Okay Adam's Alers - time to put your thinking caps on. This first video is eating up the Internet. As of this writing it has had over sixteen million views! Quite incredible. This young gentleman is making the argument that Jesus came to destroy religion. Listen to it with a critical mind. Many of us will be confronted with one of points or another that he makes here. How would you respond?
Before you read (or view) on, think about what he said. Bearing in mind what you know about the faith how would you respond? Where might you find flaws in his commentary? Do you know enough about your faith to make comment?
Below is one response from Fr. Robert Barron from Word on Fire. Of course it is not as slick or entertaining and unfortunately he seems rather annoyed (maybe exasperated) with the young man. But here is a beginning of a good response.
Responses are coming in spades from all over the place and you can see them on Youtube. Here is another young man making a different tact from the one above.
I like his style, his respect, and his sincerity. But how would you go even further? Was there anything in that first video that struck you as not quite right? It is a great exersize to watch it and respond if to nobody else to yourself so that when you are thusly confronted you will have had the advantage of thinking it over already.
I will try tomorrow (time willing) to give just some responses that I have to the video.
3 comments:
The first video was full of style, but little substance. It is difficult to grasp exactly what he means by religion (and I suspect this vagueness is intentional). To the extent that he equates religion with hypocrisy and/or self-righteousness, then, as Fr. Barron said, I'm with him.
However, I would define religion generally as a set of beliefs about God, whether held individually or collectively or institutionally. What makes this video so silly is that the young man is expounding his religion (= ideas about God) by claiming that Jesus opposed religion. It's sort of like not hating anything except hatred.
It is evident that this young man's faith in Jesus is not completely devoid of substance. He indicated that pornography was a bad thing. So I wonder what he would find objectionable about "religion" calling pornography a sin. Again, unless what he means by religion is nothing more that hypocrisy or self-righteousness.
At another point the young man said he loved the church. What? I would like to know how he conceives of a church without religion. He doesn't send much time on the church, though. I can't say that I blame him.
Fr. Barron's and the Catholic Response videos were adequate. But I don't think an exposition on Protestant theology and American freedom would balance the young man's style points. Nor do I think an appeal to the glories of Western civilization will have much impact on the type of people who are impressed by the Love Jesus-Hate Religion video.
I'm not saying I could do better. It is difficult to fight against a sound bite.
An approach or view that most people are not taking when they watch all three videos is that it takes a tremendous amount of effort to create, shoot, edit, post videos like this (and a certain blog which shall remain nameless). They are all well done.
Not only does the first guy have passion for what he believes, he's got enough motivation behind it to put in video.
Fr. Barron has certainly put his time in the library, there's no denying that. He should be commended for his tact. The response to this video could certainly go a number of ways.
And finally the Catholic response video was terrific, too. He shows that there are people in this world who will disagree with passion, but not in a way to abet violence.
I pray someday I will have the courage to publish, the knowledge to compose, and the couth to pull off all of what these gentlemen seem to do so easily.
I am a Catholic Youth Music artist responding to that "Why I hate religion but love Jesus video" by releasing my debut album in a couple days. Its not what you may think so please give it 1 listen. Youtube.com/321pots or Joepots.com. God Bless You
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