YouTube’s latest viral sensation is a video by a Christian named Jefferson Bethke. The video is called, “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus/Spoken Word.” You can watch it in the sidebar. I found the video a little misleading and have run up against this type of false dichotomy before. So let’s “reason together” as the Bible puts it.
The central theme of the video is that religion is bad, but Jesus and Christianity are good. The problem with this reasoning is pretty obvious. Jesus is the central figure in Christianity and Christianity is a religion! In fact, Christianity is the world’s largest religion. So to say that religion is bad, but Jesus and Christianity are good, doesn’t really make sense.
The goal here appears to be to shift all the responsibility for the horrible things that Christianity has done and continues to do and that the Bible advocates on to this idol of “religion.” Then Bethke pretends to destroy the idol, thereby absolving actual Christians from the responsibilities of their actions and the beliefs they advocate. The problem is that this is all a sham. The hate, atrocities, and immoral behavior of Christians still remain and many of the horrible things advocated in the Bible are still carried out. The video’s attempt to scapegoat the idol of “religion” to save Christianity (a religion) is just a slight of hand magic trick.
What are these horrible things I am talking about? Well, I think here the video actually mentions two big ones:
“I mean… if religion is so great, why has it started so many wars? Why does it build huge churches but fails to feed the poor?”
Of course the past atrocities committed not just by religion in general, but by Christianity specifically is too numerous to list, but the Spanish Inquisition does come quickly to mind. Still, there is no need to drudge up the past here; all we really need to do is look at the present. Nearly half the Christians in America reject the science of evolution, cosmology, and global climate change in favor of the belief in a literal Adam and Eve, a 6000 year-old universe, and Noah’s Ark. Then there is the resistance to stem cell research, contraception, and sex education. There is of course the hate toward gays and atheists too plus many other modern examples of moral deficiencies Christians perpetrate upon society… again too numerous to list. While the video criticizes “religion” in doing so it also criticizes Christianity, which again is a religion!
Now, it would be fun to go line-by-line through the spoken word, there is no need. Once the curtain has been pulled back, it becomes pretty obvious what is going on here. I will address a few particular lines from the video that I think illustrate the problem.
“Now let me clarify, I love the church, I love the Bible, and yes I believe in sin, but if Jesus came to your church would they actually let him in?”
In the end, Bethke preaches the exact same massage that he appears to criticize in regard to religion. He continues to support the belief that humans are inherently evil and that if you don’t believe you not only will be tortured for all eternity, but that you should be tortured for all eternity regardless of your moral actions, unless you believe the unbelievable on insufficient evidence. He just dresses it up and spins the language so that these beliefs are obfuscated. However, I went to his church website and this is what it had to say:
“We believe that man was created in the image and likeness of God, but that through Adam’s sin the race fell, inherited a sinful nature, and became alienated from God; man is totally depraved and of himself utterly unable to remedy his lost condition.” Mars Hill Church
“Now back to the point, one thing is vital to mention, how Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrums. See, one is the work of God, but one is a man-made invention. One is the cure, the other is the infection. See, because religion says do, Jesus says done. Religion says slave, Jesus says son. Religion puts you in bondage, while Jesus sets you free. Religion makes you blind, while Jesus makes you see.”
Actually, all the traits Bethke ascribes to religion is also true for Christianity. God is a man-made invention… every god from Allah to Zeus. Christianity is an infection and that is why Bethke isn’t being purposefully deceitful despite the sham of the argument.
“And while being murdered, he yelled, ‘father forgive them, they know not what they do.’ Because when he was dangling on that cross, he was thinking of you.”
That is certainly one point of view according to the Bible, but of course there is another in the Gospel of Matthew. In that version of the story, while being murdered he yelled, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Because while he was dangling on that cross, he was thinking of himself!
The hip, slick style of this video is quite compelling but when you get down to it, it is just the same old bag of tricks. Claims are asserted with no actual evidence to back any of them up. Words are re-defined and the “sins” of Christianity are just scapegoated onto this boogieman of “religion.” But Bethke really doesn’t present any evidence to suggest that Christianity isn’t in fact just a religion. The truth is that Christianity is a religion and falls prey to all the criticisms Bethke makes against religionand then some.
A rose by any other name is still a rose and a rose is still a flower no matter how you want to pretend it isn’t. In the case of Christianity however, all the petals are gone and we are just left with the thorny stem.
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