The Bottom Line of My Religion

As I’ve shared before on Doubter’s Parish website, I long grappled with spiritual angst, especially around traditional beliefs and institutional religion. For years I agonized over questions like, Is God personal? Does God intervene in human affairs? Do miracles occur? Does prayer make any difference? And was Jesus really divine?  I also grappled with the dark underbelly of institutional religion.

Ultimately, these theological and institutional struggles resulted in my early retirement as a minister. Although that resolved my vocational dilemma, it did not solve my religious angst, which continued unabated.

However, over the past few years, I have made a major spiritual breakthrough. Like the pastor in The Americans, I’ve finally come to realize that authentic faith has very little to do with religious doctrines and institutions. Instead, it’s all about how we live.

This insight hit me as I reread the Gospels in retirement. Freed from vocational restraints, I was able to fully see (for the first time) that Jesus cared little about traditional religious trappings. For example, when he called his first disciples, Jesus didn’t say a word about religion. He simply said, “Follow me.”

And Jesus’s “Great Commandment” (to love God and neighbor), his “Golden Rule” (to treat others the way we want them to treat us), his parables, and his core teachings (as seen in the Sermon on the Mount), had virtually nothing to do with conventional religious concerns.

Additional examples that Jesus valued behavior over belief abound. When a young man asked Jesus how he could inherit eternal life, Jesus didn’t say anything about religious beliefs or institutions. Instead, he said, “Keep the commandments, sell your possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and come follow me.”

In his famous parable about the good Samaritan, loving behavior, not religious beliefs, is what Jesus commended. And in his parable about the last judgment, Jesus tells us that people will be judged not on doctrinal beliefs or institutional fidelity, but on how they respond to the poor, the sick, and the stranger.

Although it should have dawned on me much earlier, reading these stories about Jesus (without wearing the filter of an institutional church worker) resulted in a life-changing epiphany. I came to realize that, unlike me (and most clergy I know), religiosity didn’t interest Jesus. Ethical and loving behavior did.

After rereading the Gospels, I decided to finish the rest of the New Testament. Once again, I noticed the same theme—behavior, not belief, is the heart of biblical faith.

For example, James said, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world”  (James 1). And the apostle Paul said, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love”  (Galatians 5).

After finishing the New Testament, I decided to reread the Old Testament. Once again, I noticed the biblical preference for behavior over beliefs. For example, the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20) say absolutely nothing about religious doctrines. Instead, they call for ethical living including not stealing, not lying, being faithful to our spouse, and honoring our parents.

And the Old Testament prophets did not demand pure beliefs but pure living. As Micah said, “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God”  (Micah 6). In short, I discovered that Jesus and Scripture clearly teach that God cares far more about ethical behavior than religious beliefs or institutional loyalties.