On Being Religious - Elizabeth Roy

On Being Religious
Non-assigned reading blog
Elizabeth Roy
4/23

In The World’s Last Night, Lewis discussed the quality of being religious. He says:
The word religion is extremely rare in the New Testament or the writings of mystics. The reason is simple. Those attitudes and practices to which we give the collective name of religion are themselves concerned with religion hardly at all. To be religious is to have ones attention fixed on god and on ones neighbor in relation to god. Therefore, almost by definition, a religious man, or a man when he is being religious, is not thinking about religion, he hasn’t the time. Religion is that we (or he himself at a later moment) call his activity from outside (32.)
Lewis has identified one of the things I find extremely distasteful in many Christians I know. One of the tenets of Christian living is humility and being humble, which comes out of creature-consciousness. However, many Christians I know tend to shove their Christian religion in other peoples faces, sometimes even in an attempt to look good or shame others. In the Bible, Jesus criticized a man who put on an ostentatious display of religion. According to Lewis (and implicitly, to Christ) that sort of man is not being religious at all. The focus is on a display for others, not on God. I think that to some degree, this is one reason many people profess a distaste for religion. By religion, they think of people making an effort to act religious – which of course, is not truly religious at all. Lewis’ ideas on religion come forth in his writings. Many of his writings have Christian elements, but they are subtle and integrated instead of blatant. By not trying to be religious, Lewis enabled himself to be religious. I think that this might even be part of what Lewis meant when he said that God moved through him in his writing.