Applied Theology and the Religionisation of The Church

If you knew the whole Bible, and the sayings of all the philosophers, what should all this profit you without the love and grace of God?
:- Thomas A Kempis

You can be religious without having any faith in God. More importantly you can have faith in God without being religious.:-Bonhoeffer.

Religion has to do with form, formalism, formulae, rituals, rules, regulations, rites; legalism, laws doctrine, dogma and labouring. It has nothing to do with grace or a living faith in the living God.

Major W. Ian Thomas writes, “It is one of the subtleties of Satan which causes men to flee from God and seek to silence His voice in the very practice of religion. So it is that man, to suit his own convenience, has reduced God to a theological formula, an ethical code, or political program, a theatrical performance in a religious setting, the hero worship of some vivid personality.. In, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has the senior devil, Screwtape, say to his nephew, Wormwood, "One of our greatest allies at present is the church itself," i.e. "Christian religion."

What does God think of religion?

Amos 5:21"I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies.--

Amos 8:10I will turn your religious feasts into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.

God hates religion.

What did Jesus have to say about religion?

Matthew 23:13-33 (New International Version)
13"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to………….
……..33"You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?

Jesus hates religion.

Religion is opposed to Christ. Religion tries to control The Holy Spirit. Religion has people upset because healing occurs outside a healing meeting. Religion is rule upon rule do and then do. God hates religion.

Jesus never came to found a religion but to set the captives free.

Religion opposes God. Religion acknowledges what God has done in the past while resisting what God is doing now.

Religion is legalistic and therefore opposes grace.

The Church which is the body of Christ has been religionsed.

The greatest threat Christianity has always faced has never been secularism, but the religionisation of The Church.

A living relationship with Christ has been replaced by form, formalism, formulae, rituals, rules, regulations, rites; legalism, laws and labouring.

Religion is not spiritual. Religion is carnal minded crap. Religion is for the ego. Religion is worthless.

What has this got to do with applied theology?

James 1:26-27
26If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. 27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

James is clearly using the word religion in a very tongue in cheek way,. What he is saying is that if you want to engage in a religion that pleases God in heaven, help the homeless, the poor, the disenfranchised and the powerless it sounds like good religion, but it is in fact applied theology.

This has nothing to do with special buildings, formalism, formulae, rituals, rules, regulations, rites; legalism, laws, doctrine, dogma and labouring.

His second point is very important. He tells to guard against the corrupting influence of the world.

Ephesians 2:10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Good works do not make a good man but a good man does good works. :- Martin Luther.

Luke 4:18-19
18"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour”

1 John 4:16-17 (New International Version)
16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.

His grace compels us.

Go and preach the gospel and if you have to use words. :-Francis of Assisi.

The problem is that due to the religionisation of The Church, applied theology has been turned into religion. Religion turns The Bible into a rule book where people have to follow sets of rules and regulations for God to save them, while applied theology is an outward working of the glorious gospel of grace.

Acts 15:11No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."

Ephesians 2:5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

Ephesians 2:8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—

2 Timothy 1:9who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

We are saved by grace.

Romans 3:24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Galatians 5:4You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

Titus 3:7so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
We are justified by grace.