Q
Quoth
Guest
So here's where we discuss the differences between "religion of God" and "relationship with God".
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Q
Quoth
Guest
Do elaborate. I'm curious.
(Score for intelligent conversation, by the way! My fields of intellectual thought and pondering have been fallow, as of late)
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Sketcher
Born Imperishable
Any relationship with God will include three unavoidably religious elements: Faith, obedience, and prayer. He has expressed that He wants these from us many times in Scripture. Doing these demonstrates our trusting Him, our loving Him, and our communicating with Him. Sound relational? You bet! They are also religious though, because He is God and we are people. He commands, we obey, and the relationship improves as a result because we are speaking His "love language." Jesus says in John 14:15, "If you love Me, you will obey what I command."
Now, when I said "a good part of our religion is relational," I was taking into account James 1:27 - "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." I'm not saying those things couldn't be relational, but I don't see the first part as directly relational. Yet, it is acceptable religion to the Father.
In light of this, I really disagree with Christians who look down on "religion." The New Testament says God wants good religion out of us! And this in no way diminishes the cross of Christ.
Now, when I said "a good part of our religion is relational," I was taking into account James 1:27 - "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." I'm not saying those things couldn't be relational, but I don't see the first part as directly relational. Yet, it is acceptable religion to the Father.
In light of this, I really disagree with Christians who look down on "religion." The New Testament says God wants good religion out of us! And this in no way diminishes the cross of Christ.
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Luther073082
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Our relationship is the gun powder, our religion is the gun. We are the bullet.
Our relatioship with God gives us the power, strength, desire etc to serve God.
Our religion gives us the direction and understanding in serving God.
With no gun powder our gun just clicks and doesn't do a heck of a lot. It gets us no where. A religion with no relationship is empty. Its just words.
Without the gun however we have no direction. Even if one could fireoff the power in order to launch the bullet then it will go off in its own direction and never hit the intended target. A relationship with no relgion (If thats possible) is undirected. One can have all the fire in the world to serve God, but with no religion will never be able to accomplish it.
Christianity is being both relationional and religious.
Our relatioship with God gives us the power, strength, desire etc to serve God.
Our religion gives us the direction and understanding in serving God.
With no gun powder our gun just clicks and doesn't do a heck of a lot. It gets us no where. A religion with no relationship is empty. Its just words.
Without the gun however we have no direction. Even if one could fireoff the power in order to launch the bullet then it will go off in its own direction and never hit the intended target. A relationship with no relgion (If thats possible) is undirected. One can have all the fire in the world to serve God, but with no religion will never be able to accomplish it.
Christianity is being both relationional and religious.
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Balugon
o( ' . ' )o
im on the all relationship side. Really many of the above posters and I arent disagreeing at all except for on terms of vocabulary. But i strongly dislike the word religion because it has the emphasis of "Oh, well thats just what u believe." Just another mindset that a person might choose to follow. When really, there is only one existence, one truth, one real God, and he doesnt treat us as mindless slaves, he loves us so much that he wants to do those little things that make us happy all the time (held back by making sure we dont get too spoiled, etc, and by our own wrongdoings and others), he is all about the relationship, and that is what he wants us to have with everyone else. 'No greater love has one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.' ~Jesus. Religion would never even have been a word if man had been following God the whole time, relationships would have been continually one of the main focuses.
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WileyCoyote
Contributor
Quite simplistically. The Pharisees were religious. The Disciples had a relationship with God.
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Q
Quoth
Guest
I think part of the "debate" (if you can really call it that) about the relationship v. religion issue is one of simple terminology. A religion is a set of beliefs. A relationship is developed, I believe, on a set of beliefs. However, we all know that certain terms develop negative connotations through certain experiences regarding those terms.
Where I believe the term "religion" gets a bad rap is in the fact that some live in a religion of God, rather than a relationship with Him. They will claim up one side and down the other that they communicate with God, but all they do is twist what God says to fit their own agenda. They play the "define 'is'" game, where they twist and redefine and tap dance their way through the Truth until "love your enemies" becomes "God hates (insert whatever group here)". Then, of course, they stand where every Tom, Dick, Harry and his uncle can see them, and viola, they take a simple term and give it a bad meaning.
We as Christians are to have good religion. If you want to apply the modern definition of "religion" to that, then it really breaks down to rightly dividing "the word of Truth". We are to glean wisdom from what we read, experience, hear, etceteras. From that truth, we gain our set of beliefs. From those beliefs, we develop a relationship with the God we read about in Scripture.
I see "religion" as that which we base our "relationship" with God on, and to have one without the other is extremely dangerous, spiritually. To have religion alone lends itself to extreme legalism and/or a twisting of the truth. To have simply a relationship with God (relationship here not being indicative of salvation) lends itself to an extremely loose, shaky ethic.
I will say this: I have seen those who truly accept Christ as their Lord and Savior in their lives be influenced toward the truth through their relationship alone. In my own personal experience, I have yet to see someone living by religion alone be convicted of something that God clearly says is wrong in Scripture.
Again, all of this is my opinion.
Where I believe the term "religion" gets a bad rap is in the fact that some live in a religion of God, rather than a relationship with Him. They will claim up one side and down the other that they communicate with God, but all they do is twist what God says to fit their own agenda. They play the "define 'is'" game, where they twist and redefine and tap dance their way through the Truth until "love your enemies" becomes "God hates (insert whatever group here)". Then, of course, they stand where every Tom, Dick, Harry and his uncle can see them, and viola, they take a simple term and give it a bad meaning.
We as Christians are to have good religion. If you want to apply the modern definition of "religion" to that, then it really breaks down to rightly dividing "the word of Truth". We are to glean wisdom from what we read, experience, hear, etceteras. From that truth, we gain our set of beliefs. From those beliefs, we develop a relationship with the God we read about in Scripture.
I see "religion" as that which we base our "relationship" with God on, and to have one without the other is extremely dangerous, spiritually. To have religion alone lends itself to extreme legalism and/or a twisting of the truth. To have simply a relationship with God (relationship here not being indicative of salvation) lends itself to an extremely loose, shaky ethic.
I will say this: I have seen those who truly accept Christ as their Lord and Savior in their lives be influenced toward the truth through their relationship alone. In my own personal experience, I have yet to see someone living by religion alone be convicted of something that God clearly says is wrong in Scripture.
Again, all of this is my opinion.
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Luther073082
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Rob, when I think of someone who has religion alone I think of people who go to church by tradition. They just go cause thats what they did as kids and thats what their parents expect.
Others feel like its a duty to show up to church every once in a while.
I am very very religious because I have relationship with God. I don't get up to go to church every sunday without fail (I have not missed one Sunday of church yet this year, last year I missed 1). because of any sort of tradition or feeling like I have to meet up to my parent's expectations. (My parents would rather prefer I didn't go)
But I go because the relationship with God compels me to go, teach his word, share in the fellowship of prayer, learn his word, worship him, and take his holy sacrament of his body and blood.
But if you are without a relationship you are ignoring God. Going through motions just cause ya gotta.
If you are without religion however you are arrogent. The arrogence extends to people believing what they want to without studying the scriptures and learning from others. It extends to beliving that Christian fellowship is best done alone. It extends to believing that God should just know we love him without us telling him we love him through our worship and praise.
Others feel like its a duty to show up to church every once in a while.
I am very very religious because I have relationship with God. I don't get up to go to church every sunday without fail (I have not missed one Sunday of church yet this year, last year I missed 1). because of any sort of tradition or feeling like I have to meet up to my parent's expectations. (My parents would rather prefer I didn't go)
But I go because the relationship with God compels me to go, teach his word, share in the fellowship of prayer, learn his word, worship him, and take his holy sacrament of his body and blood.
But if you are without a relationship you are ignoring God. Going through motions just cause ya gotta.
If you are without religion however you are arrogent. The arrogence extends to people believing what they want to without studying the scriptures and learning from others. It extends to beliving that Christian fellowship is best done alone. It extends to believing that God should just know we love him without us telling him we love him through our worship and praise.
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kingoffools13
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I think there is a lot of confusion on this subject even amongst those that posted so far ...
Religion:
the confusion comes in with connotations, sometimes the connotative meaning of the word religion entails much more than the actual denotation of the word .. and there in lies the confusion. The problems with religion as i see them are :
A. when you believe in and hold something/someone other than God, higher than God
B. when the practice of religion in God becomes more important, or consumes a greater amount of your focus than God himself, making your religion, in effect, your god (see part A.)
K
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Religion:
- [SIZE=-1][SIZE=-1][/SIZE][/SIZE][SIZE=-1][SIZE=-1]
- a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny; "he lost his faith but not his morality"
- an institution to express belief in a divine power; "he was raised in the Baptist religion"; "a member of his own faith contradicted him"[/SIZE][/SIZE]
the confusion comes in with connotations, sometimes the connotative meaning of the word religion entails much more than the actual denotation of the word .. and there in lies the confusion. The problems with religion as i see them are :
A. when you believe in and hold something/someone other than God, higher than God
B. when the practice of religion in God becomes more important, or consumes a greater amount of your focus than God himself, making your religion, in effect, your god (see part A.)
K
O
f
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