It Is a Religion, It Is Also a Relationship

If you are an evangelical like me you have probably heard and used the popular slogan “It is not a religion it is a relationship” to describe the differences between Christianity and other works based systems. Unlike most every other religion, Christianity is unique in that it does not offer “salvation” as a reward for performance. “By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight.” We are saved by grace through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works (Eph 2:8-9). Jonathan Edwards once said so well: “There is nothing we contribute to our salvation but the sin that made it necessary.” Instead of a string of endless duties where we must obey or face the threat of exclusion and damnation, Christianity offers sonship and security to those who know Christ: those who are found in Him and born again. Furthermore the emphasis on relationship in Christianity is important and unique. It means we are not left to doing dry duties, No! We get to know the living God. Christ is offered to us, the Holy Spirit indwells all believers, and we can walk with God once again in the intimacy of Eden.

Nevertheless I do not think the above slogan to be a good description of Christianity, and I cannot help but wonder if the sentiment contributes to some of the deficiencies common in evangelicalism. We know the statistics are staggering regarding evangelicals and doctrine. There have been studies upon studies that show the Biblical illiteracy of us modern Christians to be bordering absurdity. Questions pertaining to the exclusive claims of Christianity score horribly, along with several rudimentary doctrinal questions, making people wonder what is going on in the Evangelical camp?

Furthermore we have long heard the data of the younger generation with regard to Christianity, how millennials are leaving at increased rates, and the rise of the religious nones. I cannot help but look at this body of data and wonder if there is some small correlation to it and the spirit of the sentiment: “it is not a religion, it is a relationship.” Have we left the world of clearly stated beliefs and boundaries and embraced a sort of internal emotionalism which cannot be proven or disputed? Have we followed the same course and pattern of the world by clinging to their tendency for feelings over facts?

By emphasizing relationship over against any sort of objective framework by which that relationship is based I fear that evangelicalism had shifted from the ground of solid objectivity to something subjective and hard to pin down. Once upon a time we were able to look at the conduct of believers and hold them matter of factly to account according to the directives and commands of the Scripture. Now confrontations in brotherly love, or attempts to say this behavior you are acting out in does not accord with the teachings of the New Testament, are too often met with: “my relationship with Jesus is good.” Or “How dare you bring your legalism into my personal relationship.” 

Any foundation of clear objective terms upon which the divine relationship is based has been skirted in the name of something that cannot be disputed: a personal relationship. Additionally, motivation for attending church, reading the Bible, studying doctrine, and living out the Christian code of ethics can likewise be evaded, so long as this “personal relationship” with Jesus is judged internally by the individual to be in a good place. As Michael Horton says in Christless Christianity, “When push comes to shove, many Christians today justify their beliefs and practices on the basis of their own experience. Regardless of what the church teaches—or perhaps even what is taught in Scripture—the one unassailable authority in the American religion is the self’s inner experience.” By emphasizing a personal, internal, individual relationship over the plain claims of Christianity, we have opened a sort of pandora’s box which allows for the variety of Biblically deviant, unaccountable, self-proclaimed Christians we observe today.

A personal relationship also infringes on the communal necessities of Christianity. We have seen how easily large percentages of Christians have neglected the divine imperative of “assembling together” under the threat of COVID-19. Surely the personal emphasis of our relationship with Jesus has contributed to the ease by which we remove ourselves from fellowship, accountability, teaching, and shepherding of our local churches. Christianity includes a personal relationship, but it is something far more than just an individual relationship between one Christian and God. Focusing on the individual will free people to come and go to church as convenience allows, but Scripture does not allow such flippancy in the gathering of the people of God. Sadly, it is not just the isolated Christian who suffers from this cordoning off from the body, the whole body suffers as well.

Scripture’s testimony is clear that we have received something precious and external to us, which has been passed down to us, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Eph 2:20). We are urged to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people (Jude 3). Christianity is described in the Bible as a precious deposit (2 Tim 1:14), and any minimization of that deposit out of a preference to the personal and experiential is to our ultimate detriment. That we are able to experience a relationship with God does not in any way negate the fact that there is a specified path to that relationship with spelled out obligations that accompany it. “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) And James says, “Pure undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit widows and orphans in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:27)

In so far as many use “it is not a religion, it is a relationship” we are correct if we define religion as a works based system of righteousness. But we are incorrect if we define religion as clearly stated body of facts which must be assented to, terms which must be agreed upon, sacraments which must be received, authoritative teachings that must be accepted, and a thread of positive and negative behaviors which must be exhibited and shunned accordingly. Calling this out does not mean Christianity is legalistic or that these things need to be done for our salvation—it simply acknowledges the weight of the Christian’s obligation before God as revealed to us in His Word: what is the reason we can have a relationship, what is the means by which that relationship is obtained, and what is the objective way by which we walk in that relationship. Apart from that divinely revealed framework any attempt having a relationship with God will be limited at best.

In fact, true religion and real relationship are not opposed in the slightest. Facts, doctrine, obedience to the commands of Christ will surely strengthen and build up the Christian’s relationship with God. J Gresham Machen said in his excellent book What is Faith, “What makes our relation to another person, whether a human friend or the eternal God, such an ennobling thing is the knowledge which we have of the character of that person.” Far from hindering the vitality of our relationship, walking in the hard truth of who God is will fuel our relationship and provide reasons for our affection for God. Machen continues, “Theology, we hold, is not an attempt to express in merely symbolic terms an inner experience which must be expressed in different terms in subsequent generations; but it is a setting forth of those facts upon which experience is based.” The facts are not ancillary, they set the foundation and allow for that relationship we so long for. And as we fight against the sin he hates and labor to walk in His Spirit He has given—we will surely enjoy greater intimacy with Him (1 John 1:7). 

It may not have the same ring to it but I think: “Christianity is both a religion and a relationship” would be a better description of Christianity. However well-intentioned our focus is on an internalized personal relationship, we have to be careful not to neglect the very grounds for that relationship, grounds which have been faithfully preserved for us to this day.