Am I religious?

Some interesting reactions to a survey conducted recently by the British Humanist Association. The BHA are in a bit of a strop about the religious question in the National Census being conducted on 27th March and so have decided to ask their own questions connected with religious affiliation. Two good critiques of the BHA survey are offered by Doug Chaplin and Church Mouse.

The BHA asked the census question ‘What religion are you?’ and 61% ticked a religious box, 39% ticked to indicate no religion. The next question, not in the census, asked ‘Are you religious?’ and only 29% of those completing the survey responded ‘yes’. This got me wondering how I would have responded to these two questions and the answer is I am not sure.

Yesterday, in church we prayed the Collect for the Second Sunday in Lent:

Almighty God,
you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
grant to all those who are admitted
      into the fellowship of Christ's religion,
that they may reject those things
      that are contrary to their profession,
and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same;
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

I have to confess I really don’t like this prayer for, as my wife commented on the way home from church, it reads like a badly drafted legal contract. I also baulk at the phrase ‘the fellowship of Christ’s religion’. What does that actually mean? It can’t mean the religion of Jesus which was Judaism. I presume the phrase means the religion founded on belief in Jesus as the Christ which is Christianity, but that’s not what it says. I would prefer to speak about my faith rather than my religion.

If I’m honest my problem with the word ‘religious’ is that it speaks to me of a disposition and in that sense I am not very religious. Let me give an example, I am not one for dressing in religious clothes; the first time I put a clerical collar on I felt physically sick and I wear robes because I’m supposed to when leading public acts of worship, not because I like to wear robes or vestments. Some of my colleagues love all the dressing up, movement and gesture in worship, while I could happily do without all the flummery. I am not saying my colleagues, many of whom I greatly respect, are any more or less faithful than me, just pointing out that this is an aspect of being religious that I don’t easily relate to. I am not religious in the sense that I don’t like dressing in ‘religious’ clothes. This might seem a silly example but what it shows is that I am not predisposed to something that might be expected of a religious person.

One of the things I find appealing about the Jesus I encounter in the Gospels is that he was continually being criticised for sitting light to the religious paraphernalia of his faith, in short he didn’t appear to be very religious. The followers of Jesus were also criticised for failing to conduct themselves in a manner associated with prescribed religious behaviour. Jesus went further and criticised those who did a good job of appearing to be religious, yet, in their hearts did not seem to have a very Godly attitude towards others. So was Jesus religious?