Boxes, Religion, and Truth

Boxes.  I hate feeling pushed into someone else’s.  Yet I realize how quick I am to throw out people and ideas that don’t fit into mine.  Religion.  It’s received somewhat of a bad name.  I know and hear of many people who feel they have to go “beyond” religion to find meaning, spirituality, or even God.  Is religion just another box?  Truth.  It can seem threatened by those things that attempt to break down the walls of the “boxes” in religion.  Does that mean “truth” is just another box?  Or could it be deeper, broader, and different?

Admittedly, something in me likes things to stay in neat and tidy boxes.  I search for order, borders, and appropriate separations.  Right versus wrong.  Good versus bad. Appropriate versus inappropriate.  I long to be someone that stands for truth and lives with conviction.  But sometimes, ignorance of truth and or lack of conviction are easily filled with religious norms and acceptable borders.

Safe.  A few praise songs in church might be okay, but let’s leave out those drums and electric guitars.  Eating a little bit of cheese may be permissible, but just make sure there’s no meat.  A little makeup is fine, but don’t start with the jewelry.  Who made those lines?  Did my principle and conviction?  Or was it trying to stay just a little between the safe zones of my religious context?  Now, as a Christian, I do believe in the authority of the Bible, and the Bible definitely does give principles for music, diet, dress, etc. But in applying those principles, who made my “lines” the right ones?  It’s so easy to label those “liberals” whose dress or worship style might make me uncomfortable or those “legalists” who won’t eat anything with a miniscule bit of dairy or use a touch of makeup.

Yet I’ve realized an even more disturbing fact.  While I fight for safe “balance” and appropriateness in these things, people are dying without a knowledge of true, loving, Christianity.  While I’m balking at the dangers of the ecumenical movement and the movements of the “little horn” of Revelation, thousands are throwing out God and religion altogether.  I’m not saying that standards, doctrine, or eschatological awareness need to be abandoned.  But I am realizing that while I obsess over my boxes, people are dealing with things that might be, well, a little bigger.  I’m debating veganism while they struggle with drug addiction.  I dispute the nature of Christ while they’re asking if there’s even a God.  I nurse my scrapes from disagreements with the “liberals” or “conservatives” while others bleed freely from abuse, loss, confusion, and the darkness of a world that might as well be hell.

And here we return to the idea of “truth.”  Yes, I believe in the truth of my beliefs. But what is that “truth” worth if it doesn’t address the real, hard issues of life?  What is it worth if people can’t see the love of Jesus, through me, giving hope in a world of pain, loss, and relativistic confusion?  A Christian author from the 19^th century wrote, “The young want what they have not; namely, religion. Nothing can take the place of this…. [But] there is not one in twenty of the youth who knows what experimental religion is” (E. G. White, Messages to Young People p. 384).  In other words, maybe there still is a place – a need – for “religion.” But if so, it must be one that is different than the usual box – a rare “experimental” religion where “truth” meets real life.

So what will I do? I’m not lobbying for the dismantling of all “boxes” or the abandonment of church and “religion.”  But I do realize that my boxes may be getting a little too much attention and my religion may be sounding a little small.  Maybe I should strive for a day when staying within the borders fades in the distance of my search for the heart of God.  When who I am matters less and who He is matters more.  When I protect less and love more.  When this real sinner can exhibit the power of real grace.  And when people can see in me the truth of a deep, life-changing, hope-giving, religion of a real God.