Organized Religion

I felt churches were being run more like businesses than places of community, fellowship and spirit.

Well said, Jackie, and I agree that this is a large part of the problem. It's not so much that religion is organized; rather I think we have a tendency to institutionalize it. I think this becomes especially difficult to avoid in the larger congregations. Smaller groups and congregations seem more willing to accomodate differences and function as a community, rather than a structured religion.

Interestingly enough, though I no longer consider myself to be a christian, I still attend church for the community, fellowship and spirit. I may not believe everything preached, but I still enjoy the company of my small congregation, and the community spirit when we come together to sing, pray and do good in the community. For me, intent and action is so much more important than following regulations and strictures.

Is it the organization itself or is it the people that casue the harm? I contented that in the beginning it was a tool used for the good of the church and that through time it has been corrutped by man.

Thanks for the thought-provoking article Hiram. I agree that religion is too often used as a tool, by those who claim to be religious followers, and as a result, organized religions have lost many in their congregations -- often those who truly live a "religious" life.

I think the problem comes when man attempts to limit and define religion for others. Religion too easily becomes "do as I say" when I think it should be about freedom to nourish personal spirituality, through individual actions based on free will.

Another problem is that there are many in organized religions who spend all their time judging others. I think God can do that just fine on his own, and have no patience for those who pass judgements, which basically serve to glorify themselves. Just my opinion, of course.

However many times it is the leader that persuades the people to follow in the wrong direction. Ultimatelyin scripture it is the leader that will be held accountable.

And I still disagree. Our relationship with God is a personal one, not an organizational one. If we seek, either through actual fact finding or through prayer, the correct way to go, and we miss or ignore the signs and/or facts, then we are ultimately responsible for our actions. We can't blame someone else for our actions (i.e. Eve tried to blame the snake, Adam tried to blame Eve, all were punished in one way or another).

You made me start rooting around my library because I began to ponder the question of leadership responsibility as a precept of Christianity, and WHEN/WHERE did the ball get dropped?

Now, as a non-believer, it does not mean there is not something here to be learned.

As you have pointed out, it's all right there in terms of leadership responsibility; got several versions of it from my collection of Bibles. So, this has to be a man-based thing, the dropping of the ball.

If I accept that, then I am inclined to think it was a man-based thing that caused the responsibility to be pushed aside. Mankind is sooooo good at justifying its actions in the name of whatever, regardless of common sense.

Has this always been the case, or does anyone see a point(s) where we droped the ball, or more likely, lost the ball in its entirety?

Where/When did we abandon our accountability/responsibility if it was clearly pointed out to us?

Last minute amendment: Is this a western civilization thing?

When in the case of the church the leadership deems their power on equal ground with God or greater than God we develope many of the problems we see today in the church. The focus at all times must be on God and we must maintain that those in leadership do not forget that.

And I totally agree. However, your question was which is more responsible for harm caused...the leader or the organization.

Saying a leader is "more" responsible and that the leader led them down the path to perdition excuses the actions of the organization. I personally don't think God will make the distinction. (From a secular perspective, that would be like saying the guards who ran the concentration camps for Hitler were not responsible because they were taken in by the charisma of Hitler...and I'm pretty certain you would not agree with that statement).

I personally think the leadership attracts those people who wish to believe and behave in that manner, and the leadership gives them the justification to believe/act that way. As such, the leadership and the organization share culpability.

I was wondering if you had an angle on this via Calvinism run rampant. I friend of mine, beleiver, said something the other day that "clicked" with what you said. He speculated that Calvinism in America has become all distorted as to become synonymous with greed . . . and worse.

Never having considered our current state of affairs in that way, I filed it away for further discussion when he had time, but then I read your article.....

Your thoughts? Can we be more specific to say that we have taken one "flavor" of faith and distorted it to all kinds of unlikely goals?

This is how beleivers and non-beleivers used to get along. Thank you sir.

That's really what it's all about - getting together with like-minded people.

I've often wondered if religion would benefit from much smaller church's without any sort of leader. More like people getting together for a pot-luck and discussing their religion. No governing body so no middle man.

If you didn't live so far away, I'd like to visit your church. I have a friend who is a minister and his church operates much the same way. Except he has a live band (electric guitar and everything) and it's very relaxed and informal - no suits or fancy dresses. I have to say that it was my favorite church to visit.

There are groups that spend millions of dollars on elaborate and ornate buildings. However...

I would be a terrible liar if I said all organized religions are the same and all of them are evil in the same way. Most are evil in very different ways. ;)

And a lot of that could easily be explained by social evolution. Which is wonderfully ironic. The more corrupt a church is, the more of it's money is devoted towards increasing attendance and donations to the church, and less on helping people. This devotion towards size over teachings allows a charismatic minister to pull people from otherwise good, helpful churches and boosts the corrupt church.

This would mean that the more corrupt a religion is, the more likely it is to become a larger organization. This is implied a bit by my comment above (wouldn't be the superpower it is today if it hadn't amassed armies and tremendous wealth). This also explains why most of the fast growing religions are easily seen by non-believers as cons and financial scams. A look at Scientology's growth model makes this point better than any other example I can think of.

So, sure, an organized religion could be beneficial. But the reason few of the big ones are the beneficial ones is that good intentions tend to be bad business when surrounded by con men.

Jesus was organized

Read the Sermon on the Mount again. Specifically Matthew 5:38-48. But don't read it as a Christian. Read it imagining you are a neighboring group that doesn't even follow Jesus. Those passages basically give you full permission to take everything you want from Jesus's followers, and they should practically thank you for it. In a communist utopia, that works, and would be fantastic. In any capitalist society, this is doom for the organization. So even though the intentions are good, that is not enough to base a full religious organization off of unless all of your followers are completely willing to live lives of extreme poverty.

You make some good points DA. One of the things interesting about the Sermon on the Mount was how Jesus went beyond the laws Moses that he had put before the people by explaining its meaning. You see, the Pharisees and Sadducees were much like the religious leaders today. They took the law and compelled harsh regulations to benefit themselves and oppress the people. You'll see Jesus' disgust with them in Matthew chapter 23. He called them whitewashed graves! [verse 27]. You might find it an interesting read because he used the terms such as serpentsand found them blood guilty.

The turning the other cheek and so forth, Jesus was teaching that those who believed in the Christ were to be made new, with a new personality. [Colossians 3:10] Christians were to be loving especially to one another--it was their identifying mark. John 13:35 As far as it depended on them, Christians were to be peaceful beating their swords into plowshares. [Romans 12:17-21; Isaiah 2:4]

If you read the scripture in Romans, you'll find it similar to the one you used in Matthew. The idea was not to pursue an argument, but to work at being peaceful. Notice, too, that it uses the refining process for gold or precious metals--the heaping of fiery coals upon the offender's head. Usually, a peaceful remark will cool the fight, hence refining or bringing out the good in a person set for a fight. A Christian would want to 'take his leave' before the quarrel flares up. [Proverbs 17:14]

Think of how pleasant it would be if we all worked at being peaceful. We are promised of such conditions after the four horsemen finish their ride. [Revelation 6; Isaiah 65:17:17-25; Psalm 37:9-11; Matthew 5:5]

We are living in trying times where peace is hard to come by, but how refreshing it is to be with someone peaceful over a fighter.

Don't get me wrong, I love all the touchy-feely stuff Jesus taught. I prefer it much more than his frequent insistence of adherence to the Old Laws. But in the real world, the passive group preaching poverty is never going to be the dominant religion.

Just as the rich man walked away from Jesus's lesson unhappy, most people are unwilling to give up all their worldly possessions like Jesus said. That just doesn't gather a crowd, it doesn't make for a fast-growing strong religion. It will attract the poor, which is the majority group that Jesus was teaching to. But it's very difficult using that teaching to get the kind of attraction you need to make a truly large religious organization.

And even if you succeed in making a good religious organization that is growing, the amount of potential for corruption in the system is just too great. There is a tremendous amount of trust inherent in a religious system. Most people trust a priest as much as they trust the police, but the police have organizations that watch them constantly; IA, FBI, the DA, not to mention lawsuits that can be filed against them for doing their job improperly. They are held accountable to very high degrees. But there is nobody overseeing the priest with the collection money. They don't even have to file taxes, or keep donation paperwork. The ease of corruption is so high and the accountability so low. Even if you think your church is one of the good ones, you are believing that purely on faith (unless you actually help your church with it's finances, a normally private church function)

From this perspective, the only religious organization I think anyone should really trust is the one that has open bookkeeping. That is one reason I think that all religious organizations should have to earn their tax free status by doing the same paperwork as non-profit charities.