i have seen this video around on FB for the last long while and wanted to check it out but not enough to actually do so and so i didn’t til today – it’s called ‘Why I hate religion, but love Jesus’ and it’s a spoken word piece by a young guy called jeff bethke.

i didn’t watch it til i started skim reading this really good but really too long for me to read in its entirety blog by a guy called mike morrell which seems to give it and peoples’ response to it a fair commentary.

this blog isn’t so much about what jeff said [which i largely agree with] or what mike responded with [cos even though he looks at both sides of it i largely agree with a lot of what both sides say – think there is often a lot of semanticals floating around that debate] but more about this.

some people [and i hope i am not guilty of this, but i am really scared i probly am sometimes, if so, please punch me on the nose, cos it’s silly] focus too much on the peripherals than the actual point… and it manifests in many different ways…

for example, i started a podcast a while ago [and stopped it after a few cos it never really got going] and this one on forgiveness got 57 comments which i think is the most comments i have had on any post…

only this the first comment was by someone asking me to get involved and save ‘the world of birds’ as it was about to close down and when i said that i wouldn’t it descended rather dramatically into character assassination because i hate birds, i hate all animals, all christians hate animals and so on… you can go read them, i am sure they are quite humour-flled – in fact i could be wrong but i don’t think a single comment related to forgiveness [the original podcast intent] until my humour-filled friends started chiming in semi-sarcastically with ‘great audio thort on forgiveness, brett’ and of course my personal favourite from my friend Mj, “What an audio blog on forgiveness Brett. Thing of champions. Especially that part where you talk about sponsoring the World of Birds as a way of showing retribution for all the atrocities that Christians have committed (Dodo killing and Theatresports advertising to name a few).”

i posted a cartoon recently and someone went off at me for the title of the cartoon site [which i hadn’t noticed in small print on the bottom of the cartoon and which contained a bad word] and someone went off at me for a bunch of comments that people had made on the original cartoon which i hadn’t even noticed as i just hit share.

and so on. a spelling mistake halfway down the blog or the colour of the background or the fact that they posted it at 2am and what were they doing up so late? and so on.

ha, this blog has been so interrupted [supper with housemates, games, shopping lists] that i can’t remember the signficance of writing it any more and it seems so silly and it’s not like a huge gripe i have anyways so i should just delete it except MJ’s comment is too worth reading plus people having the opportunity to be alerted to my bird-hating ways.

but the bottom line point is that often we miss the message and get caught up in the peripherals, oh and my other point was we can get so caught up in arguing [the video on Jesus vs religion] and then arguing about the arguing [the article] and arguing about the arguing about arguing [comments on article] that by the time we have felt good about getting our say in, no-one can quite remember what the point is.

i find Christianity can get hard and confusing and complicated and contradictory and difficult to understand and a whole lot more UNTIL i do this magical thing – i start doing it. When i start actually just loving God, when i start loving people, when i do something that lifts up someone considered ‘the least of these’, when i reach out and intentionally do something that disciples a young oke nearby, when i forgive someone or refuse to be drawn into a fight, when i stand up for justice or stand against injustice, when i stop and talk to a homeless woman and walk away with her name and story, when i give some money, time or energy away, when i recycle, when i encourage someone, when i don’t fight for my position or recognition or place, when i love someone who maybe doesn’t show love to me, it all becomes SO INCREDIBLY EASY.

so maybe some of us need to argue, correct, debate, post, re-post, block, link less and be living it more.i think there is some kind of answer in there.