One of the most frustrating things that I hear in conversations and sermons is the idea that Christianity is “not a religion; it’s a relationship.”  Don’t get me wrong: I totally understand what those who say such a thing are intending.  They are trying to cure believers of legalism and the empty practices that often seem to get in the way of a vibrant, growing life of faith.  I have yet to hear someone take the other side of the argument, that it’s a religion and not a relationship.  I can imagine it, but I have yet to see it.

Here’s the thing: it’s both.  And to say otherwise is ultimately and extremely dangerous.  I think the New Testament makes it clear that something intensely personal and soul-changing takes place in the life of the believer when they repent and being life on the narrow road.¹  The presence of the Spirit brings us into relationship with the Father and the Son, who are themselves in relationship.  This is the part of the life of faith that seems experiential and even contingent on day-to-day life.  Left to our own devices, though, we end up exhausted, bewildered, and numb (at least that’s been my experience).

But there is an ontological reality implied in the truth claims of the Christian tradition that transcend my quiet time with God.  At its best, religion is the incarnational framework that reminds us of that reality.  I forget who said it (probably multiple people), but the saying is true: the Christian faith is a personal thing, which isn’t the same as saying it’s a private thing.  There’s nothing private about it.  At it’s best, religion brings individuals in relationship together into a community rooted in history and time.  Here we realize that we are not alone, that we can bear one another’s burdens, that we cannot be what God truly intends without loving one another in the same way that we have been loved.  Religion at its best can be personal and institutional: we wash one another’s feet, we take the supper together, we shake hands and utter prayers and listen to the Story read and learn to speak in hymns and spiritual songs to one another both to strengthen weak knees and to run the race of faith together.

Both terms, both approaches when promoted as the singular way forward, are prone to abuse and misdirection.  We should be careful, though, of embracing a vision of one without the other.  As people intended to be rooted in history and community, we should not settle for less than a healthy embrace of the two, of relationship rooted and nurtured in religion.

__________

¹ Coined by Jesus, the idea of “the narrow road” is something that Larry Crabb has picked up on in his latest book, which I’ll get to writing about sometime soon.

(image from feelgrafix.com)