My wife played that a couple of days ago on her computer. There is a fair bit of truth in it, and yet it leaves a bad taste in my mouth because, like Lee, it simply distills everything down according to the following formula:
Religion = (everything bad that has been found within religion or claimed to be done in the name of religion)
Each item listed is absolutely true. And I get riled up about the same things. But I don't declare that it is the sum total of religion, while the good we do in worship, study, and practice is something else. And since it is added to discussion in a broad, public place in which religion is much more than just its bad things, it pretends to suggest that everything that people call religion must be bad. And there is a way of thinking that would like that result. They want not only to deny religious activity of any kind in government institutions or properties, but even your ability to privately practice your "religion" as you see fit. They don't want you to be able to teach your children about anything that they call "religion." And for them, the whole of Christianity is just religion.
But Christianity
is religion. Not just
a religion.
So the fight is really against hypocrisy. Against veiling evil and unrighteousness with the cloak of religion. Against wielding the book of the God of love as if it is a battle axe.
I despise the presumption that good Christians vote Republican (or even Libertarian); the insistence that America is a "Christian" nation (besides culturally -- and that is fading); the "wars" on homosexuality, abortion, etc. I despise the nasty, ruthless rhetoric of people who otherwise might claim to represent my position on things. My position is mostly about how I behave, live, and believe. It is not the basis upon which I decide who to love and/or what kind of love I will dole out. (And for the most part, I don't believe that so-called "tough love" is mine to mete out except to those for whom I have charge to discipline.)
Christ was not simply versus religion. He was versus religion that had lost its roots; lost its meaning; lost its reason for existing. He was versus people who used religion as a way to gain control over people.