On being religious

That’s the question my friend asked me few months back after learning that I’m a Christian. It’s one of those questions – though it seems to be an easy yes and no type of question – but when I think about it more, it’s not as clear cut as it seems to be.

My friend would have expected me to answer yes – because of the things that I mentioned to him,  like my weekend plan – which usually consists of going to church.

I couldn’t answer the question easily simply because I am not sure my understanding of “being religious” is the same with what he has in mind. And even now, few months down the track, I am still swinging back and forth between “yes” and “no”. Would it be different if he just asks me “so are you a Christian?” – which I can easily answer. If he pursue it further – “are you a practicing Christian” – it would make me pause a bit, but I would answer yes.

Someone told me (or maybe I read it somewhere) that “religion is an attempt from human to reach God while Christianity is God reaching to us human”. Therefore I fear that if I answer yes to being religious, I might somehow give the impression that Christianity is just like the any other religions. I am afraid that somehow my religious activities can be interpreted as my attempt of gaining favour from God. This is not the case – these activities are but a response to what God has already done for me in the first place.

I know it’s such a long thinking for such a simple question, maybe this long thinking process is not needed. But can’t help to think that there are a lot of misunderstandings and assumptions about Christianity, making things rather complicated. An example of such assumption, many people assume that Christianity (Protestant) and Catholicism as being the same. Which we know that’s not true and if my friend has this assumption (or come from a Catholic background) I would say “no” to being religious.

So what did I actually say to my friend? I said it depends on what he means by “religious”. And we just smiled to each other (argh that awkward moment in a conversation!) and somehow that’s the end of our conversation.

4 thoughts on “On being religious”

  1. clove

    if i were to be asked that question, i might (and might not, depends) answer, “Not as religious as you…”, for the following reasons:
    – i don’t regularly jump up or down when my football team wins (not that i have one)…
    – i don’t work because everybody else does so, blindlessly following what my boss say i must do, ritualistically working 9-5 at the workplace… i do want to spend time with my family… and there are things more important in live…
    – i don’t spend money regularly to watch whatever comes out of Holywood…
    – i don’t worship the Sun, the sand, the sea, and the self…
    – i question whatever being taught to me (e.g. by Richard Dawkings) on what he says about what live is about – if he has any purpose in life… treating whatever he says as truth… “and oh, i believe in life is all about Jesus” 🙂

  2. clove

    Just in time to get me thinking about it, and in God’s timing, while we’re doing street evangelism today, 2 (of the 3 people we talked to), asking about religiosity of it… the first one saying “sorry, i’m not religious”, while the second one (who is an atheist) thinks Christinity is like any other religions out there…

    no, i didn’t use any of what i said above… 😛
    (me not liking to say what i said before)

    in both, i shared 2 ways to live, and underscores that to be moral or religious is actually against what God wants us to do… otherwise he wouldn’t send Jesus on our behalf… in fact to deny that is actually part of our rebellion against Him… even though being/doing good works is a natural outworking of being Christian, and doing what’s right & pleasing to God – what matters more is that we’re on his side, rather than against him and ‘do religion’…

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