Something I’ve been thinking about over the course of the last few weeks is whether religion is the answer to our problems and to the question of God (some may say they are one and the same). In many ways I am sympathetic toward theologians who envision a religionless Christianity (be it through Bonhoeffer or Tillich’s concept of dynamics and form). In the spirit of genuine curiosity, what is your take on religion? Is it a necessary component or hindrance to the universal message of the gospel?
March 22, 2007
March 22, 2007 at 12:21 pm
My take is that we something to leverage against ourselves. Something “good” needs to exist “outside” our current system of ethics and investments so that we can be fruitfully critiqued. Phrased other way, we need a place for prophets to stand. “God” functions as that “place,” the fulcrum and lever of moral change and critique.
March 22, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I want to say that religion has some sort of “answer”, since I’m a pastor and am supposed to say things like that, but when I look at the world it seems that a lot of the problems we are trying to “answer” were made in the name of religion.
I sat in a Barnes and Nobel a while back and read the preface to Richard Dawkin’s “The God Delusion”. In the preface, and later in the book, he asks readers to picture a world without religion, which is a world without religious-induced violence. He names some of the major problems in our world today, all of which are fueled by religion. If religion did not exist, does that mean these problems would not exist? Maybe, or maybe we would just find another outlet through which to fuel our hatred.
So, short answer to your question, religion is a necessary component to the universal message of the gospel. Long answer, it is not a necessary component.