By Reese Currie, Compass Distributors
An agnostic asked me the question, “why was religion invented?” I am sure many in our audience are offended at the suggestion that religion was invented. To them, religion is simply an expression of the truth, the way things really are.
While I believe that is true of Christianity, I am also cognizant that Christianity is not the only religion. Why did the other religions come into existence? Why do so many people choose to become involved with religion?
Since we're already handling one topic which seems large, but is not, I decided also to answer the question, “what is the meaning of life.” The answer to this question must be given, because we all must realize that religion is meant to answer the meaning of life. This is not to be confused with the purpose of life, which I will get to later in this article.
The meaning of life for all people, whether or not they have a religious faith, is to have an identity. All of us spend our entire lives crafting an identity! Some want to have the identity of a successful businessperson. Others wish they could be rich and famous as Hollywood actors, musicians or authors.
Frequently, these goals are frustrated. Many of the people on “skid row” are people who had a dream identity that was beyond their reach. Failing to attain it, they took on an identity to match their shame and failure. It is a sad delusion for them, for each of them could be so much more.
Much of world religion is based on a need to limit the quest for identity. This prevents pain for its adherents, usually by limiting their disappointments or in a few cases ensuring their successes in the material world.
The Taoist identity, for example, is that people and all other things are only a part of a larger, cosmic force called Tao, an impersonal force that defies description, from which all things are made. It has no mind, no purpose, it just is. So Taoists strive to be a lot like Tao, mindless and purposeless, and that gives them a lot of peace. They believe that this peace comes from harmony with Tao. It also very effectively curtails any thoughts they had of achieving an individual identity and the stresses associated with this quest.
Hinduism eliminates the need for a personal quest for identity by assigning people a caste upon birth. This may have come from a concern to preserve an aristocracy in the beginning, and expanded in forms to keep its adherents busy while they muddled through this world. If a person is born into a low caste, nothing they do will ever advance their position in society. If they are particularly good, they may be reincarnated into a higher caste in their next life, or if they are particularly bad, a lower caste. This predetermination keeps people from seeking a greater identity in this world, holding out all their hopes against their next life.
Buddhism is highly involved with Hinduism, but is quite different in many respects. Buddha's concept of Karma is that a person's actions cause them suffering or joy in the world. Rather than have people live the awful lives of basing their identities on material success, Buddha tried to make them concentrate on values that would see them through this world with a minimum of grief by taking “the middle path.” So this “middle-path” identity is what Buddhists seek. To be too good a person would result in their reincarnation as a god, and to be too evil would result in their reincarnation as a lower being or as a denizen of hell. It was considered best by Buddha to take the middle path and be reincarnated as a human being again. (In Buddha's beliefs, gods were reincarnated humans; the complication with being a god was gods in their relentless quest for pleasure forget their own need for salvation, die and are reincarnated as lower life forms.) This “middle path” mentality leads to a desire to neither excel nor fail, and so much stress is avoided by living a mediocre life.
A member of the Jewish faith believes that by birth, he is one of God's chosen people. That is his basic identity, although he is allowed complete self-determination in what he makes of himself in this world.
A Christian believes that, when he comes to faith in Jesus Christ, he is adopted as one of God's sons. Just like a Jew, a Christian has complete self-determination in worldly things, except he is cautioned not to become a part of the world. As James 4:4 says, “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
James 4:4 highlights a very important difference between Christianity and every other religion in the world. The world is against God, and God is against the world. Following God does not make people friends of the world but enemies. In sharp contrast, all of the other world religions seem to be based on making your way easily through the world, without making any waves.
When the Hebrews had God's favor, they were enemies of the world themselves. They were perceived to be the enemies of Egypt even while living there peaceably. They were certainly the enemies of Egypt when God took them out. They were the enemies of the world when they annexed the Holy Land.
God later opposed the earthly kingdom that the people of Israel demanded. When they insisted on having their own kingdom, God took it as a personal rejection. 1 Samuel 8:7 records, “And the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.’”
From that point onward, Israel itself became a friend to the world, to the point that centuries later their love for the world and the things of the world kept them from accepting the long awaited, long promised Savior, Jesus Christ. Their love of worldliness today causes them to continue to seek a kind of “political” salvation rather than the salvation they were offered in Jesus Christ.
The followers of Jesus were not afraid to be opposed to the world. After Jesus was taken up, they opposed the Roman state religions and Rome's evil practices, such as the gladiatorial games in which murder was presented as entertainment. Rome struck back by making captured Christians part of the entertainment by throwing them to the lions or having them face gladiators unarmed. This persecution met its height when Nero had living Christians tied to poles and burned as torches to provide light to keep the arenas open at night.
It is unfortunately true that a large faction of the church later joined with the Roman state, making itself a friend of the world at enmity with God. This church was known then as the Catholic Church. Non-worldly Christianity continued to exist in heavily persecuted pockets. When the reformation came, the churches which sprang from the Roman Catholic Church, including the Anglican, Lutheran and Reformed (the Reformed, Presbyterian, and Church of Scotland) retained this link to the state. Only the “radical reformation” groups, which strove to achieve the first century church's identity and practice, cut the link with the State. This is especially true of the Baptists, who were offered chances to become a state religion in North America but consistently refused. Separation of church and state is one of the distinctive doctrines of the Baptists.
Why the difference between world-loving religion and God-loving religion? The Christian Scriptures explain it. Satan is referred to frequently by Jesus as the “prince of this world” (John 12:31; 16:11). Satan has arranged religions to help him accomplish his purposes of beating people down and keeping them from interrupting his plans. Satan has arranged religions to have people seeking meaningless identities rather than the only meaningful identity, to become a member of the family of God, an adopted son or daughter of God Almighty.
Satan is obviously the root of all religion other than Christianity, for the rest of religion exists to seek only reward in this world, which Satan would also have us believe is perpetual. The marriage of church and state in some Christian denominations is also a work of Satan, to prevent the church from fulfilling its purpose in this world. It is interesting to note that pope John Paul II has claimed that the world as we know it will never end, which fits in with Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist beliefs but not Christian beliefs. Christians believe that the world will end, for the Bible repeatedly tells us it will take place.
With this foundation behind us, we can now briefly examine the purpose of life. God created two sentient types of beings, angels and humans. We know very little about angels. We know that Satan is an angel that rebelled against God, and a certain number of angels also sinned and joined Satan in his rebellion. Angels do not reproduce; apparently they were all created at one time. Angels also cannot be saved; they do not have a Savior in Jesus Christ.
God knew his creation, Man, would be tempted into sin by the rebellious angel Satan since the beginning. Knowing this, God set up humans as reproductive creatures, and set up our environment so that a certain number of us could exist in the world at a time. He also predetermined ahead of time that He, in Christ Jesus, would provide salvation for humans. With everything lined up, then, he gave us our lives, so that we could each, individually, have a chance to experiment with sin, and then have a choice to cling to sin or to cling to the shed blood of Jesus Christ for our salvation.
How do we make the choice in favor of Jesus Christ? The first thing we must do is recognize that we have all experimented with sin and thus are sinners, and rightly under God's judgment. The second thing is to repent of our sin, that is, change our minds toward sin. We've been clinging to sin all our lives as our source of happiness, or getting ahead, or as the means of achieving our identity in this world. We must repent and see that the way of sin leads to death, but faith in Jesus Christ will lead us to eternal life. We must be willing to turn away from our sin and turn toward God. True repentance will cause us to change the way we live to be in greater harmony with God.
We never achieve a state of being completely sin-free in this world, but God starts a work in us that He will complete when His kingdom comes. God doesn't need to see perfection in us; He sees that in Jesus Christ, and when we are in Christ Jesus through our faith in Him, His perfection is seen as our perfection too. We do our best because we love Him, but God is not looking for perfection! He is looking for a humble heart and a broken spirit that is now willing to do His will.
Those who cling to Jesus Christ for their salvation will be with God in the next world. Those who cling to sin will be destroyed with it, for there will be no place for sin where we are going.
The choice of identity is clear. Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation, and you will become a son of the living God.
Why Was Religion “Invented”? is Copyright © 1998 by Compass Distributors
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible: New King James Version (Nashville,
Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Inc.), 1982