There are some videos floating around the web that are stirring up Christians on the subject of religion vs. Jesus. I wanted to think this out on my blog...mostly to make sense of this for myself, in as much of an objective and balanced approach as possible. We'll see what happens.
Here is a link to video 1. Here is a link to video 2. I'll let you watch them for youself.
Here are a couple of my thoughts about these videos.
1. Scripture is interpreted differently for everyone who ever reads it (granted, some are in error) but, because each of us has a different life story we all have our own lens that we interpret through. It doesn't matter what it is we are interpreting, we all have a lens it goes through. So, each of these videos have some points that I would say are Biblically accurate. However, because of the lens each one of these men have to look through, they arrive at different conclusions. Anywhere you have two different people you will have two different opinions on these issues. We shouldn't be shocked by this.
2. There are many other people who will jump on one of the two of these bandwagons: The Catholics/mainline denominations on one and the evangelical/pentacostal/charimatic on the other. The problem with this is that it widens the gap between believers in the Church. Yes, the capital "C" Church. All we're doing with videos like these is creating dissension and division. This is not at all helpful, nor does the church need more battles to fight--especially from within.
3. There are admittedly problems in evangelical and mainline churches as far as retaining young people. Usually, statistics say, if a kid goes off to college and leaves the church, they probably aren't coming back. Evangelicals need to take a hard look at that stat and ask if we are really doing a better job than mainline churches. The problem for both groups is that when kids leave, then tend not to come back. That isn't what Jesus or religion has in mind. Before one group starts picking on the other for valuing traditions too highly or not valuing them enough, we should probably figure out why most of our kids leave home and leave church at the same time, never to return. I think the guy in the first video should have used the word tradition more than he used the word church. His video would have made more sense to me - because he doesn't hate church, he hates tradition.
So, there are the thoughts that are going through my mind. And, depending on your knowledge of church history, your background, your "lens", you may agree or disagree with me. But here is my main thought on this issue:
Christianity is a religion where we need two things: a strong personal conversion which leads to personal faith AND a community of faith that nurtures disciples (not believers - disciples follow and do, believers just believe) and trains them up to make more disciples. When one of those things is missing, we get results like what we have now.
Finally, the two, religion and (belief in) Jesus are not mutually exclusive; they are bound to each other. We were ever supposed to have Church without Jesus and we are definitely not meant to have Jesus without Church. Jesus will return for one (singular) bride. Only he can say who is inside our outside of that. We need to stop these petty arguments about who is right and wrong (they haven't been solved in 2000 years so I am pretty sure it isn't going to happen anytime soon) and learn how to have faith that includes loving Jesus and the Church - wherever you regularly attend. Major on the majors, minor on the minors. Leave the backbiting to politicians.
Thanks for reading!
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