Dear Friends,

At the beginning of the year we begin the “Golden Box” initiative as an opportunity for parishioners to write down prayer requests as well as questions they have concerning the faith of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Many have taken advantage of this and on a regular basis present their prayer requests and questions. From time to time for the edification of the faithful we want to publish answers to questions posed. I am thankful to Deacon Gevork Gevorkian for preparing the following article, which discusses “religion” and “spirituality.” If you have any questions or desire further clarification, please speak to Deacon Gevork or myself at any time.

With prayers,
Hayr Simeon

Religion and Spirituality

In today’s world the difference between religion and spirituality offers new alternatives to those whose hearts are not called by traditional religious teachings. The term religion seems to have fallen out of favor today, along with related terms such as piety and devotion. The term “spirituality” is often the term of choice that takes its place. In addition, Orthodox believers are sometimes told by evangelical Protestants and by New Agers that “Christianity is a relationship, not a religion.” Let’s take a look at each of these words.

First, we might note that those who say we shouldn’t speak of a Christian religion are making a claim contrary to the Bible. Apostle James urges Christians to seek the “religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father.” (Jm. 1: 27) Our faith obviously involves a “relationship” with God, but that relationship isn’t something opposed to religion; rather, it’s at the heart of religion. The English word “religion” comes from the Latin religio, a term so ancient that its origins are now lost. One strong possibility, noted by both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, is that it has the root meaning “to bind together.” In that light, St. Thomas concluded, “it denotes properly a relation to God. For it is He to whom we ought to be bound.”

The word religion thus traditionally includes all that we do as a result of being “bound” to God in a relationship: worship, prayer, obedience, service, reflection, fellowship and more. As applied to Christianity, the word religion has a long and honorable history at the very heart of Apostolic tradition. It appears not only in the Scripture, but also in countless documents of the Church and in the writings of authoritative Christian teachers. Rich in meaning, it’s a term we do well to preserve rather than abandon. The word “spirituality,” on the other hand, doesn’t appear in Scripture and is of much more recent origin in its specific use as a substitute for the term “religion.” Because it means generally “things having to do with the spirit,” it’s a rather vague word. Such vagueness may in fact be precisely the source of its current popularity. Though spirituality can include religion, the term in itself implies no religious obligations, nor even the existence of a God to whom we are obliged. It can refer to anything from yoga to numerology to New Age channeling.

Note the key difference here: Religion, understood in its traditional sense, has an object— Someone to whom it binds a person in relationship. The same could be said of the traditional terms devotion (which means a dedication or consecration to God) and piety (which means reverence for God and others, and observance of the obligations we have toward them). Spirituality, on the other hand, doesn’t inherently involve Anyone to whom we are bound, to whom we devote ourselves, or to whom we show reverence. The word spirituality certainly has its uses. But with regard to Christian faith and practice, we shouldn’t allow it to displace the more traditional terms altogether, because they point to a critical reality: To be Christian is to be in a transforming personal relationship with the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world,” (Jm. 1: 27) The key to this purity is not the first part what the brother of the Lord, James, tells us, but the second part. From purity of heart flows all good works toward all men. Pure religion is the changing of the soul - from dark to light, from impure to pure, from ignorant concerning virtue to knowledge of all things holy. This knowledge is a gained by our learning the commandments of God and applying them to our lives. We do not become “unspotted from the world” by performing good works - we do good works because the love of Gods fills us, and purifies us. Let us strive for “pure religion”, or put another way, to be “doers of the word, and not hearers only.” (Jm. 1: 22)

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With prayers.
Hayr Simeon
September 7, 2008