Evilness of Religion. Part 1
I realize that there are many in the christian religious world that
will disagree with a statement that I will make shortly, by thinking the
statement does not include the "Christian Religion" because I am a
believer in Jesus Christ, and in their thinking Jesus is the founder of
the "christian religion". After reading the statement they may consider
me an apostate believer instead of a true believer.
One encyclopedia defines religion this way; "Religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to the supernatural, and to spirituality.[note 1] Many religions have narratives, symbols, and sacred histories that are intended to explain the meaning of life and/or to explain the origin of life or the Universe. From their beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, they tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle. According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions in the world."
The statement I want to make is...Religion is a product of man, or worse, a product of the devil and his influence on man, and is one of the greatest forces FOR EVIL in the community of humanity and one of the greatest hinderances to the Grace Gospel of Jesus being expressed through His community of the redeemed, so the community of humanity will see His glory.
To be clear, I am including the system of the "Christian Religion" as a force for evil along with the ungodly religions. Also let it be clear that it is not the people in the religious systems that is the force for evil, it is the people giving themselves over to the system that causes them to do evil things while believing they are serving God. In saying that, there are good people in the religious system who are unaware they are in a evil system or in league with the devil because their understanding of evilness is different from that of God.
I would refer to religion as any performance based system powered by guilt-inducing and fear-mongering while promoting a set of denominational rules based on their interpretation of the bible, or some other holy book, as a road map and whose people unashamedly sling guilt and fear around to keep its parishioners in line, and use the breaking or keeping of religious rules and rituals to show people they are, or are not, living up to standards set out by the denomination.
Jesus did not come to point us to or to establish a better religion called Christianity...No...He came to bring us unto Himself and live in us, to free us from the demands of and enslavement to performance based religion.
Any reliance on institutions that depend on a system of rules, rituals and routine performance as a way to God or to maintain a relationship with God is evil because it diminishes Jesus as the Head of His Body. The Christian religion has it right in the belief that it is "by grace" that people enter into relationship with God, but to load people with constitutional bylaws, rule keeping and membership based on performance obligations and law keeping as a means to maintain their relationship and mature spiritually, is grace plus something, which is not grace at all.
It is not the blatant wickedness of sinners or what religious people deem to be evil, as to the ineffectiveness of the gospel to turn the world system upside down for Christ, rather it is the evil force and deceptiveness within religion in undermining the good news of the gospel and the plan of God both for the community of the redeemed and the community of humanity.
Apostasy in the "Body of Christ" (believers) is when believers in Christ succumb to the ideologies of man and rejects Jesus as the Head of the community of the redeemed in favor of the religious hierarchy of religion and their mixing of the Law with Grace as the gospel. They have defected, departed and by association and application and are in rebellion against the Gospel of Christ even while believing what they are a part of is conducive to promoting the Gospel of Christ...when in fact it is EVIL!
Some things that lead to usurping the authority of Christ are:
Falling from Grace...to revert back to the law-based relationship of identifying with Christ and agreeing with the enemy of God in that the finished work of Christ was not sufficient.
Deception...believing that the religious performance system that teach various heresies and falsehoods regarding God, Jesus and the bible, doing so seduces their pure devotion away from Christ to religion.
Persecution from within religion...guilt-inducing and fear-mongering tactics spawned by the system to keep people under control by instilling the fear of hell, or that people will miss out on God's blessing for being unfaithful to the "church" and are subject to excommunication from it, if people do not follow the "church" doctrines.
Paul said;
"Which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.". (Acts 26:5)
For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. (Gal. 1:13-14)
James recorded;
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. (James 1: 26-27)
From these verses we can plainly see that it is possible to live in the deception that what we believe to be right is indeed wrong. Since it is possible to be religious and yet be wrong, we must guard against evil religion. Religion more than any other entity is responsible for keeping people from the freedom that is in Christ.
“Satan entered into Judas” (Luke 22:3). Behind the scenes of world and personal events lurks an evil spirit, the devil, who is working for his own ends in opposition to God. If he can pawn off counterfeit religions that keep people from knowing fully the true God, he can hold them in spiritual darkness. They think that they know God, but in reality they only know about God.
Satan loves religion...All of the world’s major religions (including Christianity) invariably promote the idea that man can gain relationship, or maintain relationship with God through some form of good works or human performance. Such an approach to spiritual relationship is intrinsically flawed because God’s holiness must be reduced down to a level where we can approach Him by our own good deeds, this is blasphemy because man’s sinfulness is diminished and man's goodness built up to the point that man can do something to gain and maintain salvation. If we aren’t dead in our sins, separated from God to the degree that we can do nothing to remedy the situation, then we didn't need a perfect substitute to atone for our sins. We didn't need Christ to save us; we just have to pull ourselves up by our own boot strings by trying to do the best we can. Such action makes the sacrifice of Christ unnecessary and it feeds the egotistical pride of egotistical man.
The chief priests and scribes believed in the true God of the Bible, who revealed Himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Judas was not just a follower of Jesus, but also one of the twelve. And yet they all were in league with evil in the plotting of the killing of Jesus.
One encyclopedia defines religion this way; "Religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to the supernatural, and to spirituality.[note 1] Many religions have narratives, symbols, and sacred histories that are intended to explain the meaning of life and/or to explain the origin of life or the Universe. From their beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, they tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle. According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions in the world."
The statement I want to make is...Religion is a product of man, or worse, a product of the devil and his influence on man, and is one of the greatest forces FOR EVIL in the community of humanity and one of the greatest hinderances to the Grace Gospel of Jesus being expressed through His community of the redeemed, so the community of humanity will see His glory.
To be clear, I am including the system of the "Christian Religion" as a force for evil along with the ungodly religions. Also let it be clear that it is not the people in the religious systems that is the force for evil, it is the people giving themselves over to the system that causes them to do evil things while believing they are serving God. In saying that, there are good people in the religious system who are unaware they are in a evil system or in league with the devil because their understanding of evilness is different from that of God.
I would refer to religion as any performance based system powered by guilt-inducing and fear-mongering while promoting a set of denominational rules based on their interpretation of the bible, or some other holy book, as a road map and whose people unashamedly sling guilt and fear around to keep its parishioners in line, and use the breaking or keeping of religious rules and rituals to show people they are, or are not, living up to standards set out by the denomination.
Jesus did not come to point us to or to establish a better religion called Christianity...No...He came to bring us unto Himself and live in us, to free us from the demands of and enslavement to performance based religion.
Any reliance on institutions that depend on a system of rules, rituals and routine performance as a way to God or to maintain a relationship with God is evil because it diminishes Jesus as the Head of His Body. The Christian religion has it right in the belief that it is "by grace" that people enter into relationship with God, but to load people with constitutional bylaws, rule keeping and membership based on performance obligations and law keeping as a means to maintain their relationship and mature spiritually, is grace plus something, which is not grace at all.
It is not the blatant wickedness of sinners or what religious people deem to be evil, as to the ineffectiveness of the gospel to turn the world system upside down for Christ, rather it is the evil force and deceptiveness within religion in undermining the good news of the gospel and the plan of God both for the community of the redeemed and the community of humanity.
Apostasy in the "Body of Christ" (believers) is when believers in Christ succumb to the ideologies of man and rejects Jesus as the Head of the community of the redeemed in favor of the religious hierarchy of religion and their mixing of the Law with Grace as the gospel. They have defected, departed and by association and application and are in rebellion against the Gospel of Christ even while believing what they are a part of is conducive to promoting the Gospel of Christ...when in fact it is EVIL!
Some things that lead to usurping the authority of Christ are:
Falling from Grace...to revert back to the law-based relationship of identifying with Christ and agreeing with the enemy of God in that the finished work of Christ was not sufficient.
Deception...believing that the religious performance system that teach various heresies and falsehoods regarding God, Jesus and the bible, doing so seduces their pure devotion away from Christ to religion.
Persecution from within religion...guilt-inducing and fear-mongering tactics spawned by the system to keep people under control by instilling the fear of hell, or that people will miss out on God's blessing for being unfaithful to the "church" and are subject to excommunication from it, if people do not follow the "church" doctrines.
Paul said;
"Which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.". (Acts 26:5)
For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. (Gal. 1:13-14)
James recorded;
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. (James 1: 26-27)
From these verses we can plainly see that it is possible to live in the deception that what we believe to be right is indeed wrong. Since it is possible to be religious and yet be wrong, we must guard against evil religion. Religion more than any other entity is responsible for keeping people from the freedom that is in Christ.
“Satan entered into Judas” (Luke 22:3). Behind the scenes of world and personal events lurks an evil spirit, the devil, who is working for his own ends in opposition to God. If he can pawn off counterfeit religions that keep people from knowing fully the true God, he can hold them in spiritual darkness. They think that they know God, but in reality they only know about God.
Satan loves religion...All of the world’s major religions (including Christianity) invariably promote the idea that man can gain relationship, or maintain relationship with God through some form of good works or human performance. Such an approach to spiritual relationship is intrinsically flawed because God’s holiness must be reduced down to a level where we can approach Him by our own good deeds, this is blasphemy because man’s sinfulness is diminished and man's goodness built up to the point that man can do something to gain and maintain salvation. If we aren’t dead in our sins, separated from God to the degree that we can do nothing to remedy the situation, then we didn't need a perfect substitute to atone for our sins. We didn't need Christ to save us; we just have to pull ourselves up by our own boot strings by trying to do the best we can. Such action makes the sacrifice of Christ unnecessary and it feeds the egotistical pride of egotistical man.
The chief priests and scribes believed in the true God of the Bible, who revealed Himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Judas was not just a follower of Jesus, but also one of the twelve. And yet they all were in league with evil in the plotting of the killing of Jesus.
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