Pet Sayings Exposed and Exploded, No. 20
“Christianity isn’t a religion”
David Heesen
“Christianity isn’t a religion … it’s a relationship.” In a sense this is true enough, depending on how you define religion.
People that say this probably define religion as a means of getting to heaven based on our own efforts or merits. The Oxford dictionary defines religion as: “the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods:“ According to this, Christianity would be a religion. The Bible has this to say about religion:
"If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their af,liction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." —James 1:26-27
I disagree with those that say Christianity is not a religion. I believe it is indeed a religion, the one, true religion. I have a
book in my library entitled True Religion and How to Get It.. John Brown, the author, uses scriptural texts to show us the way. In doing so he assumes his readers believe the Bible to be the Word of God. Back in his day (the 1800s) this was the default world view … that the Bible was the Word of God. Not so today. And I would say that unless you take it as a
given that the Bible is God’s message to you, then you will never ,ind true religion. Outside of the Bible there is no true
religion. There are many false ideas, religions, around today. Most of them are perversions of Christianity. Moslems believe in Jesus and God, but they don’t believe Jesus is God. Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t either. Nor do Mormons. What I’m getting at is that there are two kinds of religions, true and false. There are many false religions, but only one true religion (John 14:6). Christianity is that one true religion. It is essentially different from all other religions in that it thoroughly addresses the
issue of sin, realizes that mankind is incapable of remedying it, but teaches us that God Himself has remedied it through the death of His Son Jesus Christ on the cross. That is our only hope of making it to heaven. I hear you saying, “But what
about all those different denominations?” I would much rather be in a church with the word “Baptist” on the door than
some generic place which doesn’t take a stand, or doesn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. I can hear someone else say,
“forget religion; just give me Jesus.” Sorry, it’s a package deal—”he that cometh to God must believe that He is [i.e., get
religion, too] …” The C— church prides itself as being one church united, as opposed to Protestants who are fragmented. Then, I ask, what if the C— church is wrong? Then all of its parishes are wrong, too. Unity works both ways. To sum up, rather than saying Christianity is not a religion, one should stress that it is the one, true religion.
People that say this probably define religion as a means of getting to heaven based on our own efforts or merits. The Oxford dictionary defines religion as: “the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods:“ According to this, Christianity would be a religion. The Bible has this to say about religion:
"If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their af,liction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." —James 1:26-27
I disagree with those that say Christianity is not a religion. I believe it is indeed a religion, the one, true religion. I have a
book in my library entitled True Religion and How to Get It.. John Brown, the author, uses scriptural texts to show us the way. In doing so he assumes his readers believe the Bible to be the Word of God. Back in his day (the 1800s) this was the default world view … that the Bible was the Word of God. Not so today. And I would say that unless you take it as a
given that the Bible is God’s message to you, then you will never ,ind true religion. Outside of the Bible there is no true
religion. There are many false ideas, religions, around today. Most of them are perversions of Christianity. Moslems believe in Jesus and God, but they don’t believe Jesus is God. Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t either. Nor do Mormons. What I’m getting at is that there are two kinds of religions, true and false. There are many false religions, but only one true religion (John 14:6). Christianity is that one true religion. It is essentially different from all other religions in that it thoroughly addresses the
issue of sin, realizes that mankind is incapable of remedying it, but teaches us that God Himself has remedied it through the death of His Son Jesus Christ on the cross. That is our only hope of making it to heaven. I hear you saying, “But what
about all those different denominations?” I would much rather be in a church with the word “Baptist” on the door than
some generic place which doesn’t take a stand, or doesn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. I can hear someone else say,
“forget religion; just give me Jesus.” Sorry, it’s a package deal—”he that cometh to God must believe that He is [i.e., get
religion, too] …” The C— church prides itself as being one church united, as opposed to Protestants who are fragmented. Then, I ask, what if the C— church is wrong? Then all of its parishes are wrong, too. Unity works both ways. To sum up, rather than saying Christianity is not a religion, one should stress that it is the one, true religion.
© 2012 David Heesen (used by permission).