Is There a Difference between Religion and Spirituality?
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The funny thing about trying to compare ancient words is that their meanings are slippery. Our great-great-grandparents would roll in their graves if they knew that their beloved word religion had turned bad. Their old-time religion looked nothing like the legalistic, modern word that crept in to take its place. But maybe our grandparents wouldn’t be too surprised by the swap. After all, it was their children who took the first steps to repurpose the word spirituality to mean a one-size-fits-all call to self-enlightenment. These two words evolved so much overtime that their meanings now appear diametrically opposite. But back in the day, the difference between religion and spirituality was rarely considered.
What Is Religion?
For just a moment put all your preconceived ideas aside. Is it possible that the information we’ve gathered through books, media, and isolated Scripture could have helped us form an opinion about the word religion that’s skewed?
In its most basic form, the word religion simply refers to a particular system of faith. I think we can all agree on that. But of course, a system of faith is just that—a system. This system establishes the way a person experiences their God, it outlines the truths contained in their belief system, and it shows a person how to live, based on those tenets and experience.
The earliest etymology of the word religion uses descriptors like—respect for what is sacred, reverence for a deity, fear of a deity, holiness, sanctity, and other terms we, as Christians, are well familiar with. Religion originates from the Latin word relegare—which means to “re-bind” and therein lies the key to the word’s true nature.
When most people think about religion, the idea of ritualistic rules and regulations spring to mind. In the Old Testament God issued commandments, statutes, and ordinances. He required these rules to be followed with meticulous detail, or religiously. These rules were not meant to be burdensome. They were a temporary means by which God chose to reconnect or “re-bind” with His chosen people and bless them (Deuteronomy 7:12-13, 28:2-7).
The religious rules were also a vehicle that God used to reveal His Holiness. He did this to demonstrate to His people, and give them an opportunity to prove to themselves, just how incapable they were of ever being good enough to please God (Romans 3:20).
Step by step, little by little, sin by sin, sacrifice by sacrifice God used the law to show His people His true nature while exposing their own corrupt hearts in the process. This religious exercise of the law became the “schoolmaster” that would ultimately convince humanity of their desperate need for a Savior and bridge the gap between a fallen man and a Holy God (Galatians 3:24-25, Romans 8:3).
When Jesus came, He said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). Through His perfect life and sinless death, all the requirements of the Old Covenant were finally met. Because of Him we no longer need to rely on our ability to follow the rules to have a relationship with God (Ephesians 2:13-14). Christ fulfilled the law and established a New Covenant of grace, available to all who believe.
Remember our initial definition of religion? Christ is the “re-binder” the whole world waited for. For believers, He is the Way we experience God; He is the Truth that forms our belief system, and the Life we now live is in Him (John 14:6). Jesus is the author and perfecter of our “particular system of faith” (Hebrews 12:2).
So Christ, by every definition of the word, is a believer’s true religion. The old religious system was always meant to be a shadow of the new one to come—Him.
How Did Religion Get A Bad Rap?
God’s ways and plans are always good. At the perfect time, He provided each religious system to fulfill His purposes and bless His people.
The problem is, whenever God bestows a blessing, Satan uses it for target practice. Religion first took a hit when the arrows of pride and corruption pierced the hearts of the Scribes and Pharisees. These respected representatives of God’s law were more interested in using their high calling for their own gain than God’s glory. As a result, the religion they promoted was a self-serving counterfeit (Matthew 15:7-9).
These pseudo-religious leaders twisted God’s law into a weapon of intimidation and wielded it against the very people they were called to serve, placing cumbersome demands upon the peoples’ shoulders (Matthew 23:3-5). Full of greed and self-indulgence on the inside, the Scribes and Pharisees made it their top priority to appear righteous on the outside so that they could maintain the facade that facilitated their power (Matthew 23:27).
Jesus was so disgusted by their treacherous behavior that He pronounced seven woes upon this hypocritical group of leaders. But it’s important to note that Jesus condemned the Scribes and Pharisees because of their abuse of power, distortion of truth, and wayward hearts. He did not condemn them because they were promoting religious activity (Luke 11:42). Religion was not the problem; it was the means by which the Scribes’ and Pharisees’ corrupt hearts were revealed.
Just like the old system of religion was vulnerable to attack, so is the new. Throughout history, many Christian leaders have attempted to impose their own selfish agendas onto God’s redemptive plan for humanity. “Criticism often focuses on [religious and physical] abuse, hypocrisy, and extremism; distortion of religious texts to satisfy a personal or minority agenda. Large-scale acts of terrorism…bombings and racist rallies. Small-scale, and secret terrorism,” lists Candice Lucey in What Is the Difference Between Religion and Spirituality?
But Christian leaders weren’t solely responsible for soiling the reputation of religion. The pejorative voices of 19th-century scholars and philosophers, like Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, resonated with a mass audience who was already fed up with religious corruption and hypocrisy.
It’s no wonder then that the rise of the charismatic movement in the 1960s facilitated a new ideology that redefined religion as “a man-made effort that utilizes works to please God.” Although the Scribes’ and Pharisees’ rogue behavior was the only biblical justification for this re-branding, the theory caught fire, and terms like “a religious spirit” were born to describe a demonic manifestation of pride-induced, legalistic behavior.
Around that same time, many Christian leaders began to shift their theological terminology to avoid the word religion. Terms like “relationship with Jesus” were deemed more practical and less controversial when speaking to the lost world, who had become wary of the word religion and all it had come to stand for.
What Is Spirituality?
The word spirituality originates from the Latin noun spiritulaitas which means spirit and is linked to the Greek noun pneuma, which means breath. Therefore, a spiritual person is one within whom the breath, or spirit, of God dwells.
Scripture supports this definition, as Bill Delvaux explains in 5 Important Ways Spirituality Differs from Religion, “When the apostle Paul uses the word spiritual in his letters, he is referring to the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit is to do all that anyone’s spirituality could ever imagine: to free our hearts, cleanse our sin, guide us into truth, and empower us to love.”
For born-again Christians, this kind of spirituality is a must. When we accept Christ as our savior His Spirit lives inside us and breathes new life into all that was dead (John 3:6-8, 6:63). Spirituality, in this sense, is the mark of authenticity for every believer, and our new way of Life.
However, like the word religion, the original meaning of spirituality has evolved into something almost unrecognizable. The modern, mainstream connotation of spirituality has less to do with God’s Spirit living inside a person and more to do with harvesting the intrinsic power within oneself to gain personal enlightenment, reach one’s full potential, and find true happiness.
Take for example Ava Lee Scott, an actress and theater-maker in New York who considers herself a deeply spiritual person. “[she] doesn’t practice an organized religion. Raised in both Catholic and Jewish traditions, Scott’s own spiritual life is far more eclectic. She studies ancient languages, from the Aramaic of Christ to Hebrew to Arabic. She reads Tarot cards, runes, and cowrie shells. She believes in a higher power — something some people might call God — but believes that such a power transcends individual traditions’ dogmas. ‘Whatever name you call your higher power,’ she told Vox, ‘we are all connected.’”
An increasing number of people like Ava Lee Scott are pursuing spirituality outside the confines of system, order, or uniform thought—in other words, apart from religion. In fact, according to Pew Research Center, 27 percent of Americans say they are spiritual but not religious. That’s up from 19 percent in the previous poll.
What Is the Major Difference between Religion and Spirituality?
Religion and spirituality have come a long way through history. At one time these two words both described the sacred way God chose to reveal Himself to His people. But the morphed connotations, defiled by sin and self, clearly pit the two words against each another.
In one corner—you have a word that has come to represent a system of belief that is harsh, legalistic, and morally unattainable. In the other corner—a morally relative belief system that relies on a person’s inner self to guide them to their own truth and power. Ding, ding, ding. There is no winner.
Despite their differences, modern religion and spirituality do have one thing in common; they are both a dangerous and faulty misinterpretation of the truth.
What Does the Bible Say About the Two?
We’ve already discussed the biblical origin of religion from the Old Testament, as it refers to the Old Covenant law prescribed by God.
In Christ, we are new creatures that have finally been made right with God. That new life is the essence and purest definition of spirituality (Romans 8:10). But new life in Christ is not void of religion—in its purest sense. The Bible gives clear direction about how we, as new creatures, are to order our lives, treat others, and honor our calling (Ephesians 4:1, Romans 12:2, Colossians 3:5-10, James 1:26).
In Scripture, this new religious system was first called The Way (Acts 9:2, Acts 19:19, Acts 19:23, Acts 24:14, 22) and later called Christianity, which meant “followers of the anointed” (Act 11:26, Act 26:28, 1 Peter 4:16). But the most important, and most prevalent, descriptor the Bible gives us to represent God’s new system is The Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-31).
The Body of Christ is not a group of free-range believers. It’s a hierarchical system that places Christ as the head (Colossians 1:18). It’s organized—members have specific duties, functions, and roles (Romans 12:4-5, Ephesians 4:11-12), and God’s new system requires cooperation between all believers to run properly (1 Corinthians 12:15-26).
The purpose of this new religion is not to acquire salvation. God created this system so that “we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” Ephesians 4:16.
“Both religion and spirituality are a means to an end, not the final destination.” Explains Jennifer Hareen What Is the Difference Between Religion and Spirituality? That “end” echoes the combined definitions of both original words—to point the Way back to God, through His Spirit.
Spirituality—or the Holy Spirit—enables the light of Christ to shine in and through believers (John 16:13-16, Acts 1:8). And religion—or the body of Christ—is the lampstand that takes that powerful light to the whole lost world (Revelation 1:12-13, Revelation 1:20).
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