 |  Conditions affecting tomorrow's ministry.
Fall 1999
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Religion-Less Spirituality
Tim Keller
October 1, 1999
"Growing numbers of Americans say they are spiritual but not religious," says Robert
Wuthnow in After Heaven, his assessment of American spiritual development
since 1950.
It is a spirituality without truth or authority but filled with belief in
the supernatural. It is a trend born of the modern fears of religion.
The powerful critiques of Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche have penetrated our
popular psyche. Freud saw religious performance as a way that guilt-ridden
people cleanse themselves and force God to bless them. Marx saw religious
principle used by one class of people to oppress another. Neitzsche asserted
that anyone claiming to have the truth is making a power play. He
asked the powerful: "Why do you call for love? Is it not just a way
to keep anyone from revolting against your authority?" He asked the powerless:
"Why do you call for justice? Is it not just a way for you to get
on top?"
These critiques are powerful because they have the ring of truth. They're
the reasons many who seek spirituality reject religion.
What shall we do then? We must address the real issues of self-righteousness,
exclusion, and power-plays. The church must echo Jesus' own powerful
critique of religion and visibly demonstrate the difference between religion
and the gospel.
Right word, right time
First, we must do it in word—in our preaching and communication. Even more
than Freud, Jesus condemned self-justification through moral performance,
at one point claiming that religion was more spiritually dangerous than overt
immorality.
Jesus gives us the classic picture of the failure of both religion
and irreligion in his parable of the two sons in Luke 15. The elder brother
represents the religious leaders; he never disobeys ...
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