Just because something sounds Christian doesn’t mean that it is. Nobody knows this better than BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey, who frequently exposes lies wrapped in Christian-sounding language
On this episode of “Relatable,” Allie unravels three common “Christian mythical mottos” and shines a light on the deception underneath.
Myth #1: “Christianity is a relationship. It’s not a religion.”
Allie acknowledges that this phrase is usually employed with good intentions — typically when Christians are evangelizing specifically to people who have “come out of legalism” or are brand-new to Christianity and are “confused about some of the rules and the standards.”
In these cases, the evangelizer is most often trying to push someone “into daily conversation with and pursuit of Jesus.”
“And there is part of that that is really true and really good,” says Allie.
“Christianity says that you can have a relationship with God right now, no matter what you’ve done or who you are, by grace through faith in Jesus. Okay? So yes, Christianity is a relationship,” she concedes.
But that doesn’t change the fact that it is “also a religion.”
“If you look at the roots of the word ‘religion,’ you can go all the way back to the ancient use of the Latin word, which is relegere,” meaning “to go through again — especially in thought or in word,” Allie explains.
“I love this connection because it implies a routine, a habit, a discipline of repetition that turns an isolated belief into a pattern of thought that dictates a person’s life.”
Another closely related Latin word — religāre — means to “bind again or to tie back.”
“You’ll notice the shared prefix in these words, which is re-. It’s the prefix that we see in repeat, rehearse, rebound, redo. Re- … means to do it again, to repeat,” says Allie.
“Christian religion is the practice of rebinding ourselves to the things of God … rebinding ourselves through grace-filled effort — Holy Spirit-inspired effort — to His wisdom, His ways, the good things of the Christian life.”
Citing the book of James, which explicitly refers to Christianity as a “religion,” Allie concludes, “Scripture does not preach that our Christian faith is not a religion; rather, it’s the one true religion. Religion and relationship in Christianity are not pitted against each other.”
Myth #2: “God answers all of our prayers; the answer might just be no.”
“It is true that God says no; it is not true that God answers every prayer,” Allie says frankly.
The Bible, she explains, explicitly outlines several “kinds of people” whose prayers God may ignore: “those who have personal and selfish motives” (James 4:3); “those who remain in sin and will not heed God’s law” (John 9:31; Proverbs 28:9); “those who offer unworthy service to God” (Malachi 1:8-9); “those who reject God’s call or have no faith” (James 1:6-7); “those who are violent” (Isaiah 1:15); “those who are self-righteous” (Luke 18:11-14); and “those who mistreat God’s people (Micah 3: 2, 4).
“There are several other passages that we could go through that indicate that God sometimes does not hear or does not respond at all to certain prayers due to a person’s heart condition, motives, or relationship with Him,” says Allie.
For Christians, however, who the Bible says are free to approach God’s throne with confidence (Hebrews 4:16), she says it’s difficult to determine whether or not God answers all their prayers.
“I simply don’t know for sure that the answer is always that God is responding to every single prayer that a Christian has … but we do know for sure that for the nonbeliever, it is not true that God hears and answers every prayer,” Allie says.
Myth #3: “Share the gospel; when necessary, use words.”
This maxim expresses the idea that “we preach the gospel by just how we treat people” and that “preaching at people and trying to push religion down their throats is not something that’s going to be convincing,” says Allie.
“It is true that your life serves as an inspiration. It is true that what we do absolutely matters and how we live our life is a testimony to what we believe — 100%.”
But this doesn’t excuse us from the biblical mandate to take the gospel to all nations.
“We are called to preach the gospel with our words. If anyone could have preached the gospel only using deeds, it would have been Jesus, because Jesus perfectly lived out the gospel in his actions. And yet he didn’t just do the deeds. … He constantly preached the gospel using his words,” says Allie.
Between Jesus’ example and the many verses that call believers to speak the gospel (Romans 10:14, 17; 2 Timothy 4:1-2), there is no escaping the reality that Christianity is “a word-based faith.”
“The Bible obviously strongly affirms that our actions, our love, our holy living must back up our message and that hypocrisy undermines it, and it also repeatedly emphasizes the gospel itself must be verbally proclaimed,” Allie concludes.
To hear more, watch the episode above.
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?
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