A Tale of Two Fields: A Personal Journey Out of Legalism

The first act of false religion - religion defined as the effort of the soul to make oneself presentable and acceptable to God outside of relational accountability to and submissive dependence upon God - was performed by our first parents in a garden "sewing room" - the stitching together of fig leaves in an effort to cover the shame of personal nakedness. But the real genius in this first act of religion was not the ability to create coverings; the far greater wonder was in the uniformity of the coverings. An apron is an apron, and I suspect there was no distinction, difference, or uniqueness between his and hers. And there the two core characteristics of false religion emerged: self-effort and uniformity. The great post-flood corporate expression of this was the Tower of Babel. God's response was to confuse the best efforts of man's uniformity by introducing into its monotonous sameness distinction, difference, and uniqueness. Driven by its passion for the pseudo-security and comfort of uniformity - which masquerades as unity - the best that the religious soul of man can do is clone carbon copies of the sameness. In contrast to this narrowness is the infinite creativity of the unbounded love of the Sovereign God, who delights in the true unity of spiritual reality that allows for, promotes, and enables infinite distinction, uniqueness, and difference of external expression and "performance." Therein lies the ancient conflict between the religious soul caught up with the pinching uniformity of doing and the infinite broadness of Sovereignty, who's unlimited provision negates and renders ridiculous our silly fig-leaf aprons. The flashpoint of this historic engagement - the place where true and false religion collide - is that mysterious world in each of us where S/spirit and soul meet in the dance.