"Religion" as Description, "Religion" as Demon

So there you have the complexity of talking about love.  Initially we suggest it's more of a "you know it when you see it" thing and the clamor is "No, we need definition!"  So we try to define it and the clamor is, "Hey, you can't define something like love.  That spoils it!"  Perhaps just proving the complexity of the subject, especially when, as some of you suggested, maybe "love" is a synonym for God ("God is love") or for Jesus himself.  Which gives it the characteristics of a living, breathing thing (or maybe a "substance," as one of you suggested).  One thing we all seem to agree on: whatever they might think of themselves, the angry people with the signs are not being loving.

So what does this exchange suggest to me?  Let's have the same sort of conversation about something equally challenging to pin down: religion! 

Brian, in a comment last week, pressed that we need to do periodic definitions of what we mean by "religion" when we're all participating in a blog called "Not the Religious Type."  And, fair enough.

I realize, despite having written a book on the topic, which you'd think would mean I've given this some thought, I'm pushing for a non-standard definition.  So maybe I'm tempted to concede two different senses in which we might talk about religion. 

The reason I, a pastor of a church that talks about Jesus, feel comfortable nonetheless in calling myself  "not the religious type" is that I'm defining "religion" as, essentially, a demonic hoodwinking of a given person.  The religious people in the Bible were the Pharisees, under this way of looking at things.  They were the villains, not the heroes of the story.  There was nothing good to be said in the Bible about being religious.  Religion was a demon that swept through people, filled them with self-righteousness, encouraged them to demonize people with whom they differed, and angered God (and annoyed people).  It's 100% bad.  When Paul defines Jesus as having come to "break dividing walls," he's effectively saying that Jesus came to destroy that biggest, baddest demonic principality of all: religion. 

In this way of thinking, how people can help each other is to help each other avoid this worst of evils.  And the way to do that is to do what the non-religious people of the later New Testament did--connect powerfully with Jesus by way of his Holy Spirit, follow him wholeheartedly but with lots and lots of humility, and look to Jesus to give one's life meaning, power and direction.  This endeavor is never about fighting the awful people out there; it's about partnering with the living God towards what God is doing on earth--AS BEST AS ONE CAN.  Understanding that, of course, who on earth are any of us, really?  When we seem helpfully to be connecting with Jesus, we celebrate.  When we don't seem to be doing so well, we avoid beating ourselves up, but ask for prayer and advice and encouragement. 

There you have it: "Not the Religious Type" in the sense of having no interest in religious wars--culture wars or actual wars.  Those are what people under this evil demon's influence do (which perhaps answers our question about how to respond to the angry people with the offensive signs).

But some folks take umbrage at this take on "religion," regarding it as an unhelpful purloining of the term.  As I mentioned in my response to Brian a few posts back, this is how the atheist writer John Loftus responded in a joint radio interview we did a few months back.  It was his intention to pillory religious people for the evils of the world, and having me respond, "Oh, I couldn't agree with you more.  Those religious people ARE the cause of most of the world's problems!  I wrote a whole book on just that point." pissed him off.  

And Brian points out that using my preferred definition of "religion" when he talks with his secular friends just seems like word games and a dodge to them.  CLEARLY people like Brian and me are religious, whatever we might try to say.

So...sure.  If someone asks me, "Are you religious?" I can graciously say, I suppose, "If you mean do I go to church?  Yes I do."  So I suppose "religion" can just be something helpful definitionally.  But I think I'm on firm ground in saying it's not at all just word games to say that the New Testament aligns itself squarely against religion.  It really has nothing good to say about it, except perhaps in James' attempt to reclaim some meaning to "TRUE religion," implying that he hasn't seen many examples of that.  The perspective of the rest of it?  Religion is a terrible but almost irresistible demon, and most of the stakes of our lives boil down to not getting sucked into it.  So--this probably sounds smug and therefore religious--I'm too into the Bible to cop to being religious.

Thoughts?