Word Study #206 â âReligionâ
This study was precipitated by a conversation with a dear friend who was summarily excluded from a forum on âScience and Religionâ. He had not attacked either âsideâ, but simply pointed out that the two purported opposites are concerned with different questions, and therefore use different approaches, and come up with different answers. Another brother pointed out that various âreligionsâ, also, address different questions and therefore come up with different answers: Buddhism, he suggested, seeks the path that leads to the cessation of human suffering; Taoism seeks to know how man can live in harmony with nature; Confucianism seeks how to create an orderly society. All of these may well be legitimate questions, the answers to which will understandably produce different results, both theoretical and practical. Some view Christianity as attempting to describe the fundamental nature of God, or manâs relationship to him. This has been the âplaying fieldâ for all sorts of theological speculation, often producing more heat than light. It occurred to me that I could not recall that the New Testament spoke to the subject of âreligious questionsâ at all, so I decided to investigate. You may be as surprised as I was, to find that the term âreligionâ appears, even in the traditional KJV, only three times as a noun, and once as an adjective. The only other use of the original term is once translated âworshipingâ. Even more interesting is the observation that all but one of these (Ac.26:5, Jas.1:26 â 2x; and Col.2:18) have a distinctly negative flavor. Only in Jas.1:27 is there any hint of commendation! Do we perhaps need to recognize that for those who choose to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, âreligionâ has very little if anything to offer? This question is enhanced when one turns to the classical dictionaries. Liddell /Scott (Oxford) lists, regarding the noun threskeia: âreligious cult, worship as ritual, religious formalism, superstitionâ, and for the adjective, âreligious or superstitious.â