Religion is only crowd control…

I read an article on MSNBC this morning about a “pastor” from Dallas that was caught burglarizing the home of one her parishioners.  If the news wasn’t disturbing enough, the comments posted online really caused me to reflect.

I’m reminded of John Cleese’s comment  that “religion served no other purpose than crowd control.”  Brilliant assessment and I completely agree.  When you honestly look back through history religion has been one of the most effective means to control and manipulate the masses.

Many of the comments too referenced the hypocrisy of the religious.  Yep.  Guilty on that front too.  Churches, mosques, and synagogues are full of hypocrites.  When people outside look inside they see little evidence of life change.

So what’s the point of religion if it only serves to control, manipulate, and show little positive effect on society?  There isn’t a point to religion.  But religion was never intended to be the cure of the fracture created in Genesis 3 between God and man.  The healing of this world’s pain (reconciliation) will only come through Christ…not through man; not through religion.

Yes, some amount of common grace allows some atheists to be “good people.” And yes, there are people that follow Christ that fail.  But ultimately no human can bear the weight, the grip, the effect that sin has on our world.

What this pastor did perfectly makes the point of the entirety of scripture.  God’s plan for man was perfect.  We chose our own.  The resulting effect is what happens between Genesis 3 and Revelation 21.  We live in a broken world.  Any attempt to fix it outside of Christ will fail.  That is the hope and promise of the Gospel.

But until Revelation 21 we will continue to try…continue to create manipulate, control, fix, and fail.  Ah, the tension. Please Jesus come…and put an end to this soon.