According to Nick Cave & Sean O’Hagan that would be organized religion. I think that needs breaking down a little bit because nothing gets to be a religion without getting its act together and finding a bit of organization. Cave himself describes himself as religious, which he says is ‘spirituality with rigour’ and he goes to church, reads Scripture and prays. So Cave has rejected amorphous spirituality in favour of something with some scaffolding, structure and spine to it.

But that’s almost certainly not what they meant by it. Focusing the cross-hairs a little bit more brings institutional religion into sight. This is the bureaucracy of church over against its practitioners, where faith becomes subject to human resource policies, health & safety requirements and in general following very much the ‘spirit of the age’.

However I think they focused their sights on an even clearer target. As they talked their theme through it became apparent that what they meant was when a religious adherent had failed to be kind and compassionate. In other words every time a religious person is mean, vindictive, nasty, self-righteous, abusive and so on they are scoring a massive own-goal.

I’ve said it before but how we use social media is a discipleship issue and if someone in your church is abusive, downright mean, being blocked all over the place then please don’t do nothing, it matters. It matters to them because their heart is getting bent out of shape by what they see in the world. It matters because the reputation of your church will suffer and so will the cause of Christ.

Yet as the atmosphere of public debate increasingly sours it is an opportunity for Christ followers to show the difference. Quick to listen, slow to speak. Gracious, compassionate, full of truth and love, kindness, goodness, self-control.

We don’t need to blur the truth, we don’t need to soften it or fudge it but if we can’t talk about it without giving up kindness then you shouldn’t really be talking about it all. So stop scoring own goals.