I am blessed to know some really smart people.  Below is the transcript from a facebook discussion earlier today that I thought was worth sharing:

Jeff Klingenberg

From a pastor buddy . . . “The problem with this whole attack against “religion,” particularly as it relates to the Christian religion, is you cannot separate Christ from His Church. It would be like separating a head from the body…it doesn’t work. And certainly …as Calvinists we believe Scripture teaches how Christ died for His body, the Church. And so you need to BELONG to the Church, and are called to be a member of Christ’s Church. Now of course there is the Visible and Invisible distinction, but the Invisible resides within the Visible. Then there’s the whole matter of the “means of grace” that are found within the Church. This resurfacing of a disparaging of “Christian religion” is nothing more than a disparaging of that which Jesus Christ loved with a deep, passionate love. He loves His Bride. He gave Himself up for her. To disparage the Church is to disparage our Lord. And that is offensive” — Tyler Wagenmaker

Adrian Van Giessen

Yes, but what if the point of the video is not that we can be followers of Jesus without belonging to his church but rather we need to reclaim the centrality of the gospel and place that back at the center of the way Jesus’ church acts. While on earth, Jesus didn’t come to make a few ‘adjustments’ to the religion of his day but to turn it on it’s ear. Perhaps something like that is needed again. If this is true, this doesn’t disparage the organized church but call it back to its very core – if that is truly needed, that is truly loving.

Jason Postma

Jeff and Adrian – thanks for sharing. You both make very compelling points. I suppose this means that the issue is a matter of articulation and sophistication (without sliding into theological elitism) – if Adrian is correct in his suggestion about the point of the video, then it means that we, as pastors, need to be vigilant about communicating “Christian vocabulary” in a way that is both winsome and theologically sound so that our fellow-Christians, especially our youth, are able to communicate in a similar manner.

Jason Postma I still have problems with the individualism that the video implies and extols.

Jeffrey Hocking

It should be noted that for Herman Bavinck, God’s dwelling with his people goes beyond the church and even Christ. He writes: “The Christian religion is temporal; as an Erlösungsreligion it will someday have completed its task. When the kingdom has fully come, Christ will hand it over to God the Father. The original order will be restored. . . . Dualism will cease. Grace does not remain outside or above or beside nature but rather permeates and wholly renews it. And thus nature, reborn by grace, will be brought to its highest revelation. That situation will again return in which we serve God freely and happily, without compulsion or fear, simply out of love, and in harmony with our true nature. That is the genuine religio naturalis. In order to restore such religion, faith has for a time become a religio Christiana, Erlösungsreligion.” So perhaps this whole religion vs. the Gospel thing might be too easy and shallow, many of the critical responses I have heard to it have not been much better. It is getting at something I think, even if it is also missing something at the same time.

Jason Postma Jeff – can you give us the citation for that (awesome) quotation? Gotta love Bavinck!

Jeffrey Hocking

What Bavinck is saying in the whole of the article I quoted (which comes from an article titled “Common Grace”) is that God originally used the cultic practices of the Israelites to reveal his peace and glory. When that failed to leave the ”narrow channel” of those religious practices, God used the “religio Christiana,” but with the eschatological goal of the Christian church coming to an end when Christ hands everything back to the Father and God becomes “all in all”. That said, a Dutch Reformed, pietistic theologian (one of the best) was saying something like, but not completely similar, to what is being said in this popular movement.

Jeffrey Hocking Yes, sorry: Herman Bavinck, “Common Grace” trans. by R. C. Van Leeuwen, Calvin Theological Journal 24 (April 1989): 35-65.

Jason Postma so, the end of religion is predicated upon God becoming all in all?

Jason Postma I guess its a matter of, like I said above, this is a matter of theological sophistication (or a lack thereof). In other words, the message is right, but it remains surface level and therefore requires further fleshing out?

Jeffrey Hocking That is a good question. For Bavinck it is when Christ hands everything over to the Father. This is taken from 1 Cor. 15 and is after Christ has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power (the last of which is death). The language of God becoming all in all follows very shortly after, so I do not know if it is temporally simultaneous, but my sense is that it is practically one in the same event.

Jason Postma I love 1 Cor. 15 – one of my favorite sections of the Bible. But even there the communal aspects of salvation are clear – which underlines my discomfort about the individualism implied in the video.

Jeffrey Hocking

Yes, I agree with your comment about a lack of theological sophistication, Jason. My feeling is just that the lack has come from both sides, while the more critical side has disingenuously claimed the ‘high ground’. This blog post was much better than the Patrol Mag post in that sense. Still the “false dichotomy” stands out as too easy a critique. It might be a sloppy dichotomy, but it speaks to something that shouldn’t be so easily written off as the result of a false starting point.

Jeffrey Hocking Why does “religion” necessarily safe-guard against individualism? I think the case could be made that religion has been co-opted by the dominion, authority, and power that Jesus means to destroy. That is where I think the dichotomy says something true, but that is because I do not equate religion

Jason Postma

Jeff, I agree – kind of like the “straw man” critique. It’s easy to assert that someone else has created a straw man (something of which we are all guilty) but to rest one’s case entirely on this is shoddy critique. The rationale for me posting these videos is that a number of uni students from my congregation have been posting the video and I wanted to prompt them to a deeper level of engagement beyond simply “this video is cool and well put together and it talks about Jesus so it must be right”.

Jeffrey Hocking Yes, I know, my facebook feed is flooded with about half of the people liking these videos and the other half posting critical reflections on them. It is good to get people talking and I agree that there should be some critical response. I just wish they were better. Perhaps you should write one on your own blog and then I will post that. :)

Jason Postma As to religion serving as a safe guard against individualism – there is no guarantee that it does (even in the context of a local congregation). However, I guess I am too heavily invested in the church and too much of a communitarian (blame living in Japan and reading too much Charles Taylor…)

Jason Postma

Western society has long tried to downplay the significance of religion, but the central place of religion in human life throughout history clearly demonstrates that we cannot underestimate its power. This was a reality that many of the Enlightenment-era philosophers were not willing to concede. While they would grant a place to religion as one aspect of the human person, none would assert that mankind is fundamentally religious. Bavinck thus notes,

“By limiting religion to one human faculty, they diminish man’s universal character. They divide man in two and separate what belongs together. They create a gulf between religion and culture, and they run the danger of reducing religion to moral duty or aesthetic emotion or a philosophic view. But according to the Christian confession religion is other than and higher than all those views; religion must not just be something in one’s life, but everything, Jesus demands that we love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength. In our thinking and living, there can be no division between God and the world, between religion and culture; no one can serve two masters.

Therefore if we want to do full justice to religion, we must return to the central unity in man that is the basis for differentiating his faculties and which in Holy Scripture is often designated the heart, from which proceed all expressions of life in mind, feeling, and will. Reformed theologians sought that central point for religion in (as Calvin called it) the seed of religion [semen religionis] or sense of divinity [sensus divinitatis], and in the Christian religion theologians went behind faith and conversion to regeneration, which in principle is a renewal of the whole man. When they took a position in this center of man, they saw opportunity to avoid all one-sidedness of rationalism, mysticism, and ethicism, and to maintain that religion is the animating principle of all of life (29-30).”

Jeff Klingenberg

I like what Pastor Darren Roorda has this to say . . . Have seen this vid posted by several of our youth or others I know all in their 20s. Here was my comment to them: I will leave you a similar comment I gave to others. So much of what he sa…ys is untrue. If the cross is as he says “the place where people gather” then when they get together there at the cross and worship and work together to let other people know, we properly call that the Christian religion. Faith is never practiced alone. All of the books written by the apostle Paul firstly to congregations…not individuals. And he rightly told us to gather together and encourage one another and build eachother up. That is religion. And for thousands of years, this faith, done in community is known as Church – the Christian religion which Christ instituted and said the gates of hell could not withstand and that he instituted to succeed. Now, there may be brokenness in the church, but still, it comes down to knowing our guilt, experiencing grace and living out a life of gratitude. And not just by myself but with and through others. That’s the church I know and want to be a part of and strive toward. And this video is far too negative on the church. In the reality that Jesus paints for us, the Christian church (its relgion) is the hope of the world!

Jeffrey Hocking

I’m now on the bus, which initiates a differnt conversational caedance. What is interesting to me is that you and I share a number of the same values (as far as I am aware), but I don’t feel any of my values being attacked with this attack on religion. I just feel like something else is meant entirely by the word. In this sense, I completely agree with Bavink, who by religion meant what I take you to mean, and I also somewhat agree with the Jesus>religion. I feel like the word does not have the same meaning in these contexts. I would be more likely to talk about the community of faith or the church when I talk about what is I take to be important to both of us. If that is what is under attack, then I am upset too. Faith only makes sense with in a community. ‘Religion’ at least in certain circles has tried to seperate the faith from the community and make it about a relationship an institution instead. That is what I am more than comfortable seeing fall to the authority of Jesus.

Jason Postma Jeff – nail on head… I’m having a discussion about this video on a different fb thread and the common consensus seems to be that the sticking point about this whole video is the definition of religion. I think that the ambiguity of the filmmakers (whether intentional or not) is a stroke of genius precisely because it is generating these kinds of discussions.