Hipster Christianity

To preface this: I am not angry at all about this. I guess it's just a point of frustration knowing that most people I come into contact with find it uncomfortable to label themselves as a Christian.

Religion |riˈlijən| (Noun)

The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods.
ORIGIN Middle English (originally in the sense [life under monastic vows] ): from Old French, or from Latin religio(n-) ‘obligation, bond, reverence,’ perhaps based on Latin religare ‘to bind.’

Religion. n. relij'on. [L. religio, from religo, to bind anew

1. Religion, in its most comprehensive sense, includes a belief in the being and perfections of God, in the revelation of his will to man, in man's obligation to obey his commands, in a state of reward and punishment, and in man's accountableness to God; and also true godliness or piety of life, with the practice of all moral duties. It therefore comprehends theology, as a system of doctrines or principles, as well as practical piety; for the practice of moral duties without a belief in a divine lawgiver, and without reference to his will or commands, is not religion.

2. Religion, as distinct from theology, is godliness or real piety in practice, consisting in the performance of all known duties to God and our fellow men, in obedience to divine command, or from love to God and his law. James 1.

3. Religion, as distinct from virtue, or morality, consists in the performance of the duties we owe directly to God, from a principle of obedience to his will. Hence we often speak of religion and virtue, as different branches of one system, or the duties of the first and second tables of the law.Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion.

4. Any system of faith and worship. In this sense, religion comprehends the belief and worship of pagans and Mohammedans, as well as of christians; any religion consisting in the belief of a superior power or powers governing the world, and in the worship of such power or powers. Thus we speak of the religion of the Turks, of the Hindus, of the Indians, &c. as well as of the christian religion. We speak of false religion, as well as of true religion.

Christian or Christ Follower?

Most of my friend, and myself included, have at one point been asked the question: are you a Christian? Most of my friends, and I included, have most likely answered with some overly long, drawn out explanation that we love Jesus Christ and His teachings.
We avoid, at all cost, the use of the phrase Christian when we come into contact with people. Even if it's something as simple as a submitting a “religious view” on our Facebook.
We make statements like “it's not a religion, it's a relationship”.

Has the trend of not associating ourselves with anything popular already planted itself into our spiritual lives as well?
I'm not a hipster. I'm just not conforming to social standards.
I'm not a Christian. I'm in a relationship, not a religion.

The fact of the matter is, however, that following Christ involves a lot of what both my MacBooks' dictionary states as religion, and Noah Webster states as religion. It is following a set of ideals esteemed as holy.
It is acting in the likeness of God.It involves praying. Praying is the practice of maintaining intimacy with the
LORD. It is an act. It is something you do. People make the argument that following Christ isn't something you do, it's something you are.
I'd argue that it is both.

We cannot just sit by and deny that we're part of a religion when we've been going through ceremonial rituals of baptism, communion, and worship with the LORD.
Those are all very religious things.

I'm not saying that I understand all of this quite yet. But, I do understand that it's starting to become popular to not accept the label of Christian, and instead, make up our own label as to not offend anyone or to make ourselves as unique as possible.
The thing is, I'm guilty of it too.

For so long I've been running from the term Christian and it has gotten me no where. I thought of religion as being legalistic and unspiritual. Truth is, sometimes there are people who make Christianity look legalistic and unspiritual.

I think we've begun to equate religion with legalism. But just because I/we have a skewed vision of what religion is, it doesn't change the definition of religion, and it doesn't change the definition of what a Christian is.

A Christian is a person who follows the teachings of Christ, believes God is the LORD of lords, and who desires to seek out Gods heart (among other things).
I guess what I'm getting at is this: religion merely means that you subscribe to a set of ideals and that you act in accordance with those ideals: you walk the walk and talk the talk.

A Christian is a person who follows and believes the ideals of Christ, who was sent by His Father, God and Creator of the Universe, to the earth to pay the penalty for our sins, and are guided by the Holy Spirit, who also led Christ.

I guess by that overly-simple definition, I am a Christian.

Christianity is a religion. This shouldn't be debated. And if we're tired of the label of Christianity being associated with hippocrit, we should start changing ourselves, so people no longer view us as being just that: liars

There's a lot of room for fine tuning in this argument, but, I just thought I should point out that following Christ does involve doing a lot of religious things and we should own up to and be proud of our faith. Not run away from it and call it something differen