PURE RELIGION

Some religion is "worthless," to use James' precise word, in that it has no effect on us at all. It leaves us unchanged. The one who practices that religion "deceives himself" (a phrase that takes us back to verse 22: "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves"). We think we're doing well, but we're not.

This is a religion that comes of prattling about the Word but not doing it. The Word tries to act upon us, but we will not humbly receive it and so it makes no imprint upon our souls. That religion, says James, is illusory and fanciful because it leaves us unchanged.

Pure religion shows itself in quiet, spontaneous acts of love -- looking after "orphans and widows in their distress," caring for the hapless and helpless, the mournful, the friendless, the forsaken, the ragamuffins, "the wretched of the earth." It does what most people are unwilling to do. It "exaggerates what the world neglects," says G.K. Chesterton.

God is on the side of the widow and orphan, perhaps because most people are not: "Leave your orphans [with Me]," He says, "I will protect their lives. Your widows too can trust in Me" (Jeremiah 49:11). He is "a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows…" (Psalm 68:5). We are most like God when we care for those He cares for.

-- David Roper in Growing Slowly Wise


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