“Why Doesn’t Religion Work?”

This question showed up in my search terms on my blog today. I love this question because it reveals a lot about us.

The old adage “no atheists in foxholes” is of course a generalization but it reveals something about us. Many people get religious and/or spiritual when they face a personal crisis.

It is bookended by another truism, “the problem of evil”.

“How could God let these bad things happen to me?” can only be asked if you have the expectation that God sees, that God cares and that God acts.

I almost always pay close attention when someone talks about why they have faith or why they do not. I’m amazed at the fact that hard times in some people drives them towards God and in others it drives them away. It’s like another old saying, “the same sun that melts wax hardens clay.”

A great number of us are driven to religion because we’re looking for a practical solution to a painful problem. I think one of the ways to look at the book of Judges is through this lens.

Life in the Time of the Judges

The problems the Hebrews had in the time of the Judges were brutal and simple. The strong took the weak.

In chapters 1 and 2 we hear how Israel did not continue to go up to take control of the land, but instead settled in to become just another weak tribal group in the region. They indigenized.  For this reasons the LORD said he wouldn’t assist them in taking the land but would leave the nations around them and the gods of these nations as a snare to them.

In the book of Numbers Moab had tried to dominate Israel by having her cursed by Balaam. Now a new king in Moab named Eglon was dominating Israel. What Eglon did was simple. The Moabites had military superiority over the Hebrews so the Hebrews had two choices, either they could be raided by Moab, have their crops and animals stolen, the wives and children enslaved and men killed, or they could travel over and pay extortion/protection money up front to Eglon. Most people decided to do the later. The book of Judges says this:

Judges 3:12–15 (NET)

¹² The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight. The Lord gave King Eglon of Moab control over Israel because they had done evil in the Lord’s sight. ¹³ Eglon formed alliances with the Ammonites and Amalekites. He came and defeated Israel, and they seized the City of Date Palm Trees. ¹⁴ The Israelites were subject to King Eglon of Moab for eighteen years. ¹⁵ When the Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, he raised up a deliverer for them. His name was Ehud son of Gera the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. The Israelites sent him to King Eglon of Moab with their tribute payment.

The story that follows is a carefully crafted story of how Ehud stabbed Eglon and incited Israel to rise up against Moab and free themselves.

Judges 3:26–30 (NET)

²⁶ Now Ehud had escaped while they were delaying. When he passed the carved images, he escaped to Seirah. ²⁷ When he reached Seirah, he blew a trumpet in the Ephraimite hill country. The Israelites went down with him from the hill country, with Ehud in the lead.²⁸ He said to them, “Follow me, for the Lord is about to defeat your enemies, the Moabites!” They followed him, captured the fords of the Jordan River opposite Moab, and did not let anyone cross. ²⁹ That day they killed about ten thousand Moabites—all strong, capable warriors; not one escaped. ³⁰ Israel humiliated Moab that day, and the land had rest for eighty years.

Now many of us might find these verses decidedly unspiritual. That’s an easy posture for us to take if we’re living in the strongest nation on earth and protected by a police force that are on call 24/7 and have laws and judges and jails. If, however, your life and freedom and that of your family are at stake as well as the security of your property, you would likely get very spiritual about violent enemies and the extortion money they are demanding. You would likely pray fervently for divine intervention against your enemies and that God would restore rest to your land. Do you believe that Americans who prayed for the defeat of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union were immoral in their desires? What about the people who actually suffered loss, persecution and death at their hands?

What we see in these passages is the most practical, brutal and defining level of religion and spirituality and anyone suffering under the kind of military, political or violent oppression described in the time and place of the book of Judges would see all of this in very spiritual terms.

In the case of Israel here, religion “worked”. God, through the violence and brutality of Ehud saved Israel from the violence and brutality of Eglon and Moab.

Now we arrive at the question I want us to think about today. Does this kind of religious fix “work”?

Men and Women

The next story in Judges is about a woman who God uses to save Israel, Deborah. You’ll see right away that the pattern of the book of Judges is fully engaged.

Judges 4:1–4 (NET)

¹ The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight after Ehud’s death. ² The Lord turned them over to King Jabin of Canaan, who ruled in Hazor. The general of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth Haggoyim.³ The Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, because Sisera had nine hundred chariots with iron-rimmed wheels, and he cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years. ⁴ Now Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time.

Read the story. It’s a great story. This story, like that of Ehud and Eglon are some of the great stories of antiquity. They are full of humor, drama, suspense, action. As a kid these were some of my favorite Bible stories.

These two stories refer back and forth to each other. Jael deceptively lures Sisera into her trap like Ehud lures Eglon into his trap. Ironic violence slays both oppressors and Israel is saved and enjoys “shalom” (rest, peace, life the way it should be) for a time. After that time, however, they wander away from God and the cycle starts again.

Religious Consumers Looking for Religion that Works

On one level these stories are saying “The LORD works” in that God rescues his people. The message is “if you pick the right God then you can get what you’re looking for or need: security, prosperity, blessings, etc.

But you might notice that in each case God also brought the calamity upon his people.

You might also notice that the “evil in the eyes of the LORD” was basically the religious consumerism that brought them back to the LORD each time. They were looking for “religion that worked” when they looked for the Baals or the Gods of Moab or Syria or the Philistines. Looking for “religion that worked” was in fact a big part of the problem.

Understanding Jesus in light of the Judges

Two enduring impressions of Jesus have made their way far beyond the confines of Jesus’ church in our modern world. One is that Jesus cares for the poor, the weak, the disenfranchised and that moral people should too. The other is more counter cultural but still widely believed and practiced beneath the surface of secular, polite company. It is that there is power in Jesus’ name and that he can be called upon in times of need for rescue.

This second impression finds its way to us, like the first, through the gospels. It is in the name of Jesus that people are healed and that evil spirits are made to flee. People will pray to Jesus whether or not they have been to church and whether or not they have been moral or religion. Jesus has that kind of reputation.

We might see that this second impression relates quite closely to the book of Judges. When we are desperate and we are looking for someone who will, at any cost, rescue us from whatever it is that is threatening our lives or our family we will call out to Jesus.

The image of Jesus as violent warrior, in contrast to much of what we see in the Gospels is also in the book of Revelation. Jesus is the lamb of God in the gospel of John but he’s also the Lion of Judah in Revelation. Jesus comes in the book of Revelation to rescue his persecuted children, to deliver them from violence with violence and crush those who used violence for their own welfare.

Revelation 6:15–17 (NET)

¹⁵ Then the kings of the earth, the very important people, the generals, the rich, the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. ¹⁶ They said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb,¹⁷ because the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to withstand it?”

Misery

Here’s the problem with “religion that works”. If you are a religious consumer then you are the center of your own faith.

This fails the morality test because the center of your morality is not “what is good, right and true” but rather “what is good, right and true FOR ME!” You and your interests will be the largest thing in your universe and there won’t finally be room for anyone else above or beyond you. This will in the end make you lonely, small and miserable. If you and your interests are finally your own god then you need a better one.

Deliverance

Jesus is in many ways the fulfillment of the rescuers in the book of Judges. Like I said last week those Judges in a sense paid only Israel’s next credit card bill. Jesus comes in, pays the whole debt and offers you HIS credit score. Jesus is bigger and badder than Ehud or Jael and when we call on his name he can answer and there is nothing in this world that can oppose him. So when you are in a mess, call on him! He answers.

Gratitude

The book of Judges is an invitation, however, to not repeat what Israel did.

1 Corinthians 10:6 (NET)

⁶ These things happened as examples for us, so that we will not crave evil things as they did.

Calling on Jesus and being rescued and refusing to be grateful is a horrible thing. I’m not saying that God will do to you like he did to Israel but I also can’t say he won’t.

The book of Judges is a lesson in spiritual consumerism, in prostituting ourselves to the highest bidder. Hell is God finally walking away from us because he refuses to sell himself. There is nothing from us that he needs.

We should be able to understand this in our own relationships. What if we are relational consumers like we are religious ones. Do we love others to the degree that they serve us? What happens when people treat you that way?

Jesus comes to us and asks us to enter into a committed relationship, one where our faith and love will actually grow in good times and bad and within which we will actually become like him, able to be generous towards people who don’t deserve it, up to and including our enemies. This kind of relationship thrives on freedom, us choosing him and he choosing us. It has the dramatic excitement of Judges with the relational security of a good marriage. This is what he invites us into.