Have you read your Bible lately? Are you able to cite scripture with ease and point out verses? Are you familiar with the personalities in the Bible? Adam, Eve, Moses, David, Daniel, Peter, Paul, and Jesus among others? Have you spent much of your lifetime referring to yourself as a Christian? How did you become a Christian? I thought I became a Christian when I filled out an enrollment form or that I was a “member of West Park Baptist Church.”

A few years ago, I realized that I’ve been far off, really far off. How so you ask? While I may have had religion, I didn’t have it. I didn’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ. On March 18, 2000, I began a process of rebirth that is I have set aside religion and committed into a relationship with Christ. I had given up religion. I define religion as a worldly creation often done under the guise of worshipping a God or Gods, but often done for the purpose of securing one’s own power and pleasing the masses. Let’s be clear as to what I’m saying here. To give up religion or to condemn religion is not suggesting in the least that I’ve turned my back on God or that my morals are flabby. Quite the opposite! In giving up religion and the legalism associated with it, the true nature of Christ had been revealed to me.

What do I mean when I say that in giving up religion, the true nature of Christ had been revealed to me? Recently, I’ve been reading The Gospel of Luke and re-reading a pamphlet of a speech titled “How We Got That Way” that was given by Baptist historian Walter Shurden to the Baptist Joint Committee in 1996.

Writing about the parable of The Good Samaritan, Talbert quoted W.A. Beardslee who spoke of “The way the world comes together again through the parables.”

How did the world come together for me? I attribute it to five concepts: First, how did the world come together for me biblically? That is, how do I read the Bible and approach my prayer life?

Second, how did the world come together for me theologically? How do I think about God and faith?

Third, how did the world come together for me ecclesiologically? How do I view the church?

Fourth, how did the world come together for me philosophically? What kind of common sense and practical means do I use to share the Gospel?

And fifth, how did the world come together for me historically? In another word, how has religion in general been approached throughout history?

First how did I read the bible and approach my daily prayer life. When you read your Bible, HOW do you read it? HOW do you pray? Are you approaching it from the standpoint of picking out verses that justify what you are doing? Are you seeking means to justify your own ways in “sharing the Gospel”? I refer to the temptation of Jesus. Jesus was put to the test at the beginning of his public ministry. The word tempt in English usually means to entice to sin. The scriptural word here means test in the sense of proving and purifying someone to see if there are ready for the task at hand. We test pilots to see that they are fit to fly. Likewise God tests his servants to see if they are fit to be used by him. God tested Abraham to prove his faith. Jesus was no exception to this testing. Satan will try his best to induce us to choose our will over God's will. If he cannot induce us to apostatize or to sin mortally, he will then try to get us to make choices that will lead us away from what God wants for us. Jesus was tempted like us and he overcame not by his own human strength but by the grace and strength which his Father gave to him. He had to renounce his will for the will of his Father. He succeeded because he wanted to please his Father and he trusted that his Father would give him the strength to overcome the obstacles that stood in the way. The Lord gives us his Holy Spirit to be our strength and guide and our consoler in temptation and testing. God the Father is ready to give us all that we need to live in his way of love and righteousness. Do you rely on the Lord for your strength and help?

Second, how did the world come together for me theologically? How do I think about God and faith? Liberty is rooted in the nature of God. A Sovereign God who dared to create people as free. Throughout the Old Testament, God is set against persons and institutions that restricted the freedom of God’s people. And the complete thrust of Jesus’ ministry was to free people from all that would hold them back from obedience to God: sin. Freedom for Christians is far more than a constitutional right or a governmental gift. God is the ultimate source of liberty. One can render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar but the soul, belongs to God only. Created in the image of God, a human being is the crowning work of God’s creation (Psalm 8). Human personality is sacred and life’s highest value. My understanding of about the nature of faith and spiritually is this: To be authentic, faith must be free. True faith is voluntary obedience to God. Baptists have said it in many ways, but it lays at the heart of how the world comes together for me personally, Baptists specifically and as Christians in general. It is an approach to life that underscores freedom, choice, and voluntarism in matters of faith.

Third, how did the world come together for me ecclesiologically? How do I view the church? This has probably been the most dramatic change. I used to view the church as a brick or stone structure. I used to think that by having my name on an enrollment form that I was a Christian. Granted, I was viewing the church from my own worldly view. How do I view the church now? Response to God is highly personal and individualistic. Not only is it impractical and unscriptural to attempt to legislate such a spiritual relationship, it would be completely impossible to do so.” The church is created not by being born into it but by being reborn, a matter of personal, spiritual response to God. In his 1615 Confessional Statement, Richard Overton argued that “Christ allowed full power and authority to his church, assembled together, cordially and unanimously, to choose persons to bear office in the church. And these and no others are to be included, viz. (the offices), of pastors, of teachers, of elders, of deacons, of sub-ministers, who, by the Word of God, from every part are qualified and approved.” Overton is arguing against the power of the bishops over the churches, and he is giving a definition of the church as a “gathered church.” One of Overton’s recurring themes was “the sole authority of Jesus Christ versus ecclesiastical hierarchy.” God is the head of the church, not the bishop, not the pope, and not the pastor.

Fourth, how did the world come together for me philosophically? What kind of common sense and practical means do I use to share the Gospel? Perhaps the greatest downfall for Christians is that we have relied on worldly means. That is we have used rules, regulations, and legalism to spread the Gospel. One may recall that Emperor Constantine “legalized the Christian religion.” Whether he did it because he sympathetic to the plight of Christians at the time, or whether he did it to enter into an arrangement that results in “you scratch my back and I scratch yours”; in effect to water down the Gospel and perhaps stop this new morality dead in its tracks. I don’t know. This explains how we “got religion”. At times, we have struggled to get beyond Accommodationism-the seductive idea that all Christian denominations would share equally in the bounty of the state. To say that Jesus died for religion is a contradiction for it is a fact that every page of the bible disavows a dependence on the world and worldly means. It is a fact that Jesus died to save a relationship, a personal relationship with God. John 3:16 says it all. Love is the core value in any relationship. Is religion love? No, it is legalism.

And fifth, how did the world come together for me historically? In another word, what has the study of history revealed to me about church-state relationships? Religion or at least the excuse of religion has been used to wage war, torture and plunder. From the Romans in their many uses of violence to the Crusades to the Inquisition and this quagmire continues to this day. Now you know why the Founding Fathers advocated what Jefferson would later term “the separation of church and state.” They were students of history and recognized human nature for what it was. I think this explains in large part why Christians or people who refer to themselves as Christians are seen as hypocritical. In failing to get beyond human nature, we have been a major stumbling block. In failing to be staunch defenders of the faith and clearly pointing out to Christians and non-Christians alike that Jesus died to save a relationship and not for religion, we may have turned many, many people away from Christ. Sometimes, I think the non-believers have a better idea of what it means to be a Christian than the Christians do. Christians today simply are not perceived as being freedom lovers and freedom fighters. It is sad because freedom is in the very nature of God. We simply aren’t seen as keeping a sickle in our hands and cutting away the weeds. We are seen as repulsive, anti-Catholics using government to “spread the Gospel” and forcing religion on others. Force and violence is rooted in the nature of government and people in general. But keeping a sickle in our hands is important because it gives us very practical means to demonstrate the love of Christ. Would you keep a sickle in your hand to use in defense of the atheists, Buddhists, Muslims, etc…? Using practical means to demonstrate the love of Christ is important because it gives us an opportunity to relate to non-believers in the struggle for liberty and human rights. If we are to be Christ like and if we love the nature of God, which is liberty, we HAVE to get beyond religion, the rules and legalism and get beyond using worldly means to “spread the Gospel”.

My website is titled Do Christ and Liberty Go Together? Do they? Granted, my webpage is more political in nature and details libertarianism in general from my own political/spiritual perspective. I will go as far as to say Libertarianism is the political derivative of Christianity. This is not to say in the least that Christians don’t or can’t disagree on political issues. Far from it. Even Libertarians don’t always agree. What I mean is that God uses us in many different ways. It is not necessary that only a pastor can share the Gospel. Our life experiences, our personal relationship with Christ, our talents, skills and passions can all be used to “share the Gospel”. This world is very diverse and contains many people who are of different cultures, languages, customs, politics, etc… But we all need Christ and God uses us in many different ways to “share the Gospel.”