Origin of Religion

 In the Middle Ages, the crusaders used religion as a pretext for war. The Inquisition was a brutal way to punish people who questioned the teachings of the church. For some reason, religion seems to stir up very strong feelings in people. Conflict has always been prominently present at least in our Western culture.

In more modern times, some of the answers to conflicts in the church have changed. People began to simply leave. You Lost Me, wrote David Kinnamon back in 2016. James White spoke about The Rise of the Nones in 2014. Fed up with the eternal squabble, some people began to identify as “spiritual, but not religious.” What they probably really meant was “religious, but not that way.” 

There is no way to know for sure, but there is evidence that some form of religion has been around since the early humans began to walk the earth. Some will argue that religion is part of human nature. Others will say that there is no such thing as human nature. Either way, it is hard to deny that some form of religion is and always has been present in every human culture on the entire planet. 

If you have been around other Christians for a while you can probably already see that our understanding of religion in general and Christianity in particular is quite different from what you are used to. Some of the things we teach here at New Covenant House may rock some deeply held beliefs. For some it may be a painful process of unlearning. For others, it may be a relief to find that there is an alternative. It doesn’t change the core values of Christianity, however, quite on the contrary in fact. What we are trying to do is to return to the original meaning of the teachings of Jesus, but to apply them to our present condition.