So, this is something of a response to a response to a response to a concern I have with the modern church.
First, let me begin with a definition. I believe that the "church" is us, those of us that believe God is more than just loving, but is actually Love. That Jesus' sacrifice for us, those who are spectacularly unworthy, was a manifestation of this Love. We show this Love through community, caring for one another, challenging one another, and supporting one another. When we do those things, we are the church, because the church is not a building with stained glass windows. I believe that the church has shown Love in many incredible ways around the world, both now and throughout history. I'm grateful, and somehow both proud and humbled to have been a part of some of those ways, both on the giving and receiving ends. I believe that being part of a local church community is important. I have been, and continue to be involved in a local church community. So, when I say "church", I mean we, the people who make up the church, both locally and internationally. I mean something that I believe in and am a part of. And I mean that I am fully including myself.
Furthermore, I dislike complaining. I take issue with cowards who are only willing to sit on the (often virtual) sidelines nit-picking at the actions performed by those brave enough to actually participate in something they believe in. If you have a problem with something you are viewing, either become part of the solution or change the direction you are looking. So what I am attempting here is not to throw my own little can of gasoline onto the fire, but trying to clarify what I believe is an issue that needs to be addressed.
Now, back to my response to a response to a response. Let's start with my concern. What do I think the root of the problem is?
Fear.
A fear that we could be wrong. A fear that our entire system of personal beliefs is like a house of cards and that at any moment the soft breath of a stray thought or question could bring them all crashing down. We’re not afraid of being wrong about little things, because to us there are no little things. Everything is of grave consequence.
There is black.
And there is white.
That’s it.
There are no grey areas.
And because everything is either right or wrong, and to be wrong about any of these things would lead to a catastrophic conclusion, we live in continual fear of anything that doesn’t match exactly with our set of beliefs. Because we can’t afford to be wrong.
And so, to anyone we disagree with we respond by lobbing defensive arguments and ill-structured retorts, often beginning our responses so quickly that we don’t have time to actually listen to and hear the entirety of their message. And so, any actual truth and Love we would actually wish to inform people of is lost amid the disharmonious chorus of our voices as we each loudly proclaim the merits of our personal time piece to a world simply asking what time it is.
The danger in always believing you are right, is that it start to become very proud. I mean, being right all the time is something to be proud of, isn’t it?
Pride.
You know, that feeling that always seems to precede a tumble.
And it always comes before a tumble because when you are proud, you’re too satisfied with your own grasp of the world to have any self-awareness.
And this is where I’m concerned the church is headed.
This fear and pride manifests itself in many different ways, appearing to varying degrees in a multitude of actions, reactions, decisions, proclamations, books, blogs, and newsletters. It's not always easy to identify because often it's only present as a blink-and-you-miss-it stubborn glance, or is masked by religious sounding rhetoric, or repeated as well meant but misguided advice. It's not a new issue; in fact I'm fairly certain it's older than the church itself. Because really, it's not a "church" issue, it's a human issue. And the church being made up of humans means that it will have problems including this one.
This brings me to the last of the responses listed above: the response to which the other responses respond. The response to the concern.
There is a growing movement of people who believe that the true mission of the church has been lost. They believe we've stopped listening to the needs of others, that there is a disconnect between what the church is doing and what the church needs to be doing, and more than that, a difference between what the church is doing and what it believes it’s doing. That we've refined our rules, policies and theology to a place of apparent perfection, but somehow don't understand how to actually implement them. It's not difficult to find books, blogs and sermons from major church leaders around North America discussing this issue. And it's not just pastors and Christians voicing this concern. There are many who claim no interest in God primarily because they feel that the church is hypocritical, that we speak of Love for everyone, but don't show it (to use a passage from the Bible, "They will know we are Christians by our love", or they won't).
The latest voice is that of Jefferson Bethke, a young man who describes the problems he sees as "religion", something he hates, and something he believes is the opposite of what Jesus has called us to. He uses the word "religion" to describe our human ability to turn Love into a list of rules. A "man-made invention" that lacks any ability to grant salvation or offer hope of any kind. As you may already know, his spoken word poem immediately went viral, watched by millions of people within days. And why did it go viral? I think it's because he said what millions of people are thinking. It resonated with them. He was expressing what many people felt deeply and passionately, but have been unable to express nearly as eloquently. He was now the voice of response, the cry of millions of people unsatisfied with the church's current expression of Love.
And then came the second response. As many celebrated Bethke's video, a strong rebuke came from an apparently equally large number of people, those “protecting the church”. They felt that among other things, Bethke was misusing the word "religion", that he was disregarding the church and didn't have his theology straight. And it is to this response that I feel compelled to respond, the third in this trilogy of "responses".
I'm going to have to generalize a little bit here, but the basic arguments against Bethke are:
-Jesus was devoutly religious, so we should be to;
-Jesus is the founder of the church
-the church has done many wonderful things, so ease back on your criticism
-his use of the word "religion" is misleading and misguided
Why do I disagree? What is my response?
First, saying Jesus was devoutly religious is at best misleading. In a statement of the completely obvious, Jesus lived before the time of His death (and resurrection). Yes, He lived before He died. Which means there was no catholic church, no baptists, and no pentecostals. He was born into a Jewish family. So for Jesus to have been religious, he would have had to act according to the Jewish religion. And so, Jesus went to the temple. He read the Torah (what is now our Old Testament in the Bible). He kept all of the ten commandments. However, for the Jews of his era, being religious didn’t mean just following the ten commandments, it also required following the Rabbinic Law, additional rules, policies and theologies created by the religious leaders of His day. Of the many miracles Jesus performed in the Bible, many were not only a display of his divine nature and power, but also were direct criticisms of the Jewish religious leaders and their glorification of the Rabbinic Law. He used religious jars to turn water into wine. He healed on the Sabbath. And one time when He went into the temple, He started throwing over tables and chasing the vendors out of their stalls. Who allowed those vendors to be there? The religious leaders of the day. What were they selling? Pornography? Drugs? Nope, they were selling animals and other items to be used in religious ceremonies. Catch that? My guess is that Jesus did not purchase a dove for sacrifice prior to flipping the table over. Not only did He not follow all of the religious laws of His day, He was repulsed by some of those that placed value on the Rabbinic Law over Love. This, of course, led to Jesus' biggest critics being the Pharisees, the experts on the Jewish religious law. They were constantly pointing out all of the times He didn't abide by their laws, by their rules, policies and theologies. And Jesus didn't seem to think very highly of them either, calling them a "brood of vipers” and "white washed tombs" (an analogy adapted by Bethke). So was He then religious? The important thing to identify is the distinction between which laws He kept and which He didn't. The ones He did keep are then the ones that He deems important, those that proclaim Love. For Jesus, it all began with Love. So no, Jesus was not a devoutly religious Jew. He was the beginning of something much bigger and better.
One the first major pieces of this bigger and better was Paul. A major contributor to the Bible and a crucial part of the post-resurrection belief system the modern church is built upon. Now, as opposed to Jesus, Paul had been a follower of the Rabbinic Law, one of the best of the best according to one of his letters. So, being the perfect model of religion, he must have taken up the cause of Jesus pretty quickly and easily, right? Um, no, not so much. In fact, he had to be directly confronted by God and blinded before he recognized that he was completely wrong. He then spent a large portion of his life trying to escape his former religious colleagues as they tried to kill or imprison him. Paul wrote many letters to the early members of that church, often encouraging them to forsake their religious rules, policies and theologies in order to show Love, diligently working to ensure that the foundation of this new church was Love and not something created by man.
Which leads to the church itself. Is Jesus the founder of the church? For sure. No argument there. Except, this argument doesn't contradict Bethke's poem at all. In fact, Bethke says he "loves the church" and honestly confesses that he has been a part of the problem in the past. I'm sure he agrees that Jesus is the founder of the church. Bethke isn't calling for the dissolution of the church, he's calling for the church to step it up; challenging the church to be more than it currently is. Calling it (and himself) to fulfill a higher calling. He's including himself in the church. And he believes that Jesus created a church capable of much more Love. Did Jesus also perform the first communion? Yes. But was He creating a way for us to remember His sacrifice, or creating a law that must be closely adhered to in order to be granted salvation? You may disagree with me, but the understanding I get from reading stories of Jesus in the Bible lead me to believe that Jesus would skip a communion service if it meant he had the opportunity to show Love to one person. That Love cannot be formulated or measured out, that it is so immense that it cannot be fully explained or understood. That’s why Jesus believed in using simple things like bread and wine, or stories about farmers to illustrate His Love to others. He used ceremonies and traditions as a way bring us closer to Love, not the other way around. What is more important, our hymns, our ceremonies, our programs, our buildings, our slogans and our social policies? Or Love?
Next, is Bethke right to then accuse the church of doing that very thing, putting its rules and laws before showing Love to the world? To point his finger at religion for starting a multitude of wars? To ask that more money be given to the poor and less used for our own comfort? One argument against him states that saying religion has caused many wars is ignoring the fact that many wars have been started over other things like property and money. But, Bethke isn't saying that only religion has caused wars, he's saying that religion (as defined as laws and rules) is a human creation that alongside other human defined creations like property and money have started wars. To say that other things have started wars is only supporting his point that religion is a human creation. It is impossible to state that no war has begun over religion, and if we also admit that Love does not desire war, then is there not indeed a difference between religion and God?
Further, has the church done some amazing things to help those who are suffering around the world? Yes, they have, and nowhere in his poem does Bethke deny this. But have we done enough? Are there children in the world dying of starvation? How many people will spend tonight sleeping in a cardboard box without so much as a blanket to combat the cold? There is more to be done. To sit back and proclaim our accomplishments as the most giving and generous group of people in the world is exactly the problem he's trying to point out. We shouldn’t be satisfied. Remember, Jesus praised the poor woman who graciously gave her last coin to God, not the rich man who pompously submitted a much larger sum in order to gain the praise and adoration of others.
Finally, to argue over the definition of the world religion is missing the entire point of his message. In fact, several of his critics have claimed that they agree with most of what he is saying, but disagree with his use of the word religion. The definition he applies to the word religion is consistent throughout his poem, and the context of his words and their meaning is quite clear. He means rules, laws, and man-made righteousness. He does not mean that religion is the church. He does not mean that religion is Christianity.
So the next question becomes, where did he get this definition of religion? Is it something he made up himself? No, not at all! In fact, the definition he used is one that most people who are not part of the church (and many who are) believe to be true. Church, open your ears and listen,
THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE BELIEVE RELIGION MEANS!
And so we find ourselves back at the original problem. Due to our self-imposed fear and pride, we, the church, are failing to listen. Bethke isn’t randomly using the word religion to mean laws and rules; he’s using the definition that most people outside the church believe is true. And they believe this is true because this is many times what they've seen. We can try to tell as many people as we want that we don't have a fever, that we're sneezing because we have allergies, and our eyes are red because it's dusty, but at some point don't we need to begin to wonder why everyone except us seems to think we're sick. If the Bible says that they will know we are Christians by our Love, and they don’t, who’s wrong? Are we going to try to blame the “they” for not identifying our Love?
Bethke is attempting to take the negative connotation that WE’VE created, the definition that WE have crafted, the hypocrisy that WE’VE presented and show the world that there is a difference between their definition of religion and Love. And when we respond to his message with illogical, defensive arguments about how we define words, and how we are so proud of our accomplishments, we’re proving him to be 100% accurate in his analysis, him and every other person in the world who already see that our religious laws are not the same as Love.
Jefferson Bethke hates religion, but loves Jesus. And by taking some time to read between the lines of his message, you'll see that he loves the church as well. He loves it enough to admit that it hasn't been perfect in its proclamation of perfect Love, enough to tell it to listen to the voices of those who believe that it can be more powerful and more overflowing with Love than it has been. He loves it enough to attempt to separate for its critics its message from its failings. He loves it enough to lend his voice to the wakeup call going out to a slumbering church; one too long content with the status quo, one that can be unwilling to hear and admit its own shortcomings, disconnected from the reality of its reputation, too proud to admit a better way is possible, too afraid to consider a different way. He's not saying he has all the answers to the issues facing either the church or the world. But he is saying that He knows a Love that is the answer.
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