# What is Wrong/Right With this?



## OPC'n (Apr 19, 2017)

What do you see wrong and right about what he is saying?


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## Silas22 (Apr 19, 2017)

I think most people confuse religion with Pharisaism. Below are all the things I found wrong with the clip.

_Jesus did not come to abolish religion.

Voting Republican" _*-non-argument/non-sequitor*

Most Huge churches absolutely feed the poor.
_
False religions of course are behavior modifiers. _*So in that sense, I guess you could describe it as being "perfume on a casket."*

Wait a second, he's downing kids who claim to be a Christian but live immoral lives?! I thought this wasn't about religion!!! (His definition of it)

I agree that we should never conceal our sin in order to appear holy. However, we "out" our sin during confession and repentance. We do not wear our sins as a badge of honor. _

Following Jesus is so much better than following rules. _However, those rules (Mosaic Law) reveal our need for a Savior..._but I get his point. 
_
Jesus was not a glutton or drunkard. 

Jesus and religion are not on opposite spectrum. Religion exists because God exists. Religion exists because all human beings know, deep-down, that God exists. Christianity is true religion. 

Christianity is God searching for man. <- God is not a beggar.

The irony of videos like these is that they tend to comfort self-righteous Christians. We tend to think of self-righteousness only in regards to legalists/fundamentalists, but the spectrum goes both ways. I have a friend who recently addressed this issue on his blog.

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## MW (Apr 19, 2017)

OPC'n said:


> What do you see wrong and right about what he is saying?



Our Lord taught, "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."

The gentleman fails to touch on the actual point of criticism which our Lord directed at Pharisaic religion. The point of criticism is applicable to any form of religion which does not have the love of Christ at the heart of it, including a religion of "feeding the poor."

He might improve his poetry if he paid some attention to poetical forms. The same applies to religion. If he examined religious forms of a biblical nature he might come to a better view.

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## Contra_Mundum (Apr 19, 2017)

Quote: _Jesus came to abolish religion._
What is his definition of "religion?" He's counting on some listener, who has a negative attitude toward something _he _has defined as "religion" gaining some appreciation for what this teacher (of religion, don't let him kid you) has to say.

Quote: _Voting Repbulican ... wasn't [Jesus'] mission._
Again, this religious teacher is hoping to influence someone with a political streak, who is annoyed with a perceived tie between "religious voters" and the political "right wing."

Quote: _Republican doesn't ... mean Christian._
This religious teacher understands that he's a missionary of sorts to people who's religion is Politics, but who would not recognize their faith as a religion.

Quote: _Just because you call some people blind doesn't ... give you vision._
Aren't there left-wing political secularists who are so sure about their moral superiority that they have no compunction about eliminating the free speech of people they don't like?

Quote: _If religion is so great, why has it started so many wars?_
Wars are begun by people, and people seek justification for a violent imposition of their opinion on others. They use philosophy, religion, moral crusading, and even atheism (just to name a few broad categories). In the quote, "religion" is so broad a term, that it is barely definable. Once more, this religious teacher is counting on someone in the audience thinking, "He's speaking my language."

Quote: _Why does [religion] build huge churches, but it fails to feed the poor?_
I certainly wonder, after this question is posed, whether we aren't simply hearing a different sort of political-spiritual fusion. "Jesus isn't a Republican; he's more of a Democrat." It's the secular-progressive, largely irreligious set who is the video's target. Religious fervor is being painted as the hypocrisy of the political-Right. Whereas, the political-left according to the video *can have *spiritual-fervor without becoming rightist.

And so, there's a language game being played by the religious teacher in the video. He wants the watcher to think there's a big difference between the Jesus he wants to teach, and the Jesus taught by so many others. Just lump "the church" of everyone else, represented by those prominent buildings for gathering, into the bad-guys category.

He raps/hiphops to prove how relatable he is, on the listener's terms. Using the sympathetic symbol of the single mom, he judges all the "judgy" ones--which could be (if his words are taken at face value, with no context) everyone at all who objects to the sin of fornication: both those who are harsh in condemnation, as well as those who would be kind _and _uncompromising in calling sin what it is, and pleading for those caught up in it to repent. For without repentance and faith, there is no forgiveness. Jesus straight up called the woman at the well an adulteress. His use of the law as Judge was kindness to her. He related to her on his terms, and not on hers.

As the teacher continues his now-rhyming presentation, he continues to judge the "religious," while he calls his Christianity--which contains a fair presentation of the objective truth of the gospel--something different from what he calls "religion." He claims affection for the church, but he continues to recast its character in purely subjective terms.

He finally defines "religion" as that which reaches out to find God; in contrast to God's coming to find sinners like himself. But this is too convenient. Religion is a descriptive adjective, and not simply a label. There is true and false religion. Jas.1:27, "Pure *religion* and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." Our religious teacher in the video isn't using the Bible's own terms in ways that are faithful to its own authoritative representation.

So, its a mixed bag, this video. The good fact that there is gospel in the presentation is partly vitiated by the effort at "replacing" alleged right-wing political overtones with left-wing. Instead of dispensing with all such things as distracting. Jesus did not let the woman at the well get into those weeds. He did not affirm either the politics of Jerusalem or of Samaria. And that is the model we should be after.

There is a Temple, made without hands, eternal in the heavens. And there is an institutional church on earth, which Christ has ordained. Often, it has its own buildings to facilitate its meetings. There's nothing untoward about this. Christianity is a religion, that's a fact. It is the true religion; and there is a difference between God coming down to man, and man trying to reach up to find God.

But it is no better to cast one's own politics in moral terms; as if it is a religious credit to have the public treasury poured out for social services. If it is the church's duty to relieve the poor--who will always be with us, Jesus said--then it is not fulfilling that duty to have coerced funds (taxes) used by the politicians in some sense for that end; and to take ownership of that "kindness."

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## ZackF (Apr 19, 2017)

You folks are more patient than me. Please tell me he had the "authentic" breathy voice? Or was it the hipster/metro effeminate voice?

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