“Christianity isn’t a religion. It’s a relationship.” Have you ever heard something like this?
To quote Jimmy Mallory (whose post from four years ago reveals the popularity of this line of thinking): “The popular slogan certainly has truth in it, but it’s not the complete truth.”
Mallory continues, “The first time I heard this expression I was at a youth group function for church. It was a quippy alliteration that felt right to me. It contained an important truth that I needed to hear at that time: I have a relationship with God. It also gave me a reason to shrug away an annoyance: I no longer need to align myself with religious baggage that may make me seem weird, intolerant, and hateful. Therefore, I was able to have faith in a God who loves me, and I wouldn’t need to irritate my unbelieving friends because my belief is not technically a religion. I could have the best of both worlds because I could still have my faith without the baggage of religion… Something about Christianity not being associated with religion somehow made it more accessible and palatable [to me].”
In the very next paragraph, however, the same author writes: “It wasn’t until several years later that I began to question the merits of this sentiment.”
As one currently studying religion in a major research university while also practicing religion as a Christian and a minister, I am struck by the profoundly consistent, cross-cultural durability of “religion” throughout human history.
While “religion” is notoriously difficult to define (as many scholars have recently shown), there does exist an aggregate of behavior, belief, and impulse which together comprises religion.
Humans of various cultures, geographies, classes, and languages, perform rituals, value certain texts, and produce various material (i.e., art, objects, clothing), which together are classified as religious.
Whether it’s to explain a mysterious quality in the natural environment, to prevent certain things from happening, to give voice to that sense of “something more” in the human spirit, communities all over the world and throughout history have engaged what we call religion.
The mere fact that universities across America (and the world) still include “religion” as a major course of study shows that this aspect of human existence is both identifiable and worthy of study.
Something in our shared humanity leads us to act “religiously.”
Whether it’s viewing (or walking in) a parade in a certain place at a certain time of year; decorating one’s home in a certain way to commemorate a past event or story; or, putting on certain clothing and gathering with others in the same space to sit, stand, cheer, be silent, and then leave at the same time; religion is present in all of these actions.
Even those who might not personally identify as “religious” admit that religion is an observable, enduring trait within human civilization.
Given this fact, then, why might one say: “Christianity isn’t a religion. It’s a relationship”?
Up to this point, I have been talking about “religion” as an abstract, universal quality as opposed to “religions,” which denote discrete, self-enclosed institutions, systems, or movements.
This idea of a religion, however, without going into too much detail is a decidedly modern invention.
After the formation of the modern nation-state and the colonizing efforts of various European explorers, we began thinking of different (world) “religions”: i.e., discrete, separate, mutually exclusive institutions, systems, and/or movements.
In the ancient world, however (the one in which Christianity originated), religion was not like this at all; it was not separate from politics, economics, agriculture, family, but bled into all of these spheres of human life.
The ancients were profoundly religious, but this dimension was not held separate from the many other (overlapping) dimensions of human life.
While we tend to think of “religion” as separate from economic, political, and other social realities, the ancients didn’t think that way. For them religion pervaded all areas of human life.
In a sense then, Christianity isn’t a religion, but it certainly is religion.
At its beginnings, Christianity was not a new, discrete, self-enclosed system, movement, or institution, but a call for renewal within ancient Judaism.
What Christians went on to do –i.e., writing and reading special literature, performing certain rituals in certain places at certain times, making buildings, objects, and art which share similar themes and images –thus constitutes religion, in every sense of the term.
That impulse within human beings which is manifest across time, space, and culture, was thus activated in the new framework of Christianity.
The saying, “Christianity isn’t a religion. It’s a relationship,” suggests that what Christians have been saying, writing, thinking, and doing for nearly two thousand years, stands in isolation from that impulse clearly present in humans since the very beginning.
Perhaps some, in our modern, global “religious marketplace,” need to think of Christianity as so different from other “religions,” that calling it “religion” almost seems inappropriate.
Over time, however, I hope they would realize that Christianity is both religion and relationship, and that the religion Christ affords manifests an eminently human way of being in the world.
If my study of “religion” (as opposed to Christian Scripture or theology) has taught me anything, it is that despite the vast differences exhibited between humans throughout history, we all share a common impulse, activated (to varying degrees) through religious affiliations or other modes of life.
The fact that humans exhibit such religiosity shows that to be human is to be religious in some way.
Mallory, therefore, writes: “To be religious is to be whole. We need religion to relate rightly to God, to one another, and to creation. All the while, we rely on God to set our religion right as God continually renews our minds and forms us into a new creation, perfecting us in his image.”
Christianity is both religion and relationship. It is a means of relating to God our Creator through the religion afforded by his Son, Jesus Christ.
While some forms of religion mislead, confuse, or abuse, religion itself –as an enduring human trait which crosses countless borders and generations– can be a means of real union with God.
This holiday season then, as religion pokes its head out for all to see, I encourage you to affirm this ancient impulse in your life, and to let it find fulfillment in the writings, rituals, songs, and values which emerge from Jesus, God-with-us, Emmanuel.
Jonah Bissell
Pastor