Are you against 'organised religion?' A lot of people are these days. The thought is that you can be spiritual, but best not to be religious. The worry is that religion will be problematic, people don't want to be part of an institution, or told what to think by a religious authority figure, or be conned into handing over their hard earned cash, and ultimately people worry that religion causes war.
As someone whose job it is to organise religion, I do find this irritating. If you want to teach people about Jesus and the Christian faith, if you want to meet together to pray and give thanks, if you want to make a positive contribution to the communities you live in, if you want to be part of a national, not just a local church, and if you want to maintain an ancient church building, it's going to take some organising. In my experience religion is like a sand castle made of fine sand built upon a wind swept beach, if you don't keep building it up, it will blow away. I have on occasions thought it would be good if the churches I served were more organised, not less. When I started in my first parishes I found a Parochial Church Council that hadn't met in two years, the normal practice is to meet at least four times a year, but they had fallen into not bothering, and the church was slowly decaying. That's what disorganised religion looks like, nothing gets done. That Parochial Church Council when it did get organised proved to be very effective, restoring the church, and running a 'tea and chat' group for local people who suffered from loneliness. Organising their religion was the making of them.
You don't hear people say, 'I'm in favour of health care, but not organised health care,' or, 'I'm in favour of law enforcement, but not organised law enforcement,' or, 'I'm in favour of public transport, but not organised public transport!' Let the trains run when they may! I suspect some people are actually against religion, organised or otherwise.
You can do spirituality by yourself, but the real challenge is to do it with other people. That's what religion is, being spiritual together. It's like the difference between dancing by yourself, or dancing with other people. Dancing by yourself is good, but if you want to dance with other people you're going to need some rules, and you're going to have to put up with other people's funny ways, especially with people who dance a bit differently to you. But ultimately, dancing with other people is much more fulfilling than dancing by yourself (if Strictly Come Dancing is to be believed).
Being good and enlightened by yourself is a challenge, but the bigger challenge is being good and enlightened in step with other people. So let's get religion organised! Although, I also object to uncritically calling Christianity a religion, it's not a system of laws and obligations like most religions, it's about a relationship of Christ-like love with God and our neighbours. So I can't speak for religion in general, but I can certainly say Anglican Christianity works best when well organised!
Have a happy, and an organised, New Year!
Rev Stephen Gamble.
PS On 'religion causes war' - most Parochial Church Councils are fully occupied organising services and maintaining the building, we don't have the time or capacity to organise a war. Your local church makes tea, not war. I pray the men of violence in this tragically troubled world will turn to the way of the Prince of Peace.