Religion doesn't matter

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Hollis

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I teach an apologetics class to a group of home-schoolers. One topic I presented for discussion for next week is the common attitude by some Protestants that “religion” isn’t important in following Jesus. All that matters is that we “love and believe” Jesus. I have some of my own thoughts on how to respond to this, but I wanted to get some more. Doing a search at Catholic Answers and some other sites, I didn’t really find much. How would you respond to this or where would you point me for some research material to add to my current response.
  • Religion falls under the virtue of justice since adoration and worship is what is due to God and we fulfill this duty via religion (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas).
  • Rituals have been a central part of man’s communicating with God throughout the centuries. Jesus did bring in a new era and a new covenant, but it is a fulfillment and not abolishment of the old.
  • The Mass has been central to Christianity from the beginning until the newfangled ideas of the “reformers” (actually more a bringing to logical conclusion some of the erroneous premises upon which they founded their new form of Christianity).
  • Belonging to the one Church founded by Christ is critical in knowing and loving Jesus. “Non-denominational” is “non-Christian”.
 
Hi Hollis,

Just my opinion, of course, but if all religions were just as good, then why did Jesus waste his time instituting the sacraments? If all religions are all equally nice, then why did He go to such lengths to get those in John 6 to realize that He meant what He said? If all religions are the same, then where does this slippery slope end? Before long, you don’t need to be Christian at all–all that counts is that you’re nice to people and give them warm fuzzies. Religion? Why stop there? All we need is a good, nice secular humanism and then everything’s still flowers and bunnies, right? I think you get my point: Those that say “everything’s just as good as everything else” are–in my opinion–saying “we’re different, but this is the only way to justify it.”

Pax,
Fred
 
I don’t think I would say that being non denominational is being non Christian. But it certainly is being a minimalist!

Look at the Gospels and Acts, and at Paul’s letters; they describe a church that already had rituals. And look to the early church, which clearly had rituals, which over time became more elaborate and complex.

Another area is sacramental theology; again, going back to the earliest Church, it is all found in the New testamant, even though it took time to flesh out how it all worked. A “me and Jesus” mentality doesn’t allow for what Christ gave the Apostles, and what was subsequently handed down. A sacramental theology of almost any sort requires a church to adminster the sacraments. And to deny any sacraments is to read higly selectively in the NT.
 
When people say that Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship, they are making a reasonable point: that “man looks at the outwards appearance, but God looks at the heart.” What is of utmost importance is our relationship with Jesus. That is true. What many of these people do not understand is that, as humans, we relate to Jesus in certain ways.

Even taken to the extremes of Quakerism, there is still ritual, even if minimalist. The congregation sits in silence, someone offers a thought or a prayer, more silence… Your friends, who are probably “low Protestant”, will pray together, possibly even praying rote prayers (the Our Father, for instance). They will sing together, stand together, sit together, possibly kneel together, listen to a preacher together, possibly consume blessed bread and wine (grape juice?) together, gather together to baptize their children or converts, believe similar things as a group and generally, to the disinterested observer, appear to follow a religion together.

To a member of that congregation, however, they are simply “loving and believing Jesus”. When they observe an Orthodox Divine Liturgy or an Anglican Eucharistic Service or, God forbid, a Catholic Mass, they see the differences between what they do and what the other group does, and call that “religion”.

My brother Geoffrey (also on this board) was challenged about his Anglican upbringing at his Evangelical high school by a Pentecostal who questioned the need for a liturgical service. He responded by saying, “And at ten o’clock sharp, the Holy Spirit comes. Isn’t that the same kind of thing?” He made the point.
 
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Hollis:
I teach an apologetics class to a group of home-schoolers. One topic I presented for discussion for next week is the common attitude by some Protestants that “religion” isn’t important in following Jesus. All that matters is that we “love and believe” Jesus.
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Hi Hollis,

It seems that a few simple questions tend to bring out the problems with simply “loving and believing.” Yes, doing both are good and necessary, but…

Ask someone who says this if the Lord did or did not say, “If you love Me you will follow my commandments” (Jn 14:15) and His teaching (Jn 14:23).

Then ask what exactly those commandments and teachings are. When they get to the one about say, graven images, ask why Solomon’s Temple seems to be full of them (I Kings 7:15,16,23,25). Or why two Cherubim are, by the command of the Lord, on the top of the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18). In fact, many a commandment (not just the ten) of God can be hard to understand or apply to a certain situation.

I believe its true that what is necessary for a Christian is summed up in the Golden Rule, but surely the Lord knew that His people would have difficulty even with that.

This is just one reason why we need religion, or better put, why we need an infallible magisterium- to elucidate the mysteries and explain the commands of the Lord from age to age, among other things.
 
The root meaning of the word religion is “binding” Religion is what connects us to God. If you acknowledge Jesus as Lord and God, you are religious.

God doesn’t need ritual. We need ritual. It helps to focus our attention on the object of the ritual not how to do it. Ritual is important because in repetition we “get it right” and we do it with a connection with the past.

If you want to see ritual, go to a baseball game or football game. There are ceremonies associated with each. At home, you have birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Events, places, and times are made special and distinct by ritual.

There are plenty of opportunities inside and outside of a church for private worship and praise of Jesus, but this doesn’t exclude our need for a common pattern of worship of God in community (i.e. a ritual) and we have the command of Christ himself for Baptism, the Eucharist, and the other five sacraments asa means of obtaining grace.

Some Catholics may not offer a good example by being unable to explain what the rituals and sacraments mean. Their ignorance isn’t a reason to reject them.
 
I’ve heard this statement before, from my brother-in-law who is an Evangelical minister. This was part of my response (some of which came from various apologists:

The dictionary’s definition of religion is the recognition on the part of man of a superhuman, controlling power deserving obedience and worship.

Your use of the term, in comparison, is in a derogatory sense, not in a theological or sociological sense. By ‘religion’, fundamentalists mean a complex, rule-laden, man-made, even casuistical scheme for effecting salvation on one’s own.

The term, religion, to Catholics, is simply the ‘relationship’ we have with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

In Scripture, we are not enjoined to “run away from religion”, but to practice it faithfully with a pure heart. In fact, the entire book of James is devoted to how a Christian ought to behave in the “assembly” (at church) and in the world. If you claim to have a “relationship” with God, then it should manifest itself in your works.

Often certain Protestants say that God doesn’t want ‘religion’. Where does it say that? What it does say is that He doesn’t want ‘empty’ ‘religion’. Let’s look at our friend, St. James: “If anyone thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is vain”. Note carefully: Not “All Religion is vain”, but “this man’s Religion”. Why? Because he is not practicing it. St. James goes on: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world”.

Let’s turn to the comments about Church. The idea that someone can have “relationship” with Jesus and not have a “relationship” with His Church is an idea that is foreign to the writers of the New Testament. St. Paul instructs Timothy: : “you may know how you ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the Living God, the pillar and the bulwark of Truth”. St. Paul goes on to say: “great indeed is the mystery of our religion…” He apparently likes that word, too. I’ll take St Paul and St. James over the moderns who do not!
 
How do we “love and believe” Jesus? It certainly does matter that we love and believe Jesus. Firstly, what do we believe? Who do we believe? Is it open to our own interpretation? Can we pick up a Bible and find our personal Jesus? If Our Lord had wanted to author a book of His teachings, He could have. He could have told us everything He wanted us to know; everything we need to know. That’s not what He did. He commanded His eleven disciples to: “Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Matt 28: 19-20) At the Last Supper, He promises His apostles the “Advocate, to be with you always, the Spirit of truth…” (Jn 14: 16) And of course, the Apostles, who were commissioned by Our Lord to teach us what to believe, are told by Our Beloved Savior: “Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you, rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” (Lk 10: 16) We know that the Apostles, led by the “Spirit of truth,” appointed successors to carry on in their stead. It is these successors whom we can thank that we even have knowledge of Our Lord. We have both Scripture, and the institution of the visible Church, which defined and guarded all 27 books of the New Testament through a millenium and a half before printing presses were invented.

So we know what and whom we should believe. If we reject the successors of the Apostles and their teachings, we reject Jesus.

Secondly, how do we show that we love Jesus. Newvert very appropriately quotes John 14:15: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And of course we know what He commanded through His Apostles and their successors. His successors built a visible Church, a “religion.” After Peter’s confession of faith in Jesus as “the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” Jesus proclaims: “…you are Rock (Peter), and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” (Mat 16: 18) And once again, as Newvert provided, love of Jesus is shown thusly: “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me.” (Jn 14: 21)

**So if we reject the “religion” he commanded His successors to establish, we reject Jesus; we neither believe what He wants us to believe, nor show that we love Him by keeping the commandments he entrusted his Apostles and their successors to teach us. **

If we want the Truth, we must subject ourselves to God who is Truth; not make up our own version and hope that God won’t hold us culpable for our errors.
 
This has been a really helpful tread! I am in a protestant church, and have been for about 10 years. I have been one of those who was “anti-religion” but all about having a relationship with Jesus. But I have come around, I believe the Catholic Church is the true church, and has it right about religion.

As I go to our church because of family reasons, though I long to be a Catholic Church one day, I sit back and watch how they try to get people to raise their hands in the service and be emotional. I hear them preach about how you raising your hands in a worship service is a “real” sign of being a good saint. But are very critical about Catholics and their “religious” ceremonies, as if they are empty. But at this same time they are pressing their ideas of what motions we should do in a service, like clapping your hands or having the heppi jeppies. I am getting quite tired of it! I do long to one day to be in a real worship serice where the real presence of Christ is there in the Eucharist, not just a bunch of emotions.
 
Since the course your teaching is apologetics I would stick to the biblical references that support the fact that Jesus founded a particular Church and that the Church He founded was not only authoritative but was to go on until the end of time. The Church He founded was to carry on His mission, the forgiveness of sins. He passed His authority on to the apostles (early Church) and they in turn passed it on to their successors so on and so forth. Non-Catholic Christians are brothers in Christ by virtue of their baptism (assuming it was valid), but they do not enjoy the fullness of the faith that Jesus gave to us, the do not have the benefit of all seven sacraments that are indispencible to salvation. If you need a list of good biblical references to these points let me know and I will send them to you.

My favorite apologetics course material comes from San Juan Seminars, they put out a series of workbooks with wonderful information in them, and also a lamenated cheat sheet for quick bible references categorized by topic; Real Presence, authoritative church, Mary, so on and so forth. You may find this stuff at your local Catholic book store, some of the ones here in Atlanta carry them.
 
Hello Copland,

What a sincere desire you have to be closer to Jesus in the Eucharist! When I hear “Religion doesn’t matter,” I consider those fightin’ words, (though I remain calm!). Saying religion doesn’t matter relegates the TRUTH of the Eucharist to a non-issue, when it should be the center of our lives. The Pope has called it the source and summit of our faith.

How can religion NOT matter when some denominations say you can lose your SALVATION, while others say you can’t? Both can’t be correct! Man, I sure want to get this point clear- my eternity depends on it.

I was born a Catholic, but I would have to say that the historical Church is the Catholic Church and that would attract me if I were Protestant. I often read apologetics based upon the writings of the Church Fathers, and they didn’t teach sola fide, sola scriptura, or a purely symbolic Eucharist. God would not allow his Church to teach in error the tenets of Catholicism for 1500 years, and then all of a sudden raise reformers to change doctrine and get it right!

My God continue to work in your life, and bless you immensely,

Liseux
 
To me its, the fact that Jesus only founded one church, and gave the keys to the kingdom of heaven only to it. Amongst those keys are Jesus,the Bless Mother, the communion of saints, all seven sacerments,the truth and they cant get that in any other church.
 
First of all, thanks for all the (name removed by moderator)ut!

OTM: What was meant by my statement of being non-denominational is “non-Christian” is that that not being religious is not in accord with what followers of Christ should do. I didn’t intend it to mean that it automatically disqualifies someone from being a Christian. Although we could probably have a good discussion on this topic (e.g. “Does discarding central teachings of Jesus disqualify one from being a Christian?”), that wasn’t the point I was trying to make.

Thanks again to all!
Hollis

(For those who are interested, my website is www.CatholicYouthWeb.com )
 
lisuex,
God would not allow his Church to teach in error the tenets of Catholicism for 1500 years, and then all of a sudden raise reformers to change doctrine and get it right!
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I have never heard it said like that, but that is a great one liner I will remember! That is sooooo true.
 
Belonging to a Church community is belonging to a Parish Family. Family membership brings responsibility to our neighbour that one cannot find outside of the family.
 
Don’t know if this is relevant to your question, but my readings and meditations have yielded the following thoughts which may or may not be helpful. Sorry for its length, but it does eventually get to why Catholic worship is the worship that has developed through time based soundly on OT revelation.
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God's revelation to man began with the OT, throughout which God also painted His revelations in the lives and events that occurred-foreshadowing, which pointed the way to the the Offspring first promised in the Protoevangelium of Genesis.

Man has always had an impulse, in recognition of the entirety of life as a gift from God, of offering back to Him, the best of one's crops, livestock, etc. God has always accepted this sacrifice of one's livelihood as an outward sign of man's acknowlegement of his creaturehood and of God as Creator. This sacrifice was so important to the revelation of Truth that God's handprint of Jesus' Passion was all over the almost sacrifice of Isaac. (So important as it foreshadowed the blessing of Abraham leading to his blessing of the entire world, universal salvation, as St. Paul explains at length in Galatians.)

The supreme worship of the Jews in the Temple was directly related to the acceptance of Abel's sacrifice, a lamb, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his only beloved son, and to the Passover of Exodus. Also of importance is Melchisadek's offering of bread and wine to God and Abraham's tithing to him, followed by Melchisadek's blessing on Abraham. Sounds a little like the Mass, doesn't it? It's also interesting to note that ancient Jewish rabbis used to write that when the sacrifices of the old covenant ended, only the todah (thanksgiving) offerings of bread and wine would remain. (Especially cool as eucharistia means  "thanksgiving" in Greek.)

All of this comes together when we finally learn that todah or thanksgiving meal is realized in Christ at the Last Supper, in which we learn that the bread and wine become Jesus who is both the High Priest and the Sacrifice of the Lamb's Supper in heaven.

To make a long story short, our Mass, which is filled with OT liturgical ritual, and Scriptural prayer is the fulfillment of the OT liturgy. The highest form of ancient Jewish worship was animal sacrifice--the Church fulfills it with the Sacrifice of the Lamb of God. 

Part 2 to follow...
 
Part 2

Many Protestants have discarded the Sacrifice, proving the necessity of having eyes of faith to see and ears of faith to hear John 6. The beauty of the Mass is its adherence to the revelation of God from earliest times, following the development of revelation and doctrine as God completely revealed Himself to us in Jesus the Christ.

As for the ritual–God created us animal and spirit with bodies and souls. It only seems right that we make use of all of our faculties to worship Him–our senses and our spirits. The incense of the Ark of the Covenant and the Temple, the robes that go back to Aaron’s vestments, the voices raised in the singing of the psalms and music of the harps and trumpets that recalled the accompaniment of lightning and thunder to the Theophany on Mt. Sinai. This recognition of our bodily and spiritual composition is clearly seen in the material base of many of Jesus’ miracles. The laying on of hands, using oils to anoint, using spit and mud to restore sight, using bread and wine to become the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Immanuel, God With US, and finally to be seen in the sacraments with their physical representation of the spiritual effectiveness of the sacraments.

If you add the wonder of lifting our hearts up to heaven as St. John did on Patmos, and realize that each Mass we attend is joining in with the worship of all the angels and saints as Jesus, our High Priest, presents His own sacrifice, to which we add all of the actions, joys, suffering, and praise of our lives, Mass is no longer a boring ritual, but rather an exciting, and humbling sacrifice and thanksgiving meal of the Lamb’s Supper.

Our Mass is the fulfillment of the Jewish Passover meal, the Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil, celebrated daily, weekly, yearly. It is so cool to see seasonal cycles reflected in the liturgy of Jesus’ life, and to realize that that same cycle is the one that the Church goes through in each liturgical year, as well as each and every Christian and Catholic in his journey of faith.
 
in addition to the direction in John 14:15, i find Gibson’s film to be extremely helpful in challanging this thought…if it really didn’t matter to God, would He actually have gone thru that? the extent to which He let Himself suffer was, in part, His way of saying, ‘look folks, I am really, really, really, REALLY serious about this stuff. please pay attention.’ i can’t see someone going thru all that and then saying, ‘oh gee, i dont really care what you do, just wing it.’
thanks for listening, love and peace, terry
 
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