A Homily on Religious Addiction

I drank plenty of alcohol in high school. Not sure if I was dependent, but I did relish the opportunity to find shelter from the constant barrage of a worried mind. Later I used methamphetamine, inevitably being pulled into the unholy sanctum of dark addiction.

Interestingly, people with emotional baggage, mental disarray, and social phobias are most susceptible to substance abuse. The power to alter brain chemistry can create the illusion of escaping the reality of a tortured mind, taking control of their emotional health, and feeling accepted into so-called normal social arrangements.

Man-made religion (similar to substance abuse) is primarily about three things: escaping the reality of one’s own sinful heart, attempting to take control of spiritual health, and finding acceptance with so-called normal, religious social arrangements.

The religious person attempts to escape the reality of their sinful heart on the inside by focusing on and obsessing over appearances on the outside. They wear their Sunday best, maintain visible morality, give outward service, articulate Bible knowledge, and attend several religious meetings per week.

In addition to external pieties, they attempt to take control of their spiritual health by going above and beyond biblical exhortations and creating buffer zones between them and sin. To avoid moral compromise, they avoid immoral people at all costs. To avoid worldly contamination, they refuse to wear Calvin Klein jeans. To avoid spiritual apathy, they boycott Disney. And on it goes.

These external pieties and buffer zones naturally gain the acceptance of the religious social class. Therefore, man-made religion allows one to escape reality, take control, and achieve status among those of normalcy, or so it seems.

Yet, (similar to substance abuse) religion is teeming with deception. The religious person feels spiritual, but is blinded to the reality of a desperate, sinful heart. They believe to be in control, but are actually pulled into the fellowship of religious addiction. They feel socially accepted, but instead are enslaved by the quick-to-judge peer-pressure of fellow religious addicts.

The key is understanding religion as a man-made attempt at reaching God, binding oneself to external morality, extra-biblical codes, and the expectations of others. On the other hand, true Christianity recognizes mankind as completely sinful and utterly incapable of approaching God on the basis of personal merit. Therefore, God, at great personal cost, came down to mankind in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

When one chooses to follow Christ by faith, he or she is free from religious bondage. They face the reality of a sinful heart, give Christ control of all spiritual health, and find contentment with God’s love and acceptance.

”Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” -John 8:36

Persecution of Christians (video not for children)

Pain of Rejection

I was too young to remember my real father, Douglas Kaminski. While I was still playing with rattles, He left my mother and I, never to be seen or heard from again. The man I learned to call “daddy” was Dewayne Troxel. He raised me from toddlerhood, taught me to ride a bike, and took me fishing everyday, or so it seemed. He bought me my first BB gun and taught me to shoot. And by watching him I learned to skin fish and rabbits.

Daddy taught us how to slide down the watershed dam on flattened cardboard boxes, and on rare occasions he took us bowling. He taught us how to raise chickens and collect eggs, and how to build a well house from logs and red clay. And when things broke, Daddy fixed them.

When I was about ten years old, Daddy left. I didn’t understand why, but for the first time my young soul was wounded with the pain of rejection.

It’s quite profound how pain can etch itself into our lives, creating fears, insecurities, and ill patterns of thinking. It can create an unhealthy desire to be accepted, and then unreasonable suspicion when acceptance arrives. These tragic expressions of an inferiority complex almost inevitably lead to damaging relationships.

This realm of pain and heartache is one of many spheres where Christ created a new perspective. For it was He who endured crucifixion, being suspended between Heaven and Earth on a piece of timber hewn for the sole purpose of creating rivers of pain, while communicating utter rejection.

Yet this One we know as God-the-Son turned his gaze toward Heaven and said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Though Jesus had need of relief from pain and rejection, his executioners had need of grace and forgiveness.

Recovery of spiritual health often begins here, setting our own needs aside, and looking after the needs of others.

This Is Not The Real Jesus

Anders Behring Breivik killed at least 76 campers on an island off the coast of Oslo, Norway. He says in his online manifesto, “As for the Church and science, it is essential that science takes an undisputed precedence over biblical teachings....Regarding my personal relationship with God, I guess I'm not an excessively religious man. I am first and foremost a man of logic. However, I am a supporter of a monocultural Christian Europe.”

Obviously Breivik was not a true Christian, yet he craved the cultural benefits of Christianity. This murderer’s misguidings are an exceptionally extreme example of a belief system which plagues many who name the name of Christ. They don’t truly love Jesus, but they are quite fond of their idea of Jesus. However, the idea of Jesus they are in love with doesn't accurately represent the Christ who actually existed.

Michael Horton points out how even the 19th century philosopher and atheist Friedrich Nietzsche saw in his day the tendency of professing Christians to desire “the fruit of Christianity (i.e., moral culture) without the tree itself (i.e., the actual doctrine and practice).”

The Jesus of history as recorded in the gospels brought a specific plan of salvation (doctrine), which resulted in the formation of a true disciple (practice). The Jesus of scripture spent three years calling his followers to embrace the doctrines of the gospel, and how that gospel would transform them into men and women with a growing, Christ-like compassion for people.

Jesus said in Matthew 16:24 “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” The benefits of Christianity come not by embracing an idea of Jesus, but by becoming a follower of the one true living Savior, Christ the Lord.

You're Not All That

Why do those who embrace God’s inspired Word have such a love affair with man-made rules? Why is it so difficult to get free from man-made religion when the God of grace has provided His own formula for the Christian life?

This is not a new phenomena, man has been making his own rules ever since Adam and Eve rewrote their own job description in the Garden of Eden. And then later Cain brought God a vegetarian sacrifice simply because it seemed like the right thing to do. Aaron and the Israelites sampled some self-styled worship when they fashioned a golden calf. Jeremiah warned people about those who preached man-made doctrine rather than words truly representing the heart of God.

When God has given us the operator’s manual for Christianity, why do our stubborn hearts insist on adding our own mandates to Christian living? I find it interesting that the greatest opponents of Christ were the Pharisees who prided themselves on this kind of extra-biblical piety.

In Jesus’ parable from Luke 18 the Pharisee prays, “God, I thank You that I am not like other men…” Wow, what a superiority complex. If that rule-keeping better-than-you Pharisee was alive today, he would likely talk like this:

“I don’t just obey the Bible, I obey all this other stuff too. Oh what a good boy am I.”
“You drink wine with your dinner? Oh I would never drink alcohol for any reason.”
“You use tobacco? Oh my, I don’t dip, smoke or chew, or go with girls that do.”
“You send your kids to public school? I send my kids to private school.”
“You send your kids to private school? I home-school my kids.”
“You have a tattoo? I’ll pray for your salvation.”

When reading Jesus' parable we see this proud Pharisee feeling very righteous when compared to others, and then presuming to be much closer to God than others. Making up our own mandates for Christian living (things that God Himself does not ask of us) somehow creates the illusion that we are more righteous than our fellow pilgrims (for we can hardly resist comparing ourselves to others) implying that we are much nearer to God. But does this formula hold up theologically? Is a feeling of personal piety truly a sign of nearness to God?

Well let’s consider some in scripture to whom God drew near, while paying particular attention to how righteous they felt during their encounter with the Divine. When Abraham met the Lord he fell on his face and said, “Lord I’m but dust and ashes in your presence.” Or how about when Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up? Surely this great man of God would hold his head high in the presence of his Creator. But he says in Isaiah chapter six, “Depart from me Lord for I am a man of unclean lips.” And needless to say, when Peter began to understand who Jesus really was he said in Luke 5:8, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”

When a person is truly near to God, personal righteousness appears to be the last thing they feel. So dear Christian, if you enjoy a sensation of personal piety and superiority to others, it may be a sign of just how unbiblical your Christian ethic is, therefore betraying just how far from God you truly are.

1 Corinthians 4:6
...that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one against the other.

Divine Personality

It's interesting to read some of the so-called synopses of the nature of Jesus Christ, as armchair theologians will focus on one small aspect of Christ’s divine character and then pretend they have provided an adequate personality profile of the One whose brief three years of public ministry has drawn more scholarship than the all the other centuries of history combined.

The task of providing a sketch of Jesus Christ reminds me of the professor’s essay question, “Define God and give two examples.” Yet many attempt to place Jesus in a bottle or a box or some other neatly arranged system of thought, then moving on as if the mystery of divine character had been conquered.

There appear to be two different camps of Messiah profilers. One is preoccupied with the meekness and gentleness of Christ, while the other is consumed with the more forceful and darker side of Christ. One highlights His comforting effect on children, while another comments on His verbal fistfights with the self-righteous. Some love to paint Jesus as one whose grace forgave the most notorious of sinners, while others portray Him as a first century Clint Eastwood who wrecked the religion of the most pious of Pharisees.

The error of these extremes, in my humble armchair opinion, is just that. They are extremes, being only small pieces of a much more grand portrait. If the personhood of Christ could be so easily packaged, then God would not have inspired four separate and distinct gospel accounts of His life. For any who desire to explore the claims, actions, and attitudes of this One for whom tens of thousands have died, I exhort you to examine these written testimonies for yourself.

For now I leave you with the famous quote of Scottish Theologian, James Stewart:

He was the meekest and lowliest of all the sons of men. Yet he spoke of coming on the clouds of heaven with the glory of God. He was so austere that evil spirits and demons cried out in terror at his coming, yet he was so genial and winsome and approachable, that the children loved to play with him and the little ones nestled in his arms.

His presence at the innocent joy of a village wedding was like the presence of sunshine. No one was half so kind or compassionate to sinners, yet no one ever spoke such red-hot scorching words about sin. A bruised reed he would not break. His whole life was love. Yet on one occasion he demanded of the Pharisees how they were expected to escape the damnation of hell.

He was a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions, yet for sheer stark realism he has all of us self-styled realists soundly beaten. He was the servant of all, washing the disciples’ feet, yet masterfully he strode into the temple, and the hucksters and moneychangers fell over one another to get away in their mad rush from the fire they saw blazing in his eyes. He saved others, yet at the last, he himself did not save.

There is nothing in history like the union of contrasts which confronts us in the gospels; the mystery of Jesus is the mystery of divine personality.