O, don’t be so religious.

I read an interesting book recently called The End of Religion. It’s written by Bruxy Cavey, a pastor in Toronto, and it develops the proposition that Jesus was not religious, was actually very anti-religious, and people who seek to follow him should not be religious either. This isn’t a new idea. I first ran across it in my late teens, and it was centuries old then. But, like most “new” ideas, I didn’t get it immediately. I usually need to hear something many times before it dawns on me, at which point I imagine I knew it all along. And the more obvious it is, the more often I need to hear it. Anyway, I think Cavey says these things that I’ve always believed very well, though it may just be that I’m beginning to get it now.

If you think about it, the crucifixion of Jesus was the result of a political and religious conspiracy. The High Priest, Caiaphas, and the puppet king, Herod, worked it out together, with the complicity of Pilate, the Roman Governor, and a handful of citizens. This alone should cause all who take the story seriously to have a dim view of both politics and religion, and to be very concerned about what might happen when the two come together.

Cavey points out that Jesus was always in trouble with the religious authorities precisely because he was irreligious. He broke the Sabbath rules and encouraged his disciples to do so. He fought continually with the Pharisees, who were the super religious people of his day, and he created a huge public disturbance in the Temple courts over the way religion was manipulating the worship of God.

One of the hallmarks of religion is separation anxiety, i.e., the concern about keeping up the barrier between those who are inside the circle of God’s love, and those who are out. Jesus, however, saw everyone on a continuum of God’s love. The point of it all is not to police the boundary, but to be drawn, and draw others to the centre.

The subtitle of the book is: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus and, if you’re ready to have your religious presuppositions challenged, I recommend it. The Bible begins with mankind in a garden with God and no religion, and ends with mankind in the heavenly city, in which there is no temple and no religion. I recommend it also.

That’s The End of Religion, by Bruxy Cavey (Navpress), and The Bible, by several authors, in several languages and places. (NIV, KJV, RSV, etc.)