A friend sent an excellent 98-second video from a Harvard Business School professor about what makes “democracy” in general and America in particular work. He closes with this line:

If you take away religion you can’t hire enough police.

There’s certainly truth in it, having to do with the concept that people need to police themselves, to be self-controlled voluntarily, and that dedication to a religion helps.

The problem is that religion in and of itself doesn’t always contribute to a civil and just society. Just yesterday, Doug Nuenke, President of The Navigators, wrote to staff reminding us that our faith must result in proper action:

Is our belief in God’s reign matched with faithful action to bring God’s justice to Earth?

This was the primary conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of His time (see Mark 7:6-13). He rebuked the Pharisees for religious tradition that was empty of Kingdom action.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others (Matthew 23:23 ESV).

Jesus also spoke to the callousness of the Pharisees and Sadducees in the parable of the Good Samaritan (see Luke 10:25-37). This story of religious leaders who bypassed practical acts of mercy portrayed what empty religion looks like. – Doug Nuenke, August 31, 2020 (emphasis his)

“Religion” motivated the 9/11 terrorists. “Religion” in India is resulting in increased persecution of Christians by the Hindu majority. And, yes, most of the white people who enslaved black people in this country and continued persecuting them even after the Civil War were in churches on any given Sunday.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1.27, ESV)

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. (1 Peter 2.13 – 16, ESV)