Actually, “clanging cymbal” is probably a too-generous descriptor of this video (“Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus”), which has been ricocheting across the Internet of late, racking up somewhere in the neighborhood of six million views in just three days.
What captivating here, aside from the evangelical street smarts on display in the young speaker’s (rather well-executed) quasi-verse monologue, is that some of his message is: “an absolutely valid critique of what religion should not be. If it is just a set of rules and not a love affair, it is dead. You can’t have works without faith any more than you can have faith without works.”
But where the young man is wrong, he’s exquisitely wrong. He doesn’t criticize organized religion so much as he absolutely dismembers it, spurns it on principle (it’s “the infection,” creating “slaves”). No reform would be good enough for this young man, so religion must be abolished completely as, he ludicrously claims, Christ intended. While some of his lines may sound like standard Protestant accusations against Catholics (the denunciations of elaborate church architecture, the implication that those who follow “rules” don’t understand that Christ’s work is “finished”), he goes far beyond even the most austere Christian denomination’s theology (and far beyond the pale) when, by the admission of the video’s own title, he descends into outright hatred.
I won’t attempt to deconstruct any more of the video’s argument here, as it is an infuriating task, and has (thankfully) been done on countless other blogs already. A balanced, charitable-but-firm rebuttal can be found at Patheos’ “Bad Catholic,” which combs through the video’s claims and attempts to separate the intellectual wheat from the chaff, of which there is much.
January 13th, 2012 | 4:18 pm
I can only imagine that Protestant readers will take objection to the idea that hating religion and loving Jesus is the logical consequence of Protestantism! It would be difficult to place myself on a spectrum between Catholic and Protestant (if I even have a spot there) but I think that is a major insult to Protestants.
A lot hinges on what this guy (Jefferson Bethke) means by religion. On his Facebook Page, he says:
Bad Catholic says:
Once again, a lot depends on what Bethke means by religion. But I find Bad Catholic on weak ground here, anyway. Where is the Law that Jesus didn’t come to abolish? The topic of Jesus and the Law is extraordinarily complex, and Bad Catholic certainly doesn’t do justice to it. In any case, if by religion Bethke means legalism and hypocrisy, then of course Jesus wanted to get rid of it.
Bad Catholic says:
Catholics, of course, take Church here to refer to the Catholic Church, but I think even many Catholics would agree that the word can be translated “community” and does not refer to the Catholic Church.
I don’t think Bad Catholic does a very good job of critiquing the video. He just makes a rather simpleminded defense of the Catholic Church, which I don’t even see as being attacked, although Bad Catholic is trashing Protestantism.
January 13th, 2012 | 5:03 pm
[...] h/t: A First Things Blog. [...]
January 13th, 2012 | 5:09 pm
We need to distinguish between hypocritical heresy, and Christianity and the Church. I eagerly attack the former. I will not accept an attack on the latter.
January 13th, 2012 | 7:08 pm
This young man’s line of thought is defiance parading as insight. Does he apply this approach elsewhere? For example: I love democracy but I hate governments. I love athletics, but I hate organized sports. I love learning, but I hate colleges. I love health, but I hate organized medicine. etc., etc. He subscribes to the ‘just me ‘n Jesus’ brand of Utopianity.
Good luck brother.
Pete
January 13th, 2012 | 7:22 pm
A lot does indeed hinge on the definition of “religion.” Like “culture” and “politics,” “religion” can mean many different things, sometimes simultaneously. Personally, I like the definition made by Mircea Eliade, which is that religion is simply the distinction between sacred and profane. It follows then that everyone has a religion, even if you hold nothing to be sacred or believe Jesus was an anarchist (as the maker of this video seems to), that belief itself is sacred to you.
Probably the worst thing about this video is that it essentially accuses almost every Christian ever of not being good or intelligent enough to grasp what Jesus “really” meant. There is an incredible amount of arrogance involved in casting such a judgment, especially when it involves judging people for being too judgmental. Humility is more subtle than that.
January 13th, 2012 | 7:39 pm
If he’s got a problem with organised religion, let’s hope he never sees the disorganised kind.
January 13th, 2012 | 7:44 pm
And also for what it’s worth, readers of FT may be interested in Eliade’s view of secularism. Very interesting, in my opinion… I don’t think I’ve ever seen him mentioned in FT.
January 13th, 2012 | 8:05 pm
[...] While it is tempting to write a lengthy ecclesiological response to it, Matthew Cantirino over at First Things did the hard work for me. His review of the video can be found here. [...]
January 13th, 2012 | 8:28 pm
God bless that young man. I think he had some good thoughts.
Even so, Christ did found a Church with an earthly component — a real institution in this fallen world in which He placed in authority real, flesh and blood mortals. He promised them He and the Holy Spirit would be with the Church until the end of time. That promise was not conditional. Christ keeps it in spite of the sins of religion, not because religion is sinless.
Those who take up their cross and follow Him as He asked us to do will see the intrinsic goodness in His Church which is brought about by the Holy Spirit dwelling within it according to the promise of Christ. That goodness cannot be diminished by the sins of religion and religious people.
By the way, the sins of religion are insignificant in comparison to the suffering, death and destruction brought about by the modern, deified, secular state which has utterly rejected theism and the respect for the inalienable rights of humanity it demands. Acknowledging no authority above its own, the modern state’s arrogant, baseless self-confidence is its only guide as it carries out its lethal, godless social engineering that is in blatant contradiction to all that nature and nature’s God made plain to previous generations.
January 14th, 2012 | 6:25 am
David Nichols wrote
“I can only imagine that Protestant readers will take objection to the idea that hating religion and loving Jesus is the logical consequence of Protestantism!”
It can be fairly seen as the product of the Protestant tendency to define “true Christians” by their tenets. “True Christians are those who believe the true faith” and “The true faith is what true Christians believe.” Catholics escape these question-begging assumptions, as Mgr Ronald Knox explained:
“The fideles, be they many or few, be their doctrine apparently traditional or apparently innovatory, be their champions honest or unscrupulous, are simply those who are in visible communion with the see of Rome.”
Not only does it avoid the vice of circularity, but it is remarkably easy of application; just what one would expect of the criterion of a divine message, intended for all, regardless of learning, capacity or circumstances.
January 14th, 2012 | 10:15 am
You can’t have love unless you are willing to show it. Why not say to a woman,”I love you, but I intend to have affairs with other women, refrain from comforting you when you are sick, let you take on the whole burden of protecting and providing for yourself and me without doing the slightest bit to help. I intend to show my love by doing absolutely nothing except drain your cash supplies.”
January 14th, 2012 | 12:25 pm
David? Why do you not cut the “Bad Catholic” author the same slack you cut “Why I hate religion, but love Jesus”? If you were consistent in your critiques, you would be more believable.
Of course Catholics think Catholic church when Church is used. That’s one of the reasons they are Catholic. And yes, Catholics disagree with Protestants and have for over five hundred years. There’s nothing new there. If “Hate/Love” spent more time talking about his Love, he probably would not have had, what is it, 6 million hits. Unfortunately, there is nothing new there as well. That is our fault as individual human beings not that of “religion”.
January 14th, 2012 | 2:24 pm
David? Why do you not cut the “Bad Catholic” author the same slack you cut “Why I hate religion, but love Jesus”? If you were consistent in your critiques, you would be more believable.
Mike,
One reason is that Jefferson Bethke (the young man in the video) is under attack here, and I am defending him. Matthew Cantirino alludes to St. Paul: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” He says that “’clanging cymbal’” is probably a too-generous descriptor of this video.” I see an earnest young man trying to come to grips with ultimate questions when probably a great many his age are simply indifferent, and I think he deserves better.
I have always thought it interesting that the “religion” of the earliest followers of Jesus was Judaism. It was their personal commitment to Jesus that set them apart form other Jews, but otherwise they were Jews (as, of course, was Jesus).
January 14th, 2012 | 2:31 pm
I love democracy but I hate governments.
pete,
I think the analogy would more likely be, “I love democracy, but I hate politics.” Bethke says he hates religion, but he loves the church and the bible. One might very well love democracy, love one’s country, and hate “politics.”
And besides, don’t many contemporary conservatives hate the government? They certainly talk like they do.
January 14th, 2012 | 4:10 pm
The claim that he goes “far beyond even the most austere Christian denomination’s theology (and far beyond the pale) when, by the admission of the video’s own title, he descends into outright hatred” doesn’t bear scrutiny. There’s nothing wrong with hating things (as opposed to people) that deserve to be hated. And surely much religion is no better now than it was in Christ’s day. Not for nothing our Lord’s words to the religious establishment of his day continue to be remembered: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you titche mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith….You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!”
January 14th, 2012 | 4:18 pm
Jesus is a humanist teddy bear.
You may take him out and play with him and make him say whatever you want.
That’s how humanism is tempting Christianity – with the promise that adopting humanist values over Christian ones will make for a world where Jesus is your toy to manipulate as you will.
And it seems to be working. Many (churches and individuals both) are not only embracing humanist values, but are doing so in the name of Christ.
January 14th, 2012 | 4:21 pm
I think that Cantirino is correct in many of his theological criticisms, but is there no place for youthful enthusiasm? Yes, it has run amok in an ecclesial sense, but I thought Bad Catholic’s response was rude, smug and off-putting. Apologetic responses should be gentle and responsive to the one delivering the message. If this video was produced by a Catholic theologian? Go hard! Does the fact he has hit almost 10 million views tell us something about the resonance of his message with young people? I look at Bad Catholic’s response here (http://www.biblejunkies.com/2012/01/why-i-do-not-like-people-who-make.html) and I think it is a bad response.
January 14th, 2012 | 7:12 pm
On youtube, his first sentence under the video reads, “A poem I wrote to highlight the difference between Jesus and false religion.”
But his title is simply an outgrowth of the mantra we have heard for decades now: “Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship.”
People have such a hard time with ‘the holy conjunction…”and.”‘
Of course, anyone who has read Augustine or Luther or Wesley, etc. knows that the distinction used to be between true religion and false religion.
C.S. Lewis’ rule for reading would provide a powerful antidote for the spirit of our times:
“…after reading a new book, never allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one…keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds…”
January 15th, 2012 | 12:45 am
A rhyming rebuttal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyXIcLixtG4
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