A Response to "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_tC4fv6FE

These are two videos that have been posted all over facebook.  The first one, "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus," has gone viral with over 15 million views.  The second one, "Why I Love Religion, And Love Jesus," is newer and beginning to make the rounds.

Ultimately, I think both of these videos are trying to make the same point, though they seem to be arguing from opposite ends.  Jefferson Bethke, the spoken word artist and writer for the first video, notes that this poem is to highlight the difference between Jesus and false religion.  Unfortunately, despite the line confessing that he does not hate the Church, the video still comes across suggesting that all religion is bad because it gets in the way of following Jesus.  Fr. Pontifex, the lyricist (and I believe performer) for the second video, comes back to argue that religion is most often the vehicle for following Jesus and the oft-needed framework and structure.

It seems like these days a lot of people have been burned by a church, thus making them "spiritual, but not religious."  There are two main ways we can respond to this:
1) Turn our frustrations against certain aspects and people of the Church and reject the whole thing entirely.
2) Recognize the broken and weak parts and work to redeem the Church as the Bride of Christ.

It seems to me that God is in the redemption business, so maybe with His help we can straighten some of this stuff out.

I want to commend both Jefferson Bethke and Fr. Pontifex for making creative and inspiring videos charging people to follow Jesus more whole-heartedly and not get caught up in empty actions and promises.  Their work is valuable and important.  However, it is important that we define our terms in this type of discussion (what do we mean by "religion"?).  I also encourage everyone to spend less time discussing what is right and wrong, so they have more time to simply be obedient to Christ and live out their convictions.  I'll close with this response by Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Luke 10:25-29:

"We have literally no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether so-and-so is our neighbour or not.  We must get into action and obey - we must behave like a neighbour to him.  But perhaps this shocks you.  Perhaps you still think you ought to think out beforehand and know what you ought to do.  To that there is only one answer.  You can only know and think about it by actually doing it.  You can only learn what obedience is by obeying.  It is no use asking questions; for it is only through obedience that you come to learn the truth."