Why I Hate Religion But I Love Jesus
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About
I Hate X, But I Love Y is a snowclone used in an image macro series featuring stills from Jefferson Bethke's monologue video "Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus."
Origin
A video[1] of Jefferson Bethke[8], a Washington-based spoken word artist, performing a poem he wrote[4] about the difference between religion and Jesus was uploaded to Bethke's YouTube channel[2] on January 10th, 2012.
The video was posted to Reddit[7]on the 11th, where it received 839 upvotes and 421 downvotes. In five days, the video had over 12 million views, tweeted about over 86,000 times, and had over 1.4 million shares on Facebook.[5]
On January 13th, the first Scumbag Jefferson Bethke[3] was posted to the Advice Animals subreddit[9], only receiving a score of 3. It also inspired several image macro series on the generator sites[10][13] with alternative names including Contradiction Guy[11] and Contradiction Chris.[12]
Spread
The video was covered on MetaFilter[23], the Daily Dot[24], Yahoo! News[14], the International Business Times[15], and the Huffington Post.[16] It was also heavily discussed on religious sites and blogs including Christianity Today[17], the blog[18] of St. Mary's Catholic Center of Texas, the Mennonite Weekly Review[19], and American Jesus[20]. A Michigan pastor, Kevin DeYoung, published a verse-by-verse critique[21] of the poem, breaking down Jesus's true opinions on the church, citing the Bible verses when appropriate. Bethke responded[22] to this article and appreciated this critique, stating that he was aware of his flaws:
"If I can be brutally honest I didn’t think this video would get much over a couple thousand views maybe, and because of that, my points/theology wasn’t as air-tight as I would’ve liked."
Response Videos
Notable Examples
Search Interest
Search for the video began on January 11th, the day after it was uploaded.
External References
[1] YouTube – Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus || Spoken Word
[2] YouTube – bball1989's channel
[3] Quickmeme – Scumbag Jefferson Bethke
[4] Box – Jesus_Religion.docx
[5] Viral Video Chart – Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus || Spoken Word
[6] YouTube – I Hate Religion, And Jesus Too
[7] Reddit – Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus || Spoken Word – [4:04]
[8] Twitter – @JeffuhsonBethke
[9] Reddit – Scumbag Jefferson Bethke
[10] Quickmeme – Jefferson Bethke
[11] Quickmeme – Contradiction Guy
[12] Meme Generator – Contradictory Chris
[13] Quickmeme – Hate Religion Love Jesus
fn14. Yahoo! News – ‘Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus’: Controversial Viral Video Logs 10 Million Hits in Four Days
[15] International Business Times – ‘Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus:’ Controversial YouTube Video Goes Viral
[16] Huffington Post – 'Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus' Creates Controversy On YouTube (VIDEO)
[17] Christianity Today – 'Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus’: To Adore or Abhor?
[18] Aggie Catholics – Does Jesus Hate Religion? Should You?
[19] Mennonite Weekly Review – The 'I hate religion but love Jesus' approach (and YouTube video) is simplistic, unbiblical and dangerous
[20] American Jesus – “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus” – The False Dichotomy
[21] The Gospel Coalition – Does Jesus Hate Religion? Kinda, Sorta, Not Really
[22] The Gospel Coalition – Following Up on the Jesus/Religion Video
[23] MetaFilter – Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus || Spoken Word
[24] The Daily Dot – Jeff Bethke Hates Religion – But Loves Jesus
Top Comments
Fizzydog
Jan 16, 2012 at 08:54PM EST
Teh Brawler
Jan 16, 2012 at 08:10PM EST