Well, the incredibly talented Jefferson Bethke has a video out that has been generating a lot of buzz. Check it out here if you haven’t seen it before.
Now, if you’re like me, you find this incredibly frustrating because he mixes so many powerful good truths, with so many dangerous falsehoods.
I was going to write up a small rebuttal to post here, but somehow got talked into making that into a video, and then somehow got talked into turning that into a poem.1 It was interesting trying to strike a balance between having a high-quality video,2 with no mistakes, and getting it out there quickly while it was still relavent. So, here is what I made (with a lot of help from my brother and some friends!).
For those more full responses, check out the always fantastic Marc Barnes over at Bad Catholic, and Marcel LeJeune, over at Aggie Catholics!
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1. Er, poem-y thing.
2. On a $30 budget.
Thank you so much for making this. As a fellow Catholic youth minister, I watched the original video yesterday after it had been shared by several teenagers on Facebook, and I was trying to think of a way to explain my reaction, you took the words out of my head!
Thank you for making this video. I was talking about Jefferson Bethke with my youth group yesterday afternoon and there were so many questions I could not answer. I come from a youth apostolate in the Philippines and resources for learning more about how to answer these questions from young people are not available. You made it available for me.
I’ll be sharing your video on my blog if you don’t mind. I just set it up at http://www.afragileforce.com and I’m hoping it can be an instrument to invite more youth ministers to share their views so that my youth apostolate will grow and learn more about the fullness of our faith. 
I like your video! Your vid reminds me of James 1:27! It lists out the kind of religion that God is pleased with!
However, Jefferson Bethke also posted a clarification on his FaceBook page yesterday… “If you are using my video to bash “the church” be careful. I was in no way intending to do that. My heart came from trying to highlight and expose legalism and hypocrisy. The Church is Jesus’ bride so be careful how you speak of His wife. If a normal dude has right to get pissed when you bash His wife, it makes me tremble to think how great the weight is when we do it to Jesus’ wife. The church is His vehicle to reach a lost word. A hospital for sinners. Saying you love Jesus but hate the Church, is like a fiancé saying he loves his future bride, but hates her kids. We are all under grace. Look to Him.”
This is also worth reading: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2012/01/14/following-up-on-the-jesusreligion-video/
Thank you for the public response.
very nice response.
is there a video response from other religions/sects?
Great response!