Apologetic

You can tell from the title of my blog, and from many of my posts, that I'm "one of those": a Bible-believing, God-worshipping, born-again, Jesus-following, He is the only way/truth/life Christians. You may have heard that there are a few of us around in this country. Depending on how you want to define it, you may even consider us a majority.

That majority status, or at least the perception of it, would seem to carry a certain responsibility to it, particularly since there have been plenty of instances in which that very place of privilege has been used to abuse others as well as pursue selfish gain (or at least the "gain" associated with making oneself feel good through self-righteousness). Ideally, we who believe what we believe should of all people be both unapologetic about our faith and apologetic about the ways in which that faith has been perverted to ruinous effect in our history.

Instead, I still see (and, far too often, myself harbor) the opposite: apologetic about the absoluteness of our faith, and/or unapologetic about its misuse through the years. Not surprisingly, we tend to respond to such a posture by further dividing ourselves: one group in their "holy huddle," and another group wishing all the more for freedom "from" religion.

We are all the worse for it. Christians, because we are called to engage the societies and generations and communities into which we have been sent. And all Americans, because faith and religion are such integral aspects of what makes us unique among countries and within history. Here's hoping for a little more religiosity and little more cordiality; a little more of one type of unapologeticness and a little more of another type of apologeticness.