Hello all!
I have come across many Christians who have a problem with "organized religion." As many of you may know, in the Catholic Faith (as well as in the Orthodox) there is both an hierarchical organization of bishops and, most importantly, an organized form of worship known as the Mass or the Liturgy. I myself am Catholic and am also very familiar with the Orthodox/Eastern Catholic Traditions. However, I am less familiar with the Protestant or Non-Denominational view on "organized religion" particularly in worship. For those who are not Catholic or Orthodox, I would be very interested in hearing your comments and thoughts about "organized religion" as you understand it. Please voice all concerns, strong opinions, etc.!
Here in Brazil it can be hard to tell who considers himself a member of an organized religion, particularly Catholicism or, to a lesser degree, Evangelical Christianity . People are simply presumed to be or at least consider themselves Christians of some form until and unless some indication to the contrary is given.
But just as frequent, if not more, is some degree of acceptance that it can be unconfortable and even dangerous to trust the judgment and behavior of specific churches, priests and Christian leaders. While belief in the divinity of Jesus is generally expected of random people in everyday situations, sympathy for random churches and priests really isn't. Even the Bible isn't necessarily well valued and well trusted by peple that think of themselves as Christians. There is a whole spectrum of degrees of identification and acceptance with various aspects of Christianity's presence in our communities.
It is also considered bad form to directly ask about those matters without being previously invited to. Christianity here is often perceived as a default state of sorts, something that we should expect to be present and expressed in most aspects of everyday life. So much so that I am honestly not sure on whether most people who identify as Christians would or do consider themselves to also be religious people. There is a degree of ambiguity that often seems to be intentional.
Far as I can see, most people here (Christians or otherwise) end up choosing to simply be pragmatic and avoid unnecessary grief by not discussing belief and trust matters very often nor very deeply in most situations. Most Brazilians will be in some combination Catholic, Protestant/Evangelical Christians, Kardecist Spiritists (who very often perceive themselves as Christians as well) and have some peripheral awareness of Orthodox Christianity and other, non-Christian creeds and beliefs. There is also a considerable but hard to measure contingent of the Brazilian creeds of African origin, Umbanda and Candomblé.
Except perhaps for the Adherents of Umbanda and Candomblé, it is not all that usual for Brazilians to insist on having and displaying very clear, stable and defined religious identities. Advice to make acquaintance of specific churches and creeds is presented fairly often and fairly casually, almost as health care information in some situations. Strong identification with a specific creed or church may even be perceived as slightly exotic here.
It is also fairly common to find people that consider themselves "spiritual but not religious" and present that statement as enough clarification. What that means exactly is really not all that clear, but it is reasonable to say that many or most people who do are in effect saying that they trust the existence and judgment of God (presumably some form of the Christian understanding of same) but are not interested in having particularly clear or deep ties with any group of organized religion.
Much of the time that is a pragmatic stance, as likely as not to be taken mainly to discourage talk about religions, which can indeed be passionate and difficult here. Perhaps even more frequent is the situation of wanting to keep good relations with at least one Christian denomination while also not creating expectations of regular observance. How devout the people of that group are will of course vary considerably. Some think of themselves as Christians more strongly and more often than others.
To the best of my understanding, there is a strong correspondence between this group and that of the Christians who dislike organized religion - at least here in Brazil.
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Edited to add: maybe I misunderstood you, but it looks like you consider Protestant Christianity to be one and the same thing as Non-Denominational Christianity.
There is some overlap in practice, but no, they are not really the same thing, nor particularly compatible with each other.
