What is a living religion?

Answer 1

There are a couple of definitions that I know of for a living religion:

1. A religion that is still practised to this day. It's living in the sense that there are people alive who practise it. It's hard to find a religion that isn't in some sense "living" by this definition, as even the more obscure religions of ancient civilisations have their followers - you will find, for instance, people who worship Isis and Osiris the ancient Egyptian gods. Some people would therefore limit living religion to religions with a sizeable following to this day. The difficulty there is one of classing "sizeable".


2. A usage specific to Christianity (although it may be used in other faiths also). Living religion is used to mean a faith that:
a) arises out of personal relationship with God - rather than just being rule-following
b) is not simply "head believing", but also worked out (the 2nd chapter of the book of James says that faith, if it does not affect how the believer lives, is "dead")
The opposite, "dead religion", might be used to mean someone going to church meetings because of tradition, or else someone saying that they are a Christian but still continuing to live selfishly for themselves.