"Can you come to Jesus without Church?"

Jonathan D. Fitzgerald discusses Jefferson Bethke's viral video on YouTube, "Love Jesus-Hate Religion." I have to add that the young man's problems are not just theological but aesthetic. He chooses an aggressive and abrasive medium- the hip-hop sound- to attack something pastoral and magnificent. He is really attacking not just the Church, but anything with human hands that is tied to faith. He is trying to love the Incarnation by hating everything people do with their own hands in response to the Incarnation. Ultimately, he is headed towards Gnosticism, spiritual anarchism, and Manicheism. Whether he is there yet is not my call. Jacques Maritain and Allen Tate would have much to say. I think Flannery O'Connor already introduced us to his sort of religion in Wise Blood.