This video has taken YouTube by storm:
All of my friends had a look at it and it sure caused some contention in our group. Sweaty just shrugged it off. Pancake said he liked the camera angles. Bruce Fish thought the guy was "right on the money". This caused Rose Fish to get a little heated with him. She accepted most of it, but really took exception to him saying that he "hates religion". Her belief is that word is too strong.
French seemed to like it and said that: "He was never one to let religion get in the way of his faith."
This message does resound in me, to a degree. I have "hated" religion, or at least Church for most of my life. I went back to church in 2008 and even got baptised in November of that year. However I still stuggle with religion. I squirm a bit when people call me religious, or ask me if I work at a religious camp.
I never know how to answer the question: "Are you religious?" Maybe this video can be my answer.
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8 comments:
this is such a powerful piece. a lot of what the man in the video says i have to agree with. the way the man said it was marvelous.
French hit for me right on the head with faith.
thank you for sharing this. i will surely pass it on.
~robert
I hadn't seen this and watched it a couple of times.
I do think we make a mistake when we rely on the church to direct and fix us, because the church is made up of imperfect people.
I also think this young man, though incredibly eloquent, is making a mistake to a certain extent because--while he says he loves the church--most of his words don't communicate that. He dislikes religion, essentially, because it's faulty. It's faulty because it comes from people. But ALL people are sinners to whom God extends grace. So it's problematic to infer: I'm a sinner saved by grace! But I hate everything you've tried to build in serving God! I hate the messed-up works of your hands and the messed-up attempts of your heart!
In short, I think he's speaking from a point of anger...not from the love of Jesus in which he's so proud to be bathed.
Maybe that's what strikes me as wrong, now that I type it: the pride in the presentation.
I wonder: is he truly nudging people closer to Christ, with this? I don't feel closer, personally.
I sure am glad he knows Christ, though, and I hope he helps someone!!!
@ Brandee,
Although I understand your sediment, Paul prompted us to use our anger, in his epistle to the Ephesians 4:26, among others. Keep in mind also that there are two types of anger, righteous indignation and sinful anger, the former having many examples in the scriptures. One that sticks out in my mind is Christ's anger in the temple with the money lenders. When he was overturning the tables, he was certainly not evangelizing. He was rebuking those who claim to be holy, just as this young man in the video is doing. There is a time to evangelize and there is a time to rebuke, and there are very few times when you can do both at the same time. God bless.
Poot
Extremely COOL.
This is the same topic I wrote about and linked up to Imperfect Prose this week. I would have never become a believer (I doubt) if not for a church that emphasized the power of faith over religion and who Christ was in spite of the failure of his followers.
"Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." - James.
i tend to answer no honestly...i struggle with it too as it was force fed growing up...and i never want to treat others the way i was...
i think Jesus was anti-religion... I'm definitely anti-Pharisee. love how you make me think.
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