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I think this really fits my view of things.
Thanks for sharing that, Arwen. I agree with much of what he says and disagree with some of it – but I think the message should be heard and considered by a lot of people. I’m sure, however, that the people who need to hear it the most won’t listen beyond the first incorrect statement in it at the very beginning of the video – that Jesus’ mission was to abolish religion. I think that conclusion is impossible to reach with a simple reading of the text. I believe his mission absolutely was to reform religion and chastise religious leaders, but I can’t see abolition of religion in the Gospels. I also didn’t like that he followed that immediately with a statement about political affiliation – primarily for one reason:
When you start with that question (“What would you say if I told you?”), the answer from those about whom you’re complaining generally is going to be, “You’re wrong” – as they click the the video closed. Iow, it’s going to turn off the ones who really need to understand what he’s trying to say because they have the actual power to make the changes that need to be made.Iow, I think the statements are mixed as far as accuracy and hyperbole, the message is important to hear and consider seriously and the presentation is really bad with regard to making any real change. As a polemic, artistically and as a political statement, it’s really good – and I appreciate what he’s trying to do. However, as an agent for real and meaningful change, it’s disappointing.
I would agree with you one perfect, Ray. Abolishing religion wouldn’t be the answer because too many people, me included, need the teachings that will help me find peace to be more Christ-like. The problem with religion and especially Mormonism is that it wants to set out so many rules and regulations that you must follow to understand Christ. I am sure that if Jesus showed up today and took a look at the Mormon church he would scream Pharisee. How could he not with the legalistic approach we take. That said Mormonism and other religions I think do try to teach of Christ. They do study his teachings or at least what they understand his teachings to be. They want to follow Christ, but they cant seem to help themselves by adding layers of bureaucracy and requirements to worship of the savior I think the problem with the video (and I do like it and have seen it numerous times before) is that “religion” and “Jesus” can both be found in church. What’s being described is essentially the difference between the elder brother who thinks he can work his way into the father’s graces to receive an inheritance and the younger son who comes to realize that it’s the father’s grace which makes him an heir rather than and in spite of his own works. Ironically, both brothers are invited into the very same feast. And it’s hard to tell, from the outside, who is there because he’s been made a son through acceptance of the father’s love and who is there, slaving away, to earn an inheritance, the likes of which he can never merit.
I know there are people sitting in the pews while I worship who have yet to fully appreciate the full power of the atonement. I know there are people who feel they must work their way into heaven and may inwardly be judging those who they know fall short of their impossible standard. I know they see standards as boxes to be checked along a path of upward mobility. Sometimes those elder brothers are at the pulpit or in the front of the classroom (a position to which those kinds of thinkers tend to aspire and in which God frequently places those who need a clearer view of their own inadequacy).
So what?
I don’t care because I know that I was also just like them. I know that once I pushed the ring and robe back at my Father and said essentially, No, I’ll work off my debt. But If He can show me a better, truer gospel, He can show it to those people three pews over. Maybe, our sitting together in the same pews, sharing the same communal offering, bearing one another’s burdens, with whatever motive, will allow us both to grow and be blessed. Maybe, just maybe, the son who slaves away will begin to see God through my eyes and will realize that he is ever with the father and that he can already access all that the father hath. Maybe he will learn to live the commandments, not because he is afraid to break them, but because living them is a better way. Maybe he will learn to weed out religion and find Christ in the same pews where I sit feasting.
Without the trappings of religion and its accompanying theologies and legalistic constraints, we might never know how utterly lost we are without Christ. We might never discover His extravagant, prodigal love. Both Paul and Lehi teach that we are provided with the law (religion) so that we will realize that it doesn’t save.
The irony of progress through opposition never ceases to amaze me.
(sorry… rambling… the point is that eventually we will throw out the bathwater, but the baby isn’t quite clean yet…)
My daughter showed me this video as well. My response to her is that clumping together everything to call it “Religion” is then so generalized, it loses meaning to me. It is like tasting an orange peel and then saying all fruit is bitter and not as good for you as a vegetable. But I get the point the dude is trying to make, it just doesn’t hold up to the billions who use organized religion to produce good works over centuries. I believe there is a place for religion, we just have to find that right place and application.
Jesus did not preach against all religion, he was just trying to correct the course of it. I don’t think you an have the one without the other in Chistianity.
I enjoyed this response to the video. It is by a guy who calls himself the Amazing Atheist. Although I do retain a belief in God I feel he makes a pretty good analysis of the Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus poem. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBo7Z_abiLEhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBo7Z_abiLE” class=”bbcode_url”> FYI there is a bit of cursing.
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