Bad Religion, Pt 1: Missing the Miraculous - Audio
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- Well, we're starting a new series today. But before we do that, if you're a veteran, would you stand, please? We have veterans that come up here. (audience applauding) Thank you for your service. We're starting a new series. It's called Bad Religion. One of my favorite punk fans is called Bad Religion. And their lead singer, Greg Graphan, he's an atheist and he really hates religion. Not as much as he used to. When he was younger and he was a spitfire, he really had it in for all religion. But as you got older, he started to recognize that there might be some value in it. And there's actually a book that he co-wrote with a Christian professor from Arkansas where they just kind of emailed their thoughts about, you know, life and religion and nature and science and all these things. And after that, he kind of came away and since then, he's been a little less hard on us. But from the very beginning, and it continues to be his concern, his worry is that religion's actually very bad for you. And the reason is because religion limits who you are, it suppresses and oppresses you so that you cannot become the person that you should be, right? Religion's like a straight jacket and you need to be freed from that. And in some cases, he's right. It's a legitimate critique. And this series is gonna look at that. We're gonna look at, especially, I mean, it's all throughout the gospels, the Pharisees, the lawyers. They practice a really bad religion and their religion is based on controlling and suppressing and oppressing people. But Jesus comes and he offers a new way and he says, no, the religion's not that. That's not what it's for. Actually, religion is meant for you to become the person God wants you to be, to be in relationship with him. And so let's look, this is the Pharisees, high watermark, this is the best that they come off in any of the gospels. Let's look at Luke 5, if you've got your phone Bible or a Bible in the pew or you brought your analog Bible,
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What we are missing when it comes to religion.