Why We Need Organized Religion

It takes a lot of knocks; people want to believe they can be "spiritual" without it; but organized religion is necessary.

For suppose everyone can just deal with God on their own? Then suppose, a friend asks, a voice in your head claiming to be God one day tells you to kill someone?

For after all, it is the plain truth that God has the right to kill. He kills everyone. Remember the story of Abraham and Isaac. So how do you know it is not God?

But, on the other hand, there are many spirits. How does one at the same time avoid Eve’s error, taking Satan instead of God as authoritative? Or believing a mere hallucination? I had a good friend who was schizophrenic, and he often heard a metallic voice claiming to be God ordering him to jump off his apartment balcony, or in front of a subway train.

Accordingly, we need checks and balances. Possible individual revelation must be tested against some standard. In other words, we need some kind of organized religion.

We must “test the spirits,” as St. Paul says. For Catholics, any supposed “voice” that tells us to violate the Ten Commandments, or the Golden Rule, or established morals or doctrine, or reason, or the Bible, or to deny Jesus Christ, is thereby known not to be the voice of God.

Other organized religions, no doubt, have their own tests, developed from the experiences of those who have gone before. This is not a game: there is life and death, and worse than death, in the balance.

And among religions, it is to Catholicism’s great credit, it seems to me, not just that it has stood for so long the test of time, but that it adheres so faithfully to doctrine and morals, to the testing of spirits. So much so that, rather than ever striking out anew, even at its inception it took pains to incorporate and test itself against earlier scriptures: its Bible incorporates the Jewish Bible. No other major religion does, and that makes them, I think, relatively less trustworthy. They admit less objective checking of their veracity. It is also greatly to its credit that, as Benedict pointed out recently, Catholicism does not allow faith to supersede reason. Both criteria must be met; that is it in accord with faith, and that it is in accord with reason. And Christianity welcomes science, and open debate, to an extent few religions have. All truths are tested and found sound and true.

It can be frustrating at times; many priests are not really very spiritual. Some are even child molesters. And there are a lot of times when God seems more accessible on a quiet lake than in a cathedral. And by all means, we should talk to God where we find him. But anyone who supposes we do not therefore need organized religion, or priests, or cathedrals, is wet behind his spiritual ears. I fear for their safety, as I might fear for a toddler playing with an electrical outlet and a fork.