Twenty years ago, Robert Bellah wrote a sociological study of American religious practices entitled Habits of the Heart. I first read it in seminary and it has stayed with me ever since. At one point, he introduces us to Sheila Larson (not her real name), who is a young nurse and who considers herself to be a very religious person. However, the intriguing thing about her religion is that it is not a typical one. She is not Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim. The word she uses to describe her religion is “Sheilaism.”

“I can’t remember the last time I went to church,” she admits. “But I am very religious person. My faith is extremely important to me. I call it Sheilaism—just my own little voice, telling what to do.”

When pressed to define the doctrines of Sheilaism, she speaks in general, and somewhat vague, terms. “I try to love myself. I try to take care of myself and those around me. Basically, I just try to follow my own heart.”

Robert Bellah then goes on to suggest that Shelia Larson is by no means unique. Indeed, she represents a growing trend in our country—namely, the belief that religion is essentially a private and personal matter, and individuals ought not to feel constrained by the demands of the historical church, or the traditions of their faith, or even the teachings of the Bible. A recent Gallup survey, for example, indicated that 80 percent of Americans agree with the following statement: “A person needs to arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent of the instruction of any church or synagogue.”

That fact is alarming, and it suggests that more and more people are viewing the church no differently than they would, let’s say, the Kiwanis Club, or some other voluntary association, of which you are a part as long as you feel comfortable with the program, but which has no organic claim upon your life.

But the church cannot function like a club. The problem with Sheilaism, or Bobism, or any other form of privatized religion, is that it lands us right back in the Garden of Eden, where the serpent tempted Adam and Eve to take control of their own destinies. The church has always been best understood not as a club of isolated individuals, but as a community of faithful believers.

Indeed, I would maintain that Sheila’s claim that her religion consists of trying to love and take care of herself is not even possible outside of a community of others. After all, how can someone love themselves, if they have not first experienced love from those around them? You cannot love yourself until you have first been loved by someone else. “We love,” says the Scriptures, “because God first loved us.”

While religion is certainly personal, it is never private. We didn’t create ourselves, and in fact, I would go as far as to say that we cannot understand ourselves—or even truly become ourselves—apart from the love and support that we receive from a community.