Over the past several months I have been reading a lot of blogs dealing with the strife within the ELCA. I have struggled to put a name on what I have seen as an unhealthy attitude by some in the church. However, because of my work within the recovery community of Recovery Worship and a recent email from a longtime friend, I have finally been able to put a name on what is ailing many in the church today. The ailment is "Religion Addiction" or simply "Religionism". In Alcoholism or other addictions there are signs that tell us that the addiction is present; warning signs alert us to the possibility of addiction. Here are a few signs that may indicate that a person is a Religionaholic:
- Over use of the word "Orthodox." Orthodox is typically used to mean adhering to the accepted or traditional and established faith, especially in religion. Of course you can only be Orthodox if you believe completely with the religionholic. In other words, if you are deemed acceptable in your belief systems and worship style and interpretation of scripture then you are Orthodox, as least in the view of the religionaholic.
- Quote Luther as if it is Scripture. This applies to the Lutheran religionaholic. A Methodist religionaholic quotes Wesley, a Presbyterian religionaholic quotes Calvin. A Roman Catholic religionaholic quotes every Pope and all Catholic Saints and tradition. I am not sure there is recovery for the Roman Catholic religionaholic.
- Religionaholics have an unhealthy aversion to people different from themselves. They will tolerate female clergy despite what Scripture says, yet they break into DT's if they hear a church may wish to ordain an openly gay man or woman.
- They claim to be "Missional" but they don't believe in any church structure that may require too pay benevolence.
- They read the Bible literally, except when they need to read it another way to support their position.
There is hope for the religionaholic! The following was from an email from an old friend, Pastor Don Prange. I would love to tell you more about Don but space doesn't allow. If you know a religionaholic, pass this along, it is never too late to find recovery.
1) We admitted that we are powerless over our cultural & religious addictions and they often made our lives unmanageable…
2) We were convinced that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity… 3) We made a decision to turn our wills and lives over to the higher power we named as God however we understood that… 4) That allowed us to make a fearless and moral inventory of our lives… 5) We admitted to God, ourselves, and others the exact nature of our problem… 6) We were entirely open to let God remove all these defects in our lives… 7) In humility, we asked God to remove our shortcomings… 8) We made a list of persons we had harmed and resolved to make amends to them all… 9) We made direct amends to such people when possible, except when doing so would have injured them or others… 10) We continued to take personal inventories of our lives and, when we were wrong, promptly admitted it… 11) We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious relationship with God (as we understood that), praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and our power to carry it out… 12) Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other compulsive cultural and religious addicts and tried to practice these principles in all our affairs… From: Spirituality of the Beatitudes – Matthew's Challenge for First World Christians," Michael Crosby, Orbis Books, 1980]
Have a great week, glad you were here.
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