Religious?

A man at my church called me religious the other day. Actually, I think he called me very religious. It was in a conversation about my dating life, or rather, my lack of a dating life. Telling a date or potential date I'm a pastor is a great way to kill a conversation; that's just the reality and I'm mostly ok with it.

Because of my profession, though, this guy was not off target in calling me religious. I'm in worship most every Sunday. Actually, I plan worship most every Sunday, and preach, and go to other churches just for fun, and ramble on about the theological discourse of Stephen King and horror movies. I'm pretty much as tied to institutional church as anyone can be. By most anyone's definition, I'm religious.

Still, I bristled at the word religious. Actually, that's putting it pretty mildly. My first instinct was to yell at this guy, "I'm not religious!" Luckily, a more rational chunk of my brain took over and I didn't. I'm pretty sure this guy would have laughed at me a lot if my first reaction had won. Ok, I would have probably heard about that reaction for a quite a while, with him enjoying bringing it up again to laugh at me some more.

But you know what? I don't feel religious. I'm not even sure I know what I associate with that word, but I'm pretty sure it has to do lots of rules and regulations about life. I'm pretty sure that means conviction of the evil of some people or that my religion trumps other religions. And I'm not quite sure what else, but I know I don't like whatever that is. Yes, I know that doesn't necessarily make sense. I'm ok with that.

My faith calls me to love other people--to trek to hospitals and school plays, restaurants and messy houses. The people there need to know someone cares about them enough to show up.

My faith calls me to prayer and study because yes, those things deepen my practice of my faith and change the way I think about God and the world.

My faith has taken me to temples and mosques and synagogues and candle circles in the woods, but I keep coming back to this Christian faith, which moves me deeply.

My faith means that I proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ from a pulpit in a church most weeks, and hope that yes, through me those present will hear a bit of good news.

My faith means that the money I give to the church represents my third largest household expense, after housing and taxes.

My faith leads me to strange discussions, heated discussions, life-giving discussions, doubtful discussions, all sorts of discussions about spirituality and the life of faith.

My faith, my spirituality is deeply important to me. It shapes much of my life and calls me to new things. While my faith will certainly morph in the years to come, I cannot imagine a life apart from faith and spiritual practice.

But am I religious? I'm not so sure about that.