wfn.org | Faith and life commentary: Is religion mostly about fear?

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June 22, 1998       Contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-71B{375}

By Phil Wogaman*

I recently learned that some courts are now applying a new test to
determine whether a behavior is really central to a person's religious
faith. The test is whether a particular form of behavior is commanded by
the church.

As some lawyers have come to speak of this, it is whether you are afraid
you will go to hell if you don't act in that way. Some church-state
lawyers are calling this the "Go to Hell" test.

I'm not sure I like the "Go to Hell" test. I can see the point. It is a
way of testing how serious we are about our religious faith. It also
reminds us that avoiding evil is an important aspect of most religions.

What bothers me is the idea that the essential thing about religion is
the negative. That is another way of saying that the main motivation of
religious people is fear.

I suppose some degree of fear is present, even when the primary
motivation is positive. For instance, my primary motivation in feeding
the hungry is love, but it is also fear of what will happen to the
hungry if they are not fed. But doesn't it make a big difference which
is the primary motive?

When I am acting primarily out of fear, my motivations are
self-centered. Christians will recognize that this was exactly what St.
Paul had in mind when he wrote (especially in Romans and Galatians)
about the importance of grace. According to Paul, when obedience to
religious law is central to our faith, we will be consumed by fear, for
we know that we cannot perfectly observe the law. And even if we could,
we would not be experiencing God as God of love.

How often that simple distinction between a religion of fear and a
religion of love comes back to me in the midst of the religious
controversies of our time. We are constantly being invited to respond to
fear: fear of holding incorrect doctrines, fear of homosexuality or
abortion, fear of division within the church.

I occasionally receive letters from people who want to warn me of the
dangers of hell, and the impression the letters convey is that fear is
much more central to their form of religion than love. I'm sure I need
admonitions and criticisms from time to time, but should my spiritual
life be so dominated by fear? And should the churches act out of fear?

When religious people (and their churches) act mainly out of fear, they
also have a tendency to try to use force to make people do what we think
they ought to do. There is some place for that also, since this world is
not populated by angels. But when we put the main emphasis upon force,
we are mostly relying on our ability to make other people fear. It is
pretty difficult to inspire fear and love in the same people at the same
time.

We sometimes say "love the sinner, but hate the sin." My impression is
that it can be extremely difficult to combine those attitudes,
particularly when we are consumed by hatred of the sin as practiced by
the one we love. We easily drift into hating the people who do the sin
that we hate.

It seems to me that churches are really much better at love than they
are at mandating behavior. The really interesting thing is that when a
church is a center of love, behavior based on love tends to follow.

That does not mean the church should stop teaching ethics. It means that
churches should be more concerned about motivating love and drawing
people into mutually respectful consideration of what love means - and
not be so preoccupied with laying down the law.

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*Wogaman, pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington and a
seminary professor of Christian ethics, is the author of 13 books. He is
a clergy member of the Baltimore-Washington United Methodist Annual
(regional) Conference.