From a Christian perspective, it is profoundly disturbing.
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I have a few rough and disordered thoughts about this video.
First of all, as a Christian and a pastor, I am heart-broken for the lostness of this young man and this audience. He boldly proclaims the most ridiculous and blasphemous things and the audience erupts with applause. What a spiritual wasteland! I am praying that God will grant Jim Gilliam repentance and faith, that He will show Himself to be merciful and strong to save in this man's life.
As a parent, I watched the video with sadness and received it as a caution for my own children (ages 7, 4 and 18 months). One thing I thought was that theology really does matter. It is clear that his theological training was weak and his view of God was small. It was the death of his mother more than the Internet that was the event that caused him to lose faith in God. Perhaps a more robust view of providence (a bigger, stronger view of God) would have equipped him to understand both the death of his mother and his own life-giving transplants as gifts from a loving and sovereign God.
God spared his life twice with two very critical and very risky transplants and yet his faith and gratitude were misplaced. Rather than seeing the gracious hand of providence, he saw only the human means God used and so he re-dreicted his faith from God (who provided these blessings) to the people through whom God provided them.
It is also a warning to us as parents that the information input streams our children constantly do change their minds in ways we cannot see. He says he was protected and sheltered by his parents, but allowing a 12-year-old to spend hours and hours unsupervised on the Internet is definitely not wise. I know many homeschooling families who would never let their children step foot in a public school (gasp!) but whose children instead spent all day at home on the Internet. Given these two options, public schools are a safer environment than the Internet.
Theology alone is not enough. I personally know a young man who was raised in soundly Reformed churches and equipped with a robust theology and who has since denied Christ and embraced being an agnostic/atheist. My heart breaks for this man and I know that what he needs is more than just sound theology. My sound theology teaches me that only Christ can change his heart and give him the gift of saving faith.
I also think the Internet breeds a strong sense of pride, of ego-centric self-reliance. There is the illusion of great power and limitless potential and awkward intellectual types ("geeks") who don't get along well in the real world can get so affirmed and adored online that they can, literally, develop a God-complex.
Finally, I noticed the absolute inter-connection of faith and politics in his life. I think his real religion before was right-wing politics, and Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh were co-identified as the leaders of this religion. I am a political conservative, but I think we need to give up our fascination with the right wing. I wonder how many intelligent, analytical young people in Christian circles are being driven away from Christianity by the fact that so many of us seem so infatuated with the intellectually shallow figures on the political right who are so easy to ridicule. The danger is that if we attach Christ to Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity or Donald Trump (really?), we lose our credibility. If you are a religious and political conservative, just step back for a minute and ask yourself this question: If I had a little bit of doubt or a little bit of disagreement with these people, how would they sound to me? Almost all of them would sound as insane and shallow as Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann probably sound to you now.
Let the love and truth of Christ be our message. Let the kingdom of Jesus have our deepest loyalty and let it not be confused with patriotism or conservatism.
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Added a few hours later:
OK, so I've thought of one more thing: Jim Gilliam is clearly a born activist. He has wanted to make a difference in the world since he was 12 years old. He went from being a right-wing Christian activist to being a left-wing humanist activist. This prompted me to reflect on Christian mission.
Being made in God's image, we long to be engaged in His world, making a difference in the lives of others. I think that all Jim Gilliam was shown by Jerry Falwell and the moral majority was the aspiration of seekig and gaining more politicial power so as to promote a political agenda. Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson, who remain conservative Christians, wrote about this obsessive focus within the Moral Majority in Blinded by Might. We could contrast this focus with the Christians who are engaged on mission to serve the poor, educate the illiterate, care for the sick, feed the hungry, preach the Gospel, give job training to the under-employed, etc. I wonder if his testimony might be different if Jim Gilliam had been directed to use his activist nature for real service to the "least of these" in the name of Christ.
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