Exodus 35: The Beginning Of "Organized Religion"

Sometimes you may hear "organized religion" get a bad rap.  "I'm spiritual alright," someone will say, "I just don't believe in 'organized religion'."  Religion (and especially organized religion) gets blamed for most of the wars throughout history, violent injustices of all sorts, racism, sexism, homophobia, and virtually any kind of evil you can think of.  If it's so bad, where did it come from?  And why does it stick around?

Believe it or not, organized religion was God's idea!  Exodus 35 brings us to the point where the plans that God revealed to Moses on the mountain are about to be put into action.  The heavenly pattern of worship will now take on physical form.  The time has come for Moses to put out a call to receive offerings in order to construct the tabernacle and its furnishings.  With this project, the worship of Yahweh will be institutionalized into the form of religion.

There are going to be rules about sacrifices, about cleanliness, about morality, about holidays, and all sorts of religious laws.  Already, in verse 2, we get a reminder of the sanctity of the Sabbath.  So important is the rhythm of the week that breaking the Sabbath is listed as a capital crime!

Why did God institutionalize the faith into a religion?  We aren't told explicitly, but we can guess.  To pass on the faith and keep it pure, a structure is needed.  The rituals of the Tabernacle would instruct the people about God's holiness.  The observance of festivals such as Passover would remind the people of God's faithfulness in the past.  The priests would be responsible for teaching the people about their God, and thus the faith would be preserved and passed down from generation to generation.

Now I'm not saying that the Jews (or Christians) always got it right.  Organized religion can be a great blessing when practiced properly, and a terrible problem when it isn't.  Certainly Jesus' main headaches were caused by the religious establishment of His day.  Prophets and priests don't always get along.  The first Christians were primarily persecuted by the Jewish leaders.  Yet Paul and the other New Testament writers called for the continuation of regular structured worship and the preservation of the teachings and scriptures of the Church.  Vague "spirituality" without the structure of doctrine and practice (orthodoxy and orthopraxy are the technical terms) can lead us into the opposite and equal errors that we find in corrupt religion.

"Organized religion" isn't the problem; our fallen humanity that quickly leads us into corruption is!