Today on the Evangelist Podcast, we asked the question: Doesn't religion poison everything?
SPEAKER_00The Evangelists Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you with Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_01Hello again to the Evangelist Podcast. We're going to be looking this week at uh the problem of religion. Introduce us to this uh topic then, Glenn.
SPEAKER_03Uh uh Christopher Hitchens wrote a great book uh called uh God is not great, um, and that was his great contention. And it has been a popular kind of uh contention ever since sort of Voltaire and people like that uh back in France, going back 300 years. Anti-religious kind of rhetoric um that's been very popular uh being used by agnostics and atheists. We'd be much better without all this mumbo jumbo kind of this hate-filled hypocrisy and and warmongering and all that kind of stuff. Um but actually when you trace it back only 300 years, you haven't traced it back to its true source, and you haven't traced it back to its strongest exponents.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03I think probably the strongest exponents of anti-religious sentiment are probably Jesus and then going uh back before the incarnation, probably the prophets. You can't read through Isaiah. Like when you read through Isaiah, you're thinking, okay, this guy, Isaiah would have Hitchens for breakfast. Not because he's disagreeing with the anti-religious rhetoric, but but because that his anti-religious rhetoric flows Hitchens actually. He got there way before. I mean, j I mean, just like think about the way that Isaiah kind of opens up his whole book in uh in uh Isaiah chapter one from verse 10, he says, uh hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Like he's addressing the Israelites. You're the most you know religious, respectable looking people in the world. You rulers of Sodom. Listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah. The multitude of your sacrifices, what are they to me? says the Lord. I have more than enough burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened animals. I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings, your incense is detestable to me. You know, when you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you. Even when you offer m offer many prayers, I'm not listening. So, you know, that and that's how he begins his book. And he keeps going through and and and as you read through Isaiah, you know, he's he coins the phrase holier than thou. You know, like one of the great kind of uh attacks on on Christians and on the religious in general is that they're so holier than thou. And so many agnostic people and atheist secular people want to say, I can't I could never have anything to do with Christianity because I can't stand the holier than thou types. And actually, Isaiah is here to tell us God can't stand the holier than thou types either. Actually, he he coins that phrase uh in Isaiah chapter 65, verse 5. Um go from verse um yeah, from verse 5. He says, There are people who say, keep away from me, don't come near me, for I am too sacred for you. Or in the King James Bible, I am holy than thou thou. And then what's the very next thing the Lord says? He says, Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day. So if if you don't like the holier than thou types, okay, th neither does God, um neither does the prophets. You come you come to to Jesus in the New Testament, and my goodness, he talks about the whitewashed graves of of the most religious people in the world.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03They're like a cup that's clean and gleaming on the outside and full of filth on the inside. They're like whitewashed tombs, they're the blind leading the blind, you know, all this all this kind of stuff that Jesus is is aiming at a certain kind of religion.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um so so in this case we would we would agree to some extent that uh you know religion does cause a number of uh catastrophic problems in the world. So obviously we're we want to make a distinction between religions, religious behaviour, and Christianity and the uniqueness, if you like, of of Christ.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean I mean some people th there were there was that um uh uh spoken word poem by uh Jefferson Bethke. Yeah. Um I don't I still don't know how you pronounce that. Bethke Bethke. Anyway, he um so he got like, you know, twenty million views without blinking.
SPEAKER_02Um and you know what if I told you that God is not like what you thought he was like, what if I told you that God hates religion?
SPEAKER_03And um very good question. Thank you. But he doesn't think so. I'm not I'm not in the same ballpark as as um Jefferson Bethke. But um uh that that really struck a nerve with people, and and people were really interested. Um, okay, he's having a go at religion, and he's saying it's Jesus versus religion. That was the name of the of the poem. Um and certainly he hit a nerve and people were like, yeah, okay, I could be really be interested in a Jesus uh if he's not like the religious kind of categories that I'd I'd had in mind previously. At that stage, some Christians sort of came back and said, hang on, hang on, you can't have a go at religion. We're you know, Christianity kind of is one. You're you're you're taking aim at your own kind of people here. On that, I uh I don't know, I actually kind of lean more towards Jefferson on this, that okay, you y there is a redeemable character to the to the word religion. You can redeem it and use it in a positive sense in the New Testament. But interestingly, it's only kind of used twice in the New Testament in a positive sense. That's that's that should be pause for thought. But whenever it's used, um, it's used, I think, from memory, it's used in in James chapter one, and it's also used, I think, in one Timothy one, I think you can we can we can check that in a second. But um in James chapter one and in and in one Timothy, um both James and Paul tie religion to taking care of orphans. Right. What is good and pure, you know, religion that our God you know finds acceptable? Um it's taking care of orphans, which is real which is really interesting. Um imagine yourself in the first century and somebody comes and and and says, uh, okay, you Christians, you're you're like a new religion. And the Christian goes, Hmm, I suppose sorta, kinda. You know, we call ourselves the way. We don't really call ourselves a sect, we call ourselves the way. We're followers of Jesus. And they say, Oh, but you're a religion, right? And the and the first century person says, Well, I suppose. Yeah, I suppose you could call us that. And then the pagan asks, Okay, well show us your religion. You know, and and at that point, what does the Christian do? Do they point to a temple? They don't have a temple. Do they point to sacrifices, they don't have sacrifices, do they point to a priest, they don't have a priest? What do they point to? The orphanage. Right? Okay, you wanna you wanna know you want to know what our religion is? Here's here's an orphanage. Here's a soup kitchen, here's us looking after the poor. And at that stage, yes, the New Testament uses the word religion, absolutely, and we can redeem the word religion. Uh you know, it mean it means a rule of life. And I suppose, you know, you can talk about Christians having a rule of life. Fine. But whenever we use it, it's it's a really subversive word, actually. So that it's not so much about anything that we offer to God in that ladder climbing way that there is the bog standard definition of what people what people think of out there in the world when they think of a religion, they think of a rule of life that actually ascends you into heaven, which is absolutely not what Christians believe, and it's not what Christianity is about. It's actually about having received a love from heaven that then ends up pouring itself out to orphanages, you know. And that's what that's so yeah, you can use religion, and yes, there is a positive use of religion.
SPEAKER_01But but generally we would sort of distance ourselves in a way from from Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I'm yeah, I'm I think Jefferson, what Jefferson Bethke did, for instance, I think is a good thing to say um Jesus versus religion. Because you just read through the gospels and you just see, like on every page, it kind of is Jesus versus the religious authorities. Yeah. That was that was a big clash. So so when people start saying, you know, isn't religious religion poisonous? Um, yeah, I I just want to say, oh, brilliant. Yeah, so you're you're with Isaiah then. You're with Jesus then, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, um position myself that way.
SPEAKER_01I can't see a Christopher Hitchens sort of saying uh yes, with Isaiah then.
SPEAKER_03Well maybe he would put uh I think he'd admire the rhetoric, and I think he'd admire the sort of magisterial kind of yeah, these these massive cannons that are just arrayed against human religion. All all your righteous acts are like filthy rags. Yeah. You know, I mean that that could have been a Hitchens kind of concept. Yes. Actually it was Isaiah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So uh in each of these uh times we've been looking at hot tops, we've been sort of relating three two one and going through it, and uh we we've looked at Jesus um and and how he handles the religious and you see him doing sort of the opposite of what you expect. You know, he provides wine at a wedding party, a lot of wine, quite a wine. A lot of wine goes to a temple and starts throwing all the furniture around.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. At the at the what is it, at the at the wedding he gets out the wine. At the at the temple he gets out the whips. Like that's that's a weird thing for the Son of God to do. But what's it what's and this is how John introduces him to the world. Here is the word of the Lord through whom all things came. He's the the the Lamb of God. And what does he do? What's his first sign to show us his his in-breaking kingdom? It's to produce like 700 bottles of wine, basically. Um more than anyone could ever possibly use in a single wedding. And then the very next thing, he's moving the furniture around in the temple and driving people out. Like, who is this guy? I think you know, when people are interested in the in the religion question, you can get caught up in definitions of is religion a good or a bad word and how redeemable is it within the in the New Testament. But I think just point to the person of Jesus and say, just look at this guy. Um and look at who's following him. A real assortment of of people who would identify, some would identify as religious, you know. The next next chapter he meets this Nicodemus character who um comes to him at night and and by the end of the gospel is is sort of one of you know Jesus' own uh followers. But uh just just look at Jesus and and see how how very um non-religious he is. Oh about to say secular, but I I guess secular means kind of this age. Um and I and I suppose he's not really this age because he's bringing in the the joy of the age to come, but but he's not he's not a religious authority who comes to suck us into a religious system. Um but he's the man from heaven coming to come to give us the blessings of the new age to be lived out now. So in that sense, he's kind of he's kind of secular, and then he's bringing the new age into the now, um, to be lived right here and now. So just look at Jesus and and you'll see the way he completely recalibrates how we think about religion.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well let's go through three, two, one then. Um we're thinking about three, and three is sort of the nature of the Trinity. So, how does that relate to uh the problem with religion?
SPEAKER_03I think what people are really nervous about when they think about religion uh is that it it gives every religions give every impression of having a needy, greedy taker at the top of the pile who's just trying to, you know, get things from you, and that you've got to climb the ladder in in order to offer your religious obedience and that and that kind of thing. Um with three, what you've got is a giving God who is the fountainhead of it all, the father loving his son in the joy of the spirit, giving his son to the world. Here is the God that is to be enjoyed in Christianity. Um and and I think Isaiah is brilliant on this, because he he keeps keeps speaking against these holier than thou types who think that they are making their offerings up to God. But you know, he says all their righteous acts are like filthy rags. On the other hand, just before he he makes the holier than thou comment, uh in Isaiah chapter 65, verse 2, the Lord says, All day long I've held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people. Um that's that's the Lord's character, all the time holding out his hands to people. Um He is the giving God. Um and I think if if we're going to have any kind of relationship with Him, we need to know what kind of God we're talking about. And and the God of Christianity is not the God of the religions who's wanting you to jump through hoops, but the God who's got his arms wide open. Yeah. Uh and and that's kind of underwritten by the truth of three.
SPEAKER_01So uh two then, uh there are two uh representatives, Jesus and Adam. We're looking at two different worlds, different two humanities. Humanities, yeah. So religion, I guess, goes with Adam.
SPEAKER_03Well, interestingly, yeah. Yeah. I I would say that Adam is a is a religious kind of person. Um you know, it's very interesting when when Satan comes to tempt Eve and uh and he says, you know, are you you you really you can't eat from any tree in the garden? And then Eve says, Oh, we um we we can eat from the other trees in the garden, but we can't eat from this tree, and we can't touch it either. It's the birth of religion right there. We can't we can't touch those. The Lord never said anything about that. Who's who's adding rules? The the Lord's only got one rule, don't eat that that forbidden fruit. Eve actually starts adding rules, um, and then they start sewing fig leaves together to cover themselves. Which interestingly, in in uh in the Quran, Adam and Eve, um they're naked. Allah comes and says, now you need to clothe yourselves in piety, right? You need to clothe yourselves in good deeds, and so that's that sort of sets Islam off onto that kind of direction. But within the Bible, sowing fig leaves, covering yourself, is is the heart of the problem because all our righteous acts are filthy rags, actually. So man, in the Adam sense is the problem, and the whole kind of self-justification thing that's at the heart of Adam's problem is that is at the heart of religion, that's the heart of war, and uh yes, religions have caused wars, and and that's absolutely true. So man is is is part of the problem, uh, but man is also part of the solution. Um because here comes Christ, and and in fact, uh I once preached a sermon called uh Religion is the Problem, Man Is the Answer. Um and it was kind of getting at all this kind of two stuff that um the self-justification that's at the heart of us all inherited from Adam is at the heart of warfare and all that kind of stuff, and and and it does drive a religious impulse in in humanity that we we have this self-justifying impulse. Religion is the problem, man is the answer, because here comes Jesus, the second Adam, uh, to to not justify himself, to not lash out at others, to not kill others, but to be killed, to absorb the blow, to absorb the justice. Um and on that cross to reverse what Adam does. And he's he's sort of raised up. And what you see with Jesus is not someone who causes war at all. You know, we've we've said many times on this program, you know, the the m the more you become like Jesus, the more likely you are to die for your enemies, not the more likely you are to kill them at all. Yes, religion can cause war. Um it causes war when there's self-justification in the human heart. But it's just interesting on that does religion's does religion cause war kind of question. Like if you were to guess, Andy, what percentage of all wars in human history have been caused by religion? What would you guess?
SPEAKER_01Uh sixty percent.
SPEAKER_03Actually, if you go to uh uh Philip and Axelrod's three-volume encyclopedia of wars, right, uh it chronicles uh seventeen hundred and sixty-three wars, and it reckons that a hundred and twenty-three are religious in nature, giving uh a percentage of six point nine eight per cent. So seven seven percent. Um yeah, I I would have guessed sixty percent or something as as well, but but you you do the math, and it's actually it's actually seven per cent. Wow. So that's that's always interesting when people sort of religion causes all wars, really. Religion causes seven percent. And you know, that's seven percent too many. That's 123 wars too many. It really is. But but the common denominator in all wars is not God at all. The common denominator in all wars is man, and it's man's self-justifying heart. Um thank God for the second man, Jesus Christ, who comes and reverses all that. Actually, Jesus is our one hope out of religion. Yeah. He's our one hope out of that self-justification and that warfare.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay. So looking at one then in uh 321, we are one with Adam and the challenge to be one with Christ. I suppose, you know, our position is that we are religious by nature. You know, we all look to worship something.
SPEAKER_03Yep, looking for love in all the wrong places.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's always something that's an idol of ours.
SPEAKER_03And then how cruel, how cruel for religion then to come and say, okay, you're looking for love, you're looking for love that will satisfy your soul. Here, have five pillars. You know, here, do you know, here's an eightfold path. Yeah. How how cruel for our hearts that want a person. Our hearts are made for this person, Christ. And instead, you know, how cruel to be for it to be given religion, for it to be given, you know, a set of rules and that kind of thing. One, though, teaches us, you know, here no, here's God's gift to us, Christ Himself. You know, our heart's desire is given to us. And, you know, like with any relationship, there are rituals around it now, you know, and and when I said I do to Emma, that has meant a certain kind of life, you know. It's it's not as though the vows, you know, like were very uh you know, detailing, and on Monday morning I will put the rubbish out and I will do the washing up and I will, you know, hoovering is my job and you know, ironing is your job, or whatever. Like it's it wasn't like that. But it does entail a certain kind of life together. And Christianity entails, yeah, we meet together, you know, we we hear God's voice, we there are certain ceremonies like baptism and there's communion and there's and all these sorts of things, but those things are like date nights, you know, in the wedding, or th those things are are just, you know, facts of life that go along with the territory of the relationship. They're not the centre of all things. The centre of all things is Christ, and that's good news. The good news we've got for the world is in a world that's hungry for for real love and real worship, we don't just have a way of life to offer people. We've got a person, Jesus, yeah. You know, and point to him in the scriptures and say, Isn't he attractive? Whatever you've thought about religion in the past, have a look at him. Is it isn't he attractive?
SPEAKER_01I've often heard people say, you know, it's relationship, not religion. But I I guess as Christians we we look to Christ and we have a relationship with him. It's tempting in a way to sort of think along the same lines of, you know, I've still got to pray every day and I've still got to And treat it, you know, like a like a religious chore.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01Rather than being reminded again, you know, that this is this is a day-to-day relationship.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly. And at that point you sort of you you remind yourself of the same thing as as sort of in the marriage ceremony, there's the words usually quoted from uh Genesis chapter two man shall leave his father and mother be joined to his wife, the two should become one, and then Jesus commenting in Matthew 19 says, What God has joined together, let no one separate. And those those two things kind of support you uh if you're married, but they also support you in your Christian life. The man shall leave his father and mother be joined to his wife, and he shall cleave to her, is the old King James. So it's the husband's grip on the wife, actually, that defines the marriage in uh in Genesis 2. And that's true spiritually. You know, it's Christ's grip of us that actually defines our marriage. Our grip, you know, is sometimes a little stronger, mostly weaker. His grip on us is what defines our union. And and then that other thing that Jesus, when he comments on it in in Matthew 19, says, um, what God has joined together. It's actually God joining you two together in the in the marriage, and it's also God joining you together with Jesus. And and I think those those kinds of reminders in the Christian life are really important. It's Christ's got got hold of me, it's God who's ensuring that we are one. It's not my little works that have the power to do that, it's not my quiet time that keeps me close to Jesus. I am close to Jesus, therefore, don't you want to hear from him? You know, uh it's that it's that whole thing, you know, when when you if you want to pray, don't think about praying, think about God. And it's that oneness thing. You've been given this person to be one with. Don't think of you know all the paraphernalia that enables you to enjoy that oneness. That's just think of the person that you're one with. You've been given Jesus. Well, enjoy him. And and of course, our hearts go up and down, and and that's why having routines like reading your Bible helps you. But the point of it is not to just slog on through and you know move the bookmark forward as you keep on reading your Bible, but um but to enjoy the oneness that you have already, right now, for free, by grace, it's yours. And that then should inspire what we do in terms of reading the Bible, meeting up together, praying, all those sorts of things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well Glenn, we better leave it there for this week. Uh next time we'll be going on to a similar theme. Uh, if you have any comments about today's show or you would like to share the episode, just go to revivalmedia.org slash tepfifty nine. On that page there, you'll also find links where you could give us a rating and review on iTunes and also to receive our free daily prayer bulletin. Thanks very much for listening and see you next time.
SPEAKER_03See ya.