Below is a response to a video that someone posted on my Facebook wall. It's been going a bit viral - but there's some harm in the misunderstandings this guy is pontificating.
-----------------------
"Jesus>Religion"? Hardly.
by Father-Rob Fleckenstein on Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 1:54pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY
The above link will take you to a video that states that "Jesus > Religion". (The title of the video at the top will read "Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus".) From the first moments of the video to the end, I think I developed a headache in trying to follow his logic, although he said something screwy about logic being unworthy in other areas of life.
Let me try to explain some thoughts I had at things that were said in the course of the video:
- "Jesus came to abolish religion." . . . If this is so, why did He begin the Church? (Matthew 16:18 [You are Peter . . .]) He began the Church, began this "new religion", if you will, to help us understand His teachings. Religion - in general - is a communal way to express one's faith with others of the same beliefs. The religion developed by Christ when He gave the keys of the Kingdom to Peter was to help those who have come to believe in Him (and through Him and the power of the Holy Spirit, the Father) in a way which would unify the faith. Jesus was NOT against religion, but came to usher in the fullness of worship to the Father through His Paschal Mystery. Remember, Jesus came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. And if religion is all about laws, then Jesus came to fulfill religion, not to abolish it.
- While it is true that "Republican does not equal being Christian", neither does "Democrat", "Libertarian", "Independent", or any other political ideology. Being Christian equals being faithful to the Truth, Who is Christ. No one particular political ideology can claim this.
- And our poet is correct in claiming that it is knowing Jesus that we are able to boast in our weaknesses, for it is in Christ that our weaknesses become our strengths. Saint Paul teaches us this in his writings, and it is a practice of our faith which we continue to hold.
- Religion "builds great churches, but fails to feed the poor." We have the saying from Jesus that the poor will always be with us, and while it IS important that we continue to show the preferential option for the poor and continue to care for them, we must also and always continue to realize that these great churches were built by the poor who sacrificed so much so that they could glorify God in a place worthy of His praise. How quickly we forget the sacrifices made by the least among us so that they could feel "right and just" worship our Lord in a fitting environment.
- Religion "doesn't get to the core, because it's behavior modification like a long list of chores." But that "long list" helps us set goals and guides us along the journey of faith and life to "get to the core". How else will you get to the core unless you have items along the way to help you out? We, of course, know that the core is Jesus Christ, Himself. Yet it is important for us to understand and recognize those "things" along the way which help us reach the core, which allow us to reach Christ, and that "long list" is there to support us in modifying our behavior so that we CAN become more like Christ in our life, and to reach the core of His promises.
- "Now I ain't judgin' . . ." Yes, you are. You are telling anyone who follows "religion" that they are hypocrites, dressing up their outsides while their insides rot, pretending to be one thing to one group while trying to be someone completely different in their relationship with God. And while it is true that we all wear masks in our lives to protect our vulnerability, we must be aware that in our relationship with God, those masks are destroyed, because God knows us better than we know ourselves. That is one of the weaknesses - if not the greatest weakness - that we boast in because we know that it is in God alone that we come to understand who we are in Truth. And while we do need the Blood of the Paschal Sacrifice to make us clean and whole once again, we also need religion to help us not fall into the damnable patterns of our sinful lives that we find ourselves continuously falling in to. Religion helps us not only keep the outside clean and polished, but it helps us clean the inside by not just a quick rinse, but using the spiritual scour pad to take off the layers of junk that keeps us separated from God and His love and mercy.
- While it is true that the Church should be a "hospital for the broken" (which is why we have such a great relationship with our Divine Physician), it must also be that "museum for good people", because it is in that museum in which we currently are touring. As members of the Communion of Saints, we look to our past (whether immediate or ancient) to recognize those great men and women of faith who, though sinners, are now part of that heavenly celebration in which we hope to one day be a part of. Every saint has a sinner's past. We need to be mended by our Great Doctor, to receive the medicine which He prescribes (through the Scriptures and the Sacraments, most especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation), and to continue to take our spiritual vitamins (through the use of sacramentals) and constant consultation with Him (in and through our prayer). We need these multiple buildings (the hospital and the museum), for our community is not yet ready to be gathered into one building (the Temple, in the New Jerusalem).
- "Better than following some rules." Again, Jesus came to not abolish the law, but to fulfill it, since He is the Law Itself. And since He has informed us that He is the Way, Truth and Life, and if we are to follow Him along the Way through the Truth to (eternal) Life, then we come to understand and recognize that the rules that are given to us do not hinder or prohibit the freedom that we share in or live out, but rather enhance that freedom so as to truly live as sons and daughters of the Father.
- Jesus = work of God, cure / Religion = man-made invention, infection ------- Something instituted and begun by God, though run and inhabited by man, can not be seen as "an infection" for humanity. Religion is the path by which we come to know Who God is and who we are being made in His image and likeness. And Jesus cannot ever be considered as the "work" of God. He is the Word of God, He is NOT the "work" of God, though the works of God are enacted through Him. Though, as mentioned above, Jesus is the cure for all that ails us (in His role as Divine Physician).
- "Religion puts you in bondage, makes you blind." And that is very true if you live a life so tightly constricted by rules and regulations that you don't spend some time in coming to recognize the freedom that those rules and regulations are supposed to give you. And religion can make you blind if you are constantly focusing on your relationship with Jesus and forgetting about the relationship that you need to have with your neighbor. Yet, as we have mentioned before, (the Christian) religion is simply a guide for how to live one's life more fully and more alive through a relationship with Jesus Christ. The guide of religion should allow us to see Christ and His Spirit truly alive and active in this world, and how we are to participate in the Spirit for the spreading of the Gospel. (It's all part of that "amazing grace".)
- Religion = Man searching for God / Christianity = God searching for man ----------- Christianity is more than just some philosophical way of life: IT IS A RELIGION! And what is so wrong in man's desire to search for God?! NOTHING! For it is understanding that God desires to search us out that our desire to search Him out makes sense. CCC 27 states:
The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for: The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.
Another way to say it was said by Saint Augustine of Hippo in his "Confessions": "You have made us for Yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You."
Or another, more simplified way: We love Him because He loved us first.
- While our poet does have some truth in the statement about Jesus bearing our sins on the Cross, he is misguided in his understanding about Jesus' statement, "It is finished." Jesus was finishing or consummating the Paschal Sacrifice to the Father when uttering these words; He understood that the salvific actions of the Cross were completed, and that the actions of the new and eternal covenant were fulfilled. Jesus never meant to say that "religion was finished". If this was the case, why would Jesus ask Saint Peter to feed His sheep three times upon the beach following His Resurrection?
Our poet confesses that he does believe in Jesus, the Bible, the Church [the church], and sin. Yet he continues to have this Evangelical / Non-Denominational / American understanding of religion as something that is a barrier to a full life in Christ. It is quite the opposite - it is only through a practice of religion that we come to live that full life in Christ. For Christ did not come to simply establish a one-on-one relationship with His followers, but to give them a community of faith to live out together their joys and struggles, and through the fulfillment of the laws in Truth, come to recognize the fulness of life given to those who not only believe in His Name, but also worship and live within the Church that He established so as to guide us along the way of life and faith to the fullness of the promises He has given us.
--------------------------
Enjoy the journey . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment