[Mrs. Don-o]

Fish hawk, I think I understand what you mean about the dangerous folly of doing "good works" which are not rooted in God. (That's what Communist idealism was all about.) But I would not tar religion with such a broad brush.

I would keep in mind St. James' definition:

James 1:27 "Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."

[keats5]

Good works are crucial, but it’s a matter of cause and effect.

Good works do not lead to salvation.
Salvation leads to good works.

Ephesians 2
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

In the Evangelical community, we sometimes term empty routine “man made” attempts to reach God as “religion.” This would be comparable to when Jesus said of the Pharisee, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Instead, our emphasis is accepting Christ into our hearts, so that his Holy Spirit can regenerate us. The result is that we crave to do the good works He made us to do.

Pope John Paul was once asked about this, and said that we’re both talking about the same thing from different angles.