My Conversion Story

To read my conversion story, I have posted it in .pdf format available for download.


Thursday, September 22, 2011

Religion v. relationship

Something that really chaps my saddlebags: When people start pitting "religion" vs. "relationship". An example can be found on this website. Mute your speakers. A song starts playing with no visible means of shutting it off!

Typically the argument goes like this:

"Christianity is not a religion. A 'religion' is man trying to reach God by his own effort. Christianity is a 'relationship' because it is God reaching out to man."

The problem with this is that that is NOT the definition of the word "religion." Evangelicals simply made it up in the 1970s so they could make a sermon point and it stuck. It's is nothing more than a meaningless, trite phrase.

According to Peter Kreeft in Catholic Christianity, "The word religion comes from religare in Latin and means 'relationship'—-relationship with God."

So while it is true that God reaches out to man, and that man would never reach out to God without Him first enabling Man through grace, the phrase just makes Christians sound unitelligent by creating definitions out of thin air.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for this. I love Peter Kreeft and remember hearing him talk about the meaning of the word religion. I was trying to find his quote online and came upon your blog. I'm writing a lesson for Catholic teens and wanted them to understand that religion means a relationship with God.

    ReplyDelete