Can you have faith in Jesus and be anti-religion? In a recent Fox News interview, famous TV host and author Kathie Lee Gifford claimed just that.
"It's not a religion. I am very anti-religion,” she told Fox News. “Religion puts people in chains, and Jesus takes them away. So I've always tried to be, and I am, the exact same person."
Gifford, a defender of Scripture and truth, hardly seems a poor model of Christianity, so it only makes sense that many would deeply consider her negative views concerning religion.
"I went to therapy for years to recover from the psychological hurt the church caused my heart and mind. 'Religious abuse' was coined as part of my diagnosis, so much so that my therapist looked at me and bluntly said, “I’m surprised you even go to church at all.”
I certainly understand Gifford’s distaste for the idea of religion when it’s controlled and manipulated by sinful people. However, as someone who has made great strides in healing from religious hurt, I can look back and not only be free of church bitterness but drawn back to the original roots the Christian religion intended to sustain and grow in me as a believer. If you have Jesus, you have everything. So I certainly can’t say that a person whose heart and soul are devoted to Jesus is “wrong” in their wariness of religion. But, ironically, I have found that particular pieces of “religion” keep me tethered to my faith, even and especially when healing from religious hurt.
What Is the Definition of Religion?
In essence, religion is a set of principles and morals that shape how one responds to their faith. It’s an outward practice of an inward loyalty to the thing or deity that defines an individual’s all-encompassing perspective of life, people, and meaning. This makes religion sound a bit weighty and, at times, time-consuming. Many people find it intimidating, intense, and/or rigid. That makes sense when our natural human response is often to avoid being controlled by anyone or anything outside ourselves. We feel we can best trust ourselves and stay safe if we don’t surrender who we are and how we function to an outside institution.
Ironically, I’ve discovered religion is life-giving and freeing when I allow it to keep me tethered to my faith. When I show up to church on Sunday because it’s just what I’m supposed to do, I always receive a blessing. When I read my Bible, just because that’s one of those “Christian living” rules, I’ve kept the lines of communication open between God and me. Religion holds me accountable to my faith when my faith doesn’t feel able or willing to participate. Religion requires my life, regardless of the season, to establish rhythms and routines that center on bringing God glory.
I often think of the old hymn, Come Thou Fount, especially the verse that begs, “bind my wandering heart to Thee.” Our human hearts will not always feel faith-filled, and our human minds will not always be bent towards total devotion to God. Regardless, when we allow the routine of religion to keep us committed to what we know to be true, it sustains us until we willfully, joyfully feel the truth, too.
What Was Jesus’ Approach to "Religion?"
When I’m unsure concerning my Christian response to gray areas like Gifford’s attitude towards religion, I glean the Gospel’s red words. Christ’s teachings didn’t explicitly address modern dilemmas, like monitoring a child’s screentime or debating secular humanism, but His response to the emotions, sins, and uncertainties we encounter is our unfailing blueprint for any situation. In the Gospels, Christ doesn’t mention “religion” as we consider it today. His discussions surrounding religion were more centered on the destruction of manipulative legalism, the root traditions of Judaism, and His purpose in fulfilling the Jewish law. In Matthew 5:17-19, Jesus says,
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Here, Scripture reveals that Jesus gave merit to the law and, rather than doing away with it, allowed His mercy and grace to fulfill it. Thus, the rules and regulations were granted a meaningful purpose, a way to keep human fickleness postured towards the hope of lasting faith. So often, people associate religion with rules and nothing more. However, when religion centers on the commands established by God and on the eternal purposes fulfilled through Christ’s love, the Christian religion is life-giving, even soul-saving.
The Necessary Divide of Religion
Moral relativism has not only bled into our society but also infected our approach to evangelism. In the name of cultural relevance, we have allowed what feels right in our own hearts and minds to bend the meaning of Scripture. The natural byproduct of this lukewarm living is that many believe Christianity’s principles, particularly concerning love, mesh well with other religious ideas concerning charity. Thus, Christianity doesn’t stand alone. It isn’t the sole truth. It’s simply a nice idea to believe in, just like any other religion that promotes service, sacrifice, and loving (aka, tolerating) other people’s lifestyles and personal choices.
The danger in adopting Gifford’s idea towards religion is that the morals and principles that sustain Christianity’s truth lose their dividing line. Religion and its dividing precepts lose meaning because religion is, apparently, always destructive. However, Scripture is clear that Christ is the only truth, and He will draw an undeniable line in the sand:
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” - John 14:16 (NIV)
“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven. Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Matthew 10:32-34 (NIV)
Truth cannot be suppressed by lies. Truth will always rise to the surface. If truth didn’t divide, it wouldn’t be truth. It would be another “do what feels right” idea that leads people away from the gospel. Thus, religion, when it explicitly divides foundational beliefs, keeps Christianity separate. It allows truth to stand on her own two feet, separate from the rest of the world’s falsehoods and watered-down precepts.
A Return to the Religious Rewards of Christian Living
As believers, we know there is only one true religion, Christianity. If we lean into its religious foundation, we are offered a bedrock for our salvation, a reason for our breathing, and practices that consistently reinforce these truths into our hearts and minds when we feel lost.
I’m certainly not God, and I’m no biblical scholar, but I am a woman who had a bitter taste in her mouth for religion and many Christian religious practices for years. However, as a woman who has found that God’s mercy and grace heal her wounds, and as a human who has accepted that any institution in human hands will crack and cave at times, I’ve found that it’s the religious practices that God has used to speak the loudest to me when I can’t hear Him at all.
It’s reciting Psalm 23 when I am so overwhelmed with grief that I don’t want to believe God is good, yet I can’t shake the feeling that His shepherding presence is, indeed, steady. It’s going to church when I don’t trust half the people there because my child needs a constant reminder of the gospel. It’s praying and reading my Bible when they feel like lifeless, boring habits because nothing else has an antidote for my spiraling emotions. It’s religious practices that, if we have faith in the God they point to, keep us bound to Him, come hell or high water.
Christ saved my soul, and the religious guidance He has offered through His loving commands has preserved my heart. What more could I need, let alone want, in such an unsure world?
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