civil religion

2 peter 1:5 - 9

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God's promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.

DANG! this reeks of the type of christian religion we live by today. I have the belief but I am so shortsighted and blind to what a life of following christ is about.

I am tired of categorizing my life into boxes where I treat my "faith" like insurance, a rule I follow to make sure I escape the scary fires of the devil. Do your quiet time.... Don't cuss.... Don't drink.... Once you've done these "things or rules" then you're, as a friend put it, a "super christian" on the fast track to heaven and free to feed your own appetite once you get the religion checklist out of the way.

A book I am reading calls this "a cult of civil religion" where we "fortify ourselves against any truth that would set us free from the illusions that are killing us." We savagely offer sacrifices to our own empty stomachs hungry for fleeting desires like wealth and beauty, to make us proud, proud of what we have done, and what we have accomplished. We have forgotten what Jesus' live looked like, selfless and humble. He offered a life different from the mainstream way of emptiness we all live in. One where we aren't looking over our shoulders and hoarding our stuff. One where we can have a genuine love for people instead of trampling over everyone that gets in our way so we can get the credit or so we can feel better or important. A life that is attractive and offers the peace everyone including "christians" are searching for.