The first video I watched for this week was titled “RE: Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus || Spoken Word” and I was listening mainly for how this individual was defining the term religion which seems to be the primary factor in the debate circling the original video content. Of course, this also highlights the fact that different people are going to live out their faith or religion differently and construct it in multiple ways. This totally contributes to the fact that lived religion is something separate from official religion, that practitioners of the overarching official religion can have all sorts of nuances in their daily lived religion. Well, as most of the responses to this video go, it was a critique of the original. This man, Joshua Watchman, argues with Bethke about what religion really is and how Bethke’s claims are not biblically sound and are, overall, incorrect. Watchman argues that religion is not a man-made institution but instead says that “Christ established the church.” Watchman describes the church as a place where people go to worship God as God intended, and that religion was not a result of sin or of man. At one point in his video he defines what he believes religion is; he says that “religion is just another word for relationship.” So, with Bethke’s statement being that a relationship with Jesus is important but religion is not, Watchman’s counter argument is that a relationship with Jesus is religion. (Well, the Christian religion at least.) Watchman makes some interesting points and comparisons toward Bethke’s video, some as intense as comparing what Bethke is propagating as being like what Lucifer was propagating before being removed from heaven. He believes that Bethke is making religion about himself rather than about God, that he is being selfish rather than selfless. (Again he compares this to Lucifer’s attitude in Isaiah 14-15.) He also argues that belief in Jesus is not enough, that even Satan (Lucifer) believes in Jesus, but that it’s not enough because one needs religion. Which, considering his definition of religion is a relationship, means that one needs belief plus a relationship with Jesus. He also makes the argument that there was religion, or church, in heaven. This he gathers from Isaiah 14 when it says “congregation” and the like. Toward the finish of his video, Watchman tells Bethke and the audience, “Don’t hate religion, hate the hypocrites...no, pray for the hypocrites. Pray for the hypocrites who are pushing people away from the church.” He ends with the statement that religion isn’t about big buildings, customs, traditions, or rituals; religion is about a relationship, that’s what Christianity is. So, he claims that Bethke is defining religion as hypocrites going through the ritualistic motions, and Watchman says no, that religion is, above all, a relationship.
The second video I watched this week actually has 2 parts. There was an original video that was done in the same spoken word style as the original WIHRLJ, but he also posted a video that explains his spoken word stance, so I decided to use both for this response since they correspond with one another. So, first I’ll talk about some of the things said in his spoken word video and then I’ll move on to his explanation of it. A few of the key phrases I picked up from his spoken word poem was that “true religion is a call to love one another” and that religion is “God’s means for us to know his son.” He states that “to throw religion away is a slap to the one who made you.” (Strong sentiments...) This man, like Joshua Watchman, says that Bethke is defining religion as hypocrisy; he says in his poem (about Bethke) that “the religion [he] describe[s] is hypocrisy and it’s not always synonymous with religiosity.” So, I’ll move on to his explanation of his spoken word because that has more defined information. In his explanation video he poses the question at the beginning, “Is it religion or is it relationship?” Ironically, this is one of the few, if the only, responses I’ve found that calls to attention the fact that Bethke never truly expresses what his actual definition of religion is. One can imply what he means by religion, but he never fully defines what he means. He says that Bethke was “defining” religion as “this hypocritical thing that we do in order to reach out to God” but he also says that Bethke never really defined that stance. This guy actually says that if Bethke had defined his terms (of religion) he wouldn’t have such a problem because he says that he and Bethke are actually speaking on the same thing (that things one does to try to gain favor with God is “not cool”). BUT he then says that to throw away religion completely is also not biblical or what Jesus wants. He says that “Christianity is ‘both and,’ it is religion and relationship together...religion is what gives parameters to the relationship.” This guys says that religion is, or consists of, the epistles and most commands of Jesus, which are the parameters he was referring to. He says that the Bible states that “pure religion, in the eyes of God, is helping the widow and the orphan. Loving other people. Jesus didn’t come to abolish religion, but to connect it.”
The third video I watched this week was from a young lady who titled her video “Comeback Response to Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus || Spoken Word.” She also is disagreeing with Bethke’s video (big shocker!) but is a bit more antagonistic toward the original message. Antagonistic may be a bit strong, but unlike the others she never states that Bethke had any good points or had any positive comments toward his definition of religion. She seems to completely, 100% disagree with Bethke. However, she also does not have a clearly stated definition of religion and what it is. She simply says that he’s wrong and why. Not that her argument is totally without basis, but the issue I’m pointing out (which is also an issue with Bethke’s video) is that the definition of religion and how they’re constructing that is never clearly defined within their argument. Actually, in some ways she does define it how Bethke does, or at least how she interprets Bethke’s definition. The best example is when she says that Bethke “doesn’t like religion because of the rules” and then she states that “those rules are tools!” So, from this she is saying that Bethke is defining religion as a set of rules, but she responds by also defining religion as a set of rules. The difference is that she says the rules are important. Either way, her “definition” of religion is never defined within the video, one can only imply what her definition is, the same of Bethke.
So Joshua Watchman says that Bethke’s definition of religion is that it’s hypocrisy, and Watchman’s own definition of religion is that “religion is another word for relationship.” The second guy, from ThePursuitBlog, also said that Bethke defined religion as “a hypocritical thing that we do in order to reach out to God.” His own definition of religion is that “true religion is a call to love one another” and that “Christianity is...religion and relationship together.” He also says that religion consists of the epistles and Jesus’s commands, which gives Christians parameters. The third video, the young lady, says that Bethke is spouting “man-made blasphemy” and that he is defining religion as a set of rules that sucks the fun out of life. She disagrees and says the “rules are tools.” As far as my own opinion about the arguments goes, I kind of like the second guy from ThePursuitBlog because he was the only one who noticed that Bethke never clearly defined his own constructed meaning of religion and pointed that out as a problem.
The connection that I am still finding between these observations and past observations is that there is a disconnect and a kind of confusion that is occurring from the different constructed definitions, or lack of definitions, of what religion is. This makes it difficult to debate properly because, in a way, these individuals are debating different things because their definitions are not the same.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OebkWDHzQEw (Joshua Watchman video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiyYuLFlzFg (ThePursuitBlog Spoken Word response--part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_188895&feature=iv&src_vid=yiyYuLFlzFg&v=Tp6VLHIXfZA (ThePursuitBlog Part 2--explanation of part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-xvl5eT8bo (Comeback response)
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