God yes but religion no?

WE have to be clear about this. We cannot have God without
religion. They go together as far as we are concerned. Religion is
precisely our relationship with God. It’s an unavoidable thing,
whether we like it or not. It has its laws and requirements that flow
from God himself and that ought to be followed. Without religion, what
would God be to us?

            There are some people who profess that they believe in God
but not in religion. Perhaps what they mean is that they indeed
believe in God but do not want to be hampered by certain
“requirements” that religion demands from them. Or they do not want
what they call as “organized religion” with its doctrine and
practices.

            It’s like saying that they want a God that is according to
their own liking, their own designs, their own terms. They do not want
to be told what to do in their own so-called relation with God.

            Of course, they are quick to say that these “requirements”
are simply man-made, or are mere legalisms that really have nothing to
do with the essence of our relation with God. They seem to be the only
ones capable of knowing how their relation with God should be. No one
should intervene.

            Worse, they are quick to point out the many
inconsistencies that people who occupy positions in the Church and
those who call themselves as pious, holy and religious make, to
justify their rejection of their own idea of religion. They are
deflecting the issue, as if the mistakes and sins of these men and
women detract from the objective need for religion.

            This is unfortunate because such understanding of God and
religion is fatally flawed. While religion is personal in the sense
that it is unique to each individual, it is also personal in the sense
that it is by definition relational and subject to the laws of God and
the laws that the divinely founded Church stipulates.

            To be personal is not only to be a unique individual but
also to be related to God and to everybody else. A person is always a
religious and social being. That is how a person is wired, and in
these relations, there are universal God-given laws that need to be
followed.

            Of course, these laws are articulated in human terms and
therefore cannot fully capture the mysterious laws of God. That is why
they need to be updated, improved, polished, enriched, etc. as time
goes on. But they have to be followed just the same, unless it’s clear
that a particular law does not apply to a concrete situation of the
person.

            Some people say that they believe in God but they do not
want to do anything with the Church. But God without the Church is not
God. He would be a man-made god. The bishop-martyr St. Cyprian
expresses this truth well: “You cannot have God as your Father if you
do not have the Church as your mother.”