Religious Activism

When I used to be in a Baptist congregation whose spiritual impact was absolutely fine and provided us members with everything we needed, a vocational school teacher in that congregation came to the fore and, with the strong cooperation of his wife, spread the formula that more had to be done. This appeal was repeated regularly with musical support by guitar, so that worship services and the community in this congregation became more and more the character of the performance claim.

I experienced the decline of this church very intensively from a spiritual point of view, so that I left this shop of activism quite quickly. Admittedly, I am very sensitive to such mechanisms. My grief at the loss of my spiritual home in this church was immense. The pointed remarks (Oh sweetheart, are you there again?) did not even have such a serious character.

The lesson I had to learn from this matter is confirmed in all religions that attach importance to external activism. Lighting candles, regular appearance of the rescue seeker, planning and realization of all these important events, carrying out congresses, preaching service and a fat community treasury through material sacrifice. Here the replacement of Jesus Christ by personal contribution takes place.

Instead of being called by Jesus, highly ambitious plans are made, projects are tackled, membership numbers are raised to an object of optimization, programs are designed and the attendees are vigorously heated up according to all the rules of modern manipulation. The result is a mixture of association work and politics, where the protagonists try to attract sympathy and convert the results of community work into clear figures, to make them verifiable, to be able to put them under their pillows as a kind of performance record.

This religious activism, however, is only one symptom of the lack of trust in God. As soon as man takes faith into his own hands, the decline of the influence of the Holy Spirit on his children begins. For the Holy Spirit does not impose himself on us, does not persuade us, does not drive us into a corner and does not demand anything that a person who believes in Jesus does not want to do on his own initiative. Rather, the Holy Spirit appears as an inner power that is first felt as one's own will and desires, until the Christian realizes: Ouch, that was not my achievement and that cannot have grown on my crap!

So Jehovah's Witnesses practice faith as if it were a matter of creating a certain workload. Like Catholics, whose alleged salvation is measured by the number of candles lit and rosary prayers recited, and whose access to Jesus depends on their Maryhood and the magical sacraments performed by Catholic priests, Jehovah's Witnesses focus on the number of hours, congresses, and many other measurable parameters. In this way they gain testimonies that they can carry home in black and white.

Does this have anything to do with the Spirit of God?

God Himself will answer this question for all of us. God looks at the heart and rejoices at every good Samaritan who, as a completely unreligious man, fulfills the will of God on the basis of his attitude to the heart. It is not about group dynamics, zeitgeist, fashion or trend. It is only and exclusively about the individual human being in his inner attitude towards God.

The Spirit of God excludes activists and functionaries. All the hustle and bustle about numbers and human growth is no longer considered dirt before God. For they spoil man's access to him. They make man a "good conscience" and enable him to shape his position toward God not according to God's will, but according to his own will. People react their guilty conscience towards God in human ways and means and ignore that God has determined a completely different way.

God's way

This way has been made known to all people in the Bible. His name is Jesus Christ and he claims that nothing exists besides him that could serve as justification before God. With his acceptance man wins everything, with his rejection man loses everything.

But religious activism creates a detour to distract people from Jesus. People's own initiative with the goal of reaching God produces extraordinarily many different kinds of blossoms. From the thesis that one is God oneself, to the thesis that the Pope or the faithful and intelligent slave is the religious leadership elite, to religious fatalism in the glorification of the free market, people follow ideologies and ideas in numbers. All these movements have one sign in common. They are godless and consciously or unconsciously renounce the instruction of the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised us.

The main component inherent in religious activism is self-comfort. Like a psychologically effective drug, religious activism must be carried out regularly so that people can endure their godlessness. In this way man gains a position from which he can look down on Christians who rely exclusively on Jesus. The Holy Spirit is no longer valid or is at least pushed into the background. The image created by religious activism culminates in the threat of Jehovah's Witness soldiers that works must be done for grace to be attained. But it is exactly the other way around.

Only the one who accepts Jesus and sees and remembers that good works cannot be done by any man, but only by the power of Jesus, places no obstacle in the way of the Holy Spirit.

The Watchtower Society is the most industrious seducer to religious activism.