Was Jesus Irreligious?

Listen: “Jesus Walks” by Kanye West (Clear Channel Stripped)

An irreligious person is someone who is hostile or indifferent towards “religion.” So what is meant by “religion”? How we define religion will determine whether or not Jesus was irreligious. Religion is a difficult word to define because it has taken on popular overtones that are largely negative in American culture today. When you look at the dictionary definition, “religion” means a reverence for and belief in God or gods. Its Latin root means “to bind” or “connect.” So religion can be used in a positive sense as describing someone who is devoted to God/gods and one who practices compassionate connection with others (as in, love God and love your neighbor). Most people in today’s culture would call this “spirituality,” instead of “religion.”

In popular American culture, “religion” has come to mean an organized, rigid, dogmatic set of beliefs which, in particular, have injured and harmed people. In some situations, the offense comes from an emphasis on rigid rules over against loving relationship. In other situations, religion is seen as an oppressive force for violence, hatred, exclusion, conformity, tribalism, rejection, control, and unkindness. (Check out my blog entitled “Spirituality Adventures” for the difference between “spirituality” and “religion.”)

So was Jesus irreligious? I believe he was extremely irreligious, and he was perceived as being irreligious by many of the religious leaders of his time. Many of Jesus’ teachings were irreligious and many of his actions were irreligious. While Jesus passionately taught people to love God and love people, he was hostile to certain expressions of religion.

Jesus was hostile towards religious practices that divided people into clean and unclean groups instead of grace-based community. The setting for three of Jesus’ most famous parables reads: “Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!” (Luke 15:1-2; NLT). So Jesus tells three of his most beloved parables to further infuriate the religious leaders—The Parable of the Lost Sheep, The Parable of the Lost Coin, and The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Jesus believed grace-base community cleanses and heals.

Jesus was hostile towards religious practices that valued rigid rules instead of loving relationship. In The Parable of the Two Lost Sons (aka The Prodigal Son in Luke 15), the younger son breaks all the rules and the older son keeps all the rules. However, both sons are alienated from the father and both sons dishonor the father, only for different reasons. The “rule breaker” leaves home, hits rock bottom, and returns to the father with a humble heart; the “rule keeper” stays home, swells with anger, and injures the father with a resentful heart. Jesus believed costly love and grace could mend broken relationships.

Jesus was hostile towards religious practices that focus on dead ritual instead of compassion. In The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37), Jesus told a story about a Jewish priest and a Levite (religious leaders) who came upon a man who had been robbed, beaten, and left for dead. The religious leaders passed by and didn’t help because they feared they would become ceremonially unclean if they touched a dead man, plus they didn’t know if the man was Jewish or not. A Samaritan man (people whom Jews discriminated against) finds the man and displays costly love to help the man. The Samaritan becomes the hero of the story. Jesus believed it was more important to show compassion and costly love to a fellow human being than rigidly adhere to religious purity rituals.

Jesus was hostile towards religious practices that excluded people based on social status, lifestyle, or nationality instead of radical inclusion. In The Parable of the Great Banquet Feast (Luke 14:15-24), Jesus tells of a wealthy nobleman who invites an elite list of guests to his dinner party. The elite guests make lame excuses for not attending. The nobleman tells his servant to go out and invite the outcasts and misfits of Israel who could never return the favor. Then the nobleman goes a step further and tells the servant to go out beyond the borders of Israel and, in essence, invite people of other nationalities and religious beliefs (the Gentiles) to the dinner party. Jesus believed that God’s grace-based kingdom would include the outcasts, the misfits, the marginalized, and the strangers from around the world—a kingdom of radical inclusion.

So yes. Jesus was radically irreligious in his teachings and in his actions. I will be doing a new series of biblical teaching entitled “Irreligious Parables of Jesus.” You can purchase a download in the Spirituality Adventures online store. It comes with a set of discussion questions for personal or group study. Jesus is an amazing example of how to live in love and avoid the pitfalls of dead religion.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2021