I'll Take Trust Over Religion Any Day

What does it mean to be "religious"? I've had that word applied to me in conversations with family and friends. "Well, you're a religious person." And every time, I'm left wondering... is that a compliment, or a quiet dig?

There's a part of me that resists the label. Because when I look at what religion has often become, I see the harm it produces. The conformity it demands. The false sense of safety it sells. The crushing certainty it insists upon. It reminds me of Henry Ford's assembly line. He famously declared that a customer could have any color car they wanted, as long as it was black. That's what certain expressions of religion produce: Dress like us. Talk like us. Look like us. Act like us. And the moment you don't, you're out.

So when someone calls me religious, my stomach turns. Because for people on the outside looking in, that's exactly what they see. And it's exactly what they reject. Modern religion, in too many forms, has come to look less like a spiritual journey and more like empire. Like power. Like control. Like abuse.

No thank you. You can keep it.

What I'm actually chasing is something the biblical authors called faith. And if I were to give that word a more current definition, I'd call it trust. Not certainty. Not conformity. Not an assembly line of identically painted believers.

Just trust.

You can have your religion. I'll keep trusting.

I'm just saying…