Organized Religion

"During the time of Christ, Christianity was a relationship with Him. Then, under the influence of Greek thinkers, it became a philosophy. With the Romans, it became an organization and later, in Europe, it developed into a culture. But, we Americans have made it into an enterprise."
-US Senator Hubert Humphrey

Most non-Christians (as well as many Christians) try to avoid organized religion, and naturally do not want to associate themselves with Christianity, the largest organized religion in the world today.

Why do people dislike organized religion?

• People believe that they can get to God without priests or a complex system of rituals. They find organized religion to be too complicated, and they believe that they can have the fullness of a relationship directly with God.
• People want to be free to think for themselves. They don't want to be told what to believe. They want the freedom to question and to find their own answers. The goal of most organized religion is to simply feed a set system of beliefs to its members.
• Many fear that dependency on the clergy creates a vulnerability to error, control, and manipulation. What if the authorities are wrong? What if your priest sexually abuses your son? People suspect that organized religions are little more than institutions designed to provide moral control of the masses through fear of hell and Satan, or that they simply control the masses through fear in order to preserve their professions and fill up their bank accounts.

Is Christianity supposed to be an organized religion?

These are some major errors that have turned Christianity into the religion it is today:

• The Church should be divided between the clergy and the laity.

The concepts of the clergy and laity are based in Roman political culture. The word clergy comes from the Greek word kleroi, which refers to magistrates of Greek city-states. The New Testament considers Church leaders and congregation together as part of the laos, or people. There is no priest/people divide. The distinction began in the 3rd century, in Cyprian of Carthage's careful but contrived parallelism between the Christian presbyter and the Jewish priest, the Eucharist and Old Testament sacrifice.¹

Closely linked to this divide is the practice of ordination, which was linked to the Roman world with the two classes of the ordo and the plebs. In Roman law, ordo denoted a ruling class distinct from the plebs. When Western Christians used the term ordination, they imported a set of cultural assumptions into their understanding of Church leadership. So those not ordained were by definition removed from the ruling group, from power and from presiding over religious rites.²

The Church's practice of clericalism, ordination, and the use of forbidden titles for Church leaders has had a devastating effect. The Church needs to be reminded that we are all brothers and sisters (Matt 23:8), Spirit-gifted ministers (I Cor 12:7), and a holy priesthood (I Peter 2:9). Unfortunately in many churches, Christianity has deteriorated into a professional "pulpitism" and a spiritual entertainment and service enterprise financed by lay spectators. Every member needs to find a significant place of service. To limit the work of the ministry to a small, select class of full-time professionals hinders the spiritual growth of God's people, stunts the discipleship process in the Body, and lessens the evangelistic outreach of the Church into the community.³

• The Church needs to meet in churches.

Vital to the concepts of clericalism and ordination is the concept of the sacred building- the church, the cathedral, the chapel. Here, the clergy instruct the laity, and perform ceremonies and rituals; infants are baptized, communion is administered, couples are joined in marriage. These buildings are called "the house of the Lord", their auditoriums are labeled "sanctuaries" (and a sanctuary usually contains an "altar".)

In the Old Testament, the dwelling place of God was the tabernacle. The tabernacle showed that God was mobile. He dwelled among His people, a people who were on the move. The tabernacle also restricted any tendency to tie God down to a single place. It was no surprise that later, when David requested God's permission to build a temple, God expressed His resistance (2 Sam 7:6.)

But in the New Testament, God's new dwelling place is His people. Christians are the new temple of God, and are considered sacred (I Cor 3:17,18). We are the house of God, the sanctuary, and the Church. No building deserves that honor. (Heb 10:11,12).

As you can see, Christianity is really not supposed to be the organized religion it has become. Through His sacrifice, Messiah has torn the veil of the temple from top to bottom, making it possible to come boldly before God. His sacrifice was the ultimate and final sacrifice for all time, making all priests, altars and sacred buildings obsolete. The Church has trivialized Y'shua's death by creating a religion that has moved out of homes, and into cathedrals, in which a higher class of religious authorities performs overly-mystified rituals for a congregation of spiritual amateurs.