Religion and Morality

I have been pondering the word religion. I used to have a personal bias against the word until I started reading the Puritans. In J.I. Packer's talk on the Puritan Century, he states that religion was to the Puritans as Christianity is to us today. In 1941, Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, "Religion, a true belief in God, in Jesus Christ, is fundamental, vital, essential." J.C. Ryle wrote on Practical Religion. Jonathan Edwards wrote A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections. Who can forget Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. So it seems in former days, these godly men used religion to refer to the gospel and its outworking.

Something has changed because my former definition of religion would have been scrupulous conformity to a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices by which a person is made right with God. This is an amalgamation of two of the definitions of religion from Merriam-Webster's online dictionary.

That's a far cry from the 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster:

1. Religion, in its most comprehensive sense, includes a belief in the being and perfections of God, in the revelation of his will to man, in man's obligation to obey his commands, in a state of reward and punishment, and in man's accountableness to God; and also true godliness or piety of life, with the practice of all moral duties. It therefore comprehends theology, as a system of doctrines or principles, as well as practical piety; for the practice of moral duties without a belief in a divine lawgiver, and without reference to his will or commands, is not religion.

2. Religion, as distinct from theology, is godliness or real piety in practice, consisting in the performance of all known duties to God and our fellow men, in obedience to divine command, or from love to God and his law. James 1.

3. Religion, as distinct from virtue, or morality, consists in the performance of the duties we owe directly to God, from a principle of obedience to his will. Hence we often speak of religion and virtue, as different branches of one system, or the duties of the first and second tables of the law.

Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion.

So what's the big deal? It's only just a word. Maybe I'm being a complete nerd about this, but I want to know why a word that was at one time synonymous with the true biblical gospel has a distasteful connotation even to Christians.

Lloyd-Jones may have given the answer in his lecture from 1941:

With an air of great patronage and condescension we were told that the magic and rites and taboos of religion had been more or less necessary in the past, but that now man, in his intelligent and intellectual modern condition, had no need of such things. Indeed they had become insulting. Nothing was necessary save that man should be shown what was good and given instruction concerning it.

Religion far from being the mainspring and source of all ideas concerning life and how it should be lived, has become a mere appendage even in the case of many who still adhere to it. Righteousness or morality, has been exalted to the supreme position, and little is heard of godliness Like the Pharisees of old, there have been many amongst us who were shocked and scandalized by certain acts of unrighteousness, but who failed to realize that their won self-righteousness denoted an ungodliness which was infinitely more reprehensible in the eyes of God. The order has been reversed: morality has taken precedence over religion, unrighteousness is regarded as a more heinous crime than ungodliness.

As justice and mercy are distinct and non-interchangeable, so religion and morality are distinct and non-interchangeable. Even the 1828 dictionary makes the distinction between the two. The blurring of the definitions of religion and morality or gospel and morality may reveal our culture's confusion between the two. Hence, religion to our 21st century minds is not the same religion of Martyn Lloyd-Jones or the Puritans. Religion has become merely morality.

From Al Mohler's post on Why Moralism Is Not the Gospel - And Why So Many Christians Think It Is (ht:Thirsty Theologian) -

We sin against Christ and we misrepresent the Gospel when we suggest to sinners that what God demands of them is moral improvement in accordance with the Law. Moralism makes sense to sinners, for it is but an expansion of what we have been taught from our earliest days. But moralism is not the Gospel, and it will not save. The only gospel that saves is the Gospel of Christ. As Paul reminded the Galatians, "But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons." [Gal. 4:4-5]

We are justified by faith alone, saved by grace alone, and redeemed from our sin by Christ alone. Moralism produces sinners who are (potentially) better behaved. The Gospel of Christ transforms sinners into the adopted sons and daughters of God.

From Lloyd-Jones:

Once the relative positions of religion and morality are reversed from that which we find in our text [Romans 1:18], the inevitable result is what we find stated in such clear and terrible terms in the remainder of this chapter. Religion must precede morality, if morality itself is to survive. Godliness is essential to ethics. Nothing but a belief in God and a desire to glorify Him, based upon our realization of our utter dependence upon Him and our acceptance of His way of life and salvation in Jesus Christ His Son, can ever lead to a good society. This is not merely a dogmatic statement. It can be proved and demonstrated repeatedly in the history of mankind.

This is one of the most subtle dangers that faces us as we try to think out and plan a new state of society for the future. It is a danger which can be seen in the writings of a number of writers today who are concerned about the state of this country. I think in particular of men like Mr. T.S. Elliot and Mr. Middleton Murray. They advocate a religious society and a Christian education - or what they call such - simply because they have found all else to fail, and because they think that this is more likely to be successful. But they fail to realize that before you can have a Christian society and Christian education you must first of all have Christians. No education or culture, no mode of training will ever produce Christians and the corresponding morality. To do that we must come face to face with God and see our sin and helpless plight; we must know something about the wrath of God, and repent before Him and then receive His gracious offer of salvation in Jesus Christ His Son. But that is not mentioned. Men ever desire the benefits of Christianity without paying the price. They need to be reminded again that "God is not mocked" and that even in the name of Christian civilization He is often grievously insulted. Whatever may follow, God must be worshipped for His own sake because He is God. He demands it and will have it.

Quotes by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones are taken from Religion and Morality in The Plight of Man and the Power of God, Baker House Books, 1982 from lectures given March 1941.