Jesse A. Schroeder

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You probably have seen this video posted on facebook -
 


I'll admit, when I saw the title and few of the quotes, I didn't feel the need to watch it. I commend the artist for speaking out, putting himself out there on the web, and I assume his intention is admirable.

But the video is stirring controversy. This HuffPost article sums it up. This Patrol Mag article offers a strong critique, saying:

What Bethke is actually railing against is people whose expression of religion doesn’t look like he believes it should. Thus, rather than discounting religion, he is just discounting other religions, or even just other manifestations of his own religion...But, here Bethke is doing far more harm than good by playing into hurtful stereotypes about religion–his religion and mine, as well as the other major world religions. 

I'm not going to offer any additional critique or compliments. I think its an interesting conversation and in many ways its good that his video has sparked the debate. If nothing else, he succeeded in his goal of getting people to think twice about their religious expression.

Here are my few thoughts, and the reason I wanted to post about the topic: First, we have to be honest that spirituality is inherently religious. Our spiritual faith requires a physical expression embodied in our human life. Attempting to differentiate between Jesus and religion is akin to the modern Christian attempt at differentiating between Truth and our subjective perception of truth. Postmodernism has taught us that all reality is embodied in our personal human experience. I guess it naturally follows then that, yes, all our spiritual/religious expressions are flawed. That sort of goes without saying, but then again, I think that's what this artist is saying.

Second, I've been reading Brian McLaren's Naked Spirituality, and at the end of the book he talks about moving into a phase of spiritual life that goes beyond dichotomies. He says,

We know we must use words, just as we have [before], but we also know that our words conceal as they reveal. similarly we must celebrate the rich heritage of our religious traditions, but those traditions are now the foundation on which we build, not the ceiling under which we are trapped.
We learn as never before to separate G-d from our God concepts. We learn that it is one thing to trust our beliefs, believe in our theology, or have confidence in our doctrines and creeds about God. But it is a very different thing to trust God directly, desperately, helplessly, nakedly. We believe in G-d-beyond-beliefs as distinguished from the-god-of-my-beliefs...So by referring to G-d as 'God as we understnd him,' we acknowledge that our best understanding of God is just that - our current best attempt to understand One who by definition, excels, overflows, and transcends anything and everything we will ever think or say."

Paradoxical? Yes. Contradicting? Obviously. The critics of the video are right - the artist contradicts himself by saying he doesn't believe in religion but he believes in Jesus. I don't think the artist is very nuanced in his approach, but if he was, he might be closer to something like Peter Rollins' How [Not] to Speak of God, or going even further back, the apophatic theology of the Desert Fathers. This is the theology that affirms belief in God, which admitting that our understanding of God and expression of our belief is inherently flawed and falls short. It is a theology full of humility, seeking, and re-evaluating.

Our spiritual beliefs are necessarily bound in religious expression. But that doesn't mean we have to be satisfied with our religions, or with ourselves. But we can't fool ourselves, thinking that we are free from religion. Like an analogy my sister passed along to me, "Saying you love Jesus but hate religion is like saying you love your wife but hate marriage."

The goal is not to be antagonistic against religion, but realize that our religion is not the full expression of our love for God. As McLaren says, it is the foundation, the jumping off point, rather the ceiling or the limit.