WHO’S ADDICTED TO RELIGION? 

Interest in the recent case of the double murders by Colin Howell and Hazel Stewart has ricocheted around the world. It will inspire many books; indeed Deric Henderson, a journalist from the North Coast has already started on his; ‘the book that everyone will want to read,’ he says. And it will indeed be gripping, but my interest in the story takes me in a different direction. Every twist and turn of the courtroom drama reflected the dark side of human nature; the mind games, the self-deception, the manipulation and the fear that are characteristic of a life in the grip of addiction.

Most of us see addiction in terms of the abuse of alcohol, nicotine or the use of other illegal substances, but addiction is defined as being ‘abnormally dependent on a habit’ – not a substance. So it seems that it is a broader issue than smoking too many cigarettes, drinking too much Guinness, ingesting ecstasy pills or injecting heroin. Addiction is a behavioural issue, an abnormal dependence on a habit such as pornography, or computer games, or gambling. But can you be addicted to religion?

That depends on how you define religion – and it’s notoriously difficult to define. But for most people religion is a way of life, a series of habits built on a network of social events that are often more exclusive than inclusive, and moral standards underpinned by obsolete laws; they’re designed to impress.

Can you be addicted to that? Yes you can, for surely we all know religious people who are abnormally dependent on religious activities that are best described as habits, a habit being a learned pattern of behaviour repeated so often that it becomes automatic.

‘So what’s the problem with an addiction to religion?’ one might reasonably ask. Simply this; religion reduces an internal principle to an external code.  In other words, the focus of the religious life becomes its external behaviour, regardless of how corrupt the internal motives might be. For example, Howell, who arguably bears the most obvious hallmark of addiction; self-deception, was so blinkered by outward appearances that he was able to sit at the breakfast table with children whose mother he had just murdered, and remain convinced that he was a good father because he spoke God’s word to his children.

Jesus had little time for outward appearances. He was more concerned by pure motives. That’s what he had in mind when he replaced the entire Law of Moses with a single one; love. Laws will always be regarded as an external code by religionists; Jesus’ priority was an internal principle. He taught that if your life’s underlying motivation is love, its internal principle is love for God, love for others and love for yourself, then you need no law. And it is a matter of great sadness that for all of Colin Howell’s exposure to the world of religion, he even considered forming his own little church, presumably because all the others had got it wrong or didn’t go far enough, he appeared not to have grasped the simple fact that lies at the heart of the Christian faith; love is enough.

Let me share with you again a statement by the late Jack Frost, founder of Shiloh Place Ministries in South Carolina and author of the wonderful book, Experiencing the Father’s Embrace. Jack believed that the entire Christian life can be summed up in three simple steps: One, God is love, two, we are made in his image, and three, our number one priority in life is to receive the Father’s love, and pass it on. Compare the beautiful, undemanding simplicity of that to the pain and complications that come with the territory of addiction.

 

You can find out more about Jack Frost at www.shilohplace.org, and you can talk to me at adam@adamharbinson.com