The Incongruence of the Christian faith

On the inside of my left forearm I have a tattoo in Hebrew of Job 19 verse 25. When people ask what it says and I respond, they often comment that I must be religious, however they are somewhat puzzled when I reply that I am not. I then explain that I am a Christian and have faith in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but that I am not religious. This has lead to some interesting discussions starting with the tattooist who did my ink in the first place. My younger sister, a Humanist, commented on my POV that the way I speak of my faith makes it all very believable. When I first became a Christian the wife of an American friend of mine said that Christianity was about a relationship not religion and would elucidate that it was about having a relationship with Jesus and not about following and adhering to the tenets of religion. In my own personal journey of faith I have become to believe that principle myself (and I am sorry it is a bit of a soapbox of mine), and I see an incongruence between faith in God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and Christian religion in the many different flavours in which it is practiced: Catholicism venerates Jesus's mother, Mary, the Pope, and the various saints as interceding on our behalf with God, but the Bible tells us in Romans 8:25 that "the Spirit himself intercedes for us" there is no mention in the word of God about any of these humans, extremely holy as they may be, being the conduit between believers and God; The head of the Church of England is the Monarch of England, currently Charles III, yet Ephesians 5:23 and Colossians 1:18 clearly state that Christ is the head of the church, and as I have mentioned before, Paul warns against Christians following people rather than Christ in 1 Corinthians 1:12 and 3:4. These are just simple examples of the many that exists across the tens of thousands of denominations that now exist. One might argue that we can bundle them all together and label them Christian Religion and say that there is only one religion, Christianity, that is diverse in it's many expressions which adds to its richness. However, I would argue that this highlights even more the incongruence of faith and religion in Christianity. You will find debates on the subject of which religion is true to the faith raging throughout the internet yet when I read them all I can hear is an echo of “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas”. 

Whilst I have a degree in Christian Theology and am an ordained minister I do not claim to be a scholar or an authority on any of this, yet as someone who came to faith at 37 and before that had no experience or exposure to church or religion -  aside from some of the derisory comments of my foster parents - I believe I am not influenced by any preconceptions of any religious traditions with almost all of my "Christian upbringing" from the beginning of my journey until now having been garnered from the pages of the Bible. "Sola scriptura"" is now ringing in my ears along with accusations of "he must be a protestant!" Yet I know that even what I have got from the scriptures is imperfect, I have not read it in it's original languages (even though I have a rudimentary understanding of koine Greek which I studied for my degree) and I have not had any access to the original writings of the authors of the New Testament, unsullied by redactors and imperfect translations.  I am totally realistic about my own theological shortcomings  "For now I see through a glass, darkly" to paraphrase appropriately I think 1 Corinthians 13:12 from the King James version. It is task enough for me to read, study, and apply the tenets of the Christian faith with the help of the Holy Spirit from those blessed pages without piling on all the man-made baggage of Christian religion as expressed by one of the countless denominations.

So think what you will dear reader, come to your own conclusions, follow your own path, but with a word of caution if I may from Proverbs 3:5 that is also for myself, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths."

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