iCanuck

Why Religion Doesn’t Work

The church, no matter to what tribe (denomination) you belong, will continue to use control in such a way as to keep its membership in check.  And this is not just a local but a worldwide phenomenon.  People are leaving the church and there are many more who would like to leave because they are burned out on religious manipulation, but they have been made to feel guilty with the prospect of “there is no salvation outside of the church”. 

Dave Coleman in Why Religion Doesn’t Work

A book that many of the readers of this blog will be familiar with is  So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore.  The title tells all and is fairly self-explanatory. If you are tired of going through the motions, “playing church” each week, and finding that it does not bring you into a deeper relationship with Jesus, you will find hope for your journey in this book. You can get a free downloadable copy, read the book online, or buy a hard copy here.

While many of you will be familiar with this book, there is a wonderful article written by one of the authors of this book that yoy many not be familiar with.  The article written by Dave Coleman is called, Why Religion Doesn’t Work (again, a self-explanatory title!)

When Paul looked at life, he summed it up by stating that his one desire was to “know Christ and the power of His resurrection.”  Somehow we seem to have gotten way beyond that, and it is easy to do.  Years ago I found myself totally absorbed as a pastor in keeping the machinery going, doing everything that needed to be done from mowing the lawn to sweeping up the rice in the parking lot on Saturday night so that the matrons of the parish would not slip and fall as they came to service in the morning.  Admittedly (and shamefully I might add), the thought of a present Jesus in all His glory was not the highest of my priorities.  To survive, I had been trained, was to lay on the guilt and to say, indirectly if not directly to the membership, that they had better get their act together if the church was going to continue.  just like the majority of clergy today who are worried about job security.

The diabolical thing about this is that it worked.  If you threaten people (especially with God’s disfavor), you cause them to be afraid of possible eternal consequences and; this, in turn, results in causing anger at God.  I’m convinced that 90% of people attend church because they fear what might happen if to them if they don’t.  God will get them if they don’t have all the Sunday School stars filled in perfectly behind their names.

Therefore, when someone comes along and tells them that if they do this and if they don’t do that, God will accept them (even if they cheat a little after all they aren’t as bad as the next guy). But this kind of thinking always leaves a residue of uncertainty in one’s standing with God.  One can never be certain that God really loves him because the gospel was always presented on an “iffy” basis. It is tragic that so many of God’s precious ones have to die in fear and agony because in their most formative years they were taught some kind of religious moral behavior cause and effect modification, which is nothing short of Satanic legalism.

All through their church-going years nothing was ever said to the contrary.  This is the curse of conditional love: “God/We will love you “IF” you measure up,” and it expresses itself in anger when God doesn’t do what we expect.  Perhaps this is why the divorce rate is higher among people who attend church.  Perhaps this is why there is so much child and spousal abuse (85% happens in religious homes) in the church?  We might want to ask ourselves whether the church attract angry people or does the church produce them?

Of course, I believe that salvation can INDEED be found outside of church walls and I know that others are working through this very issue.

In the next few days, I will be posting a new study that is yet-to-be-published but deals with people who leave the church as a result of spiritual abuse.  If you want to be reminded of this, please consider subscribing either by the RSS button at the top-rith, or the orange EMAIL icon in the sidebar.

Comments are always welcome !