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[Newbie]

A moderately sized group of my in-laws all profess to not be religious. They claim that instead of being religious they "have a personal relationship with Jesus". They go to church every Sunday where they are active and involved.

Can you help me to understand what they mean? I've shown a couple of them the definition of the word religion (the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods.) and was told "I don't define that word that way."

Is this a movement in the Christian church or is it a commonly held mind set? Is this ("I'm not religious, I have a personal relationship with Jesus") something you would say, and if so - could you help me to understand it?

[jimwalton]

Sure. The cliche way to say it is that religion is our attempt to find God, and to do things that earn our way into his favor. But what Christianity is is God finding us, and his desire to have a relationship with us. By relationship, I mean that God loves us because he made us, and he wants us to love him in return, much as a husband and wife would. He's not looking for you to make a checklist of "been to church, read my Bible today, said my prayers, lit a candle, yep, check check check," I've done my religious duty. What he wants is for us to love him and to experience his love in return. What he wants is that we will commit our lives to him, again, much as a husband and wife would. He wants to adopt us as family, where we are related to him because he wanted to have us, and he bought us, and brought us to himself. You see, it's not religion where I do my religious thing and earn his favor, or I do my religious thing and I'm done for the day, or that anything in this life particularly has SACRAMENTAL value, meaning that by doing those things I obligate God in some way to act on my behalf. No, it's more like father and son, mother and daughter, brothers, sisters. We relate to each other on a relational basis, not a sacramental one. Does that help?