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Thirdly, we note one more paradoxicality of Christianity in relation to the Christian Church. In a sense, the concept of a Church is very close to the concept of religion (the Church is a religious organization), one can define another. However, there is still no unambiguous and universally accepted definition of the Church, although theologians have written about it for almost two thousand years.

It is easy to say where the Church is, but it is almost impossible to predict correctly where the Church is not. If the definition is specific, unambiguous, then it does not stand up to criticism, because it leaves beyond its scope a set of church phenomena. For example, in the Catechism of the Metropolitan of Moscow Filaret, the following definition is given: “The Church is society of people established by God, united by Orthodox faith, the law of God, the hierarchy and the Sacraments.” But the robber who was crucified to the right of Christ and who entered the Paradise on the same day (Luke 23:43), did not take part in any society, did not even have a concept about “hierarchy” and the Sacraments. And many holy ascetics–deserters hermits tried to keep away from both the hierarchy and the community of believers.

If the definition is broad, multi-valued, then it includes many completely non-church phenomena. For example, Metropolitan of Moscow Platon (Levshin) said, that the Church is a gathering of people, believers in Jesus Christ. But “even the demons believe—and shudder” (James 2:19), and the followers of the church of satan also believe in Jesus Christ. Another broad definition was given by A. S. Khomyakov: “The Church is the organism of love”. However, examples of love can be found and in non-Christian societies. In addition, it is one thing to talk about love, and quite another—to show it actively. By the way, the Historical Church, shows many more examples of not love than love.

At the same time, God does not belong to a particular religion or confession (Acts 10:34–35). “He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45). He does not discriminate, but looks at the heart of a person. A person can be mistaken mentally, but be pure in heart and pray truly, and maybe vice versa.

Thus, all the verbal definitions of the Church are similar to the description of a temple as an architectural work. You can go to it for years, but do not understand its difference from any other building. And you can sit in the silence of an empty temple and feel that this is the place of meeting with God, the place of his particular presence. Similarly, one can understand (or not understand) what the Church is. The definitions of the Church describe it only from the outside, from within it is the mystery of the life of the soul in God, the mystery of meeting, presence and intercommunication. People are attached to this mystery in varying degrees. On the one hand, the members of the Church through baptism are clothed in Christ, through chrismation receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, God does not violently invade human life, and members of the Church have the freedom to sin. Therefore, in the Church there are, as it were, different currents. All people are sons of God by vocation, that is, sonship is already there, but at the same time it is still in the stage of formation, in the stage of building a miracle of mutual love and love for God. This is another paradox: Christians have already achieved the goal, but at the same time only on the way to it, are attached to the eternal Kingdom of God, but are in the temporal kingdom of this world. History and eternity are inseparably united in the Church: everything is already completed, but at the same time it is still in the making.

Thus, Christianity is paradoxical in every point, but on its historical path it is closely intertwined with its opposite—orthodoxy, which is a consequence of the impact of sinful origin and paganism. However, it should be noted that here the term “orthodoxy” has no relation to the name of the Greek Orthodox Church, which appeared due to the Great Schism of 1054, but applies to all confessions and to the whole history of the Church, including the Old Testament.

St. Cyprian of Carthage said that the custom without truth is only an old misconception. [55] Therefore, a thoughtful interpretation of the whole church history is necessary. It is necessary to separate the good from the bad (Matt. 13:48) and to assess the apparent apostasy of historical Christianity from Christ and the Gospel. A good example is the history of the Israeli people, written in the Old Testament. Everything is frankly portrayed there: the people as whole and individual personalities in one form or another very often adopted paganism adopted the customs of idolaters. Nevertheless, God did not leave them, which is repeatedly emphasized in the Bible. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehend two ways, paradoxical and orthodox, and correcting the approach to spiritual life accordingly. Until it happens in the Church, there will be a terrible contradiction between words and real deeds.

Any criticism of Christianity as a religion must be preceded by a preamble that it has two components: the “religious” and the “personal” (personal experience). We must say that the “religious” component for centuries been influenced by political, social and cultural factors.

Studying the historical path of Christianity, many theologians have tried to isolate its “personal” component and critically consider the “religious” one. As a result, the output beyond the religious system of some essential part of Christianity in theology is widely spread thesis “Christianity is not a religion”.

For example, the Greek theologian Ch. Giannaras in the book (Against Religion) carries the idea that Christianity is not a religion; and occurred in the history the transformation of Christianity into a religion is a distortion of its essence. The same idea was expressed by Fr. Alexander Schmemann. [56]

German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer formulated the concept of “religionless Christianity.” He believed that “to be a Christian does not mean to be religious in some sense . . . but means to be Human” (to realize the human vocation).

An influential Protestant theologian Karl Barth has also denied that Christianity is a religion. In his thesis “Christ—the end of religion” by religion is meant any attempt to reach God “from below”. Ontological chasm between God and a human can overcome only God, and precisely in this sense the event of Christ (as action of God). Through the Incarnation God overcomes this abyss (in Christ God does for the people something that they are fundamentally incapable), because all human efforts are not enough. Similar ideas were close and to Thomas Merton—an influential American Catholic theologian, poet and Trappist monk. He was very impressed by the Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and by books of Fr. Alexander Schmemann.

Throughout the twentieth century, many theologians discussed that “Christianity—is not a religion,” “Christianity—the end of religion,” “Christianity—is the trial of religion” and other theses with the same meaning. In fact, even in the Old Testament, there was a very ambiguous attitude towards religion. The Old Testament righteous (Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and others) did not belong to any religion. Moses spoke as a messenger of God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. 3:15), and not as a representative of any religion.

The first affair of Moses was a struggle with the Egyptian religion, the isolation of the Jews from any influence of religious cults of other nations. For the same purpose served and all the laws of Moses and his precepts about the liturgical rites, and so on and etc. Externally, it was very similar to the cults of other nations, but the purpose was different.

The fire can be stopped with help of an oncoming fire. The best (and sometimes the only) means of combating with forest fires is ignition on the opposite side. [57] Moses established religious rules in order to the Jews as soon as possible moved away from the Egyptian paganism. Over four hundred years of living in Egypt they are firmly assimilate the local religious paradigms. If Moses had acted in any other way, for example, would be talk about non-religious relationships with God following the example of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then no one would understood him. In the New Testament, the apostles abolished the entire complex religious ritualism of the Mosaic Law as unnecessary (Acts 15:19–20). However, people, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament history, still often in practice tended to magic and pagan rites.

The struggle against religion in the Old Testament sometimes took very harsh (“inhumane”, as we would say today) forms, but this was due to the exigencies of the situation. During an epidemic of plague or cholera, they do not always act humanely, and at that time, apparently, the situation was even worse. This is evidenced by the fact that despite all the strict measures, ten of the twelve tribes of Israel nevertheless separated and became half-pagans, and the rest of the house of David two tribes (Judah and Benjamin) are often inclined in idolatry.

The Bible repeatedly states that God opposes religion. Deities of any religion will not reject prayers, feasts, sacrifices, burn incense and other religious rituals in their honor. And through the prophet Isaiah, a completely different thing is proclaimed to the inhabitants of Jerusalem:

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation—I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Is. 1:11–17).