I just realized I didn't include a response to your reuters link.
This article shared survey results of which used religion to describe the lifestyle of a believer. Here's the problem, the world at large doesn't separate religion from relationship. Had I taken that survey, of which may have been written by an unbeliever, my responses would appear that I too am religious..far from the truth. Incorporating fellowship and prayer in one's life shows Who they honor and worship rather than the focus being to adhere to religious steps for sanctification.
Blessings
If Jesus did physically return to Earth, would he recognize Christianity as the Way he taught?
The book of Acts talks about quite a few doctrinal disputes which arose even at that early date. Two thousand years later, I think we have to admit that much of the Way of Jesus must have been diluted, corrupted, and worse. Even in the case of well intentioned Christians, they are faced with such a long history of generation after generation of false teachers, wolves in sheep's clothing, who "changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature instead of the creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen".
I am, of course, quoting from the first chapter of Romans.
When I was a Christian, they used to refer to the book of Romans as the Roman Road because of so many verses which were perceived to be the roadmap to the kingdom of heaven. The verses I just quoted were usually referred to when Christians were talking about how homosexuals and/or polytheists were going to burn in hell for eternity.
It was not until years later that I heard anyone, not Christians, talk about just how monumentally the 'truth of God' had been changed into a lie ... and by people calling themselves Christians!
I was raised in the Baptist church by a pastor and his wife, going to church services most days of the week. But I never heard a word about the true history of the last word in Romans 1:25 [Amen]. All I was ever told was that Amen was the way Christians ended their prayers and that it meant so be it.
Later I found out, not from Christians, that Amen had a long history, going back thousands of years before the terrestrial births of Jesus, Abraham, or Moses. Amen was one of the names used to refer to God by Egyptians. Imagine my shock when I first found that out!
All those years, Christians had been programming me to think of Egyptians as devil worshipers and to think of their dieties as false idols. Then I find out not only Christians, but Jesus as well, ended all their prayers with the name of the Egyptian God.
Jesus, of course, living in that part of the world, had to know about the Amen of Egypt. After all, even the bible talks about him spending some unspecified time in Egypt as a child.
Then, later, I realized that Malachi 4:2 contained a prophecy of Christ, referring to him as Sun, not Son! With an accurate description of the winged sun orb of ancient KMT!
Malachi 4:2 "But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall."
When someone does genuinely yearn for nothing more than to follow the Way of Christ, I have serious doubts that seeking to be a Christian is now, if it ever was, the best path. One thing is for sure. The last person you need to talk to, if you truly do hunger and thirst for righteousness as Jesus spoke of in his Sermon on the Mount, is a 'bible believing' Christian.
But I better stop now. This is usually about the time that some moderator decides to bounce the thread within which I am participating to some forum other than the Christian Study Group forum. It is the rare Christian who wants to study what Jesus actually taught, or what the bible actually says.