Religion Is Killing the Christian Church

Photo by Nathan Bingle on Unsplash

“Don’t’ let your doctrines be formed by your wounds,” quipped the smartest, spiritual leader I know. A moving-target of the vicious, Pharisee-set, he walked with a limp. He was also a bit stooped-over from five decades of spiritual arrows, bullets and hatchets thrown against him as he pioneered a trail for those seeking freedom from the empty, religious rulebooks of Christianity. “It’s time for the saved to get saved,” he’d grin, watching for reactions in a quiet room full of enrapt listeners.

Religion is the opposite of the freedom Christ presented and demonstrated throughout his short life. Consider: When Jesus arrived on the planet, a tyrannical version of religion had already been well-established and ingrained into the Jewish culture of his heritage. What had begun as God’s attempt to craft a blueprint for salvation and deliverance for the entire human race (Judaism), had been perverted by power-hungry thugs who decided they were ambassadors of correction and perfection. So why would Jesus, who came to free every member of those now enslaved in spiritual oppression, continue it? “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery[1],” said a radically reformed Jew (the Apostle Paul.) 

Religion is the hard, cold counterfeit of faith designed to eclipse the warm introduction Jesus made to his father (and our father), in heaven. Religiousness is the opposite of holiness—instead of building up the individual’s desire to emanate their holy God, it forces its victims to craft grand facades of piety with labyrinths of hidden sins, lifestyles with mounds of buried, unanswered questions. This is because, in religious circles, imperfection is not tolerated so people are forced to pretend, look-good, and strive their way to religion’s definition of salvation. Salvation, however, is provided to all people without charge: “When you believed in Jesus, God saved you because he is very kind. You could not save yourselves, but that is God's gift to you.”[2]

Religious rules and regulations will never lead us to relationship with a person; the person of Jesus Christ. And the whole world, especially the Body of Christ, is in dire need of a relationship with the friend of sinners.[3] Christ came as a person after all, so now we have an advocate in humanity’s corner who understands our lot.

I can think of nothing more damaging to my spiritual development than the shackles of religion that were placed on me the moment I encountered the Holy Spirit at my water baptism. Immersion was required in the Church of Christ, so I succumbed to it, even though I’d been sprinkled in the Presbyterian Church as an infant. The presence of the Holy Spirit showed up at my thorough washing, but he wasn’t encouraged by the religious leadership to stay. Ignorance was the culprit.

Surrounded by cessationists[4] who were not equipped to disciple me or explain the supernatural side of my new faith, I was immediately shut down and shut out of my innate, spiritual stirrings and gifts. The Holy Spirit, you see, had designs on me, but so did the religious doctrine of that particular church, which was meted out through people who did not want the unpredictability of the Holy Spirit hanging around. The religious Church and the Holy Spirit were on opposite sides of the boxing ring; the fight for my soul. These spiritually-starved, well-meaning people then considered my act of baptism as being “saved” and thus guaranteed heaven, as long as I remained in their denomination and kept quiet.

The religious teachings I endured there always revolved around sectarian do’s and don’ts, most importantly, that relationships with other believers, other ideas and doctrines from other parts of the Body of Christ became non-existent. The young students were encouraged to socialize only with members of the same denomination; attend Church of Christ summer camps and visited their approved colleges. It took me painful decades of spiritual cleansing to remove the layers of religious toxicity upon me. I was spiritually stunted; hamstrung and crippled for much of my adult life. Thankfully, this oppression starved me for the real love of God; his people and his faith. When I found it, I flung myself toward it and dove deeply into the non-denomination church.

“Religion” is a demon-spirit sent to churches as Satan’s brilliant counterfeit against authentic, Christian faith.[5] It is easily detected as the author of an oppressive environment of cloned leaders with spiritually-salted, required behaviors and speech; acceptable sins versus unacceptable; and a hierarchy of power that exalts a singular platform, person or group of henchmen supporting both. Jesus set fire to this religious spirit whenever he encountered it, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger."[6] "There can be no kindness when religion is afoot, for all actions and words are propaganda toward the company line. Agendas all lead to upholding the culture of bondage.

The spirit of religion commands its victims to live in paradoxes of hypocrisy since no one can ever attain the required perfection and performance. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy.”[7] Hiding sin, flaws, uniqueness and healthy disagreement becomes the rule of law in religious environments. Yet the doctrine of Christ’s liberty and freedom from such a thing is the drum that religious people love to beat! It is a twisted web of extremes.

A hot-button indicator of the presence of religious thought often flares on the money issue. Religion shames its members in whom God has given earthly wealth; then it makes heroes out of those who live in unnecessary, and often self-imposed, lifestyles of lack…thinking they are fulfilling a righteous mandate. It also curses innocent converts who devote their lives to God in places like monasteries and convents by making them confess vows of poverty. Yet Jesus plainly stated: “The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).”[8] The word abundance, in the original Greek language is perissós, meaning “more, greater, excessive, exceeding expectation, etc.” Everything that is possible to possess and to experience in this life is available to those who worship and follow Jesus. Including tangible wealth. Financially speaking, what do these religious people do with King David’s son, Solomon? His financial assets would be nearly incalculable today.

Jesus arrived on the earth as a peasant-class, Jewish baby. His parents were poor; his step-father Joseph; a blue-collar tradesman. Yet when Jesus returns to earth at the second-coming, he will descend from heaven as the King of Kings in glorious array.[9] Jesus is a king, as his cross clearly stated, and he taught his followers to understand their position as heirs to the his throne inside the Kingdom of God. Clearly, if one’s doctrine follows the Bible, there is then, no place for a poverty mentality within the faith-community of true Christianity. We are destined and supplied to walk out of the land of lack and into the glorious riches of Christ’s kingdom in all its forms—while we are living. We don’t need to cross over to the streets of gold in order to possess wealth. God has given his people the ability to make it, enjoy it and use it toward Kingdom efforts right now.[10]

Sadly, there are factions of the Christian Church that love the demon spirit of religion. Its deception creates the feeling of power; control; a false sense of righteousness. Yet these feelings fly in the face of the Golden Rule because of this spirit’s elitist DNA: “I know everything,” it says, “and you’re wrong and I’m right.” When factions and denominations of the Church are hosting and entertaining this spirit, it creates fissures and chasms among God’s people which mock the desire of Christ’s heart as he prayed his last prayer to his father in heaven: “The glory which You have given Me I also have given to them, so that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and You loved them, just as You loved Me.”[11] 

In closing, the religious demon’s height of success is turning the eyes of its subjects toward the wrong thing. The focus of the Christian is to set one’s gaze upon Jesus Christ—and then through that lens, look with kindness upon other people such as the lost, marginalized and disenfranchised. Yet pious, religious people fascinate themselves with the constant pursuit of sniffing out error; finding fault; exposing sin; contesting doctrinal beliefs; and dismantling uniqueness within the fold. This demon-spirit splits hairs and churches as it stalks the unity of the brethren with accusation, hoping to tear down and not help to build up.

[1] Galatians 5:1, NASB95

[2] Ephesians 2:8, EASY

[3] John 15:15

[4] Cessationism is the view that the “miracle gifts” of tongues and healing have ceased—that the end of the apostolic age brought about a cessation of the miracles associated with that age. Most cessationists believe that, while God can and still does perform miracles today, the Holy Spirit no longer uses individuals to perform miraculous signs. (https://www.gotquestions.org/cessationism.html, Got Questions Ministries, January 22, 2024)

[5] The Religious demon may also infiltrate other, zealous groups not associated with Christianity. It is a spirit of bondage to an ideology.

[6] Matthew 23:2-4, NASB95

[7] Dietrich Bonhoeller, Life Together, trans. John W. Doberstein (New York, Harper & Row, 1954), 110-111

[8] John 10:10, AMPC

[9] Revelation 19

[10] Proverbs 10:22; Deuteronomy 8:18

[11] John 17:22, 23, NASB

This blog is an excerpt of my forth-coming book, "Kryptonite: The Killing Fields of Christianity's Acceptable Sins. Look for it wherever books are sold, March of 2025.