What Does Jesus > Religion Mean, Really?

So, on the subject from less than two weeks ago of what is the distinction between religion and Christianity, apparently a video on You Tube by Jeffrey Bethke has gone viral, purporting to explain.

The intended audience is presumably young, liberal potential Christian who are put off by the fusion of Evangelical Christianity and conservative politics, by its judgmentalism and lack of compassion. It is spoken in rap to appeal to the young and starts out by addressing these concerns. But mostly it is an elucidation of the whole concept I struggled with last time:

This is what makes religion and Jesus two different clans
Religion is man searching for God, but Christianity is God searching for man.

And, to be fair, unlike Rayford in Left Behind, he goes on to explain what that means. What it means, in effect, is salvation by grace, substitutionary atonement taking Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Thus Rayford Steel says:

Jesus took your punishment when he died on the cross. God did that so you don't have to go to Hell; that's how much he loves you. Eternal life is a gift. You don't have to do anything religious.

Jeffrey Bethke is more eloquent and, I would say, more comprehensible:

That's why salvation is freely mine, forgiveness is my own
Not based on my effort's, but Christ's obedience alone.
Because he took the crown of thorns and blood that dripped down his face
He took what we all deserved, that's why we call it grace.

These words have a beauty Rayford's words were completely lacking. It has an emotional resonance equally missing from Rayford. And whether because it resonates at an emotional level or because it makes a serious attempt to explain the theology behind the statement, it has meaning in way Rayford's statement lacked.

The video has drawn criticism from Christians, especially Catholics, arguing that Bethke is being unfair to the church. Their basic point -- that Christianity is impossible without a community of believers, i.e., a church -- is sound. But my criticism comes from the perspective of a non-believer, wondering how effective this will be as outreach to non-believers, as opposed to weakly committed Christians.

Because if you look at it with a remotely critical eye, he is saying two different things. In the first half, he chides organized religion for its hypocrisy, its judgmentalism, its moral failings, and so forth. He quite correctly cites Jesus as having said much the same to the religious authorities of his day. He appears to be offering a new kind of church, a radically subversive, non-ritualized church based on, well, what Jesus preached and lived in the Gospels. Then he shifts gear to a certain theology, the theology of Evangelical Protestantism (which is similar to, but not exactly the same as, other traditional Christian theology). In particular, it is the belief that the entire human race is sinful and deserving of Hell, but that Jesus, in being crucified, accepted the entire, eternal punishment of the entire human race, and that salvation is a matter of accepting this sacrifice.

It may very well not be apparent to Bethke, but criticizing the church for its moral failings and preaching this particular doctrine are not the same thing. Acceptance of this theology comes with a host of preconceptions that an outsider might challenge. Why does the entire human race deserve to go to Hell? Yes, granted, any religion that focuses on salvation ends up finding it problematic. Salvation is the imperfect aspiring to the perfect, the finite aspiring to the infinite, the limited aspiring to the absolute, etc. Small wonder, then, that every religion that focuses on salvation comes to the conclusion that humans cannot by their own efforts achieve the Absolute, but need some sort of help from outside to achieve it. Hinduism and Buddhism face this problem as much as Christianity. They differ from Christianity in not seeing the only alternative to salvation as eternal damnation. So, granting that we are not worthy of salvation, why couldn't God come up with some alternative other than Hell? The answer always seems to be that his hands were tied and that he was compelled by some power beyond is control to meet out a certain fixed quantity of punishment. So what was it that compelled God? What is strong enough to tie God's hands? And why does punishing the innocent Jesus relieve God of the need to punish guilty mankind that really deserves it anyway?

But these arguments in many ways are secondary. Most people find theology incomprehensible anyhow and are more interested on what this means for them in practical terms. So what does it mean? Presumably, religion refers to things like going to church, reading the Bible, and following the church's accepted moral precepts. Bethke is saying that salvation does not lie in these things, but in accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior. First of all, what does it really mean to take Jesus Christ as your personal savior. What is the prospective convert supposed to do? How does the prospective convert know if it has worked? And second, is Bethke preaching antinomianism? In other words, is he saying that once you take Jesus Christ as your personal savior, you have your get out of Hell free card and no longer have to go to church, read the Bible or follow any moral precepts? My guess would be no, but he is going to say that you will relate to church, the Bible and moral precepts in a different sort of way. But he doesn't tell us.

And is it too glib of me to suspect that the constant Evangelical Christian argument that Christianity isn't about religion, but about grace is at least in part a marketing ploy? That Evangelicals have noticed that people they try to convert often express distrust of "religion," so they argue that they are not a religion? Because if this is true, a mere shift in semantics isn't going to change any minds at all.