"Religion"

I've heard one of my least favorite Evangelical catch phrases a little too often recently: "It isn't about religion, it's about a relationship."

Ugh. I know what people are trying to get across by saying such things, but in so doing they demonstrate a common misunderstanding of what Jesus was doing in His confrontations with the Pharisees.

The problem with Pharisees of any stripe is not that they are religious, it is that they practice a false religion. Jesus never condemned the Pharisees for their adherence to God's Law; He praised them for it. It was their insincerity in observing it, and the traditions they added onto it, that He condemned, because such things are not part of God's true religion. He busted them on their failure to truly follow the Law.

There is no religion/relationship dichotomy--the relationship is religion. That's its proper name. The only antithesis is between true and false religion.