Bethke starts out by stating, “What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion.” He then points out how religion has created so many wars and injustices in the world, attacking the neat, yet bogus, visage of religion.
Bethke then turns the focus to Jesus, stating, “[The church is] not a museum for good people, it’s a hospital for the broken, which means I don’t have to hide my failure; I don’t have to hide my sin because it doesn’t depend on me. It depends on him.”
The rest of the lyrics simply explain the difference between the failures of religion and the feats of Jesus.
This video elicited a fourteen-minute video rebuttal from The Amazing Atheist, a popular YouTube video maker. He questions the premise of the video, pointing out that, yes, Jesus did come to make a religion and summed up the video with an eloquent statement of “Yeah, f— religion, but yay Jesus.”
Additionally, there was a dubstep version of the video released two days after the release of the original video, mocking the message of it. This video repeated the phrases “Jesus is dead” and “Jesus was very gay” throughout the song.
However, there were also a great number of supporters for the video, including a video response from YouTube member, PBnJBand. In it, he argues “Jesus will put all those convictions [of religion] in your heart once you accept him.”
Furthermore, Makeafriar, a Catholic YouTube member, responded with his defense of the Church. He pointed out that there would be no basic doctrine of the Trinity, hospitals, education, charity, western literature, great works of art, college or the Bible had it not been for the institution of the Catholic Church, an organized religion. He said, “Jesus hates sin wherever we invent it,” explaining that the real problem with religion is sin that is found in it.
I believe, the real confusion comes from a misunderstanding of the definition of religion. According to Dictionary.com, religion is “the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.” Many opponents of Bethke are considering religion to simply be a practice of beliefs, whereas many supporters of him are considering religion to be the practice of self-righteousness before God.
Bethke clearly states in his video, “God never supports self-righteousness not now, not then.” He is adamant against this form of self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is in complete opposition to Christianity and has, throughout history, returned again and again.
Jesus himself confronted the self-righteous Pharisees of his day, calling them to a life of righteousness through him. According to Gerhard Leibholz [in “The Cost of Discipleship”], the great German theologian, Deitrich Bonhoeffer “considered self-righteousness and complacency great sins against the Holy Spirit.”
I would not go as far as to say that Jesus hates religion, for the Bible states that religion is “to visit the orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27). I do believe, however, that Jesus hates self-righteousness.
For when people offer up their works of righteousness before God, they have nothing to offer him. It is only when Christians appeal to Jesus as their righteousness that they are considered holy before God.
I think Jeff Bethke is very well intentioned, and that his youtube poem is thoughtful and delivered in a compelling way.
I think that I’m not quite sure what religion is – does he/do we mean “THE Church” or “a church” or “the people in this denomination” or “the people who run this denomination” or “anyone who believes in God or a god?”
I think that some of Jesus’ kingdom parables tell us that there will be evil within THE Church – within Christianity – all the way from its inception to the end of life as we know it. So THE Church will do stupid things, often.
I think that the response video of AmazingAtheist is trollish.
I think that THE Church or a church needs young adults and vice-versa, and to say that “I love Jesus but don’t like religion or the church and therefore I am not attending any church” is just as unaccepting and Pharisetical an attitude as that of the Pharisees. FWIW, Bethke attends a Mars Hill church plant from the original Mark Driscoll Mars Hill.
Thanks for posting this article, Nathan.
I agree, the definition of religion should have been established first, before Bethke went on to argue his points. He would get an F in SPE100.