I know I am maybe a week behind the peak of the attention and responses to the YouTube video “Why I Hate Religion and Love Jesus” but I felt that I needed the time to pray, reflect, and inform myself about the things this artist claims in that video. So despite the perhaps “tardiness” of this response, I feel called as a young, proud Catholic, and as your youth minister to, in fact, respond to what I believe to be a misguided, and if misinterpreted, potentially dangerous piece of social media.
Let me start by saying that I do not hate or even dislike the young man in the video. He has another video out that I think is wonderful and he clearly has a deep love of Jesus. What I dislike and disagree with are his opinions in this case.
You see, there is just enough “truth” mixed in with falsehoods, misconceptions and oversights to make this piece of media dangerous. The heart of the message is that he is claiming that Jesus and religion are two separate things – and that Jesus came to end religion. The basis of this argument is not true – in Matthew 5:17, Jesus says “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” Jesus did not come to end religion (the Law) he came to, as Fr. Barron said in his own response, to take what was good and right about the Jewish religion and raise it to a new plane – Christianity. In fact, Jesus himself was a rabbi and a faithful follower of His Jewish religion. Yes, Jesus reprimanded the Pharisees – but what he was upset about was not their religion – it was the fact that they had gotten so caught up in the power they had that they lost sight of what they were supposed to be – holy, humble men leading their followers closer to God.
The artist goes on to explain his rationale behind this claim by citing a series of “facts” about religion that he is using to support the argument that religion is not what Jesus was about. Some of what he says is true (voting Republican does not mean you are a Christian) but a lot of it is completely false where the Catholic Church is concerned. He claims the Church does not care for the poor, but the truth is that Catholic Community Services is the largest private provider of assistance to the poor in the United States. He claims that the Church tells single moms that God does not love them if they have ever been divorced, but the truth is that the Catholic Church welcomes everyone and preaches that we are all beloved Children of God, no matter what our past holds. And perhaps most shocking of all is that he claims that Jesus is of God and that the Church is of man. The truth is that the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus himself when he appointed Peter as it’s head in Matthew 16:18 - “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,* and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” And for hundred’s of years after His death, there was only Christian religion – Catholicism. So you see, his entire argument is not founded on fact, but on distortions of the truth. When held up and examined in the light of real Truth, it does not hold water.
But he does not stop there – and here is where this video has the potential to do real and lasting harm if not given proper context. He goes on to talk about something that we have all likely experienced at one time or another – the fact that there are many people who go through life claiming to be Christian, but not living up to that claim. He talks about the way that people “put on a show” making it seem from the outside that they are good or holy, while the reality of their inner or private lives tells a very different story. And I have to agree with him here – I hate this. I hate the false-front and hypocrisy that we find in the world – whether it is at Church, a corporation, or our government. I hate it when people are not being their authentic selves – especially when the lie they show the world undermines something as beautiful, loving, sacred, and REAL as Christianity.
But let’s be clear about what we are talking about here – what I hate, and what I would argue the artist actually hates is not religion – it is hypocrisy. It is the human element in our divinely inspired and founded Church that is broken and failing and too afraid to show that reality to the world. And yes, I think we can all agree that we hate hypocrisy.
But hypocrisy is NOT religion. And religion is NOT hypocrisy.
Living an authentic Christian life is about the work you do in the world (Matthew 25:31-46) just as much as it is about your personal relationship with Christ. To be “authentically Christian” one element cannot exist without the other – “So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” James 2:17.
And there is no denying that Christianity IS a religion. Religion is defined as “commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance” and a Christian is a follower of Christ. Being part of Christianity, and particularly Catholicism, means joining these two things together to create a completeness that does not exist otherwise.
See, this is the third place where the artist falls short in his claims – if you listen carefully to his story about his life, you will notice something subtle, but shocking. It is all about him – all you hear is how he was saved, what God did for him, how his life was transformed by the grace of God. And all of this is good and glorious. But in his rant against religion, he forgets something. Religion – Christianity – is about a relationship. It is about a give and take, a conversation, and a communion between two people. Its not all about us. Its not all about what God does, or does not do, for or to us. That’s only half the picture – it is also about how we give back to God – how we thank Him, praise Him, glorify Him. It is about falling on our knees in humility and thanksgiving for the incredible love He shows us. It is about coming together with our brothers and sisters, as imperfect as we all are, and joining in one voice to sing praise to Our Father, receive Him into our hearts and our bodies, and ask for His grace to do better tomorrow than we did today. That is what our Catholic religion gives us – it gives us the rituals, Sacraments, Traditions, and community to strive to be who God is calling us to be and to thank Him for all that He has given us – most especially the gift of His Son, really present to us in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.
Religion is about love, community, thanksgiving, tradition, and honoring God. Yes - hypocrisy exists within it but just as the presence of a criminal within a house does not make it a jail, the presence of imperfection in religion does not make it evil.
No comments:
Post a Comment