Its huge… from when I first got a link to it on Tuesday and it had just under 300 views to last time I checked this afternoon when it hit 10,000,000 it’s definitely struck a nerve with a lot of folks. I think its an incredibly cool video… and it likely will bring a whole lot of seekers and folks who had wandered from the church back into it. I pray the church does receive them.
Yet, there are those who dont get it. Its sad really… folks on the one hand will take offense when Jefferson (the video’s author) brought up the bit about God not loving the single mom. No church teaches such, its not in the scriptures either… but it sure didn’t take long before Christians started bashing single moms who responded positively to this video either on youtube or on facebook, and telling them they were going to hell.
Likewise, some folks cant seem to see the difference between the church, Christ’s bride, and “false” religion, and with such a view rightfully took the video as a church bashing thing, completely missing the point where Jefferson says he loves the church. Granted, more explicit language to distinguish the two might have mitigated such… but the number of folks missing the point in this regard is small. Its pretty easy to see the false religion of legalism, hypocrisy, and related as being counter to the bride of Christ.
There were a number of folks who semantic issues. Ie the whole Christianity is, is/not a religion thing which opens up a can of worms and dictionaries fly and all sorts of poking at each other begins. Folks for whom the video was intended will see where Jefferson is going, folks outside the audience will see it as a logical inconsistency.
And of course, there are the Pelagians and other related legalists who had serious heartburn. Ie, the folks who wish to replace God’s role with their own. You could about see em sputter… “but, but, but” Pelagianism and man’s pride is alive and well in our era, then again, its nothing new. Pope Innocent I condemned it way back when on January 27, 417, it looks like Mr Jefferson Bethke is having a much needed go at it again 1600 years later. Go get em sir!!!
Lastly, like all things, it is possible to read into things, and go too far…ie Jesus and me is not the answer, we do very much need the community of faith. I address gospel add-ons, pelagianism, and the Jesus and me thing in a bit more depth in my own video response.
Special thanks are due to Cindy at undermuchgrace for permission to use the cool graphic on grace. Libby Anne in her post “How Creationism Drove me out of the Church” brought up some very good points about adding things to the Gospel.
Thanks for this. I especially like your flowcharts and diagrams which explain the relationship between Grace, human works and faith.
Jefferson’s video isn’t my favorite example of Gospel translated to urban street slang and it’s not surprising that he didn’t get everything right– no one since Christ ever has. But what people call religion is often tradition + politics with a sprinkling of the real thing. Replace Jefferson’s use of “religion” with “tradition” and his video is closer to the truth. Sometimes I wonder whether God allowed so many variations in human traditions of worship so that we could distill from these the core of Christianity. But this would require communication and maybe even migration from one ‘religion’ to another. There again, humans have placed enormous barriers. When the barriers are physical such as the walls in Belfast, they eventually fall but tradition (aka. ‘religion’) can become an even higher wall which separates us from the tuth.