Two Responses to “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus” Video
The “Jesus > Religion” Video includes a few great points, but fails with others.
When I first saw the video I was tempted to post it here with a few cautions. I am strapped for time, but what others have said is sufficient.
Here is the video:
Here are the cautions:
From Jared Wilson
- Some make a boogeyman out of the idea of “religious people,” by which it becomes clear what they mean is “traditional people” or the uncool. My feeling is that the Bible-thumping, starched suit-wearing, hellfire and brimstone religious people taking the fun out of fundamentalism are becoming fewer and farther between, while the church is brimming with self-righteous hipsters and cooler-than-thous. The Pharisees look like Vampire Weekend now. I’m not saying Jefferson is one of those guys; I’m just saying he’s offering them red meat.
- The way the fellow in the video defines religion, he is right to hate it. But the more he goes on, the less justification he’s got for using the word religion. It’s not religion that does all those things. It’s not even the Law that does all those things. The Law is good! (See Romans 7:12, for instance, or 1 Timothy 1:18.) It’s self-righteousness that does all those things. Religion is not, as the fellow says, a man-made invention: legalism is. And even as the Scriptures tell us the harsh things the Law does, it never gives us license to hate it. So it’s not the Law or religion the Bible is against, but legalism and “self-made religion” (Colossians 2:23).
- And the really controversial point we ought to make is this: Jesus did not hate religion. He was in fact a religious person.
From Jonathan Fitzgerald
Bethke doesn’t mean religion either, but he’s rehearsing a popular evangelical trope, that the freedom that Christians find through Jesus is freedom from structure, organization, and authority. Of course, Bethke, like all Christians, is a member of a religion. . . . What Bethke is actually railing against is people whose expression of religion doesn’t look like he believes it should. Thus, rather than discounting religion, he is just discounting other religions, or even just other manifestations of his own religion. . . . here Bethke is doing far more harm than good by playing into hurtful stereotypes about religion–his religion and mine, as well as the other major world religions. Denouncing this video takes stepping outside of evangelical subculture to see its actual implications beyond our little playground, but doing so, I think, is extremely important.
HT: JS
And for a more detailed critique of “poem,” see this.
Cameron, good quotation. I appreciate your blog.
James, thanks for letting steal your links. I appreciate the additional one. Your tweet was timely as a good number of my students are interacting with the video.
I think they missed the whole point the artist was trying to convey. They quote him as saying that his intent was to to “highlight the difference between Jesus and false religion.” They then turn around and intellectually scold him stating that:
“[religion is] by itself, an entirely neutral word. Religion can refer to Judaism (Acts 26:5) or the Jewish-Christian faith (Acts 25:19). Religion can be bad when it is self-made (Col. 2:23) or fails to tame the tongue (James 1:26). But religion can also be good when it cares for widows and orphans and practices moral purity (James 1:27)”
They just quoted the artist stating that he was talking about “false religion” but then go on to state that he doesn’t define his terms.
I think given his off-screen comments, it is clear that he is condemning false religion and it is clear from both the on-screen and off-screen comments that he is not talking about 1st century Judaism or 1st century Christianity – he is talking about present-day, American Christianity and in particular those within that category that are nominal, hypocritical, or using the non-biblical traditions to judge their own actions and the actions of others.
We can no more expect a short poem to convey the complexity of Christian doctrine than we can expect a single painting to convey the richness of a culture or someone’s full range of emotion.
Jefferson, the artist, agreed with their criticism.
Check out Kevin DeYoung’s analysis of the poem and then take a look at Jefferson’s response.
I read someone say, “this video is the best poorly communicated thing I have seen in a long time.” From what I’ve read of the poet’s intent, he is trying to make a valid point. It just seems like one long string of tweets/FB statuses/church sign theology. And that’s never a good way to communicate complex thought.
There are too many words and concepts (religion, church, etc.) that have a broad range of possible interpretations for it to be accurately precise. Thus, a broad range of people can find agreement with it.