On Faith vs. Religion

I came across an interesting article today. It's from US News and World Report and the headline reads, Many Americans Are Saying Goodbye to Religion, but Not Faith.

This is an interesting discussion for me, as someone who always considered himself adverse to religion but trying to find faith. It wasn't until I turned to Christianity as a thirty-something father of three that I realized how foolish and potentially misleading this point of view might be.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The article says in one place:

That trend has emerged in other recent surveys showing that more-bureaucratic and hierarchical traditions, such as the Catholic and mainline Protestant churches, are hemorrhaging members in the United States while highly personalized evangelical and nondenominational congregations are growing. But the move from religion to spirituality has also fed a surge in Americans identifying themselves as "spiritual but not religious," with more than 5 percent of Americans now describing themselves that way.

I understand fully well how dogmatic, fire-breathing and judgmental church experiences can push people to solemnly claim, "I consider myself a very spiritual person, I'm just not very religious." And I appreciate that they usually accompany this with a humanistic, healing worldview. "If I believe in the sanctity of all life," one might wonder, "and if I always strive to do no harm and to live an embracing and loving life…then why do I also need to be religious?"

Good question. The answer I've found for myself on this question is here, from James 2:16-18:

¹⁶If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

¹⁸But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds."
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

I'll be the first to admit that this answer is not for everyone. It wasn't the right answer for Martin Luther, who famously argued that James' letter wasn't even suitable for inclusion in the cannon. Of course he was the founder of the reformation, and insisted that faith alone saves us – none of our works, none of our deeds, none of the things we run about trying to piously accomplish.

But if I could argue against Mr. Luther I'd say that proper religion is faith in action. We can have faith, and we can be spiritual persons. But I don't think we begin to pay back that faith until we start living a religious life, until faith goes out and about in the world, changing hearts and lives. And it's often religion – for better or worse -- that gives us the foundation to go out and act out our faith.

Read the article and let me know what you think.

(Image by Luc Feyman)