A spoken word poem, “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus,” has become popular lately. As we write, the video on YouTube has had 13,564,045 views. There are numerous responses, a great many favorable. The young poet, Jefferson Bethke, is giving voice to opinions prevalent among postmoderns whose worldview is often characterized by mistrust of social institutions including the church. Wilber and I discussed points the poem attempts to make and offer this response. We trust our brethren will know with what spirit we offer it. Anticipating some who share the poet’s views may read this and be tempted to dismiss it without consideration as the voice of organized religion they despise, all we ask for is courtesy and intellectual honesty and to consider what we say with an open mind.
The poet’s website where you can find the complete poem is http://rapgenius.com/Jefferson-bethke-why-i-hate-religion-but-love-jesus-spoken-word-lyrics. The poem begins, “What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion…?” Well, we’d listen patiently as you explained yourself, but ultimately respond, “You’ve mis-defined the word religion and so made a gross over-generalization.” The word religion comes from Latin and originally either meant to “read again,” as in to make reverent consideration, or to “bind again,” that is to “re-align.” Augustine emphasized the latter and so the word has carried the concept of truth, law, and ceremony that “binds man back to God” ever since. I can’t find anything in any definition of the word that supports the negative connotations espoused by Bethke in his poem. His negative view of religion doesn’t come from anything in the word or from anything historically accurate, and certainly not from its biblical use, but from the misuse of the word by certain pop-culture figures in recent years. In fact, the relationship with Jesus Bethke talks about favorably in the poem fits the definition of religion! We’ve no doubt the young poet means well, and there are some points in the poem with which we agree, but overall he understands just enough to be dangerous, and this highlights the devastating spiritual results of not knowing the Bible.
The poem continues to criticize those who politicize Christianity as synonymous with “Republican.” We don’t disagree with Bethke on that, but wish he would have been fair enough to say it isn’t “Democrat” either. He says, “Just because you call some people blind doesn’t automatically give you vision.” We reply, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” Here is a summary of his main criticisms of religion: It’s started wars; builds huge buildings but fails to feed the poor; abuses divorced single moms; in the Old Testament God calls religious people whores; failure to practice what’s preached; just emptily following rules; creates museums for “good people” rather than hospitals for the broken; and so on. He sums up his criticisms by saying, “Now back to the point, one thing is vital to mention, how Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrums. see one’s the work of God, but one’s a man made invention. See, one is the cure, but the other’s the infection.” The Bible says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” Sounds like the cure Bethke’s actually looking for if you ask me.
By: Joshua Pappas & Matt Wilber
More later in the week. Feel free to discuss…