I want to clear that the primary reason that I am drawing a line of demarcation between the Christian religion and the simple followers of Jesus of Galilee is because the Christian religion is in a death spiral, and for good reason. The “following of Jesus” is the proverbial lifeboat off the religious Titanic.

I will restate that the fundamental difference between religion and following Jesus occurs on a deep, Freudian level and has to do with our primary motivation. The operative word here is “deep.” It requires a profound introspection into our psyche to find this place of motives. It takes hours, if not years, of humble contemplation to understand which side of the fence we are on. However, in this series of articles, I aim to explore the surface markers that can provide us with hints about that foundation.

Religious Christianity

As stated before, the primary purpose of religion is to instill into one’s consciousness a sense of piety. Being holy, above the crowd. The current term is “spiritual.”  The most effective tool for doing this is comparison. Therefore, I refer to it as “competitive piety.” It starts with the easy comparison with those outside the faith. By demonizing them and dehumanizing them, it creates contrast with our piety so that our piety stands out, at least to ourselves. This is the foundation of the modern Christian-based culture wars. Having participated in such groups, I can speak from experience on this matter.  We hated gays, transexuals, atheists, Democrats, Pro-choice people, abortionists, evolutionists, Muslims, immigrants, the homeless, and the list goes on. We spread baseless conspiracy theories about them and dehumanized them. We convinced ourselves, as one old evangelical told me not long ago, “I don’t hate the LGBTQ people… God does.”

These “heroes” of the culture wars believe they are following the Bible and doing God’s work, which sets them above the rest. However, if you removed all your cultural biases, came to the Bible as an alien (from another planet), you would see that in most of these places where they think the Bible supports their views, it’s like a Rorschach test; you see what you want to see.

Most cultures (including those that were never Christian) have a bias against people who are different, because of this same psychological motivation. It can be human nature, bad nature.

When this religious-based culture war goes entirely off the rails, you end up with someone like Vance Luther Boelter, the political assassin in Minnesota, who was just arrested. What we know about Mr. Boelter is that he was a faithful evangelical. He was known as an outspoken voice against the LGBTQ community and abortion, which are typically scapegoats for religious hate.

Suppose you think that Mr. Boelter is an abbreviation. In that case, I must remind you that the Christian religious church has murdered almost two hundred million innocent people in the past two thousand years due to the culture wars (e.g., Christian Vs Muslim, or Christian Vs Jew, Catholic Vs Protestant, church vs indigenous peoples). This is the reason there are three main church divisions: Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant, because each sees itself as the only true path to God, “God’s real church.” Then, within Protestantism, there are at least 120 more divisions of churches, each of which believes it is the only path to God. Religion is a strange, competitive game.

The next level of comparisons for competitive piety is the internal comparisons. Competition with those within the faith. This was a significant aspect of my evangelical life, as it involved proving who was the most spiritual. To make these comparisons, you must first imagine a long list of good vs bad behaviors and beliefs. You try to adhere to the good and hope to see the bad somewhere in the others. You are delighted to see the chinks in their armor, their mistakes of mis-beliefs. I now refer to people like me as dogmatists. They have certainty about everything and a built-in radar that examines everything you do and every word you say, trying their best to find a flaw, even if they must distort your words to do it. They do not make good friends, unless you are a dogmatists too. They do not make good church congregations for a pastor.

Let’s close this on a positive note.

A return to “Following Jesus.”

Again, Luke 9:23 records Jesus as saying, “Then he said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.’” Full Stop

Denying oneself is to let go of that search for piety or significance and to put the needs of others ahead of your own. In the final part of the verse, the followers of Jesus imitate his life and teachings. Read them. Read the red font in a “Red Letter” edition Bible. But for a shortcut, read the hope of the Beatitudes, Matthew 5. For instruction on how to live with other people, read the parable of the sheep and goats.

Other teachings of Jesus that everyone is familiar with is about love. Love your neighbor (other people) as yourself and love your enemies. Religious Christianity is quite pretentious, saying the right things, “I love everybody,” but true love is how you live in the private areas of your life, when no one is watching. It takes a profound honestly to search your own heart.

I will end by saying that I agree with the dogmatists, who often tell me I’m not a very good Christian or not a Christian at all. But I am not measured by their yardstick. My failures as a Christian is not about me not conforming to their Christian culture; it is because I don’t deny myself the way I should, love the way I should, nor do I treat the least of people in our society the way I should. That’s the real reason I’m not a very good Christian, not because I believe that human reason is a gift from God, maybe his greatest gift. Not because I adore science, the embracing of God’s creation, his other book (per Thomas Aquinas).

Following Jesus Vs Christian Religion and the Organized Church

I will write about my views toward the organized church later. However, the dogmatists try to paint my views as anti-organized church. That is not true. I’m associated with a very good church, with people I adore. However, it is clear to me, that if you studied the Bible and history carefully, you would be hard pressed to prove that the organized church as we know it is “God’s institution.” It has too many flaws, too many atrocities in it’s history. The church that Jesus spoke of was a society of followers, nothing else. As a social structure, centered around a “Sunday morning worship service” is no longer working for the post christian world and needs to be reconsidered.

Being a human institution doesn’t imply that the church is evil. Like all human institutions, it has the option of being a source of inspiration for following the historical Jesus, or an instrument of Christian religion. If your experience with the church makes you love people better, deny yourself more, it is a positive influence. If it plays to the competitive religion, shining light on the evils of people outside the church (culture wars), or who is superior inside, or is egocentric, all about you, then it is counterproductive to God’s plan for humanity.

If we all followed the teachings of Jesus, rather than our religious-egocentric impulses, the hemorrhaging of people from Christianity would be turned on its head. My hope for the “Post-Christian” world is that the simple Jesus followers would return and the Christian religious would disappear.

Respectfully,

Mike