''Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus'' is a

viral video A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhong Lan, Alexander Haupt ...

created by

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

speaker Jefferson Bethke, who uploaded his work that rose him to fame onto

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

and

GodTube GodTube is an online video platform which strives to have Christian content. It is owned by Salem Web Network, the internet division of Salem Communications. GodTube includes music videos, comedy, children, animals, sports, news and inspirational ...

, under the

screenname A user is a person who utilizes a computer or network service. A user often has a user account and is identified to the system by a username (or user name). Other terms for username include login name, screenname (or screen name), accou ...

bball1989. The video has thus far received more than 34 million views. The theme of the video revolves around "the difference between

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

and false religion." Underneath his video, Bethke delineated its purpose: Jefferson Bethke repudiated those who used his video to criticize the

Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

, stating "The Church is His vehicle to reach a lost world. 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." Nevertheless, the author of the video stated that he wanted to expose the legalism prevalent in many houses of worship. The popular rapper

Lecrae Lecrae Devaughn Moore (born October 9, 1979), mononymously known as Lecrae, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record and film producer, record executive, actor, and entrepreneur. He is the president, co-owner and co-founder of the ind ...

, on his

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

, encouraged his fans to think about the video by linking an article titled "Does Jesus hate religion? Kinda, sorta, not really" by Kevin DeYoung who had, since writing it, spoken with Jefferson Bethke about it and the video.

Popularity

The four-minute video had received 6 million views three days after its release on January 10, 2012, as well as 64,000 comments. and by January 23, the video was viewed over 16 million times. Jefferson Bethke's videos "Sex, Marriage, & Fairytales", "Sexual Healing" and "Death Of Yolo" are another ones of his most popular works, receiving over 6 million, over 5.2 million and 1.9 million views respectively.Archived a
Ghostarchive
and th
Wayback Machine

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

''Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus''
video on YouTube Christian missions Viral videos 2012 in Christianity 2012 works 2012 YouTube videos Mars Hill Church Sociology of religion Films critical of religion Cultural depictions of Jesus