"Religion is a Hard Taskmaster"

    “I’ve been a religious professional for most of my life. I have––and this is a confession––been (and still am, I fear) a participant in and a leader of what we all now, in our saner moments, to be something less than a healthy religious system.
    “Religion can make people mean, angry, gloomy, critical, judgmental, and neurotic. Religion can also become an abuser of Christians. I have seen so many people hurt by religion that I sometimes think it would be better to be a pagan.
    “Worst of all, religion can keep you from God. It can become the substitute––and not a very good one––for a relationship with God himself. Something about institutional Christianity (as necessary as it is) will kill your freedom, if you aren’t careful.
    “Whenever a new Christian comes into the church, I wince a bit, because I’m afraid that they will get the “religion disease,” that the “church virus” will kill off the joy and freedom Jesus purchased on the cross to give them.”

Steve Brown, A Scandalous Freedom, p. 76