is it really Jesus vs. religion?
Posted by jaked | Filed under art?, i don't need no stinking label, thought questions
tony anderson – the prophecy
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i’m sure you have seen the video “why i hate religion, but love Jesus | spoken word” making the rounds on the internet lately. when i first saw the video it had around 300,000 views and at the time i’m writing this i has over 17 million views. if you haven’t seen it yet you can check it out right here.
now a lot has been made about this video… both good and bad and while there’s much within the video that really rings true there was something with it that kind of sat a little uneasy with me. as someone who’s been in vocational ministry for the past 4 years i have seen much about the church (note that’s little c church not big C Church) that would make you just want to rip your hair out and I can relate to his (his name is jefferson bethke) passion as well as frustration with some of the state of “Christianity” in general.
rather then beat a dead or dying horse you can read a pretty great breakdown and clarification of bethke’s poem here at the gospel coalition written by a pretty smart dude named kevin deyoung as well as a follow up with bethke here. what i wanted to focus on was some of the responses i’ve seen posted on youtube. most specifically one by a catholic priest and a muslim guy. both of which would disagree with the first poem. you can check out the first “why i love religion, and love Jesus a catholic response” first.
this video features father claude burns, a priest in chicago il also known as pontifix on the catholic website phatmass. (i’m not even going to go into why i think that’s really funny…) i also found that there was much in this video i agreed with and liked. I don’t want to take any sides or cast any stones… there’s a lot that both protestants and catholics fall short on because they are both made up of fallen, imperfect men, but i feel like both videos here are making valid points and that it all really comes down to the definition of religion that is being taken here, neither of which really take the time to define. i’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below. lastly this video (“why i hate religion, but love Jesus || muslim version”) caught my eye in the recommended links on video after it had finished playing. you can check it out here.
i’m having trouble finding out the author but i know this video is posted on behalf of the facebook group talk islam. this is the video which i was really the most interested in because of my time spent in muslim countries. during that time i found it difficult sometimes to really get a good understanding of who the average muslim believes Jesus is. i know this is just one person’s perspective and one thing that all three of these videos are critiquing is lumping a large group and judging them on a few fringe members, but i feel like this kind of epitomizes what the general muslim thinking is on Jesus. he was a man, a man who pointed to God but was not in fact himself God. i’d also love to hear your thoughts about this video in the comments as well. i just thought this stuff was interesting and that i’d share it.
thought questions (part 2 of many)
Posted by jaked | Filed under thought questions
so on friday (4/9) i asked two questions that were posed to me and asked your feedback on them… what you thought about the statements and how you would finish them. the questions (statements) were:
- paul said to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” and when i think about asking someone to follow me as i follow Christ, i ….
- leadership is ….
thus far i haven’t received any comments yet (and i know at least 14 people read the post) so hopefully today is the day that some back and forth might be generated from this site. so here goes…
Q: paul said to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” and when i think about asking someone to follow me as i follow Christ, i ….
A: … am terrified. i think this almost goes without saying. i one small group i’m in this is something that we actually talk about quite a bit. i feel like when ever i ask myself this all i really end up dwelling on is how poorly i’m doing in the area of following Christ and i’m sure i’m not alone in this. i feel like it’s really easy to get bogged down in failure and regret. the bright side is that in Christ we’re set free from that. before paul asks the corinthians to “be imitators of me, as i am of Christ” in 1 corinthians 11:1 in 1 corinthians 6 paul says:
“or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers… nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
i don’t know about you but that pretty much counts me out. but thank God he doesn’t stop there. paul continues:
“and such were some of you. but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
great news if you ask me. so when i think about calling guys to follow me as i follow Christ i know that i’m going to blow it along the way. one of the coolest things i’ve seen though is that it’s in those moments of failure on my part that are probably some of the best teaching moments for them. when they see someone they respect fail it’s going to effect them, and if they saw me fail and then self-destruct what are they going to walk away with? but what if they see you fail and immediately turn to the God of the universe? that’s going to speak greater volumes than any sort of hour long discipleship appointment you could ever have with them. when they see you walking with God, when they see you stumble along the way, they’re going to get a vision for what this looks like going the distance. because for me that’s what i’m calling my guys to do, to walk with God for a lifetime.
Q: leadership is…
A: …intimidating …hard …sometimes overwhelming …a big responsibility …fun wait did i really put fun? absolutely! leadership to me always seemed like it was over my head. i’ve really felt so unequiped that i would do anything i could to shirk leadership responsibility. thorough college i saw leadership as another line on my resume, something that was one day going to land me that corner office, but always something that intimidated me. someone’s going to look to me for guidance, for direction, or to make some sort of decision? me? really? but the closer i read the gospels (matthew, mark, luke, and john) i really saw how Jesus took these untrained and uneducated men and turned them into basically the entire leadership of the church after he left. the reason we have heard the name Jesus and have the Bible that we have in our possession today was left up to some fishermen, a tax collector, and a couple other guys. someone who i respect alot rececently said to me in an e-mail that being a good leader really requires you to be a strong follower. “to lead and lead well you must follow the Lord’s will and trust in the Holy Spirit to communicate in and through you to motivate and encourage others to follow and do the same.” which is why i really think these two statements are really closely related. so why did i say fun? leadership is fun because it really puts you out there, you have to really be vulnerable in order to be a good leader. so you’re probably still wondering where the fun comes in. well for me this has meant getting personal with someone on a whole new level. a level where as a borderline genius i know says it in a house illustration as “living with the walls down and the roof off.” where you’re living with “the walls down” in that the people around you don’t see this face that you hide behind and can see the real you and living with “the roof off” in that there’s nothing you’re trying to hide from God. it’s in these type of relationships that you really can get to know someone and viceversa. that’s where the fun comes in, yeah it’s a risk but is anything worth having at least a little risky?
so there you have it, that’s how i’d finish those statements. what about you? how do you feel about paul’s call to us? what is leadership to you? you defiantly don’t have to write as much as i did. (as you can tell i ramble sometimes) but i’d love to hear your ideas as well as what you think about what i wrote. thanks
thought questions (part 1 of alot)
Posted by jaked | Filed under thought questions
so i’ve been putting this off a while but in order to keep things fresh around here and hopefully get a little dialog going, finish the following sentences in a comment below. i’m doing the same thing and monday (4/12) i’ll post what i come up with and i think it would be fun to talk through what we come up with. plus this will keep me accountable in actually doing it. let’s get to work.
- paul said to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” and when i think about asking someone to follow me as i follow Christ, i ….
- leadership is ….
