When I first saw this YouTube video via a link on Facebook, it was less than a day old and had a little over 100,000 views. As I write this, it has been viewed 6.5 million times. I guess he struck a chord.
His point isn’t anything new and falls in line with the current anti-organized religion trend that is sweeping through Christianity right now. It hits on some of the themes of Michael Spencer’s Mere Churchianity (of which I did a chapter-by-chapter discussion). The package is clean, hip, and resonating. But is he right?
Right after I saw it on Facebook, I wanted to “share” it to my friends too. But I wanted to see what this guy was all about first so I went to his YouTube channel. And his other videos just didn’t sit right with me.
So I’m curious what you, my readers, think of this video. Is he right? Do you agree?
Personally, I think God is anti-religion too. I think He makes that clear in the Old Testament prophets. But then the Word of God also tells us that “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27) So I think it’s dangerous to offer up a blanket statement that “I reject religion” when the Bible tells us that there is a religion that God himself accepts.
An interesting comment on the YouTube page for this video: “Anyone else see the irony of people arguing whether he’s right about religion being different than Jesus and shouting at each other that the other opinion is wrong? I think his point has just been proven.”
So what do you think:do you hate religion, but love Jesus, or are you striving for the one True Religion that God finds faultless?