Why I Love Religion and Love Jesus

            There is a famous video roaming around Youtube now that is watched by more than 19 million people (and still counting) across the globe. The title of the video was "Why I hate religion but love Jesus". The young man in the video who identified as Jefferson Bethke was indeed now a star because of his 4-minute poem-video clip. His poem talks about the difference (as what he thought) between religion and Jesus. It aims to present to the people that religion is condemned by Jesus Himself and that He never planned to establish one because He clearly abolished it. Jeff intentionally unnamed what particular religion is that but it is very clear to whom he was referring to. He wanted to "open the eyes" of his viewer on the "REAL THING". He wanted people to condemn religion too and be focused only on Jesus and the result have shown that he was successful. This shows that many, many people today adhered to the "modern Protestantism" or this hating-religion-loving Jesus doctrine which attacks religion and the religious in a more "beautiful and appealing way" and still claimed themselves as Jesus lovers. This lowered the understanding of many on what is TRUTH all about: for them, the truth is what an individual thought about it regardless if it is illogical and unhistorical, as long as he/she follows what in is his/her heart and he/she hurt no one. They are rightfully called credulous.

           It may be rational for us to judge them as that and though this video is anti-biblical, anti-catholic, anti-religion and anti-Jesus, it nevertheless gone viral and spawned massive likes. We may sound right and they are not, the number is uncontrollable; they gone wild. It may seem wholesome and truthful for others especially those who called themselves "non-denominational" and to the other nominal Catholics, the truth and the very truth remains the same: JESUS LOVES RELIGION. HE EVEN BUILT ONE. And that is what we are going to present here.

But before we go deeper in answering the claims of this video and before they can call us brood vipers uttering stultiloquence and idle words, it is more desirable to show first the video together with its script.

Script:

What if I told you, Jesus came to abolish religion?
What if I told you getting you to vote republican, really wasn’t his mission?
Because republican doesn’t automatically mean Christian,
And just because you call some people blind, doesn’t automatically give you vision.
If religion is so great, why has it started so many wars?
Why does it build huge churches, but fails to feed the poor?
Tells single moms God doesn’t love them if they’ve ever been divorced
Yet God in the Old Testament actually calls the religious people whores
Religion preaches grace, but another thing they practice,
Tend to ridicule Gods people, they did it to John the Baptist,
Cant fix their problems, so they try to mask it,
Not realizing that’s just like spraying perfume on a casket
Because the problem with religion is that it never gets to the core,
It’s just behavior modification, like a long list of chores.
Let’s dress up the outside, make things look nice and neat,
Its funny that’s what they do to mummies, while the corpse rots underneath,
Now I ain’t judging I’m just saying be careful of putting on a fake look,
Because there’s a problem if people only know that you’re a Christian by that little section on your Facebook
In every other aspect of life you know that logics unworthy
Its like saying you play for the Lakers just because you bought a jersey
But see I played this game too; no one seemed to be on to me,
I was acting like church kid, while addicted to pornography.
I’d go to church on Sunday, but on Saturday getting faded,
Acting as if I was simply created to have sex and get wasted.
Spend my whole life putting on this façade of neatness,
But now that I know Jesus, I boast in my weakness.
If grace is water, then the church should be an ocean,
Cuz its not a museum for good people, it’s a hospital for the broken
I no longer have to hide my failures I don’t have to hide my sin,
Because my salvation doesn’t depend on me, it depends on him.
because when I was Gods enemy and certainly not a fan,
God looked down on me and said, “I want that man!”
Which is so different from religious people, and why Jesus called em fools
Don’t you see he’s so much better than just following some rules?
Now let me clarify, I love the church, I love the bible, and I believe in sin
But my question, is if Jesus were here today, would your church let Him in?
Remember He was called a drunkard and a glutton by “religious men”
The Son of God not supported self-righteousness, not now, not then.

Now back to the topic, one thing I think is vital to mention,
How Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrums,
One is the work of God one is a man made invention,
One is the cure and one is the infection.
Because Religion says do, Jesus says done.
Religion says slave, Jesus says son,
Religion puts you in shackles but Jesus sets you free.
Religion makes you blind, but Jesus lets you see.

This is what makes religion and Jesus two different clans,
Religion is man searching for God, but Christianity is God searching for man.
Which is why salvation is freely mine, forgiveness is my own,
Not based on my efforts, but Christ’s obedience alone.
Because he took the crown of thorns, and blood that dripped down his face
He took what we all deserved, that’s why we call it grace.
While being murdered he yelled “father forgive them, they know not what they do”,
Because when he was dangling on that cross, he was thinking of you
He paid for all your sin, and then buried it in the tomb,
Which is why im kneeling at the cross now saying come on there’s room
So know I hate religion, in fact I literally resent it,
Because when Jesus cried It is finished, I believe He meant it.

           Well, the words and meanings may sound okay for you, but the video lies with so much contradictions and unfounded claims. Much of it were product of hate against religion and the quotient of odd perceptions totaled by wrong interpretations of the bible. Now let us proceed to the refutation video made by Fr. Pontifex and the gang to the video of Jeff which resembles the style to the latter.  Fr. Pontifex video response to Jeff is entitled "Why I Love Religion and Love Jesus", there is no more clearer opposition than that. Instead of the frame "Jesus > Religion" which Jeff used, Fr. Pontifex's video frame reads: Jesus <3 Religion which is very conspicuous to mean "Jesus loves Religion". Below the video is the script that reads similarly to Jeff's poem.

Script:

What if I told you that Jesus loves religion
And that by his coming as man he brought his religion to fruition
See this had to be addressed, the use of illogical terms and definitions
You clearly have a heart for Jesus but its fueling atheistic opinions
See what makes his religion great is not errors of wars and inquisitions
It's that broken men and women to participate in his mission
Clearly Jesus says I have not come to abolish
I came to fulfill the law and I came to fulfill the prophets (Matthew 5:17)
And lines about building big churches and tending to the poor
Sounds a bit like Judas when the perfume was being poured (John 12:5)
See His religion is the largest worldwide source of relief
For the poor, the hungry, the sick and repentant thief
Oceans of compassion, opening wide the doors
For single mothers, widows and orphans, married and divorced (James 1:27)
We all detest hypocrisy, and empty show is just the worst
But blaming religion for contradiction
Is like staring at death, and blaming the hearse.
See the teacher will teach when the students are ready to listen
But those that choose to sit in the pews and refuse the good news
Is not the fault of religion.
And If I have the Jersey and I'm playing for the Bulls
There's going to be some boundaries, regulations and some rules.
You can't have Christ without his Church; you can't have the King without his Kingdom   

Sins of the Body and internal treason will never ever make me leave him
And that Jesus said it is done, is absolutely true
But he also gave us a mission with many things to DO.
Jesus says if you love me, you will Do what I command. (JN 15:14)
Go and Baptize in the name of the Father, Son & Spirit in Every Land. (MT 28:19)
And on the night he was betrayed he took his men in the Upper Room
Take and eat this is my body take and drink my blood for you.
A New covenant you see, an act connected to the tree,
Do this time and time again in Memory of Me. (Mt 26:26-28)
And at last with crown of thorns beaten beyond comprehension
His eyes were looking for yours and mine; it was divine, no human invention.
So as for religion I love it, I have one because Jesus rose from the dead and won.
I believe When Jesus said IT IS FINISHED, His religion had just begun.

Check out other comments made by Catholic faithful to the video at Youtube. 

You can also watch the video of the response of Fr. Barron here.

OTHER WRITTEN RESPONSES

There are various scholarly replies made by our Catholic friends in relation to the famous video. But due to lack of space, I can only suggest one and that is the Phat Catholic Apologetics by Nicholas Hardesty,   his line by line refutation on the script of Jeff is a great apologetic resource. Here's an excerpt:

"Religion might preach grace, but another thing they practice
Tend to ridicule God's people, they did it to John The Baptist

I'm thinking more and more that when Bethke says "religion" he really means "the pharisees" or pharisaic people. The scribes and the pharisees ridiculed and punished many of God's holy prophets, and many irreligionists understand Jesus' many rebukes of the scribes and pharisees as a general rebuke of religion. But, the scribes and pharisees represent religion gone wrong, not authentic religion. They are the ones who "preach but do not practice" (Mt 23:3), who "bind heavy burdens" (vs. 4) and "do all their deeds to be seen by men" (vs. 5), who "shut the kingdom of heaven against men" (vs. 13), who are "blind fools" (vs. 17) who "strain out a gnat and swallow a camel" (vs. 24). They are the "hypocrites" and "whitewashed tombs" (vs. 27), not religion itself. Religion -- or at least, the religion established by Christ -- is meant to preserve us from that! Jesus, by preaching against those things, was establishing the nature of true religion, which is what Christians strive to follow today.

At any rate, the scribes and pharisees did not ridicule John the Baptist. They asked him many questions, in order to determine who he was (cf. Jn 1:19-27), but I'm not sure this can be counted as ridicule.


They can't fix their problems, and so they just mask it
Not realizing religions like spraying perfume on a casket

This again calls to mind what Jesus said to the pharisees in Mt 23. Religion is not like spraying perfume on a casket, or like whitewashing a tomb. Hypocrisy is. Religion is believing, and worshiping, and serving God rightly. This entire poem is largely the tearing down of a straw man."

  

To see more of his refutation, visit his blog at: http://phatcatholic.blogspot.com/2012/01/response-to-why-i-hate-religion-but.html

The Young Catholic Crusaders Response

          We believe that it is our moral obligation as Catholics to respond to the attacks to the Church whether implicitly or not, whether they mean or not, whether they intend it or not through plausible thinking, Scripture and history.

Here is our line by line response to Jeff's famous video and why we called it anti-biblical, anti-catholic, anti-religion and anti-Jesus. Let us go first to the title itself: 

"Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus"

The title itself flaws because it connotes that he really hate the word "religion"  but if we based to his comments on his video, he only mean 'false religion".
He states: 

A poem I wrote to highlight the difference between Jesus and false religion. In the scriptures Jesus received the most opposition from the most religious people of his day. At it's core Jesus' gospel and the good news of the Cross is in pure opposition to self-righteousness/self-justification.

—Jefferson Bethke, Crosswalk.com (2012) as cited by Wikipedia

Why he did not title his video as "Why I hate false religion but love Jesus"? Although he mean it to be false religion, his statement below implies that all religions are false. 
Quoting from the same source:

           Religion is man centered, Jesus is God-centered. This poem highlights my journey to discover this truth. Religion either ends in pride or despair. Pride because you make a list and   can do it and act better than everyone, or despair because you can't do your own list of rules and feel not good enough for God. With Jesus though you have humble confident joy because He represents you, you don't represent yourself and His sacrifice is perfect putting us in perfect standing with God! —Jefferson Bethke, Crosswalk.com (2012) as cited by Wikipedia

So whether we understood it as false religion, it does not matter anymore. He really hates religion, may it be false or not! He even emphasized that "religion is man-centered, Jesus is God-centered". Well, if he mean religion as all the religions in the world, he should think that twice because most of the religions in the world are God-centered. Their praises and styles of worship, may it be in a false religion or not, all directs to the "God" they believed in. By generalizing religion as defined as man-centered is very, very illogical.  You cannot say that all Pharisees are hypocrites because that would include Paul the Apostle!

Natural law will tell us that there is an absolute truth. This truth is not based on individual but on the revelation of God through the natural order of things. This absolute truth or the universal truth is unalterable, permanent and inflexible. It does not depend on circumstances nor prone to change. One example of the absolute truth is: No man lives without a head and brain. To argue contrary to that means arguing against the truth. Even the statement "there is no absolute truth" is an absolute statement thus absolute truth is nothing but an absolute truth. All things have an absolute truth. if an intellect grasps universals that have an objective reality, then there must be a universal or absolute truth.

(Continuation will be seen in the next article)

 

 

 

The Need For Catholic Apologetics by Griff Ruby

      So often we hear of apologies being made these days for past events, we often forget that the true meaning of apology, in the Christian sense of that word, is not "to apologize," as if to say I’m sorry. If you thought this was to be about the art of saying "I’m sorry," then I must apologize for letting you down.

        In his first letter to the Church Peter writes "always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear." (1 Peter 3:15)

        That defense spoken of is literally called in Greek, an Apologia, from which we derive the word apology. It means a detailed attempt to explain why we believe what we believe. All too often, Christians, (Catholics included) have fallen into a pattern of thinking that it is enough to be good and get our own little soul into Heaven. Such a pattern is disastrous for the future of the Church.

      Or else we may think it enough to win people without a word through our good conduct. Granted, our conduct does need to be good, but many other sorts of persons have good conduct. Do we convert to their religions because of their good conduct? Should we? The problem with that is that one can always find good people who believe all sorts of things. No, merely good conduct alone does not win souls.

      Another thing people might point to is our peace and serenity, the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives to give us that peace and serenity. Again, certainly we should seek all the gifts of the Spirit to which we have access, but this still is not enough.

       Still other people are impressed with signs and wonders. If we speak in an unknown tongue or interpret, or give prophecies or have visions, many are impressed, but these things too, may be faked by the Devil’s believers.

      The best and strongest conversions come not from those who like the atmosphere or the people or the entertainment value of the preaching, but from those who come to be convinced that being a Catholic is the right thing to do.

    This leads us to the bottom line of why apologetics is so important. Why do we believe what we believe? Pity the poor person who can only say in response, "Well, I was raised that way. I’ve always believed that way." Don’t get me wrong; one should be grateful for having parents or others who raised them in the Faith. What I am complaining about is allowing one’s life to pass without once giving the matter any thought.

      Apologetics, then, is the art of proving that what we believe is the right thing to believe. We believe because we know it to be true; we know it to be true because we have proved it out to ourselves. What does the Bible say? What does history show? What holds up to true logic?

     Looking into such things runs so counter to modern trends in religious thought. One sees more and more a denial that there exists any objective religious truth. Certainly it does not help when there are so many people running around pushing all sorts of other beliefs. But every belief except the true one is necessarily sold on good feelings, liking the people, or finding room for one’s own secret vice.

     This got started when nations, such as the United States, began passing laws protecting everyone’s religious freedom, which really meant that anyone is free to believe anything they want in this country. That is their constitutional right. It sounds so noble, allowing all to have their religion, whatever it might be. The opposite sounds so barbaric, forbidding the teaching of any religion other than that of the Catholic Church. But is it?

     A little history might help here. The reason the United States passed such a law was because of the violence which had torn up Europe over which religion was true, or so they thought! Really, if the "fight" had been about whether Christ’s Church is to be Protestant or Catholic, the proper thing for all to have done is to sit down and discuss the religious issues rationally and reasonably. Certainly the conclusions so arrived at would mean a great deal more than merely a military battle in which "might makes right."

It really is in such talking over the issues that all the great Councils of the Church solved many religious questions: Is Jesus Christ God? Has He one nature or two? What about the Holy Spirit? Is the use of images good or bad? All of these issues and many more were resolved peacefully in Council because the proponents of each side of each issue all sat down at the same table, brought out their documents and evidences, and argued out the case in the sight of all present.

       An important point is that there has always been a clear answer which the evidence supports. The modern myth about religion being about people being free to believe anything which strikes their fancy is just that, a myth. Any honest and sincere person who takes the time and effort to study all the evidence and facts carefully and who meditates on that with clear and logical thinking must necessarily reach the same conclusions about what we are to believe.

One can see that the founding fathers of this country did not solve the problem of religious wars. All they did was to replace one problem, namely the tendency many had to go to war over ideas they never bothered to examine objectively, with another problem, namely the tendency to treat all possible religious affiliations as being of no importance. What that really amounts to is a disbelief in God. If it really didn’t matter what a person believes about God, does that not imply that God is only a figment of that person’s imagination?

      We see now where the moral relativism created by the founding fathers of our country (and condemned by John Paul II in the encyclical Veritatis Splendor) has led us. To a point that social morals have utterly broken down, religious expression becomes something forbidden by the government, and this country is not far removed from the Atheistic ideal of Communist Albania. We are no better off than we were in the wars of the Europeans, except that now our millions of dead are hidden in the trash cans behind the abortion clinics rather than strewn all over the battlefields.

      What was truly called for, and what would have put this nation on solid ground would have been a resolve to discuss the religious issues peacefully, as at a great Council. Actually, there already had been a Council before that time, the Council of Trent. The Protestants were invited to come and plead their cases, and guaranteed safe passage in and out, but none came. I think it’s because they all knew deep down that their teachings would not stand up in the light of Scripture, reason, and history.

     Had the founding American fathers agreed to debate the religious questions honestly and publicly, it would only have been a matter of time before America would have been Catholic, and a society solidly founded, because it would be founded on the Rock of Peter.

Apologetics then, is really a search for truth. The missionary who uses apologetics to teach the true religion learns as much from those he teaches. No, not religious truths, but often it is the outsider who asks the questions no one has thought of before.

    The earliest Christians had not wondered about many of the questions settled in the great ecumenical Councils. Ask St. Paul or St. Ignatius whether Christ has one nature or two, and his response would have been, "I don’t know!" The question, having never been asked before, had not as yet been answered by the Church. But there was an answer, and in the great Council of Chalcedon, the Church found it.

      Apologetics is not just a missionary exercise, nor is it even just part of the search for truth, it is the prime source of the deepening of one’s faith. As long as we believe something without knowing why we should believe it, do we really believe it? I think not. Apologetics then, is the art of deepening our own faith. As we study the "why’s" and "wherefore’s" of our belief, we deepen our belief and strengthen our faith so as to be able to stand up to the present evils. And, no matter how deep we dig, we only find more and more reason to believe what the Church teaches.