I, for one, found the video thought provoking. But, as is often the case, when thoughts and feelings are communicated through poetry, much of the content is left for the hearer to interpret on their own. And this interpretation is usually the result of our context in hearing it. A poem is meant to communicate something, often feelings, emotions, ideas, thoughts and perspectives. Often full explanation is not divulged, instead the hearer is often left to draw some of their own conclusions and applications from what was heard.
Because of this, poems can be both dangerous and damaging. And in the case of dealing with what God's Word communicates, the responsibility is great. Bethke undertook a big task in addressing the topic of "religion" through poetry. Undoubtedly his poem was heard and understood in different ways, as a result of different contexts. This is why some would label his work as an attack on any organized religion, while others would see it as a call to true religion. But perhaps there is a third group, like me, that is left asking the question, "What is religion?"
The poem, liked or hated, rests on how one defines the word "religion". At first this seems easy, but the word is used differently so often today. A few ways I've found myself using it the past include...
1. Different ways of getting to God - we use the term "religion" when dealing with other groups of people who believe they are on a journey to God, in a different way than we believe. "False Religions" or "World Religions" is a way of defining clear, distinct belief systems of appeasing God and enjoying the afterlife. It can also be used for "our religion" for how we understand God's revelation. For Christians, we would understand both the Old Testament system and the New Covenant as "our religion".
2. Rules for getting to God - in our own Christian faith, often times the word is used in relation to a false mindset of "working our way to heaven". The better term perhaps is legalism. Basically, it's the idea of condensing the call to holiness down to a manageable (at least its perceived that way) list of tasks to be accomplished to ensure that God is pleased. At times the Old Testament Jewish system produced those who were guilty of this. These are the ones that Jesus addressed so sternly, and caused him so much anger. The Sermon on the Mount was Jesus declaration against this hypocrisy. It's "our religion" gone wrong.
3. Taking care of orphans and widows - a lot of times, when we want to use the term "religion" positively, we turn to James 1:27, where in some translations we are told that pure and undefiled religion is to care for the helpless. Sometimes forgotten, we are also told it means to remain unstained from the world.
4. Organized religion - sometimes the word is used as a reference to organized religion in and of itself, i.e. the local church, the call to holiness, the ordinances of baptism and Lord's Supper, the responsibility to meet with other believers and submit to godly leadership, etc.
I'm sure there are others, but those are probably the most common uses I am aware of in my context. How Bethke's poem is heard and responded to will greatly depend on how the word "religion" is defined by you. I heard his poem in the context of an attack on the legalistic mindset of working for God's favor and priding oneself on religious accomplishments. Perhaps, because I am currently studying that topic for myself. The gospel frees us from work. In fact, its the very idea of not working or ceasing to work that leads to our salvation. (Rom. 4:5) If Bethke's purpose was to attack the good works mentality that won't be abolished until Jesus returns, then I wholeheartedly endorse that message. If he is attacking the "our religion gone wrong" mindset, then I say "Amen!" Others perhaps heard a more wide sweeping attack on religion to include both the organized church as a whole. If his message is to call us to a more spiritual approach to life, absent from the "religious" responsibilities of aligning ourselves to an organized body of believers, that regularly participate in the activities the Word calls us to, then his message is destructive. I'm convinced he wasn't trying to communicate that at all based on what I know about him from his other works.
But what does God's Word say? Did Jesus hate religion? I guess it depends on not so much the definition, but the word we are using. The trouble we are experiencing in answering this question lies in the fact that we are having this discussion in English, when the New Testament is written in Greek. Why is that problematic? Kevin DeYoung rightly stated in his article that the word "religion" appears five times in the English Standard Version. Were you to do a word search in another version, it would appear more or less. But I think it's a mistake to then base our understanding of the word on such a search. Most who want to say that Jesus did not hate religion, will turn to James 1:26-27. Here, as we've already said, we are given a picture of true religion or right religion. But is the word "religion" being used the same way here as it is in the other four passages in the ESV word search? Did you know that the Greek word for "religion" in James 1:26-27 is only used in two other passages of the New Testament? And it's only used in one of those passages that results from a word search in the ESV? Let's look at both...
1. Acts 26:5 -They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee.
2. Colossians 2:18 - Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind,
Those are the only two uses of James word for "religion" anywhere in Scripture, when you do a Greek word search. Notice in the second usage of the same word from James, the translators of the EVS use the word "worship" instead of religion. Again, this is the only two times the Greek word in James is used elswhere in the Bible.
What's my point? That I don't think we can clearly define Jesus' views on "religion" if we are trying to make religion mean one thing. The word doesn't have one clear definition or usage as revealed in Scripture. On top of that, it is an English word that is being applied to Greek words. And as we just saw, sometimes the word religion isn't even applied consistently to the same Greek word. I think Kevin DeYoung makes a mistake when he says, "Religion is all law and no gospel. If that’s religion, then Jesus is certainly against it.But that’s not what religion is. We can say that’s what is has become for some people or what we understand it to be. But words still matter and we shouldn’t just define them however we want." Because that is exactly what he does. He defines it differently that what he perceives in the poem because he understands it differently. The fact is that word "religion" does mean different things. It is used differently based on what we are trying to communicate at the time. And on top of that, I can't think of anyone who wants to be known as "religious", which means no matter how much we wish that word didn't have negative connotations, it so often does. Jesus often rebuked those who thought they were "religious" but the Scripture is so silent on affirming people who were "rightly religious". Meaning the N.T. writers never praise churches for being "religious". Instead they use words such as "faithful", "called", "child" and "loved".
Bethke's poem is certainly not perfect, nor is it absent from things I personally would have said differently. Bethke perhaps could have done a better job of defining what he meant and didn't mean. I think the important thing to clarify is that whether you liked the video or not, everyone I talk to agrees on the same things. We hate false religion and we embrace "right religion" whether we call it that or not. We love Jesus, we hate the damning message of Satan that says "good works will get you to Jesus" and we all embrace the call to love the church of Jesus and serve this world faithfully until Jesus returns.
