Apologizing to Atheists: What’s the Big Idea?

Last updated on: April 28, 2011 at 1:09 pm by John Shore

Apologizing to Atheists: What’s the Big Idea? 2011-04-28T13:09:38-08:00 John Shore

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I don’t really like to write about stuff I’ve written. It’s like explaining a joke: it sucks the life right out of the universe.

And would you want to be responsible for killing whatever life there might be on Mars? Neither would I. So you see my point.

Then again, maybe I should do follow-ups to all my posts. Screw life on Mars. What have they ever done for us?

Pfft. Flying saucers. I’ve seen one. I’m fifty-three. You do the math.

I’ve got a cup of tea steeping seeping cooking becoming tea. I’ve got “The King Is Dead” by The Decemberists playing, which is a CD I bought on a whim at Starbucks the other day and have since had reason to celebrate because how often do you actually end up really loving a CD you buy on a whim because you like its cover?

I’m just in an expansively explanatory mood, is all.

So here’s what I was thinking with my last post: I’m sure there are a lot of nice, friendly atheists out there. I mean, of course there are. Duh. But as far as I know, I don’t really hear too often from members of that happy camp. I instead regularly hear from the legions of denizens of Camp We Loathe Christians—as I would, since I’m a Christian who writes about Christianity on Huffington Post. Which is like strapping on half a cow and diving into a shark tank. Waves and great thrashings will necessarily ensue.

I wrote a book, I’m OK – You’re Not, which is all about all the ways and reasons Christians sort of naturally have strained relationships with non-Christians (and what Christians need to do about that). So I’m kind of always thinking about how and why Christians and non-Christians do or don’t get along together. It’s probably just because I don’t have cable. But I don’t. So there we have it.

So before I wrote A Letter Evangelicals Might Use to Apologize to Christians, my thinking went along these lines:

Non-Christians think that Christians don’t respect them. And it makes sense they would think that, since that’s basically the message (“Become like us [cue Stewie voice]—or perish!”) generally communicated to them by evangelical Christians. And atheists think all Christians are evangelicals.

So we have this rift.

Evangelicals should apologize for that rift.

How cool would that be?

I should write that imaginary apology letter!

But picking on evangelicals for too aggressively proselytizing is like shooting sharks in a barrel. Too easy. I think I can do better than that. I think I can write an apology letter from evangelicals to atheists that at once acknowledges where evangelicals have and always are going wrong with atheists, and, at the same time, shows full respect for the evangelical’s loving imperative.

Except that’s impossible. No way, John! You can’t do it! No bridge reaches that far. You can’t write the letter as an evangelical really would write it, and at the same time not abandon or betray too much the evangelical holds so dear. Nobody can write a real apology for doing something that they really and truly believe was the right thing to do.

I don’t care, man. I’m doing it. I’m gonna try. I’ve got to try!

So I did.

And that’s what I was doing/trying/thinking with my last post. (And then into the letter I mixed another level of communication, whereby here and there I meant to signal to the reader my personal real feelings on the entire matter.)

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