Thursday, January 19, 2012

Why Loving Jesus Requires Loving His Church and His Pure Religion –Part 1

Why Loving Jesus Requires Loving His Church and His Pure Religion –Part 1

 A rap artist video by Jefferson  Bethke has caught the attention of YouTube visitors and spread in amazing and alarming proportions through Facebook and other social media, and has been met both with amazing excitement and disturbance.  Just the title alone would alert and alarm people because it is self-contradicting to those who know what words mean, but those who are just as uninformed about terminology and word meanings and actual Bible teaching would respond with great excitement and enthusiasm. The title of the piece is “Why I hate religion, but love Jesus”.

My immediate response to the title, before going any further with hearing the piece, was that this is going to a very uninformed piece of work.  Had the title been something like “Why I hate false religion, or hypocritical religion, or man-made religion, or empty ritualized religion, etc. but love Jesus, or but love Jesus and His Religion” or something that qualifies the “religion” part of the title, then I would not have thought “how self-contradicting this title is”.  You see, when you love Jesus, that very way of thinking IS your religion.  You cannot say that you love Jesus but have no religion. The very definition of religion will describe the practice of what you believe.  If you love Jesus you will keep His commandments, and that very practice IS your religion.  It is actually absurd to say you love Jesus but hate the practice and life of loving Jesus (which what your religion would be).

 Bethke is expressing his religious beliefs in the video. He tells in the video about his past religion and then about his present religion.  He lived an hypocritical religion earlier, as he describes in the video his porn addiction, drugs, and self-centered walk of life, and then describes himself now as Christ-centered, which is his religion now (even if he does not understand what the meaning of the word “religion” is).   You can have vain, empty, impure religion or you can have a purer Christ-centered religion, but you cannot escape the fact that your values and behavior will always express your religion.  Jesus wants us to practice “pure religion”(James 1:27).

But, after getting past the absurdity of the title, the very first line of the poem is just as empty of understanding biblical truth as the title. The title told me immediately that this man is devoid of Bible understanding, but his first words on the video made my jaw drop.  I was amazed that a man could be so ignorant of God’s word as to make a comment as  What if I told you, Jesus came to abolish religion?”   Bethke not only exposed his own ignorance of God’s word and what “religion” means, but he brought out such vast support that exposes how deprived of Biblical knowledge the general public really is. Such public support tells us that the vast numbers of emotional supporters are ignorant of word meanings and actual Bible teaching (thus a problem of mass biblical ignorance) or a public who does not care if a rapper abuses and misuses terms and contradicts himself and the Bible as long as it sounds like it is hitting something we don’t like in others and is affirming something we can easily accept.

“What if I told you, Jesus came to abolish religion?”-

My initial response to his opening line “What if I told you, Jesus came to abolish religion?”- was “you don’t know what you are talking about”.  Now, I admit that he has some very good points in the bulk of his video, but I do not like spreading some truth with a mixture of error.  When I put out something, I have to be careful that I have spoken the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  When you spread error with truth, you have not set people free from ignorance and false ideas.  No matter how good a particular point is, the mixture of falsehood poisons the mind and emotions.



 When I know that Jesus did NOT come to abolish religion, and I see masses of people swallowing the idea that Jesus DID come to “abolish religion”, I become greatly concerned and alarmed.  When I know that Jesus came to establish pure religion (James 1:27), why would I not be concerned that I am causing confusion and misunderstanding when I say “Jesus came to destroy religion”?  Jesus did not come to destroy His own religion. He did not come to destroy God’s religion.  He plainly said that He did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it (which means he came to fulfill the demands of pure religion before God), and there is no verse of scripture that says “Jesus came to destroy religion”, then I cannot speak what is not true.  It is actually a lie.  Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44f), and I’m sure he is excited about getting this mixture of lies and half-truths spread so quickly and enthusiastically.



Bethke may have meant to say Jesus came to destroy BAD religion, but he never said that.  He surely exposes his ignorance of the word “religion” which actually means “re-connection”.  It is how one reconnects with God.  Well, obviously Jesus did not come to destroy reconnection (religion) with God.  So, he confuses people because he is himself confused, and fails to say what he meant, but leaves some people thinking that Jesus came to destroy religion.  He came to promote and build true religion. 



Now,  there are so many other things that concern me about  the errors in his theology, but immediately we sense that the young man has “zeal without knowledge”.  We certainly admire the zeal, but wish that he had been able to direct that zeal less recklessly by basic knowledge of word definitions and Biblical usage.  Even when trying to expose him to the truth on his Facebook page,  I found him deleting my statements of truth and the statements of others who were not heaping praises upon him.  This is what he did to another brother who tried to post a nice and truth-filled article on his (Bethkes’) site.  So, it is not that we are attacking him.  Even trying to correct him to help him in love is viewed as “attacking” when truth is not really what you want.  I have no desire to attack anyone.  I am not looking at his video as an attack on me, but what it is is the circulation of false and misleading information about JESUS and about what religion is.

I understand that he has expressed some measure of regret and admission that he made some serious mistakes in the video, but if he was truly sorry, he would pull the video and quit welcoming those responses that keep praising him for his work, and he would quit deleting those posts that kindly point out the errors of his video.  He is not showing true signs of repentance at all so far.

What if I told you, Jesus came to establish pure religion? What if I told you  that Bethke  was wrong?  Would you get mad at me for telling the truth, and praise him in spite of the fact that he misrepresented what the real Jesus actually came to do?  Is it cool to misrepresent Jesus in a rap video, or does it carry great responsibility to make sure you represent Jesus correctly when you speak about what He came to do? I believe we should be more zealous to promote and protect the truth about Jesus, than to promote and protect a rap artist that misrepresents Jesus. Don’t you?

What if I told you, getting you to vote republican, really wasn’t his mission?

 I would agree.  Perhaps Bethke has experienced religious people promoting the republican party.  Is it wrong for individual Christians to use their influence to promote a political party? No!  Especially if they think it is in the best interest of the country.  But, I don’t know a single Christian who thinks that the mission of Jesus was to get you to vote republican or democrat.  There are probably more churches that try to promote the democratic party, so this too is more of a disingenuous  jab at something he does not like, rather than an actual problem with “religion” itself.

Because republican doesn’t automatically mean Christian,  And just because you call some people blind, doesn’t automatically give you vision.

This is true, and it is true of Jefferson Bethke as well.  Is he claiming to have vision?  Is he saying what he is saying because he thinks some people are blind?  Well, does that automatically mean that he has real vision?  It is amazing that Bethke later claims that “religion makes you blind”.  Well, he already demonstrated that he himself was already blind to the very meaning of religion.   He is correct that just because he makes the claim that “religion makes you blind” doesn’t really mean he knows what he is talking about. That is merely his own religious belief, though he his blind to what it means.

If religion is so great, why has it started so many wars?

Sin is the cause of wars, not religion per se.  Sin causes false religion and false religion may start wars.  Pure religion never started a carnal war.  Is this another case where Bethke is calling people blind for not seeing that religion has started so many wars, and then revealing that he has no real vision of the true situation regarding wars?  Sin and selfishness has caused wars, but religion is only great if it is “pure religion”.  Believing and obeying Jesus is great religion, but Jesus is about spiritual warfare, not carnal warfare (2 Cor.10:4f). Isn’t it great that Jesus keeps a spiritual war going through his soldiers (Eph.6:10-18), and that the greatest chance for peace is when people surrender to King Jesus? When Jesus reigns within us, we have control over sin and selfishness, which results in peace within and peace toward others.  Islam is a religion and its sinful teachings may start wars, but that is a case of impure religion, not the fact of having religious belief,  that causes people to force their will over people and oppress them.  Atheistic  regimes have succeeded in slaughtering more people (both in terms of sheer numbers and in terms of thoroughness) in the 20th century than in the entire rest of human history combined.  They are practicing their religious beliefs.  It is perverse religion fed by sin and selfishness that starts so many wars.  But, religion can be either pure or perverse with all kinds of variations of levels of misunderstanding and hypocrisy.  So, even here Bethke shows a severe problem with his understanding of what religion is.  He himself is carrying out his religious belief whether he understands that or not. And, since he has caused a lot of negative response, is it not HIS religion that has caused such conflict?  If someone pelted him because they felt that he attacked their religion with his religion, how has he avoided starting that fight?  What I am saying is that we are going to have conflict because truth and error don’t mix. Light and darkness don’t mix.  Satan and God don’t get along.  As long as SIN exists among us, there will be conflicts and wars.  Pure religion is what each individual is to bring before God and our neighbors.  THAT does not start carnal warfare, even though sin may cause people to come in conflict with pure religion.

 Why does it build huge churches, but fails to feed the poor?

The mission of the church is to preach the gospel (1 Tim.3:15; Matt.28:18-20).  Sin causes so much of the problem of hunger and poverty.  Teach people to deal with sin and practice righteousness, and they will learn to feed themselves and help others too.  Nevertheless, individuals must operate in society with compassion for the poor, helping them as they have ability and opportunity (Gal.6:10).  That is precisely why there are so many efforts and organizations that have a social compassionate mission.  It stems from the principles of God and pure religion to some extent.  Building buildings for educating and transforming  souls may not directly feed the poor, but it surely does feed them indirectly through the changed hearts that learn to change by hearing God’s word taught regularly.  As Christians learn to practice “pure religion” in spiritual assemblies with each other, there is the trickle-down effect of having one more compassionate person living in society.  But, even then, on the individual basis, the primary mission will be not to merely give a man a fish, but to teach man to fish. We teach people to “provide for their own”, to labor, and work so that they can help others (Eph.4:28), and then teach them to help themselves and to help others.



 A meeting house for Christians to learn, grow, and teach, may seem to cost a lot, but there is no way to measure the good that trickles out from those meeting places into the neighborhood and society.  It is not good to leave the word of God and serve tables (Acts 6:1-8). The mission of the church is spiritual, holding up the gospel to save souls.  When the church does what it is designed to do, save and transform souls within, the poor will have more temporal opportunities to benefit, and more chances to see how to help themselves as well.  Isn’t this how Bethke carries out his own responsibilities for the poor?  Does he think he should have a primary mission for souls or a primary mission for bodies?



By the way, when people are practicing “pure RELIGION” (James 1:27) is when their eyes and hearts  are open to tending the poor. Isn’t that the opposite of what Bethke says about RELIGION?  Bethke may not realize it but if Jesus hated religion, then He hated religion which moves people to feed the poor.  It is the serious practice of religion that moves people to compassionately help others in unfortunate. situations.  James and Jesus tell us to practice “pure religion” (James 1:27).  Bethke has essentially told people to “hate” religion and never practice it. Bethke tell people that religion “blinds” people. Jesus and James says that pure religion is what opens eyes and hearts to compassionately feel for others and help them.

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

I’m amazed at this statement by Bethke.  I have never heard a church tell a single mom that God does not love them if they are divorced.  God calls idolaters whores, but never once told people that it is the fact of RELIGION that makes them vile.  It is the LACK of PURE RELIGION that made people spiritual and physical whores.  Divorce is a sin,  and yes, God hates it (Mal.4),  but God loves all sinners and longs for their repentance and spiritual transformation.  Bethke is certainly wrong to imply that Jesus was a whore because He was a “religious person”, though he does not realize that this is what his words really mean.

 Bethke could be guilty of slander if he cannot produce a clear example of a religion that tells single moms that God doesn’t love them if they’ve ever been divorced.  I wonder what kind of religion made him say that?  The message of the church is that God loves all  sinners, and that love is what makes God long for our repentance and spiritual transformation, but it would wrong for the church to teach that God accepts all sinners without repentance and commitment to God.  Loving a sinner and longing for their repentance is one thing, but accepting the sinner regardless of repentance is a totally different issue. (Acts 17:30-31; 2 Cor.7:7ff; Luke 13:3-5).



 It seems that Bethke is practicing a religion of prejudice pandering to try to gain the hearts of those who would like to go to heaven without having to repent of sin.  That is what the religious whores of the Old Testament were doing as well.  By the way, is Bethke telling religious people that God doesn’t love them if they are religious or have ever been religious?



True Bible teaching will target empty, hypocritical religion, while building true, pure religion. We do not need to spread around a video that is so full of error and misrepresentation of the truth.  The errors of this video get worse as we go deeper into the lyrics and understand what is really being said.  Stay tuned for part 2 of our examination.  We will examine more so that you can see that there is a huge difference between what is said in this video and what is said in the Bible, the word of God.

Terry W. Benton