Christianity as the End of Religion

A few weeks ago I read Peter Rollins's new book The Fidelity of Betrayal: Toward a Church Beyond Belief. This is a sequel to Rollins's earlier book How (Not) to Speak of God.

In Fidelity Rollins takes up what I consider to be the most provocative theme from his earlier book How (Not). Specifically, it considers this question: Might the most faithful act of being a Christian be the renunciation of Christianity?

Let's examine, in turn, a weaker and stronger version of this question.

One way to approach this question is to do the following. Christianity, as a brand, is so historically, politically, morally, intellectually and culturally compromised that to be an effective witness for the faith one has to publicly and strenuously distance oneself from Christianity. Many Christians appear to be making this move. As a consequence, you see a lot of Christians criticizing and hammering Christianity as hard as secular critics do. Thus, we see Christians side with authors such as Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens over against Christianity.

I call this the "weaker" response as what is being rejected here is the Christian brand. Christianity itself isn't rejected as a religion, just its corrupted manifestations.

I'm more interested in a stronger response to Rollins's question. What if being a Christian means no longer being religious? What if conversion to Christianity means stepping out of religion? What if Christianity is the end of religion?

For argument's sake one could point to a variety of biblical impulses that point to this notion that God is seeking the end of religion. Here are some quick hits:

Amos 5. 21-24
I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
I cannot stand your assemblies.

Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.

Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.

But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Hosea 6.6 & Matthew 9.13
"For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings."
***
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Luke 13. 10-17
On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, "There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath."

The Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?"

When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

John 4. 19-26
"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

I could go on with this. But I'd also like to note that Jesus never sets up a church, starts a new religion, or worships with his followers. When Jesus asks his followers to "make disciples of all nations" we are led to believe that the pattern of that discipleship is revealed in the gospels. And in the gospels we don't find a religion. We find a new pattern of living, of relating to the world. More, we see in the gospels Jesus as the enemy of religion. Religion actually kills Jesus. God and Religion are revealed as enemies.

Further, when one moves out of the gospels we find the early church to be very non-religious. They are mainly noteworthy for fellowship and material sharing. Again, following Jesus isn't about "going to church" or "worshipping God." It's about stepping into a new way of relating to the world.

I would argue that you can't be religious and be a Christian. To be religious means you approach the world with it already divided into groups: Believers and Non-Believers, Christians and Pagans, Us and Them, etc. You can't adopt that stance and stay true to the Christian faith. You're dead right out of the gate. You have to enter the world non-religiously. In this manner you are open to the entire world. You refuse to cut the world up into pieces by identifying yourself with a religious faith.

Does this imply a wishy washy religious tolerance? Yes, yes it does. Because Christians don't care about the religious discussion. Rather, what Christians are vehemently against is wickedness and evil. Christians don't care if you are Hindu or Jewish or Christian or an atheist. What we care about is patterns of life that hurt or dehumanize. Again, God desires mercy and justice, not religious observance. In short, the conversations that occupy the Christian are not religious but focus upon the human predicament.

I think it was this sentiment that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was after in his letters from prison:

To Eberhard Bethage, July 18, 1944:

[Religious man] must therefore live in the godless world, without attempting to gloss over or explain its ungodliness in some religious way or other. He must live a "secular" life, and thereby share in God's sufferings. He may live a "secular" life (as one who has been freed from false religious obligations and inhibitions). To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to make something of oneself (a sinner, a penitent, or a saint) on the basis of some method or other, but to be a man--not a type of man, but the man that Christ creates in us. It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life.

To Eberhard Bethage, July 21, 1944:

During the last year or so I've come to know and understand more and more the profound this-worldliness of Christianity. The Christian is not a homo religiosus, but simply a man, as Jesus was a man...

As Bonhoeffer also wrote from prison, the church (and the Christian) can only be the church if it exists for others. The church doesn't exist for itself over against the other religions. The Christian church exists to serve the Other, even the other religions. The Christian is the Servant of the World. To "convert" to "Christianity" is to step into this mission. To adopt a non-religious posture and to exist for the sake of the world.