I believe this probably one of the most important question a person of faith in the God of the bible might ask because to be religious dose not qualify you to be a Christian.A christian is one who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ and are devoted to those belief.Religious people are people who follow the orders of there doctrinal belief. Religion is the following of rituals and ceremonies where christianity believe God is ever present and demonstrates his power and other words christian expect God's help.One of the major difference between religion and christianity is a word call principles,compared to a word call duties principles are beliefs that we live and demonstrate such as love,discipline, faith,hope where duties are rules that require no human compassion they are done out of obligation.

Division is a word believers must take a real good look at because division causes love to be still.Even though I know there are differences and religion and christian I will only give a little space to pointing out difference because and the hour we know live believers must unite and have a single voice I believe the only question believers should ask each other is do you believe. People of God must unite Jew ,Christian Muslim, and so far as long as they are not pagans if the pray to the invisible God and they believe he is the creator then as his follower we have and obligation to our lord to share his ideas to have a life of fulfillment.Believer's must except our role of being our bother keeper that a true sign of belief and God.

Believers that call themselves christian have and obligation to Christ to preach the gospel of forgiveness as he did because to be christian is to be Christ like and to be Christ like is to bring light to darkness. Francis of Assis wrote a prayer about the sign of christianity, where there is hate bring love ,sorrow bring joy,sad bring happiness,despair bring hope, gullit bring forgiveness,sickness bring healing,yes christian should be the prophets of hope to a distraught land.

One more difference that I should mention is the contrast between forgiveness and acceptance when it comes to sin,forgiveness offer a way out of sin into the Hands of a loving God,acceptance is the act of saying there are no sins we must accept people regardless of there lifestyles this is not so we offer forgiveness to all because the rules are not our own we believe the word of God to be true.Religion has no convictions it goes the way of the times and fads of life this is not what Christ did. Remember to be a christian is to be Christ like and to stand for the principles that are written.

And one or two last comments something Christian and religious people have an common is the tendency to be close minded Christ showed that he was open minded on several occasions example he with no sin throw the first stone the woman was not stone and accepted forgiveness and followed Christ until he went home.

I hope I have answered your request I plan to do research and write another hub on this subject with more facts and example that have been written down through the years I recommend to check out a book by William James The Varieties Of The Religious Experience.