How can you say Christianity is not a religion?

[OnceConvinced]

I hear it so many times, but only from Christians, that Christianity is not a religion. When I was a Christian, even, I used to say “Christianity is a relationship with God� even though there is no bible backing for this claim. In fact James says:

Jam 1:26 & 27 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion 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.

This is pretty much the what Jesus promoted and practiced, ie, looking after those in need and also keeping oneself free from sin and the influences of the world. James makes it quite clear that it’s religion.

Also many of these Christians who claim they are not religious practice religious activities on a regular basis and even insist that many of them are necessities, eg, baptism, communion, prayer, quiet times.

Here is a list that most Christians conduct, some of them on a regular basis. RELIGIOUS activities:

Saying grace before meals,
Attending church every Sunday morning
Baptism
Communion
Prayer meetings
Raising you hands to god in worship
Closing your eyes when praying
Standing together in a congregation and singing
Holding hands during worship or prayer
Altar calls
The laying on of hands
Annointing with oil
Chanting the lord's prayer
Quiet times
Speaking in tongues
Holy laughter
Being slain in the spirit
Spiritual warfare
PRAYER!

All one has to do is step into a church to see the religious activities that go on. I wrote an observation of a typical church service here:

How religious is church?

If you care to read it, it out lines the many religious rituals that make up a church service, from the greeting at the door to the closing prayer. Even just going to church every week is a religious ritual in itself.

Even if you don’t go to church you conduct religious rituals like prayer and bible readings. Even repentance and the sinner’s prayer is a religious act.

So based on the above facts,

How can anyone claim that Christianity is not religion? (and how do you get around the verses in James)

Where in the bible does it say that Christianity is not a religion or simply just a relationship with God?

Does anyone here who is not a Christian agree that Christianity is not a religion? Or is this simply just a Christian fantasy to try to make their religion something special?

[Justin108]

[Replying to post 1 by OnceConvinced]

Christians who say this recognise the flaws of religion. "There are so many religions. How can you be sure yours is the right one?". To escape this reality, they try to slip out of this catagory. "Those guys just have religion, but we have the real God". This is just an attempt to make Christianity seem more special than it really is. To make it not be "just another religion".

[tigger2]

The first sign of a Christian Church is the clear identification the God it worships, which must be in line with the Bible - not some 4th century council.

[JLB32168]

How can anyone claim that Christianity is not religion? (and how do you get around the verses in James)

I’m a Christian. I think it’s silly for a Christian to say that Christianity isn’t a religion. The etymology of the word is most likely is related to the concept of “to connect� as I understand, which I suppose would imply “develop a relationship� with someone with which no previous relationship existed.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 3 by tigger2]

The first sign of a Christian Church is the clear identification the God it worships, which must be in line with the Bible - not some 4th century council.

However, what we modern folks TAKE as the "Bible" has been crafted long after the 4th century.

"The Christian biblical canons are the books Christians regard as divinely inspired and constituting a Christian Bible. Books included in the Christian biblical canons of both the Old and New Testament were decided by the 5th century[citation needed] for the ancient undivided Church (which includes both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions) and was reaffirmed by the Catholic Church in the wake of the Protestant Reformation at the Council of Trent (1546). The canons of the Church of England and English Calvinists were decided definitively by the Thirty-Nine Articles (1563) and the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), respectively. "

From

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developme ... ical_canon

[Elijah John]

How can anyone claim that Christianity is not religion? (and how do you get around the verses in James)

I’m a Christian. I think it’s silly for a Christian to say that Christianity isn’t a religion. The etymology of the word is most likely is related to the concept of “to connect� as I understand, which I suppose would imply “develop a relationship� with someone with which no previous relationship existed.

I agree, and would add that religion IS relationship, with God and neighbor. Therefore Christianity too, is a religion, and other religions are systematic attempts to establish and maintain relationships with God and neighbor.

Now which religion or religions are most successful at establishing those relationships, is another matter.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 1 by OnceConvinced]

I agree with much of your OP here, but would take issue with some of the practices on your list.

OC states:

"Here is a list that most Christians conduct, some of them on a regular basis. RELIGIOUS activities:

Saying grace before meals,
Attending church every Sunday morning
Baptism
Communion
Prayer meetings
Raising you hands to god in worship
Closing your eyes when praying
Standing together in a congregation and singing
Holding hands during worship or prayer
Altar calls
The laying on of hands
Annointing with oil
Chanting the lord's prayer
Quiet times
Speaking in tongues
Holy laughter
Being slain in the spirit
Spiritual warfare
PRAYER!"

EJ replies:

I would omit

"Speaking in tongues
Holy laughter
Being slain in the spirit"

As being practiced by "most Christians". These things are foreign to the largest Christian denomination, Roman Catholicism.

Never even heard of "Holy Laughter" I'll have to ask one of my Evangelical cousins about that one!

[Ancient of Years]

[Replying to post 3 by tigger2]

The first sign of a Christian Church is the clear identification the God it worships, which must be in line with the Bible - not some 4th century council.

However, what we modern folks TAKE as the "Bible" has been crafted long after the 4th century.

"The Christian biblical canons are the books Christians regard as divinely inspired and constituting a Christian Bible. Books included in the Christian biblical canons of both the Old and New Testament were decided by the 5th century[citation needed] for the ancient undivided Church (which includes both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions) and was reaffirmed by the Catholic Church in the wake of the Protestant Reformation at the Council of Trent (1546). The canons of the Church of England and English Calvinists were decided definitively by the Thirty-Nine Articles (1563) and the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), respectively. "

From

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developme ... ical_canon

The only differences in biblical canon between Catholics and Protestants that took place after the 5th century were the exclusion of certain Old Testament books by Protestants and new translations being made from Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek rather than Latin.

One of the tenets of the Protestant Reformation (beginning c. 1517) was that translations of scriptures should be based on the original texts (i.e. Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic for the Old Testament and Biblical Greek for the New Testament) rather than upon Jerome's translation into Latin, which at the time was the Bible of the Catholic Church.

The reformers saw the Apocrypha at variance with the rest of Scripture. In them, the Roman Catholic Church claimed scriptural authority for the doctrine of Purgatory, for prayers and Masses for the dead (2 Macc 12:43–45), and for the efficacy of good works in attaining salvation (Tobit 12:9; Ecclesiasticus 7:33), things that Protestants then and today deem to be blatantly contradicting other parts of the Bible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developme ... mation_era

The core of the New Testament (the four Gospels, Acts, most of the Pauline letters and a few other epistles) was already considered canonical by the 2nd century. The only major disputed work was Revelation. The New Testament canon as we know it was settled by the very beginning of the 5th century.

Irenaeus (died c. 202) quotes and cites 21 books that would end up as part of the New Testament, but does not use Philemon, Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 3 John and Jude.[2] By the early 3rd century Origen of Alexandria may have been using the same 27 books as in the modern New Testament, though there were still disputes over the canonicity of Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation,[3] see also Antilegomena. Likewise by 200 the Muratorian fragment shows that there existed a set of Christian writings somewhat similar to what is now the New Testament, which included four gospels and argued against objections to them.[4] Thus, while there was plenty of discussion in the Early Church over the New Testament canon, the "major" writings were accepted by almost all Christian authorities by the middle of the second century.[5]

The next two hundred years followed a similar process of continual discussion throughout the entire Church, and localized refinements of acceptance. As the Church worked to become of one mind, the approximate completeness of agreement merged gradually closer to unity. This process was not yet complete at the time of the First Council of Nicaea in 325, though substantial progress had been made by then. Though a list was clearly necessary to fulfill Constantine's commission in 331 of fifty copies of the Bible for the Church at Constantinople, no concrete evidence exists to indicate that it was considered to be a formal canon. In the absence of a canonical list, the resolution of questions would normally have been directed through the see of Constantinople, in consultation with Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea (who was given the commission), and perhaps other bishops who were available locally.

In his Easter letter of 367, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, gave a list of exactly the same books that would formally become the New Testament canon,[6] and he used the word "canonized" (kanonizomena) in regards to them.[7] The first council that accepted the present Catholic canon (the Canon of Trent) may have been the Synod of Hippo Regius in North Africa (393); the acts of this council, however, are lost. A brief summary of the acts was read at and accepted by theCouncils of Carthage in 397 and 419.[8] These councils took place under the authority of St. Augustine, who regarded the canon as already closed.[9] Pope Damasus I's Council of Rome in 382, if the Decretum Gelasianum is correctly associated with it, issued a biblical canon identical to that mentioned above,[6] or if not the list is at least a 6th-century compilation[10] claiming a 4th-century imprimatur.[11] Likewise, Damasus's commissioning of the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible, c. 383, was instrumental in the fixation of the canon in the West.[12] In 405, Pope Innocent I sent a list of the sacred books to a Gallic bishop, Exsuperius of Toulouse. When these bishops and councils spoke on the matter, however, they were not defining something new, but instead "were ratifying what had already become the mind of the church."[13] Thus, from the 5th century onward, the Western Church was unanimous concerning the New Testament canon.[14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developme ... ment_canon

[bluethread]

The relationship thing is a modern evangelical take. I do not make that argument. That said, Christianity is a philosophy, not a religion. One who defends a philosophy without engaging in any of the things that follow from that philosophy is not religious. The practices that follow from a philosophy are religion. The activities listed above are the religion of some Christians, most notably the RCC and denominations related to it.

[Zzyzx]

.

Christianity is a philosophy, not a religion.

Christianity seems to fit the definition of religion: "the service and worship of God or the supernatural: commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance. a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices." www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion