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Religion (James 1:26-27)
It has been the practice amongst Evangelical
believers for some time to use the word "religion" in a negative
way by distinguishing it from Christianity. This is usually done
by saying something like, "I am not religious. I am a Christian".
You will often hear this in a witnessing scenario and, when the
hapless and confused receiver of this startling news looks suitably
puzzled, the explanation is given, "Religion is man reaching up
to God while Christianity is God reaching down to man."
This is a useful illustration, if somewhat glib, but it does a disservice
to the word "religion". In light of what James is writing here,
I want to rehabilitate a useful and much abused word. If you look
up "religion" in the dictionary you find three applications:
1. Organised service and worship 2. Personal commitment or devotion
3. System of beliefs
A thesaurus describes "religious" in three ways:
1. Religious matters, e.g. theology, doctrine, church 2. Religious
devotion, e.g. God-fearing, devout, committed 3. Religious duty,
e.g. faithful, zealous, conscientious
The dictionary tells us that "religion" comes from the Latin "religio"
which it defines as reverence. It also connects "religion" with
the Latin "religare" meaning to rely upon, have confidence
in, to trust, from which we get the word "rely".
Religion, traditionally and in the context of our text, is that
duty and reverence we owe to God. Those people who attend faithfully
and conscientiously to those duties were known as pious, while those
who applied themselves to these duties excessively and with unthinking
and excessive fear were dubbed superstitious. Attendance to religious
duties was a public affair, a social virtue, and adherents believed
that their devotions and pieties made a difference for the whole
of society. These days piety has changed from being a social virtue
to being a personal characteristic and society has been the loser
for it.
It is this public duty, the expressing of our duty to God in our
actions before as well as towards others that James has in mind
here. The word he uses and that is translated as "religion" is the
rarely used Greek "threskeia" meaning outward acts of worship.
In the ancient world people would often view religion as acts of
piety and devotions practiced in various temples and designed to
appease the gods. Outside of that "religious" context their lives
were largely unaffected. They would go from the temple to the gambling
tables, the killing games in the arena, their acts of larceny and
lust without a backward glance at the acts of religious worship
they had just performed.
James is not comparing "religion" with Christianity then, rather
he is comparing good religion, "Religion
that God our Father accepts", with
bad religion, which he describes as "worthless".
We can draw three lessons from this:
1. Taking part in organised religious worship is not, in and of
itself, a bad thing. Indeed, we are required to offer up our devotions
to God, take communion and remember his death, and "meet regularly"
to do so.
2. However, these outward acts of worship are empty and meaningless
if our faith is not also expressed in changed lives, service of
others, and concern for the wider community in which we live. Jesus
said, "inasmuch as you have done it for the least of these you have
done it for me"
3. Contrary to modern thinking, religion is not a private affair
but something we do before the world. Often people will ask us to
show them God. They should see God in us for we are the body of
Christ, entrusted with the task of declaring God to the world in
what we do as much as in what we say.
Our religion is a mix of formal devotion, personal virtue and public
service and when we concentrate on one to the exclusion of others
we are not living it right. May we be found to be "religious" this
week in the true and full sense of the word, and may the world see
and benefit from it.