You see no hope for institutional religion, and you have lost all confidence in Western “Christianity?” Don’t feel badly, others agree. Would you like to see it all go away? So would I. Do you place modern-day religion in the same vein as crooked politics? We’re still on track. Do you believe the professional clergy—Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish—assume “spiritual” virtue and act reverently while wallowing in cunning devises and immorality? Amen! Do you see as much good in the world as you do in churches and cults? You’re right again.

In reality, religion and churches and cults cannot take us to heaven. Although some pockets of good can be found in most of the above, overall they’re a total mess. To reach heaven, we need to develop and cultivate a strong, healthy relationship with a man called Jesus. A religious, churchy relationship may offer a few temporary merits, but it will not take us where our Creator is. Only the man Jesus is the answer, the key, and the “lifejacket.” Without Him, all is lost. About two thousand years ago, this man announced:

This man Jesus either told the truth or He lied. If He lied, nothing He taught is trustworthy. If He told the truth, we had better cease placing our loyalty in churches, cults, tube evangelists, preachers, priests, and “elderships.” For when a man places his loyalty in any of the above, we have a “church member” on our hands, not a committed follower of Jesus.

Protestants and Catholics have done just that! Catholics have not only set up “consecrated stones” in the form of church structures, but they have made idols and images and bow down to them. Protestants, on the other hand, have set up their elaborate edifices and crosses and view them as sanctuaries and revered designs. Oh, there may be a few exceptions, but the rule seems to be universal. There’s an old maxim, “Our heart is where our money is.” If we will but consider the hundreds of thousands of dollars—yea, even millions—that are spent on church structures, designs, religious inventions, and edifices, and compare that amount to the few dollars we spend on seeking and saving the lost and feeding the genuinely poor, we don’t need a professor to locate our hearts. If this isn’t idolatry, I’ve lost my ability to reason.

We fail to see that God no longer “lives in temples build by [human] hands” (Acts 17:24). His only sanctuary today is the believer’s heart (1 Cor. 3:16). But try telling the average pew-warmer this. He views his church edifice and its “sanctuary” as holy places, and feels that he must go there in order to worship and make contact with his God. However, his “sanctuary” is no holier than the building’s restrooms.

The water Catholics dip their fingers into upon leaving their “sanctuary” is no holier than toilet water. All of this translates into idolatry, whether practiced by Protestants or Catholics. How in heaven’s name did we ever get this way? Most of the blame may be placed upon the shoulders of the professional clergy. They devise and invent and create and lead and we blindly follow. Are we no longer capable of thinking independently? Where have all the free-thinkers gone? Why have we succumbed to being robots?

Men seem to learn but little from history. Moved with pride, swept with unreasoning fears, in every generation there are those who spend their time and money erecting the same idols and perpetuating the same errors of their sectarian forefathers. There has never been a human idol erected that did not betray God’s trust and eventually bring disaster to its erectors and their idolatrous followers.

That you might understand where I’m coming from, I’ll advance an additional question akin to this one: When Jesus was on Earth, to which religious party was He aligned?

There were numerous religious parties of His time—the sect of the Pharisees, the sect of the Sadducees, and a host of others. Jesus was not aligned with any of them. Instead of joining any of these religious parties, He opposed them and worked among them for reform. He especially came down hard on the Pharisees. He told the crowds:

“But do not do what they [Jewish clergy] do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for men to see. They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments [religious garb] long” (Matthew 23:3-5).

So the question returns: To which of today’s denominations is Jesus aligned? Is He a Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Muslim, or Hindu? Is He affiliated with the Church of God, associated with the Evangelical Free Church, lined up with the Seventh Day Adventists, allied with the Assembly of God, a member of the a cappella Church of Christ, united with the Christian Church, or linked to the Roman Catholic Church? Which? And I answer: None of them!

All of the above are religious parties, and Jesus is not a party man. He has children in most of the religious parties mentioned above, but He does not recognize the parties as such, nor endorse or condone their existence. In His own time on earth, He recognized that His Father had children scattered among all of the Jewish sects, but he confronted and opposed the sectarian establishments and their leaders. If He were on earth today in the flesh, I’m confident He would view our present-day religious institutions as He viewed those of His time. He worked among partisan systems for reform, while not joining any of them. And so it should be with us today—work within and among partisan groups, whenever possible, without subscribing to any of them.

Satan is at his zenith when 85 percent of our “church contributions” is squandered on materialistic projects and programs and only 15 percent is spent on evangelism and to alleviate the needs of the destitute. As for my house and me, we think it best that we remain “believers at large” and support, independently and at our own discretion, any need or ministry we deed worthy.

When will we ever learn there were no Baptist Christians, Methodist Christians, Church of God Christians, Church of Christ Christians, Catholic Christians, Christian Church Christians, or Lutheran Christians 2,000 years ago? All of these sects were founded by man centuries after Jesus ushered in His new reign.