Is All Religion Acceptable to God?
by Gregory Van Court
A Meditation on James 1:26-27
Just one month before his re-election, the President was reaching out to undecided voters when he made an appearance on Good Morning America. At one point in the interview, Charles Gibson asked, "Do we all worship the same God, Christian and Muslim?" And the president replied, "I think we do. We have different routes of getting to the Almighty." Gibson then pressed him for clarification asking, “Do Christians and non-Christians and Muslims go to heaven in your mind?” And again, the president stated unequivocally, “Yes, they do. We have different routes of getting there.” And it’s that idea – that all roads lead to heaven -- which distinctly marks the spirit of this present age. We’re told that when you boil it all down, all religion is basically the same.
But the Bible tells a different story. According to Scripture, all roads do lead to the same ultimate destination – that is, all except for one. Because, when you boil it all down, there are only two religions in this world. James 1:26-27 describes each of these religions: warning us against the one, while calling us to the other.
Verse 26 describes worthless religion. “If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless.” It is important to understand at the outset that the worthless religion which James has in his cross-hairs here is none other than Christianity. Writing from a Christian perspective to the church, James assumes that all non-Christian religions fall under the category of worthless religion, but his focus here is on the worthlessness of nominal Christianity. We know this from the context of the epistle, as James draws the contrast between the person who merely says that he has faith in Christ and the person who is able to demonstrate his faith by his works. And so just as the warnings against worthless religion were germane to the original Christian audience so they are also relevant to you and me who profess faith in Christ. Is our Christianity worthless? How can we tell?
James gives several defective qualities of worthless religion. Notice, first, that worthless religion is characterized by self-approval. The person whose religion is worthless enjoys a hearty dose of religious self-esteem; he’s religious in his own eyes. He text says he “thinks” or “supposes” himself to be religious. Jesus tells the story of two men who went up to the temple to pray. One of the men’s prayers went like this: “God, I thank you that I’m not like other men, swindlers, unjust, adulterers; I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all I get.” It’s an easy trap to fall into, to think well of yourself, to suppose yourself to be religious by applying your own standards rather than God’s. “God, I thank you that I’m not like the sell-outs, the pleasure-seekers, the materialists who spend their lives pursuing the American dream; I sacrificed all that to surrendered myself to a life of ministry.” Or how often do we foster an attitude of religious self-approval based on the doctrine we hold or in simply being in agreement with popular religious leaders. Beware of sanctification by association. The faulty logic goes something like this: John MacArthur is a religious man; I agree with MacArthur; therefore, I’m a religious man. We can also fall into the trap of basing our religious status on our religious feelings. We can be speeding in our car and cutting people off in traffic all the while feeling religious as we listen to our favorite praise music CD. If you’re religious in your own estimation because of your Bible knowledge or your confession or your feelings or because of any other human standard, your religion is worthless. When Isaiah the prophet had his pivotal religious experience, he cried out, “Woe is me, I’m undone, I’m a man of unclean lips” and the tax-collector was unwilling to even lift up his eyes to heaven, beating his chest, saying, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” But the person whose religion is worthless holds himself in high regard.
Secondly, worthless religion is characterized by a lack of self-restraint. The person whose religion is worthless is not known for his self-control. The text says that he doesn’t bridle his tongue. For James, a person’s inability to control his speech is the ultimate example of a general lack of self-restraint. In chapter three, he says that the one who is able to bridle the tongue is a perfect man who is able to bridle the whole body as well, and he explains that an unbridled tongue defiles the entire body. Let me ask you this, reader. Do you sometimes just pop off, say things off the top of your head? They are hurtful and destructive, you don’t mean them to be, you often wish you could take them back. Or are you a person that’s very careful, able to keep from being hurtful or insulting, speaking the truth in love? Do you like to get into an argument or do you give soft answers that turn away wrath. If you’re able to control your tongue, you’re able to control other sins as well. But if you can’t control your tongue, then you lack self-restraint in general, and your religion’s worthless because you’re controlled by your passions. I remember when it became public that Woody Allen had committed adultery with the adopted daughter of his common-law wife of 12 years. When asked to give an account for his shameful actions, he famously replied, “The heart wants what it wants.” A life ruled by passions and impulses is a scandal and a disaster. Consequently, religion that provides no power for self-restraint is worthless.
Lastly, worthless religion is characterized by self-deception. The person whose religion is worthless lies to himself; he deludes himself. The text says that he deceives his own heart. One case in point is Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler. This man asked Jesus, “What good thing must I do to get eternal life?” Jesus replied that he would have to keep the commandments, and he named some commandments, and then the young man said that he’d kept all these. “What do I still lack?” Jesus said, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and come, follow me.” Knowing the sinner’s heart, Jesus simply took the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me,” and made a practical application to this man’s life: “Sell all and follow me.” Jesus showed that the rich young ruler’s self-righteousness was only self-deception. It’s such a deadly state to be in because in order to become self-deceived you have to first pretend that you don’t know the truth about yourself – that you lack self-restraint -- and then as a habit of life become a serial pretender until you become unable to see the truth about the condition of your own heart. Instead, you actually see yourself as religious. Self-deception is a hallmark of worthless religion.
The only alternative to worthless religion is religion that is pure – religion that is undefiled. James describes pure religion in verse 27. “This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father, to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” James gives several important contrasts here to worthless religion. Notice first that pure religion is characterized by the Lord’s approval. It is in the sight of God or in the judgment of God that a person’s religion is pronounced pure and undefiled. The person whose religion is pure is religious in God’s eyes. This stands in contrast to the person who is religious in his own eyes. When Jesus teaches about judgment day, he says that “Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy, cast out demons, and perform many miracles in your name?'” So here are people who were obviously religious in their own eyes, but Jesus says, “I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'” But to the sheep on his right hand, he’ll say, “Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom. For I was hungry, and you fed me; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me in.” And do you remember how the righteous respond? When did we do all these things?! There’s a humility and a self-forgetfulness to the virtuous Christian life.
Notice secondly, that pure religion is characterized by a love for others. The person whose religion is pure cares for the vulnerable and the needy. He does good to others. He demonstrates love for his neighbor. The text says he visits orphans and widows in their distress. There’s a danger in our conservative circles to associate active social work with theological liberalism and to confine our conservatism to the realm of personal piety. So you lay stress on your devotional life, your quiet time, your personal spiritual disciplines – all of which are acceptable Christian activities. But you leave the hard work of caring for the weakest and most vulnerable of your fellow creatures to the mainstream denominations. But if you concern yourself primarily with personal religious things without demonstrating your love for God by loving people, then your religion is worthless. Pure religion involves a love for others that is purposeful, intentional, and active, not just sentimental and emotional. There has to be a demonstration, an act, something done for others when they’re most in need of help. A profession of love without demonstration is empty. In the next chapter, James illustrates this point by saying, “If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?” That’s worthless religion. But pure religion acts. And it acts deliberately, in specific demonstrations of love for the most vulnerable of people. It’s the kind of love that sacrifices one’s free time to volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center or a homeless shelter. It’s the kind of love that regularly visits the elderly and sick in your community or that takes in a child who has been orphaned or given up for adoption. It’s this active love for others that characterizes pure religion.
Finally, pure religion is characterized by a life of purity. The person whose religion is pure maintains a walk of personal purity. He lives a holy life. He’s a godly man. He doesn’t allow the sinful culture to pollute him. The text says that he keeps himself unstained by the world. I’ll never forget receiving a letter from my local church before I was a Baptist, back when I was an Episcopalian. Like many liberal churches, they did great when it came to social work, but the emphasis on holy living was lacking. The letter revealed a situation that sadly is probably familiar to many of you. The pastor was divorcing his wife and marrying his secretary with whom he had been carrying on an adulterous relationship. The real shocker, however, was that the letter included an invitation to a farewell party that the church was throwing for the pastor, who had decided to return to his law practice, for the purpose of wishing him and his fiancé well and expressing gratitude to them for their faithful service to the church. Well, in his grace, God used that occasion to help me see that my church had become polluted by the world. But we all know too many stories to be able to deny that there’s a danger even in our circles of failing to keep ourselves unstained by the world. There is also a danger in thinking that one way of keeping yourselves unpolluted from the world is by spending all your time with fellow believers. You’re not insulated from the world, or if you are, you ought not to be. We’re to keep ourselves unstained from the world and yet very much involved in the world. Pure religion is active in the world but is not of the world. And isn’t this the religion that Jesus himself models for us? He spits in the dirt and gets his hands in the mud and touched the useless eye of a blind outcast and yet remains unstained. He dines with sinners and tax-collectors and attends wedding feasts and remains spotless. He lets a sinful woman pour perfume over him and wash his feet with her tears & hair and remains unpolluted by the world. And he expects the same of us. “My prayer,” he said in John 17, “is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.” Pure religion in God’s eyes is deeply active in the world while remaining unsullied by the world.
Not all religion is acceptable to God. There’s religion that’s pure, and there’s religion that’s worthless. This biblical distinction may be an outrage in a pluralistic world in whose eyes any person of faith is religious. But in the eyes of our God and Father, the truly religious person is the person of faith in Christ exclusively, the person whose saving faith has united him with Jesus Christ, the person who’s been born again and empowered by the Spirit to live out his salvation. Christians, let us live out our new life in Christ as an unpolluted demonstration of God’s love in the world.
But the Bible tells a different story. According to Scripture, all roads do lead to the same ultimate destination – that is, all except for one. Because, when you boil it all down, there are only two religions in this world. James 1:26-27 describes each of these religions: warning us against the one, while calling us to the other.
Verse 26 describes worthless religion. “If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless.” It is important to understand at the outset that the worthless religion which James has in his cross-hairs here is none other than Christianity. Writing from a Christian perspective to the church, James assumes that all non-Christian religions fall under the category of worthless religion, but his focus here is on the worthlessness of nominal Christianity. We know this from the context of the epistle, as James draws the contrast between the person who merely says that he has faith in Christ and the person who is able to demonstrate his faith by his works. And so just as the warnings against worthless religion were germane to the original Christian audience so they are also relevant to you and me who profess faith in Christ. Is our Christianity worthless? How can we tell?
James gives several defective qualities of worthless religion. Notice, first, that worthless religion is characterized by self-approval. The person whose religion is worthless enjoys a hearty dose of religious self-esteem; he’s religious in his own eyes. He text says he “thinks” or “supposes” himself to be religious. Jesus tells the story of two men who went up to the temple to pray. One of the men’s prayers went like this: “God, I thank you that I’m not like other men, swindlers, unjust, adulterers; I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all I get.” It’s an easy trap to fall into, to think well of yourself, to suppose yourself to be religious by applying your own standards rather than God’s. “God, I thank you that I’m not like the sell-outs, the pleasure-seekers, the materialists who spend their lives pursuing the American dream; I sacrificed all that to surrendered myself to a life of ministry.” Or how often do we foster an attitude of religious self-approval based on the doctrine we hold or in simply being in agreement with popular religious leaders. Beware of sanctification by association. The faulty logic goes something like this: John MacArthur is a religious man; I agree with MacArthur; therefore, I’m a religious man. We can also fall into the trap of basing our religious status on our religious feelings. We can be speeding in our car and cutting people off in traffic all the while feeling religious as we listen to our favorite praise music CD. If you’re religious in your own estimation because of your Bible knowledge or your confession or your feelings or because of any other human standard, your religion is worthless. When Isaiah the prophet had his pivotal religious experience, he cried out, “Woe is me, I’m undone, I’m a man of unclean lips” and the tax-collector was unwilling to even lift up his eyes to heaven, beating his chest, saying, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” But the person whose religion is worthless holds himself in high regard.
Secondly, worthless religion is characterized by a lack of self-restraint. The person whose religion is worthless is not known for his self-control. The text says that he doesn’t bridle his tongue. For James, a person’s inability to control his speech is the ultimate example of a general lack of self-restraint. In chapter three, he says that the one who is able to bridle the tongue is a perfect man who is able to bridle the whole body as well, and he explains that an unbridled tongue defiles the entire body. Let me ask you this, reader. Do you sometimes just pop off, say things off the top of your head? They are hurtful and destructive, you don’t mean them to be, you often wish you could take them back. Or are you a person that’s very careful, able to keep from being hurtful or insulting, speaking the truth in love? Do you like to get into an argument or do you give soft answers that turn away wrath. If you’re able to control your tongue, you’re able to control other sins as well. But if you can’t control your tongue, then you lack self-restraint in general, and your religion’s worthless because you’re controlled by your passions. I remember when it became public that Woody Allen had committed adultery with the adopted daughter of his common-law wife of 12 years. When asked to give an account for his shameful actions, he famously replied, “The heart wants what it wants.” A life ruled by passions and impulses is a scandal and a disaster. Consequently, religion that provides no power for self-restraint is worthless.
Lastly, worthless religion is characterized by self-deception. The person whose religion is worthless lies to himself; he deludes himself. The text says that he deceives his own heart. One case in point is Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler. This man asked Jesus, “What good thing must I do to get eternal life?” Jesus replied that he would have to keep the commandments, and he named some commandments, and then the young man said that he’d kept all these. “What do I still lack?” Jesus said, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and come, follow me.” Knowing the sinner’s heart, Jesus simply took the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me,” and made a practical application to this man’s life: “Sell all and follow me.” Jesus showed that the rich young ruler’s self-righteousness was only self-deception. It’s such a deadly state to be in because in order to become self-deceived you have to first pretend that you don’t know the truth about yourself – that you lack self-restraint -- and then as a habit of life become a serial pretender until you become unable to see the truth about the condition of your own heart. Instead, you actually see yourself as religious. Self-deception is a hallmark of worthless religion.
The only alternative to worthless religion is religion that is pure – religion that is undefiled. James describes pure religion in verse 27. “This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father, to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” James gives several important contrasts here to worthless religion. Notice first that pure religion is characterized by the Lord’s approval. It is in the sight of God or in the judgment of God that a person’s religion is pronounced pure and undefiled. The person whose religion is pure is religious in God’s eyes. This stands in contrast to the person who is religious in his own eyes. When Jesus teaches about judgment day, he says that “Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy, cast out demons, and perform many miracles in your name?'” So here are people who were obviously religious in their own eyes, but Jesus says, “I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'” But to the sheep on his right hand, he’ll say, “Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom. For I was hungry, and you fed me; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me in.” And do you remember how the righteous respond? When did we do all these things?! There’s a humility and a self-forgetfulness to the virtuous Christian life.
Notice secondly, that pure religion is characterized by a love for others. The person whose religion is pure cares for the vulnerable and the needy. He does good to others. He demonstrates love for his neighbor. The text says he visits orphans and widows in their distress. There’s a danger in our conservative circles to associate active social work with theological liberalism and to confine our conservatism to the realm of personal piety. So you lay stress on your devotional life, your quiet time, your personal spiritual disciplines – all of which are acceptable Christian activities. But you leave the hard work of caring for the weakest and most vulnerable of your fellow creatures to the mainstream denominations. But if you concern yourself primarily with personal religious things without demonstrating your love for God by loving people, then your religion is worthless. Pure religion involves a love for others that is purposeful, intentional, and active, not just sentimental and emotional. There has to be a demonstration, an act, something done for others when they’re most in need of help. A profession of love without demonstration is empty. In the next chapter, James illustrates this point by saying, “If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?” That’s worthless religion. But pure religion acts. And it acts deliberately, in specific demonstrations of love for the most vulnerable of people. It’s the kind of love that sacrifices one’s free time to volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center or a homeless shelter. It’s the kind of love that regularly visits the elderly and sick in your community or that takes in a child who has been orphaned or given up for adoption. It’s this active love for others that characterizes pure religion.
Finally, pure religion is characterized by a life of purity. The person whose religion is pure maintains a walk of personal purity. He lives a holy life. He’s a godly man. He doesn’t allow the sinful culture to pollute him. The text says that he keeps himself unstained by the world. I’ll never forget receiving a letter from my local church before I was a Baptist, back when I was an Episcopalian. Like many liberal churches, they did great when it came to social work, but the emphasis on holy living was lacking. The letter revealed a situation that sadly is probably familiar to many of you. The pastor was divorcing his wife and marrying his secretary with whom he had been carrying on an adulterous relationship. The real shocker, however, was that the letter included an invitation to a farewell party that the church was throwing for the pastor, who had decided to return to his law practice, for the purpose of wishing him and his fiancé well and expressing gratitude to them for their faithful service to the church. Well, in his grace, God used that occasion to help me see that my church had become polluted by the world. But we all know too many stories to be able to deny that there’s a danger even in our circles of failing to keep ourselves unstained by the world. There is also a danger in thinking that one way of keeping yourselves unpolluted from the world is by spending all your time with fellow believers. You’re not insulated from the world, or if you are, you ought not to be. We’re to keep ourselves unstained from the world and yet very much involved in the world. Pure religion is active in the world but is not of the world. And isn’t this the religion that Jesus himself models for us? He spits in the dirt and gets his hands in the mud and touched the useless eye of a blind outcast and yet remains unstained. He dines with sinners and tax-collectors and attends wedding feasts and remains spotless. He lets a sinful woman pour perfume over him and wash his feet with her tears & hair and remains unpolluted by the world. And he expects the same of us. “My prayer,” he said in John 17, “is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.” Pure religion in God’s eyes is deeply active in the world while remaining unsullied by the world.
Not all religion is acceptable to God. There’s religion that’s pure, and there’s religion that’s worthless. This biblical distinction may be an outrage in a pluralistic world in whose eyes any person of faith is religious. But in the eyes of our God and Father, the truly religious person is the person of faith in Christ exclusively, the person whose saving faith has united him with Jesus Christ, the person who’s been born again and empowered by the Spirit to live out his salvation. Christians, let us live out our new life in Christ as an unpolluted demonstration of God’s love in the world.
posted by Phillip M. Way @ 8:00 PM
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