{"id":9444,"date":"2012-01-28T07:00:29","date_gmt":"2012-01-28T14:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=9444"},"modified":"2015-03-19T15:16:57","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T22:16:57","slug":"jesus-vs-religion-final-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2012\/01\/28\/jesus-vs-religion-final-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus vs Religion – Final Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know, I know….this topic has been done to death, but I wanted to offer some closing thoughts on Jeff Bethke’s\u00a0Jesus > Religion<\/a> YouTube\u00a0video…<\/p>\n

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The Meaning of Words<\/h2>\n

There’s been a lot of discussion online about the video. In one such discussion I came across someone who seemed indifferent<\/strong><\/em> to the fact\u00a0that Jeff didn’t appear to know the difference between the words\u00a0“Religion”<\/em><\/span>, “Hypocrisy”<\/em><\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0“Legalism”<\/em><\/span>. This person argued that it’s fine because the “religion”<\/span><\/em>\u00a0referenced in the video referred to the self-righteous, legalistic kind. To this I responded:<\/p>\n

Words matter. Words shape how we think (see George Orwell’s\u00a0book “1984”).\u00a0<\/em>What they mean matters. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

It would be like my saying to you “Jesus came to abolish Christianity”. I may mean<\/strong>\u00a0“self-righteousness” or “legalism”, but that’s not the word I used – I said “Christianity”<\/em>. \u00a0I would expect a poet to care about words and to care about what they mean. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Words matter.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“What if I told you…I’ve changed my mind?”<\/h2>\n

I’m really happy to say that it does appear Jeff has had a\u00a0change of heart<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“God has been working with me in the last 6 months on loving Jesus AND loving his church. For the first few years of walking with Jesus…I had a warped\/poor paradigm of the church and it didn\u2019t build up, unify, or glorify His…Bride… If I redid the video tomorrow, I\u2019d keep the overall message, but would articulate, elaborate, and expand on the parts where my words and delivery were chosen poorly\u2026” <\/span><\/em>–\u00a0<\/span>Jeff Bethke<\/span><\/p>\n

I think it shows great character and humility. It’ll be interesting to see if he ever does a follow-up video…<\/p>\n

Strong Response<\/h2>\n

Finally,\u00a0I wanted to say is that I’ve been really pleased with the strong Catholic response to this video. I found this engagement by the Catholic world with New Media really encouraging.<\/p>\n

There were some rather amusing images:<\/p>\n

\"Love<\/a>\u00a0\"Love<\/a>\u00a0\"Love<\/a><\/p>\n

…and many high-quality video responses:<\/p>\n