The Organized Religion Problem

So, if I'm not opposed to organization, then what, exactly, is my issue with organized religion? It has mostly to do with the way an organization tends to separate us as individuals from our responsibilities. Large companies incorporate, in part, to insulate themselves from liability or, in other words, to avoid a measure of personal responsibility for the actions of the company. I'm afraid churches often work the same way. It is somewhat symptomatic of our culture. We turn over more and more responsibility to the government, relieving ourselves of the threat of personal responsibility for our success or failure. We let public schools educate and partially raise our children for us, and we become less responsible for their future. We let organizations accomplish the work of being the church for us, and we then get to just "go to church." We may opt to be more involved than that, but as a baseline, all we expect of ourselves is to show up on occasion, and perhaps to fork over a little money for a good cause. Thus organized religion fosters an atmosphere where church is a place I go, rather than a movement of which I am a part.

Most people reject organized religion, it seems to me, for fairly legitimate reasons. Organized religion is not what it purports to be. It does not accomplish, in large part, what it was created to accomplish. It actually has a tendency to make its members less accountable to the ideals of the faith, by diminishing these as a matter of personal responsibility in favor of a more corporate responsibility.

The flip side of this problem is that few of the people who claim to have a problem with organized religion are doing much at all about their spiritual health, either in or out of organized religion. There is hard spiritual work to be done, if we are at all serious about it. But most people don't seem to be prepared to do it. Some will rely upon organized religion to be spiritual for them, and some will do little or nothing about faith and will blame organized religion for their disinterest. Neither will do the hard work of following Jesus.