What is wrong with Religion? (James 1:27)
			by 
		 Pastor Van
		August 31. 1997

Religion is blamed for all that is wrong
	In this world of ours today
And they think they speak for Jesus
	When they talk this way.

They say, "I'm not religions!"
	Thus they often quip,
"Instead of having religion
	I have a relationship!"

They say "The letter killeth"
	And I am sure that it is so
Yet without the "letter"
	How are we to know?

For the letters put together
	Turn into a word.
And without a word
	The gospel can't be heard.

Some years ago the young folk said.
	We'll have no wedding ceremony
For we need only love to hold us
	All of the rest is just "bologna!"

So, one might argue, that the soul
	Is more important that the body.
Yet it seems to me that
	Such thinking is kind of shoddy.

For the bodies without their souls
	Are what we call the dead.
But souls without their bodies
	Is what some people dread.

Now Jesus was religious as we know
	But with the pious he often contended.
For it is their misuse of religion, you see,
	That suddenly His short life ended.

Religion gives form to our worship.
	Religion allows faith to be seen.
Religion, as God has intended,
	Will make reality out of a dream.

It is religion that gives us structure
	And through it we can help the miserable.
Religion, when based on the Bible,
	Can help make the invisible to be visible.