Religion finally dies?

♫ There’s a place where religion finally dies

♫ There’s a place where I lose my selfish pride

♫ Dancing with my father God in fields of grace

♫ Dancing with my father God in fields of grace

—“Fields of Grace” by Darrell Evans

Mike has his computer shuffle between all his worship songs. “Fields of Grace” was in there. I’ve heard it lots of times before; we sing it at my home church.

It’s interesting to me how the crowd gives up a great big cheer on the MP3 after they sing, “Religion finally dies.” Worshippers do the same thing at church. Now, I’m not sure that this line is going to provoke a giant outburst of enthusiasm with everyone; not every Christian thinks of religion as a bad thing. Yet at every service where they’ve sung this song, the worshippers cheer right at that point. It makes it feel fake. I’m not big on hypocrisy in my worship.

I say not every Christian thinks of religion as a bad thing because I’m one of them. The popular definition of religion is, by and large, “a cold formal ritual that reflects no relationship with God.” If this is what we’re talking about, I’m all for cheering its death. Death is all it will lead to. But if religion means—as it does to me—“a ritual, enacted on my part, representative of a desire of God in scripture, that reflects the joy of my relationship with God,” then I’m all for religion. In fact, I need to be more religious.

Commandments, fr’instance, are religion. We don’t need the commandments in order to be saved; we need God’s grace. But when Jesus told us to follow them He wasn’t making that optional. Yes, if you follow the commandments out of obligation, they’re no fun and are frequently hypocritically practiced. Note the Pharisees. But if you follow the commandments out of a sincere desire to honor the God who gave them, and to do the things that please him, that’s a wonderful thing. That brings joy to one’s heart and peace to one’s soul. Plus it eliminates most of the consequences we bring into our lives by not following the commandments.

Most people don’t follow commandments out of pure ignorance. We Christians emphasize grace so much (like in the song) that we forget that God has put a very high standard into our lives. We need to be like Jesus—and Jesus followed the commandments. Yet any time I discuss the commandments, I’m dismissed with, “Well, that’s Old Testament,” as if “old” means “no longer valid”—a statement that, again, comes out of pure ignorance.

All in all, I’m still not sure how I feel about the song.