6/32 Another view of Jefferson Bethke’s comments on the Church
We have selected several responses to the YouTube “Religion I hate…but Jesus I love” by Jeffery Bethke. Here is another interesting reply adapted from: Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus, Patheos Website ‘The Smackdown.mht. Remember to leave your own comments at the end of this post.
“Without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, religion is a joke. This is made apparent not only in the words, but in the actions of Jesus Christ. Whether you believe in the sacraments or not, there is no doubt that Christ established ritual. It’s one thing to ignore Christ’s statement to “eat my body.” It’s another to ignore his command to “do this in memory of me.” Christ commanded that we have rituals.
“The early church followed this ritual; they obeyed his command to “do this in memory of me.” We know this because Paul says: “Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?” Does the mere Christ-follower-religion-hater obey Christ’s command to eat his body and drink his blood, and to do it in memory of Him?
“I do not mean ask whether they believe in the True Presence of Christ in the bread and wine, I simply mean to ask whether they follow the ritual Christ established at all? If not, it would seem that to be a Christ-follower is to ignore the commands Christ bids you follow.
“The Apostle Paul established a priesthood system in the book of Acts. If that word freaks you out, I’ll rephrase: He gave certain men very distinct roles.
“Christ so clearly established a Church, with rituals, with priests, and with sacraments, our man’s statement “What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion?” can only be answered with, “What if He told you that you were wrong?”
“There is not a single Christian denomination that says that there is any possible way you could get God not to love you. This is a basic premise of Christianity. We are never unloved. We may reject God, but He never, ever, ever rejects us. So I’ll take his “God doesn’t love…” bit to actually mean religion is against divorce.
“A common theme throughout the video is our man’s complaint that religion is just behavior modification, a list of rules to follow, and thus doesn’t get to the core of the matter — the call to love Christ as a response to his sacrifice on the cross. First of all, this 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 the idea that following rules is inherently contradictory to loving Christ flies in the face — yet again — not of religion, but of Christ. He says, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Love of Christ requires obedience to his commands. You cannot have one without the other.
“….but in all seriousness, the last part of the video is awesome. It’s a good explanation of how Christ died for our sins, how we are saved not by our own merits, but by his Grace. I’m not sure why it goes against Christ to be a religion that teaches exactly what our man is teaching in this video.
We invite you to add your comments to the posts as we go along. Agree? …or disagree? … What do you think?
Susanne Fengler, Blog Author
www.christianfoundations.jesus-treeoflife.info/blog
Tags: Smackdown's view of Bethke
Filed under: Challenges to the Christian Faith
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