RELIGION IN AMERICA
Since we are Americans, American religion, specifically Christianity, is what we know best. The way we see it, religion in America includes most of the aspects included in the following chart. We invite readers to compare our observations with their own.***
THE WAY WE SEE RELIGION IN AMERICA
Beliefs within a particular religious community (e.g.. denomination, church, synagogue, small group, etc.) are generally distinct from other religious communities.
Stories, sometimes written, document the origins, history and doctrines of the religion and create a sense of timeless unity with ancestors who practiced the religion. Most Christians will say that the Bible is God’s word and that they trust it completely.
Religionists within a religious organization have their own language to describe their religious beliefs and practices.
Each religion has its prescribed sets of ceremonial actions and postures that are used in public and private worship and prayer to create distinct religious experiences that differentiate one religion from another.
Each religion has prescribed sets of moral principles define acceptable and unacceptable behaviors for member religionists.
Each religion has buildings, clothing, icons and sacred ritual objects to which they have assigned spiritual significance and power when used in public and private worship and prayer.
Each religion has its unique liturgy, sacraments, language and rituals that provide unifying worship experiences that strengthen and unite the religious community.
Each religion has preferred ritual activities (i.e. dance, music, singing, processions, etc.) that generate physical and emotional affirmations of apparent connectedness with God.
All religions hold religious services (e.g. baptisms, funerals, weddings, sacraments, education, counseling, exorcism, etc.) that are administered by trained leaders to members of the religious community.
All religions provide various types of ministries (e.g. prayer, education, healing, financial assistance, small groups, missions, evangelism, hospitality, etc.) by professional clergy and trained lay volunteers.
All religions have routine collections of financial offerings and fundraising events for special financial needs.
All religions convene weekly worship events, special festivals, small groups and volunteer ministry activities.
Religion events are designed to provide supernatural experiences where religionists can have a direct and powerful connection with God through prayer, fasting, worship music, Holy Spirit anointings, etc.
All religions have a system for training leaders and placing them in local religious communities. Each local religious community has a professional leadership team, including a lead pastor or rabbi, that is responsible for spiritual direction, teaching and public relations.
All religions have evangelism programs for recruiting, qualifying and receiving new members into the religious community.
All religions have programs for welcoming, educating and integrating religionists into the local religious community.
All religions have hierarchical leadership that monitors and provides direction, correction and other services to lower level communities within the larger religious organization.
All religions have a practice of collecting tithes, offerings that support the religion’s physical and corporate infrastructure and compensates its leaders.
Religions that are organized as legitimate charitable, non-profit religious entities has an elected board of directors that establishes policies and procedures for conducting the business of the religious community. They have bookkeeping systems, policies and reports designed to ensure that all financial transactions conform to government laws and sound accounting principles and to demonstrate fiscal accountability to cash donors.
Religious organizations have teams of volunteers are authorized to conduct the nonprofessional work of the religious community.
Larger religious organizations outsource a variety of services from a wide array of organizations (both religious and secular) that specialize in religious and technical services that the local religious community cannot conduct on its own.
Many religions and their members engage in pubic activism on contemporary issues and movements (e.g abortion, gay marriage, politics, creationism, etc.)
We do not represent that the observations in this chart are scientific or complete. They are based exclusively on observations from our personal experience in several religious communities and on a little reading we have done about religion in general. Additional observations we have made about religion may be found in this link.
The particular forms of religion may vary a bit from one community to another, but we dare say that most Christians are able to recognize them even if they don’t participate in them. We don’t know a lot about Judaism, but what little we do know leads us to speculate that our observations apply to that religion also, if for no other reason than the need to comply with laws governing the formation and operation of religions in America.
When you look at this long list of forms of religion in the above chart, it is very clear that it is not simple. In fact, it is downright complicated. If you are a church-goer, you probably did not realize that there was so much to religion. It is challenging to reconcile this picture of religion with the Biblical model of how God directed his people to serve/worship him. The contrast is found in the many complicated rules, or laws, that make up religion. Everything about religion found in the list above is a law written down by religious people. These laws exist as doctrines and bylaws and minutes of board meetings and notices in bulletins. If they are written down somewhere, they are, in God’s view, laws.
People who long for the good old days of New Testament Christianity wrongly wish for the New Testament church to be restored. That sounds very spiritual and pious. We must respect that they must have some clues from their own observations about church that says it is not exactly what God intended, but they have not yet come to understand what God really wants. Since they identify with Jesus, it is probably predictable that they would hope for restoration of the days directly following Jesus days on earth. Their hope for those good old days is wrong, however, because they do not understand that God’s model for Pure Religion goes back farther than Jesus, and the apostles. Instead of wishing for a time that was not as pure as they imagine it to be, they should heed God’s warning through Jeremiah that his people should ask for the old paths so they might avoid destruction.
But what are those old pathways? What is the Biblical model for Pure Religion? The way we see it, neither Jews nor Christians have a clue about Pure Religion.
Christians, in their righteous ignorance and zeal, wrongly and longingly hope for a return of New Testament days. They are New Testament dispensationalists. They say out of one side of their mouth that the entire Bible is God’s word and that they believe every word of it, but on the other side they say, in effect, that everything written before the New Testament can be ignored. That is pure hypocrisy! It is also pure stupidity to ignore anything that God has said — at least that is the way we see it. Somehow these zealous dispensationalists have been able to interpret “all scripture is God breathed” to include only the New Testament. They do this at their peril.
Jews, on the other hand are still wondering in the Wilderness, going around the mountain with Moses and the ancient Israelites while eagerly trying to obey the full written law. They have not yet made it to the Promised Land. That is the destiny for all who practice legalistic religion made up of the rules of men.