Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus…My Thoughts

Recently a “spoken word poet” Jefferson Bethke posted a compelling, and very well produced video talking about religion and Jesus.  Here is his introduction to the video and the video itself.  Below I share a few thoughts:

A poem I wrote to highlight the difference between Jesus and false religion. In the scriptures Jesus received the most opposition from the most religious people of his day. At its core Jesus’ gospel and the good news of the Cross is in pure opposition to self-righteousness/self-justification. Religion is man centered, Jesus is God-centered. This poem highlights my journey to discover this truth. Religion either ends in pride or despair. Pride because you make a list and can do it and act better than everyone, or despair because you can’t do your own list of rules and feel “not good enough” for God. With Jesus though you have humble confident joy because He represents you, you don’t represent yourself and His sacrifice is perfect putting us in perfect standing with God!

I agree and applaud 90% of what Jefferson says.  I appreciate his efforts to communicating the truth of Christ in a compelling and excellent fashion that has reached over 12 million people, that is amazing!  He clearly reveals the true method of salvation through Christ alone by grace.  And I believe if someone looking for answers watched this video they would be able to respond to Jesus Christ call on their life.

I love the fact that in the middle he clarifies that he doesn’t equate religion with the true church of Christ.  This is such a common error or misconception that people have or make.  The truth is that Jesus established his church not on us (human based religiosity) but on himself and his truth, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God…and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” – Matthew 16:16-18

I disagree with a few things, far less than what I agree with:

• Christ didn’t come to abolish religion, period.  I am not a “religious” person, and I am not defending religion.  But to state that is the purpose of Christ’s coming undermines his true reason.  Jesus said, I have “…come to seek and to save that which was lost” – Luke 19:10.  He came to pay for our sins, to die in our place, to become cursed so we could be blessed.
• No, voting Republican doesn’t make you a Christian, just like voting Independent doesn’t make you an atheist and voting Democrat doesn’t make you catholic (these are called stereotypes).  This I simply don’t understand why it was included in his statement.  It smacks of opinion in something that should be absent of opinion and should be based upon facts found in the Bible.  When it comes to politics Christians shouldn’t be concerned about “party” as much as they do values that line up with Biblical principles.

All in all, I give it a thumbs up and I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments.