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What does it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit?
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works, shew me thy faith without thy works and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
James 2:14-20 (King James Version)
When I was a young Southern Baptist ministerial student, I was constantly in turmoil because of the inconsistencies in the religion of my birth.
Christianity was supposed to be the religion of the Prince of Peace, yet most Baptists I knew strongly supported war -- of almost any kind. I was the only pacifist among the ministerial students in my Bible school, and was considered something of a freak because of it.
The Bible taught that all people were created equal, yet my denomination strongly supported racial segregation and actually taught at that time that Blacks were inferior creations. My senior year, the small church I attended in Plainview, Texas, voted to reject the membership of a black student friend of mine. The vote wasn't even close. A few other students voted to admit him to membership, but everyone else voted against it.
My religion rejected murder, yet the Emmett Till case proved that didn't stop Baptists from killing people. Till was murdered by a group of Southern Baptist laymen. The all-male, all-white jury that acquitted the murderers was composed of several Baptist deacons and at least one Baptist preacher.
And a study that came out in my senior year in Bible school revealed that most inmates of Texas prisons were Southern Baptists -- and that a larger percentage of born-again Christians were convicted of murder than there were born-again Christians in the general population.
There was something seriously wrong with the system, I felt. If religion didn't control the way people acted, what good was it?
James, in the Christian New Testament, wrestled with the same problem. Here was this upstart Paul running around telling people that all they needed was faith. That would buy them a one-way ticket to heaven and guarantee them a position of righteousness. It doesn't make any difference what kind of person you are, just have faith and everything will be all right.
The descendants of Paul the Apostle are all around us these days. Turn on any televangelist and you'll hear the same kind of talk. Just have faith and you will be saved.
According to this kind of religion, a mass murderer who is converted moments before execution will spend eternity in paradise, while his victims (who weren't born-again Christians) will rot in hell forever.
Arnold Toynbee, the famous historian, once wrote that if Christianity were true, God is a monster. A God who judges people solely on what they believed, instead of what they did, is indeed a monster.
The result of a reliance on faith alone is hypocrisy. "Born-again Christians" on death row ... running our nation's tobacco industry ... murdering clerks in women's clinics ... cheating believers out of millions. Jimmy Swaggart is a true believer. So is Jim Bakker. So was Jim Jones.
If belief is truly the only thing that counts, then a person can do anything they want to do. Actions become immaterial.
When you think about it, such a philosophy, a reliance on faith alone, is really rather illogical. How did such an idea ever catch on, after all?
It arose with the arrival on the scene of the male-dominated warrior cults. According to these cults, the single male deity was all-powerful and all-demanding. Now, an all-powerful deity must also mean that he knows everything and controls everything. Right? This means that human involvement must be minimal.
The old time religion of goddess worship required that each person act properly for his or her own benefit. You had to respect the earth and the changing seasons, plant at the right time and harvest at the right time.
You had to make offerings to the earth (today we call this fertilization!) You had to treat other people with respect and you had to treat all creatures with respect. You had to honor your contracts and be faithful to members of your family and clan.
Salvation, in other words, dealt with the here-and-now and was primarily an individual concern. Each person decided for him or herself.
This wasn't good enough for the warrior cults. If each person decided for themselves, it wouldn't be possible to exercise any centralized control over them. So a super deity -- Yahweh or Jupiter or Mithras -- had to be created. And this deity would be totally responsible for individual salvation.
It was no longer necessary for a person to actually do anything. Everything was already done by God. God knew what you were about to do before you did it and, since God controlled everything, actually guided your hand when you did it. God became the killer in every murder, the perpetrator of every crime. As long as you believed in the principal religion, you were exonerated from every crime.
It's a great religion for mass murderers -- as the leading proponents of Christianity have been throughout the ages -- but it didn't really make a lot of sense. And it removed responsibility from the individual.
A few years ago, an acquaintance of mine lost her sister in a freak accident on the New River up in Fort Lauderdale. While riding in a small boat with her young son, she fell overboard and was killed by the outboard motor. Her mother, a devout Catholic, went to the priest for consolation and he assured her -- following existing Church doctrine -- that the accident had been God's will. God had decided that this woman should die -- and in this gruesome fashion -- and had arranged everything to work out the way it did.
The woman was shocked to find out that the church she had been raised in had such a monstrous theological underpinning. She renounced her faith entirely.
Most people don't really understand the depth of modern religion's reliance on faith alone. It sounds really good on the radio. Just believe in Jesus and you'll have eternal life. It doesn't matter what you've ever done, or what you'll do in the future, just have faith and you'll never have to worry.
But real religion does not rely on faith alone. Religion is derived from a Latin word meaning "a tying back." It is a way of letting people keep contact with their past and with the earth that is their mother. Religion, if it is to work for us, keeps us in contact with reality.
We might call it "hands-on religion" or practical theology.
True religion is based on actions and on actions alone. I really don't care what you believe in. Treat me with respect and I will consider you a religious person.
You can say you love someone all you want, but if what you call love is harmful to that person, you aren't really loving them.
It's the same with religion. You can claim to be religious all you want, but if you aren't acting righteously in the world, you aren't truly being religious.
Religion is often used as a cover for something else. Consider "Mother Teresa." She runs a series of sweatshops for orphaned children and she operates hospitals that are so primitive and filthy they would be banned in any civilized nation. But she also runs an effective public relations program backed by wealthy conservative politicians. So she is considered a "saint" by many people.
Pat Robertson claims to be a religious leader. He has made millions from various confidence schemes and from the donations of poor listeners. He buys politicians and has built a powerful political base. Many of his supporters would be shocked at the financial support he receives from the tobacco industry and from such "religious" institutions as Coors brewing company.
"By their works you shall know them."
Hands-on religion means simply this: Act gently in the world. Cause no harm to any person or any creature. Respect the earth and all her creatures. Accept responsibility for all your actions. Act responsibly at all times. Take nothing without just compensation. Treat others with love. "An ye harm none, do what ye will."
A religion based on belief has created the world we see around us today -- a world of turmoil, of lies and hypocrisies, of violence and constant blaming, of control and manipulation.
It's time we brought back a civilization based on freedom, independence, responsibility and respect.
Hands-on religion is the answer. Let it begin in you.
Blessed Be!