Why I Hate Religion: 10 Reasons to Break Free from the Bondage of Religious Tradition (8 page)

A
fter returning from a ministry engagement in South Africa, I began to clearly see some things about the church here in the United States, namely that it seems to be turning into a “circus” with each passing Sunday. Believers are parading around in the church trying to look pious and ultraspiritual without demonstrating the true power of God. Church has become a place where Christians go to get a spiritual “fix” to hold them over until the next Sunday service. They come to church to shout, dance, and fulfill what they perceive as their religious duty. Essentially, church has become a place where people come to be entertained.

It is not uncommon to see people engaging in various displays of outward religious “performances,” but when it comes to their ability to execute the Word of God in their personal lives, they fall short. There are preachers who are preaching things that aren’t even scriptural, and many churches focus on the spectacular, rather than the supernatural power of God, just to keep the people coming back. There are so many gimmicks in the church that it’s ridiculous.

The worst part is that we’ve taken the Word and tried to turn it into a show. It seems that nobody is interested in hearing the pure, unadulterated Word of God, raw and uncut. I’ve found that people don’t want to hear what God has to say as much as they want to be entertained. But contrary to religious ideas, church is not a form of entertainment; it’s not
Showtime at the Apollo
. Church is supposed to be like school. It’s a place where you come to learn about the things of God so you can win life’s battles when you leave the sanctuary.

Unfortunately, religion has turned church into a “see and be seen” type of gathering where people display their looks and talents, without ever tapping into the true power of God. Christians will pack convention halls to get healed and delivered, but many of the people who desperately need God to show up in their lives are not receiving anything from Him because they are failing to get understanding. We try to make it look as if people are getting delivered in services, but all they are really getting is a dose of high emotionalism. Christians have become quite satisfied with this type of nonsense, and consequently, they stay stuck in their problems and yield to a spirit of despair, only to go back and get another fix the next Sunday. They don’t understand that the Word is the needful thing, that it’s a manual for living. And because they refuse to seek after the Word, and trust God and His grace, they get addicted to an emotional high.

Have you ever been to a church service that was geared toward getting the congregation hyped up? From the long devotional prayer recitations to the choir’s electrifying performances, everything makes you want to jump, shout, dance, and run around the
sanctuary, but at the end of the day, you didn’t get fed the Word of God.

I’m sure you’ve been in a service like this before. After the choir delivers a rousing rendition of the Sunday selection, the preacher comes out to deliver his sermon. He opens his Bible and turns to his Scripture text, then closes the Bible and begins his performance. He hoops, hollers, screams like James Brown, throws himself on the pulpit, and marches across the platform while yelling something you can’t understand. The problem is he didn’t back up any part of his message with Scripture. He merely told the people that they were all on their way to hell, and if they want fire insurance, they’d better get saved and join the church.

The church signals their approval of the message by responding with a chorus of “Amens,” “Hallelujahs,” and “Praise the Lords.” The next thing you know, someone “gets happy” and catches the Spirit. Everything comes to a frantic climax as the choir sings “Come to Jesus,” and the preacher opens the doors of the church so people can decide if they want to get saved or not. The problem is that people can’t make a sound decision if they are being swept away by their emotions.

Emotions have a God-given role in the life of every believer, but they become dangerous when people try to manipulate them to control or mislead others. Yes, people should be motivated to become born again, but their motivation should be founded on the faith that comes to them when they hear the Word being preached (see Rom. 10:17), not fear or some other intense feeling. Some ministers feel as if they have to use emotions to motivate the people in a church service, but that is not true. Look at the Apostle Paul’s ministry:

Paul knew the importance of the people understanding the Word, and once they understood clearly, God could move. He knew that he couldn’t save men, but God is the one who draws men’s hearts to Him. Proverbs 4:7 says, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” He didn’t use fancy homiletics or elaborate stories to move the people, but instead, he depended on the power of God to anoint his plain speech.

You may ask what is so wrong about a highly emotional service like the one I described earlier. You may even believe that it is nothing more than the result of the Holy Spirit moving on the people of God. While it is true that the Holy Spirit’s presence does
affect your emotions, He does not cause people to get emotionally and physically out of control. Everything that God does is done decently and in order, so if you see someone running through the church “tearing things up” in an unmanageable way, saying the Spirit is moving in him or her, you know that’s a lie. That is simply a person who is letting his or her emotions cause this type of reaction. The Holy Spirit is a gentleman, and He won’t make you hurt yourself or others.

When people get hold of the Word and start studying it, they will see that they have authority over their emotions. They will begin to see that you don’t just take everything the preacher says as truth, and that if it’s not lining up with God, it should not be received. They won’t fall into religious traditions that come from family and friends, but they will begin to experience the true power of God because they have a sure, unshakable foundation on the Word. It will take a hunger and thirst for God to access this power. Unfortunately, many believers are simply not willing to stop playing the religious church games in order to see the anointing become a reality in their lives.

I’ve found over time that many Christians don’t actually want the Word, nor do they come to church strictly to be spiritually fed. People may come to church to be seen or even to find a mate.
Many times people get into what I call “church games” and lose sight of the purpose for gathering with fellow believers.

I remember during one of our finance conventions when the Holy Spirit began moving on the hearts of the people, and they started bringing money to the altar. I hadn’t seen anything like it before. God prompted the people to sow into the ministry, and they brought their gifts to the altar just like the children of Israel did when they brought freewill offerings to build the tabernacle in Moses’ day (see Exod. 36:3). After that service, the giving began to carry over into our regular weekly services.

One Sunday, a member walked up the steps to the pulpit and placed his offering on the podium while I was down in the audience preaching. After that, I noticed people starting to get “deep” with things. Several people now felt as if they had to walk up and put their offering on the podium in order to sow a seed. I would be up there preaching and people would interrupt my teaching to put their envelope on the podium. Then some of them would even gesture to the crowd on their way down the stairs.

The Holy Spirit is not going to tell anyone to interrupt the Word of God as it’s going forth, so those people were simply doing something to get attention and “show out” for the camera. These people took something that started out as a move of God and turned it into a show.

My response was to make an announcement that people could no longer bring their offerings up and place them on the pulpit. Let me tell you, when I made that announcement, the number of people who brought offerings down front quickly began to dwindle. They loved being able to walk down to the altar in front of everyone to place their money on the podium, but when they had to put their gifts in the receptacles at the sides of the podium area, where there were no cameras, things changed.

These are the same type of people who get upset when it seems
they never get a return on their giving. It is no wonder they never receive a harvest, however, because their hearts weren’t in their giving. First Corinthians 13:3 says, “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” You can’t sow seeds and expect to receive a harvest if you don’t give unselfishly without ulterior motives. Loveless sowing of time, goods, and money won’t produce a profit for you even if you give your last dime.

God is always concerned with the heart of the believer rather than the outward display a person portrays. He knows the motives and the intents of your heart. The Bible says:

When you give motivated by love, God will cause His blessings to abound, but if you are giving for any other reason, you might as well keep your money.

At the same time, many other people in church continued to sow and received an abundant harvest because love was the
motivation behind their giving. They were giving with a joyful heart out of love and obedience to the Father, and they were blessed. Those who received nothing from God got their reward when everyone saw them walking up to sow. God doesn’t play games, so there’s no room for games in the church.

The danger of religion lies in the fact that it perfects phoniness. It takes things that are spiritual and twists them into a form of pretense. It walks a fine line between what is true spirituality and what is flesh-based thinking. That explains why two believers can go to the same church, hear the same sermon, serve in the same volunteer ministry, and get two totally different results from the Word.

One person goes to church hungry for the Word of God, and the other goes to see how many fine men are there that Sunday, which is a carnal motivation for going. Both say “Amen” and “Hallelujah” at the same parts of the message, read the same Bible, give the same amount of money in offering, and serve in the same ministry, yet one experiences the power of God in her life and the other is all form and no power.

It’s a sad indictment that the church of Jesus Christ has gotten over into these types of church games. People have perfected phoniness, acting as if they love God and their neighbors, but it’s really the complete opposite. They can smile at people in church and gossip about them behind their backs. These kinds of Christians
don’t know real love, not the God kind of love that should be flowing out from the church and overflowing into the world.

Religion keeps the Body of Christ in a state of immaturity, where hypocrisy and selfishness reign over God’s Word. It’s caused the love of the people in the church to grow cold, and people don’t sincerely love God or those around them. The Bible says that the distinguishing mark of a true Christian is his love for his brothers and sisters, but because believers refuse to grow up in the Word, they stay in a surface, shallow type of love that’s based on their flesh.

Romans 12:9 in the New King James Version says, “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.” The Amplified Version says, “[Let your] love be sincere (a real thing); hate what is evil [loathe all ungodliness, turn in horror from wickedness], but hold fast to that which is good,” while the New Living Translation says, “Don’t just pretend that you love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.” But if you won’t get in the Word, how can you love those around you or be anything other than a hypocrite?

Every promise or teaching in the Word of God is undergirded by the love of God, so if there is no comprehension of or seeking after the Word, then love will continue to wax cold in the church. If the church is cold and unloving, then where can sinners turn? They’re being turned off by the church circus, and they can’t find a loving believer, so they stay disconnected from Jesus—the only one who can really help them. All of this is a result of having turned church into an entertainment showcase.