or from men.
We need to reassess our philosophy on what a church and the Christian community should look like.