Is the Church still Relevant (1)

OK, so maybe religion is still relevant ... but what about the Church?

Well, let's look at that from two perspectives. First, the Church, as the formal body of the religion. I am most familiar with the Christian Church. Not specifically with any specific denomination (although I have been members of several, and attended many more), but the Church (capital "C") as the body of Christ here on Earth.

Just what is the purpose of the Church?

We are given several examples of what the early Christians did. They worshiped God. They prayed They had instruction in living a holy life. They fellowshipped together. Fellowship? What is that? To put it simply, they were a community. They ate together, helped each other, supported each other in difficult times, and did fun stuff together ... kind of like parties, I guess.

Of all these things, we are commanded by Jesus to love each other, and again by Paul not to quit getting together. So, that "fellowship" thing must be pretty important.

Of course, look at the times they lived in ... in many places, becoming a Christian meant you lost your job. In others it meant you were executed. One of the Roman Emperors would have parties, and for light in the evenings, he would dip Christians in tar, hang them on poles and light them on fire. Others were thrown to the lions in the arena. The lucky ones got to live as slaves on the ships. So, it meant a lot to have a community to share your sorrows, and your hopes ... people to help you when you lost your job, or your family.

How about today? There are few in the U.S. who have lost their jobs because they converted to Christianity. Fewer who have been executed because of it. What does the Church offer us today?

Well, for one thing, it offers us the chance to share our abundance with our suffering brothers around the world who are losing their jobs and their loved ones because they have converted to Christianity. (You may not think of that as a big opportunity, but having been on the giving end and the receiving end of the stick, I can tell you, it really is much more blessed to give than to receive.)

Another thing it offers is the chance to worship God and to learn about Him. (You might be thinking that you can do that as well, or even better at home by yourself.)

But one of the best opportunities it offers is the opportunity to make true Christian friends. (Oh joy, I hear you say, sarcastically, just what I need, some "Christian" friends ... boring hypocrits.) I won't argue that I have met some folk in church who I wouldn't trust to water my plants, but I will say that all of my very closest friends have been fellow Christians - people that I would trust with my life and the life of my family. I have met Christians, through other Christians, who on our first meeting were willing to open their house to me in a time of need.

I do not claim to be a prophet, but I can tell you this, there will come a time in the not too distant future when it will once again become very unpopular to be a Christian in the U.S. I don't know that people will be jailed for it, but I do believe that it will mean losing your job and becoming a social outcast. When that happens, all those folks who go to church on Sundays because it is the "thing to do", or because it is a good place to meet business contacts, will stop coming. Only those people who put God ahead of all else in their lives will be in church. That is when it will be a great time to be in church. That is when you will once again be able to trust those people with your life and the lives of those you love with no reservations.

Buz

Is Religion Still Relevant?

I think that question is quite appropriate. After all, science has told us all there is to know, and religion wasn't included. To quote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, "what's the use of our debating the existance of God when tomorrow your machine will give us his phone number?"

Well, the problem is that science has not told us all there is to know, it has only told us some of what we asked. And, the answers it has given us are limited by our own understanding.

If you had some sort of a sealed black box which plugged into the wall and had an on/off switch, you could measure how much electricity it used when it was off, and how much it used when it was on. You might take its temperature when it was on to see if it was putting out heat. You could put it on a scale to see if its weight changed when it was on. You might try making the room completely dark to see if there was any light coming from inside of it; or maybe probing it with a stethoscope to see if it made any sounds when it was on. You could put a ruler next to it and see if it changed size. If you were ingenious, you might come up with some more tests ... put some smoke around it and see if it created any air currents when it was on. But sooner or later you would run out of things to test.

If the box did something which you could not detect, if it somehow teleported a rock from Venus to Saturn every time you turned it on, and teleported it back when you turned it off, you would never know what the box did, and would probably conclude that it did nothing but hum a little. You do not have the ability to measure what it is doing, nor would you probably think to measure that particular function, even if you had the ability to make those measurments.

The scientific method is a tool, a powerful one, but it is limited by our ability to use it properly. It is also limited by our ability to ask the right questions and correctly interpret the answers.

So, science by no means negates religion.

But, that does not mean religion is relevant.

What purpose does it serve?
What influence does it have in our daily lives?
What influence should it have in our daily lives?

This is where religion finds its relevance ... or more appropriately, this is where we find it relevant.

Religion serves us. It tells us why we are here. It tells us of our importance in the grand scheme of things. It tells us that, in the eyes of our creator, we are all the same, because we all came from the same source. It tells us how to and how not to treat each other. It give us the courage to do that which we know is right in the face of that which we fear, because it gives us hope of a life that is not limited to our frail, mortal existance.

We serve religion. We have a responsibility to obey the laws which our religion commands us to obey. We are ultimately answerable to our creator above all others, even our religious leaders.

Religion also binds us together. We have a common belief, something that transcends the glitter and thorns of this world we live in. When outside pressure is telling us to pull away from our brothers, our religion tells us that they are our brothers and not to abandon them.

Our brains build on the foundations that science affords them but our hearts build on the faith of our religion.

Buz