a Christian, non catholic song against religion

[cooterhein]

A song I hear sometimes on the christian radio station. a line says " a place where religion finally dies " Can a noncatholic christian please explain. I always thought our struggle was against sin and evil, not religion. Please help me to understand why this song has seemed to make religion the problem. Clearly, I have a bigger issue with Sin and Satan, but I guess the artist of this song hasn’t faced that problem.

If you follow the lead of most modern scholars in exploring the etymology of the word “religion,” you’ll want to go back to “ligare,” which means “bind” or “connect.” This derivation was made prominent by Augustine, who was following the example of Lactantius. For the sake of understanding the tendency that you see around you, it’s probably best if you have the words “to bind” in mind. The positive use refers to the sense in which we’re increasingly bound to God. That’s obviously not how it’s being used.

The negative use refers to religion that binds you to legalism, guilt, etc. Funnily enough, this prevents you from being bound to God. If you have zero experience with religion in the negative sense, congratulations. But remember that there are some people who don’t share your experience, and the fact that your life includes no personal experience with this sense of the word does not in any way negate the reality of its semantic range.

Big Daddy Weave has no Catholic history or experience. I wouldn’t doubt that some, if not all, members of the band have experienced the binding of religion in a negative way. But the Catholic Church was not responsible for this experience, nor does the band wish to imply that it is.

The people responsible for this kind of negative experience actually are people. When you hear this kind of thing from Protestants (provided that they’re not bitter ex-Catholics), you can be pretty sure that they’re not knocking a particular denomination or institution. It’s interpersonal. It’s about people who do things to God-block you when they should be joining with you and helping you.

 

[traillius]

Everything in the Catholic teaching, at least what isn’t localized and possibly heretical, is designed solely to bind us to God more strongly and in a more intimate sense. Any claim that legitimate catholic teaching does otherwise is either a misunderstanding or a deliberate misrepresentation of that teaching. And if a catholic engages in practices that would bind them to anything other than God,then that person, or any group of such people, is engaging in those practices in a manner contrary to the teachings of the church.

 

[Mikeoffaith]

Oh, yeah, Mike. When I had Sirius Radio, I used to listen to it in the mornings - wonderful devotional programs. Some of their “drive time” programs are good, too. And the “language” sounds much more like us than Evangelical Christian stations.

Jon

I’ve just had some limited exposure on cable. Maybe I’ll check out if they have any podcasts.

Mike

 

[Matorin]

As I heard it, religion is man reaching out to God; Christianity is God reaching down to man. So something along the lines of “religion is me trying to do my best to earn God’s favour and feeling guilt and shame when I fall short.” I think this is what they are meaning by the lyrics, from what I have gathered from modern evangelical culture.

 

[atara]

Oh, I’ve heard it in tons of songs growing up Baptist.
And yes, it IS a diss, in my opinion and I will explain why I think so.

These type of songs are usually sung by those who believe in scripture alone and saved by faith, not works. They do not see their faith being molded formed by anything other than their own private interpretation of the Bible. As a result, they make a big diss in those lyrics to religion trying to “take away” a sincere relationship with the Lord.