Stand to Reason’s Gregory Koukl has an insightful monologue on the claim “Christianity is not a religion; it’s a relationship.”“This slogan has been a rallying cry of 1970′s and 80′s evangelicalism,” said Koukl. The emphasis on having “a relationship with God,” I think, is a new phenomenon coming out of the sixties. It smacks of T-groups and sensitivity training, emphasizing freedom and feeling rather than form and content.”
“The crux here is what is meant by the words “religion” and “relationship.” If “religion” means a body of truth pertaining to God and the afterlife and the unseen world, combined with a way of life informed by that truth, and a community of faith seeking to follow that way of life, then Christianity certainly is a religion.”
Click here to read the rest. It appears what Koukl maintains is that Christianity is both a religion and a relationship.
I’ve been arguing this for some time now and am glad to see someone of such stature is on the same page. Too bad I’m not in the bumper sticker business. I could have been a millionaire, Jerry, I could have been a bumper sticker millionaire.
Special Note: This is my second post to the two other contributors zero. This should provoke them to jealousy (i.e. wanting or fearing losing something to which one has a right), as opposed to envy (i.e. wanting something to which you do not have a right.)
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February 29, 2008 at 10:52 am
dmcrx
Great blog! I couldn’t agree more with Koukl’s position. Christianity is really a horse of a “different color” when it comes to religion. The doctrine of “grace” is what truly separates us from all other religions. Grace still baffles me today. There is no way this concept found its origin in the mind of man. It is beyond our comprehension, and it is the basis for both the relationship and religion that we call Christianity.