Of the many shocking and revolutionary
things the Lord said, perhaps nothing was more shocking and revolutionary than
His words to the Samaritan woman at the well.
The conversation had become a little too close for her comfort (“you
have had five husbands, and he whom you have now is not your husband”), and she
was only too happy to change the topic to religion. When she saw from Jesus’ words that He had
prophetic knowledge, she broached the main subject separating Jews and
Samaritans—the subject of worship. The
Jews inherited the religious tradition of David and Solomon, and worshipped in
the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. The
Samaritans followed a rival tradition that rejected David and his kingdom’s
subsequent history, and insisted that sacrifice could only be authentically
offered to God from atop Mount Gerizim.
In response, Jesus said, “the hour is coming when neither on this
mountain [of Gerizim] nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…God is
spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in the Spirit and in the truth”
(John 4:21f). That is, a day was about
to dawn when God was no longer interested in temples and sacrifices—in other
words, in religion. Religion would no
longer be the way to worship God or draw near to Him. That access would now be found in the Spirit
(compare Ephesians 2:18). Or, if the
words “not interested in religion” seem a bit too extreme, perhaps one could
quote the words of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews: religion (such as Judaism) had now become
“obsolete” and “ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13).
What
is “religion”? Religion is best defined
as a system of practices whereby one seeks divine favour, something that by its
performance binds one to the transcendent for blessing. It has many components. Religions commonly have sacrifices, which
involve killing and burning the flesh of animals. They have altars on which those animals are
sacrificed, and personnel (priests) to do the sacrificing. They have a list of foods which may not be
eaten, but are considered to be unclean.
They assert that certain things make one ritually impure and ineligible
to sacrifice, such as having a physical discharge or touching one who is impure. Religions have certain days which are considered
to be holy, and certain places which are considered holy, places where rituals
and sacrifices are performed. They have
common rituals of feasting. They assert
that certain types of clothing must be worn when performing rituals.
Judaism was such
a religion—it had its own calendar of holy days, its own times of feasting, its
own holy place (Jerusalem) with a Temple and an altar there, served by its
priests, who had to wear certain kinds of clothing when offering sacrifice. It asserted that certain foods were unclean,
and that certain things rendered one ritually impure. In His words to the Samaritan woman, Christ
claimed that God was about to sweep it all away, so that it would soon be
obsolete and ready to vanish. God was no
longer interested in religion. One
wonders if she really could understand all that He meant. It was certainly a lot for any ancient to take
in.
Obviously
Christianity is not a religion, though this was more obvious before Constantine
than it is now. This was the point of much
of what Paul wrote, and why he was so upset when his Galatian converts
considered accepting Jewish circumcision as if Christianity were a religion
like any other. For Paul Christianity
was not a religion, but a new creation (Galatians 6:15). Religion belonged the man’s infancy, and now
in Christ man was finally coming of age.
Judaism was never meant to be the final goal of God’s working with His
people. Jewish religion was simply one
step along the way to spiritual manhood, a maturity now available to all the
world. The end and goal of it all was
not religion, but Christ (Romans 10:4).
In Christ we transcend this age and all its religions and its religious
categories. In Christ we participate in
the powers of the age to come (Hebrews 6:5).
To vary the Pauline metaphor, for us to become religious would be like
slipping back into infancy, and putting on diapers. Diapers are fine for babies, but in Christ we
have come to maturity.
It
is easy for some to regard Christianity as a religion like the other religions
of the world. It is true that there are
similarities. Religions often have a
holy text—the Hindus have the Upanishads, the Muslims have the Qur’an, the Jews
have the Torah and we have the New Testament.
Religions have priests and functionaries set apart: Muslims have imams, Jews have Rabbis and we
have bishops and presbyters. Religions
use special buildings: Muslims worship
in mosques, Jews worship in synagogues, and Christians worship in
churches. With this and other
similarities, how can one imagine that Christianity is not a religion? By this understanding, Jesus is simply the
Founder of yet another religion, the Christian one.
But
in fact these outward similarities hide profounder differences. Let’s take them one at a time.
- Unlike
all religions, Christianity knows no holy places, no locales which are
holy in themselves. Churches are
not holy in themselves, nor is a church building an actual temple. Rather, church buildings are simply
places where Christians meet to worship—it is they who constitute the actual temple, a temple made up of
living stones (Ephesians 2:20-22, 1 Peter 2:4-5). Christians can meet anywhere for worship. They can meet in a forest, or a cave, or
a private dwelling, or even in a beautifully adorned building built for
that purpose. But even when such a
building is built and blessed, it is still not holy in itself, but only
because of what happens there. Its
holiness is real, but referential.
It is the Christians meeting in assembly who are the real temple, and
the holiness of Christ in their midst which conveys holiness to the place
where they meet.
- Unlike
all religions, Christianity does not have sacrifices, or priests. Or, to be more accurate, it has but one
sacrifice and one priest—Jesus Christ.
He is the only true priest, the One who has offered the sacrifice
of Himself on the Cross and who now pleads that sacrifice before the
Father in heaven (Hebrews 9:11f). And
because the Church is His body, the Church also partakes of His
priesthood, so that all Christians are part of His royal priesthood,
corporately offering His once-for-all sacrifice through anamnesis or memorial (1 Peter 2:5,
Revelation 1:6). Since the earliest
days, the members of the Church who rule it and offer its prayers (the
bishops and presbyters) were called priests, since they were the ones who
voiced the Church’s anamnesis
whereby Christ’s sacrifice was present in its midst. But like the rest of the Church, those
clerical priests are only priestly by virtue of their participation in Christ,
the only real priest. In religion,
priests offer sacrifices whereby worshippers are joined to God. They are true mediators. For us there is only one mediator, one
priest, one man who joins us to God—the Man Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5). All priesthood in the Church flows from
Him.
- Unlike
all religions, Christianity has no food laws, no list of certain foods
which it declares unclean and not to be eaten. Paul is clear that no food is unclean in
itself, and he denounces such a teaching in the church as a doctrine of
demons (Romans 14:14, 1 Timothy 4:1-5).
Mark even asserted that such a freedom from food laws could be
legitimately read into Christ’s teaching that no food going into a man
could defile him, since food does not enter into the heart (Mark 7:18-19). Christians may occasionally fast from
certain foods for the ascetic value of self-control and abstinence, but
all food is considered to be clean—even the foods from which we sometimes
fast.
- Unlike
all religions, Christianity does not assert that certain days are holy in
themselves. Judaism asserted that
Sabbaths and other days such as new moons were holy in themselves, but
Christianity esteems all days alike and considers the concept of a holy
calendar as a mere shadow (Romans 14:5, Colossians 2:16-17). What we sometimes call “holy days” (such
for example as the Feast of the Transfiguration) are not holy in
themselves, but only because of what we do and remember on that day. We could have equally well chosen
another day for the celebration and remembering. And our use of two calendars, the Old
Calendar and the New Calendar, is proof that (for example) August 6 is not
holy in itself, for some Christians remember the Transfiguration thirteen
days later on August 19. Once again
the holiness resides not in day itself (as in religion), but only in what
Christians do on that day. Our
feasts are movable; the holiness of days, according to religion, is not.
Christianity
then is not a religion, and Christ did not found yet another religion, but used
the Jewish religion as the vehicle for His own
saving work, fulfilling it and transcending it.
We still come to special buildings where clergy lead our prayers,
dressed in special robes. (We note in
passing, however, that as late as St. John Chrysostom’s day, clergy did not
wear special robes when leading worship.)
We take our part in offering the Eucharistic Sacrifice and receiving Holy
Communion. And we come to church on
certain special days to remember and celebrate certain special events and special
people. But none of this means that
Christianity is a religion. Christianity
is simply how Christ’s Body experiences here and now the saving realities of
the age to come. God is not interested
in religion, and we shouldn’t be either.
Instead, we are interested in Christ.
