In a religious sense it means those people who share common creeds and confessions, who decide to “bind together.” The word itself has no sacred connotation.

In the Christian belief system, when we become believers we are made part of the Church, bound together in an invisible communion with Jesus as the head. So the better term for Christians is the Church, or as some frequently say, the invisible Kingdom. This is not man-made; this is God-made. So the technical answer to the question is that religion can sometimes refer to something man-made, but the Church with Christ as the head is the work of God Himself.

That’s the narrow answer to the specific question, but in the context of Hitchens’ book, I would agree with something that Christian pastor Mark Upton noted on a blog this month. As strange as it may sound, the Bible often agrees with one of Hitchens' premises: religion as often practiced can be a poison. Jesus came to cut through the hypocritical, self-righteous piety of the Pharisees and Saducees.

Not only in Matthew 23 do you find harsh condemnation of the people who cared about the form and ceremony of religion and not the heart, but you also find such rebuke coming from the Father in Isaiah 1. There, God says that He wants no more of the people’s religious ceremonies; what He wants is for them to “seek justice, relieve the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.”

As someone who’s worked in the prisons for the last thirty years, I have experienced the reality of the Gospel transforming lives of forgotten and irreligious people (and a Christianity practiced closer to the biblical model than that which is practiced in most churches). While I would never agree that true religion (which James 1:27 tells us is looking after orphans and widows) is a poison, I can understand why people would resent the false piety, a form of religion that ignores the reality.

If Mr. Hitchens would like to see the real thing, I ask him not to look at the outward rituals but to visit prison with me. It’s an open invitation.