Apologizing
There was an op-ed piece in the NY Times today about John Stott. It was a very favorable piece, and the one interesting thing about it was the writer's comparison of Stott to Jerry Falwell and Al Sharpton, who appeared on Meet the Press last Sunday. I'm not quoting verbatim, but the writer basically said that people like Stott are probably closer to what evangelicals are really like.
Maybe it's just lip service, but it's good to see positive coverage of Christianity in the MSM for once. I cringed after reading the transcript of Sunday's show (didn't see it). Basically Al and Jerry got into a catfight, shouting back and forth at each other. I thought, how appropos that the media would choose these two as representatives of Christianity. People who don't know, people who haven't ever been in a church, don't understand the fine distinctions between people. All they know is, they see these two clowns bickering at each other. It certainly does not paint a favorable picture.
I think the time is ripe for Christians to start thinking about a new apologetic. I posted this topic on the Ooze a while back and got some good discussion out of it. Apologetics is usually thought of as the art of debate, or being able to answer questions about the logical difficulties of the faith. In today's environment, that type of apologetics may be falling to the background. What I see is a need for apologetics more in tune with the original use of the word. This refers to the early church apologists such as Justin Martyr and Theophilus. These writers often wrote to clear away common misconceptions about Christianity. In the early church days, it was considered an "immoral" religion by many Romans! I think that the same type of attitude exists today -- the common person on the street probably sees Christianity as immoral, in that it opposes the commonly held values of today. While I agree that many of society's "values" are more like vices, I believe that Christianity gets cast in a light that makes it appear antithetical to true values like love, justice, etc. I have opinions on how this comes about, but that't not the point of this post. What I am saying is that it is our task to set the record straight.
We can't let talking heads do the talking for us. If we think that the average person simply writes off people like Falwell and Sharpton we are sadly mistaken. They are the ones that are perceived, and perception becomes reality. The NY Times article gave me hope that people who oppose the stereotype can also be spokespeople. Perhaps the world is giving us a chance to say who we really are. Let's not drop the ball.
Maybe it's just lip service, but it's good to see positive coverage of Christianity in the MSM for once. I cringed after reading the transcript of Sunday's show (didn't see it). Basically Al and Jerry got into a catfight, shouting back and forth at each other. I thought, how appropos that the media would choose these two as representatives of Christianity. People who don't know, people who haven't ever been in a church, don't understand the fine distinctions between people. All they know is, they see these two clowns bickering at each other. It certainly does not paint a favorable picture.
I think the time is ripe for Christians to start thinking about a new apologetic. I posted this topic on the Ooze a while back and got some good discussion out of it. Apologetics is usually thought of as the art of debate, or being able to answer questions about the logical difficulties of the faith. In today's environment, that type of apologetics may be falling to the background. What I see is a need for apologetics more in tune with the original use of the word. This refers to the early church apologists such as Justin Martyr and Theophilus. These writers often wrote to clear away common misconceptions about Christianity. In the early church days, it was considered an "immoral" religion by many Romans! I think that the same type of attitude exists today -- the common person on the street probably sees Christianity as immoral, in that it opposes the commonly held values of today. While I agree that many of society's "values" are more like vices, I believe that Christianity gets cast in a light that makes it appear antithetical to true values like love, justice, etc. I have opinions on how this comes about, but that't not the point of this post. What I am saying is that it is our task to set the record straight.
We can't let talking heads do the talking for us. If we think that the average person simply writes off people like Falwell and Sharpton we are sadly mistaken. They are the ones that are perceived, and perception becomes reality. The NY Times article gave me hope that people who oppose the stereotype can also be spokespeople. Perhaps the world is giving us a chance to say who we really are. Let's not drop the ball.
6:46 PM
Word.... -Rob..