Today's readings: Deuteronomy 4, 1-2.6-8; James 1, 17-18.21-22.27; Mark 7, 1-8.14-15.21-23.

The core of today's readings is to be found in the letter of James. It is about true religion and true worship. It is then completed by the readings from Deuteronomy and Mark which show how we can easily be deceived and turn our religion into idolatry. True religion is about the care of our soul.

There is a very fine line between religion and idolatry. In the Bible, the itinerary of God's people is not a journey from atheism to belief in God but rather from idolatry to faith in the true God. Even in our secularised society and culture, God's pedagogy addresses not atheism, but rather the permanent risk of surrendering to false gods.

The controversy in today's Gospel is between Jesus and people with a staunchly religious background. Religion can even close our eyes to God and to neighbour. The worst thing that can happen to us from the point of view of faith and belief is that religion can become lip-service. The teachings of Jesus point towards a religion of the heart, what Cardinal John Henry Newman used to call the heart-to-heart talk, that intimate link with God that is the core of what religion should be.

Certain traditionalist mentalities, particularly in our liturgies, are serious cause for concern in this day and age. Just as tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism may just be the dead faith of the living. In the face of the unfolding demands of life, sticking to mere observance of traditions runs the risk of becoming irrelavant.

This is exactly what true religion is not. It is that religion that has been, and still is heavily criticised, and rightly so, by the so-called cultured despisers of religion.

In his novel White Noise, satirist Don Delillo deals with fear of death, and recalls the dark existential seriousness of the modern period. Life becomes like a supermarket full of bright distractions, where the human need for religion and meaning is met by nonsense-filled tabloids which divert customers while they wait for the final checkout.

Religion is not an individual and optional set of beliefs. Even if it meets needs and survives, it needs ongoing radical pruning. Our culture and new conditions need new spiritual guides. Anglican theologian Don Cupitt, known as the atheist priest, is right when he writes in his book Radicals and the Future of the Church: "The still important role of the Church in the betterment of human society depends on the subversive labours of radical Christians against stifling, uncreative, reactionary ecclesiasticism."

Jesus can easily be considered the first among these radical Christians. In today's Gospel he speaks of the soul's contamination but avoids pointing fingers to outside influences. It suits us to blame society and culture and ignore what we carry inside us.

Religion surely has a public role. But first and foremost it addresses the conversion of the heart. Hypocrisy ultimately is a way of worshipping God while perpetuating the disfigurement of man and human dignity.

In the Bible, the book of Deuteronomy is a late, final address by Moses to Israel just as they were about to cross the Jordan river into the promised land. The book came at a time of general amnesia when there was need for urgent, great reform. Moses was warning about the seductiveness of the new land of wealth and prosperity. Can old memories be important currency in new circumstances?

Can religion in our situations today provide us with a workable practice of policy? That is our hope. But unfortunately, as author Walter Brueggemann writes, our Church "has been captured and detained in a privatised sacramentalism that distorts the Gospel and that siphons energy away from the main claims of the good news".