A few weeks ago, I remember communicating to a friend that I would someday like to own a Christian Fashion House. We were in my room at the time and I was packing for two weeks of intensive travelling between countries and states. He had replied –himself a fashion enthusiast and lover –that he felt that was rather religionist of me. Feeling a need to pacify him –he had brought over pizza that was still sunning itself on the dining table –I immediately took back my words and said I wished to own a Conservative Fashion House, for people who had old fashioned values.
This was the first time I would ever hear the word “religionist”. Upon inquiring, he explained that it meant someone who was too concerned about his religion and was thus discriminatory towards other religions. This stilled any inclinations for me to reach for the dictionary or my phone as it was a satisfactory definition. And so I swept away all thoughts of ‘religionism’ for an extensive period of time and did not think about it again for a month.
The issue reared its head, or rather showed its form through the carpet under which I had swept it, bristling in all its indignant glory in a conversation with another friend. He had hinted that he only listened to what can be liberally classified as ‘gospel music’ and when I had inquired in quite simple English if he listened to Christian music, he had replied in the affirmative. I wondered if that was religionist of him, this shunning of other forms of music.
We discussed next, ‘what’ exactly he listened to. He said mostly rap. When we moved on next to the ‘who’, he listed Lecrae and Gawvi amongst others as his musical influences. He then took his time to educate me that Lecrae did not identify himself as a Christian rap artiste, shunning the first part of that title. He saw himself as a rap artiste, his Christianity not the focus of his music but simply a powerful influence on it. In other words, anyone could listen to his music and not just the average ‘Christian music lover’.
And so, I decided to discover for myself what religionism is. An online dictionary defined it as an excessive, exaggerated and/or pretended religious zeal. The question now for us to consider is quite simple. Should Christians be religionists or entertain any of the qualities associated with it?
My answer with all of the limited knowledge I have is a firm no. No, Christians should not be religionists. To be a religionist from this definition is nothing more than being a Pharisee, whom our Lord Jesus criticized for the length of his entire ministry. We should strive in order to avoid the trap where our faith becomes less of an exercise of our beliefs backed up by the word of God and transcends into a series of actions practiced because we feel we ought to in order to appear Christian. People should be able to identify us by our lifestyles and not because we blow our trumpets continuously.
This is not to say that we should hide our faith or deny our Christianity. But we should bear in mind that Christianity is less a religion and more a culture. Less of us each day and more of HIM. That is what a Christian is.
Please feel free to comment. Thanks for reading.
-September 2016.
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