These words are worth coming back to, letting them stand alone for our consideration:
“It is as Christians’ faith in God has weakened that they have busied themselves with Christianity; and as their personal relation to Christ has virtually lapsed that they have turned to religion for solace.”
“One has even reached a point today where some Christians can speak of believing in Christianity (instead of believing in God and in Christ); of preaching Christianity (instead of preaching good news, salvation, redemption); of practicing Christianity (instead of practicing love). Some even talk of being saved by Christianity, instead of by the only thing that could possibly save us, the anguish and the love of God.”
“A Christian who takes God seriously must surely recognize that God does not give a fig for Christianity. God is concerned with people, not with things. We read that God so loved the world that He gave His Son. We do not read anywhere that God loved Christianity.”
W.C. Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion
I would also add that the Bible does not say that "God so love the world that He gave us Christianity." God gave us Jesus, and life through Him.
Smith is a great scholar in the field of comparative religion, the one whose ideas I have found most helpful; and he is a “believer.” His book traces the development of the idea of religion, and of what have come to be known as specific religions – Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. (More details another time.)
Notice that Smith, in response to a process of reification and distancing of people from immediate experience to reflection on it (from a distance), is calling those who consider themselves “Christian” back to the immediate, experiential, essence of faith – believing in God and in Jesus Christ, preaching good news, salvation, redemption, practicing love, realizing that the anguish and love of God is what saves us.
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