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Jesus Hates Religion is a ministry of Initiative22
Jesus Hates Religion. It is hard to hear that statement and not to have some sort of reaction to it. Maybe it is one of agreement, because you yourself hate religion, and having Jesus on your team seems to be a good thing. Or possibly it is one of confusion, because you thought that Jesus was a religious figure. So, how could he possibly hate religion? It could also breed anger, because you thought that Jesus was the religious rewarder who gives little gold stars for your moralism, ethics, volunteering, tolerance, or whatever else you are trying to please him with.
But Jesus is not easily labeled. In fact, he will not allow us to create him in the image that we want him to be. Politicians, emperors, athletes, intellectuals, artists, countries, and yes, even religions, really want Jesus to be for them. Yet time and time again, we see that Jesus goes against what people expected him to do and be.
For example, Jesus taught to do unto others as you want them to do unto you. But then in another story, we see Jesus walk into the temple and start flipping over tables of the people exchanging money and selling goods. Does this mean that Jesus wants us to flip over his tables (but he didn’t have a place to rest his head, let alone a table)?
Confrontation was something that Jesus was often involved in. In the book of Luke (a book in the Bible), there are 116 incidents in which Jesus acted confrontationally. Of those incidents, 66 of them were confronting the religious, political or economic systems. It would seem that Jesus is very much anti-state and anti-religious. Yet, Jesus in other places says to pay your taxes (to the state) and obey what some of the teachers were saying (of religion). Confused yet?
There doesn’t seem to be an either/or mentality with what Jesus was about. Religions tend to place emphasis on “do this” OR “don’t do that”. Jesus seems to speak of a third way that religions don’t touch upon. That is what we will look at in an eight-week series entitled, “Jesus Hates Religion”. Our aim is to understand this “untame-able” figure of Jesus and what He had to say about some of the biggest parts of our life.
In the nine weeks, we will look at:
- 3 Ways to Live
- Sex & Sexuality
- Relationships
- Identity
- Money
- Pleasure & Enjoyment
- Holy Books & their Teachers (hypocrisy)
-Death & Afterlife
-Why did Jesus come?
We will end the series by asking the question, “Who really was Jesus”?
As we explore what Jesus has to say about who he is and what he thinks about these subjects, we will see how he continues to challenge all people today and how his teaching seems to fly in the face of our religions & self-righteousness.