On my Facebook page just now we’ve been having a little fun about how, in an Easter morning editorial run in the Durham, NC newspaper The Herald-Sun (Good from evil), I was referred to as a Christian apologist.
So I thought I might take a moment to be clear: I am, definitely and flat-out, a Christian apologist.
About two months after very suddenly and out of freakin’ nowhere becoming a Christian, I—one evening while putting away the dishes after dinner—basically snapped into some kind of trance. Three months later I had finished the first real thing I ever wrote as a Christian, which was “Penguins, Pain & the Whole Shebang: Why I Do the Things I Do,” by John Shore (as told to God).
That book is most definitely a Christian apologetic. That’s how, book-business-wise, it’s categorized. (Actually, publishers and bookstore people had a seriously hard time categorizing Penguins: was it humor? Religion? Theology? Christian Living? I think it truly might be the only book ever published that actually kept raising the question: “Is it fiction, or non-fiction?” Marketing people felt very uncomfortable with it. “We love this book,” major publishers kept telling my agent, “but we have no idea how to market it. And we’re really afraid it will piss off Christians—whom, we have learned, we do not want to piss off.” You wouldn’t believe how often we heard that exact same thing. It was a trip.)
After suddenly finding myself a Christian (some of you might remember when this blog was called Suddenly Christian), I wanted to have in my possession something short and funny (read: readable) that I could give to my non-Christians friends and associates by way of proving that just because you’re a Christian doesn’t automatically mean that you’re insane (not to mention a homophobic, misogynistic, fear-based, emotionally retarded dink).
So I wrote Penguins, because there was nothing out there like it. (Except then there was, because a Christian publisher involved with the book at its initial stages flat-out stole it from me, and had a much-more-famous than I Christian author write a heavily-marketed, painfully bad imitation of it. And suddenly I became a wanna-be around a book that was, in fact, mine. But that happens. More than I can tell you.)
Before I became a Christian, I pretty wholly despised Christianity—insofar as I cared about it at all, which I didn’t. Safe to say that I had less than a lot of respect for the Christian belief system. So after my Bizzaro Conversion Experience, I became really interested in answering exactly those questions that I knew were legitimate, rational, and sane complaints against Christianity—the same complaints I knew I’d always had about it, which no Christian ever seemed capable of satisfactorily answering.
So—in that weird, not-really-at-all-pleasant state you sometimes get into where you feel like you’re really just a vehicle for some creative drive way beyond yourself—I wrote Penguins, in which God himself (and please rest assured that, trance or not, that was but a literary device) answers nine or ten of the most primary of such questions. Thus does Penguins contain such chapter headings as:
- If you really exist, why don’t you prove it?
- What’s the deal with evil, anyway? Why does a God who is all-powerful an all-compassionate allow evil to exist? He either wills evil to exit—which makes him despicable—or he’s powerless to stop it, which makes him uninspiringly weak, to say the least. Both bite. What’s up?
- Why are so many Christians so obnoxious and mean-spririted? It seems like Christianity’s mostly about being judgmental, narrow-minded, and having an infuriatingly condescending attitude toward anyone who isn’t a Christian. Christians are so busy being smug about being Christian they forget to be kind.
- What’s that whole “Atonement” thing actually mean?
- Isn’t it enough that I believe in God? Why do I have to narrow it down to the Christian God?
- What’s the deal about God actually writing the Bible? Is it written by God, or people, or people filled with the Holy Spirit, which is somehow supposed to be the same as God, or what? What’s the Scoop, Jackson? (The first thing God answers to this one is, “Did you just call me ‘Jackson’?”)
- Even if I do believe in Christ, do I really have to go to church every Sunday? Yuck.
- So how would being a Christian actually improve my life? What would it really do for me?
and so on. (There’s actually a lot more to Penguins than just those chapters. And the book is still so short you can read it one sitting. For what it’s worth, I know I’ll never write a better book.)
Christian apologetics is pretty much what I do. In some ways the 16-point tenets of the group now called Unfundamentalist Christians is my most comprehensive apologetic statement. I’m OK–You’re Not: The Message We’re Sending Nonbelievers and Why We Should Stop is an apologetic, insofar as it presents and defends a version of Christianity that … I felt needed presenting and defending.
All my work on the LGBTQ/Christians issue is essentially apologetics: I’m trying to show why the version of Christianity in which I believe is every bit as intellectually, theologically, and spiritually legitimate as that Christianity which today we tend to consider “traditional.” Same with the work that went into my short e-book, Hell No! Extinguishing Christian Hellfire.
I believe in Christianity. I love Christianity. But I take great exception to the version of Christianity that today most people think of when they think of Christianity. I know a better Christianity. I know a Christianity that’s logically unassailable. I know a Christianity that understands the difference between God’s love and man’s hate. And until the day I drop dead I’m going to work to bring that Christianity into the mainstream. I feel morally obliged, frankly, to do everything I can to help resurrect the Christianity I know from the ashes of what Christianity has become.
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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In my mind the question is how can anyone not apologize for the effed-up mess the church has made of the teachings of the Master. They turned the path brought to us by an enlightened one into tool for oppression, suffering, power, ego and profit, As an whole institution, churches are misguided at best and actively hateful, at worst.
Now the Catholics are lobbying for the right to limit the civil rights of non-believers in the name of their own religious freedom. Maybe they’d like to start paying some taxes, instead of lobbing political bombs from behind the pulpit.
Tell me about it!
if your an apologist answer your detractors when they comment instead of deleting their comments or making lame jokes as a response.
Boy, you sure do know how to take the fun out of life, don’t you?
Well, if their questions are ridiculous, they merit ridiculous responses. Or none at all, judging by your tone.
What questions/comments are you talking about? (Oh, it’s you. People: our friend “detractor” here has also posted comments on my blog under the names, “jess,” PDCH,” and “cannby,” thereby maintaining that bizzaro fundy tradition of always hiding behind various aliases when … posting on my blog, anyway. What IS that weird cowardice?)
You have some kind of odd obsession with this little corner of the internet. Your proven history of being hostile and abusive on this blog – and your track record of deception in lying about who you are to come back to dish more of it out – is unsettling and really disturbing. It was right to protect people from your inability to manage your hostility. It’s too bad that your narcissism prevents you from seeing how you created your own problems.
Detractors who shroud their actions in deception and lace them with contempt really don’t deserve much consideration.
LOL
I’ve been on vacation, so I only just read this. I love it! I will promptly go share with the world.
I think I’d have fallen apart a long time ago if it weren’t for blogs like this one (and a couple others). It IS good to know I’m not alone. Right here, this is the “great cloud of witnesses” from Hebrews 12. Not only are there others who echo what I believe in my heart, but there’s always something to think about. I’ve lost track of the number of great conversations my husband and I have had over what’s posted here.
Yay! We can be both normies and Christians!
An “apology”, in this context is (from the “New Oxford American Dictionary” app on my computer):
3 a reasoned argument or writing in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine : a specious apology for capitalism.
…
ORIGIN mid 16th cent. (denoting a formal defense against an accusation): from French apologie, or via late Latin from Greek apologia ‘a speech in one’s own defense,’ from apo ‘away’ + -logia (see -logy ).
So John Shore is indeed an excellent apologetic!
christian undeminer
It’s like a comment. But different.
Ya’ know?
I am confused. Just what is an “undeminer?” Someone who digs for underwear?
GOOD ONE!
some who mines IN their underwear???
Coming here after reading some I’m OK and UNFAIR, I was drawn to this post– a first read.
I was thinking I’d have something serious to share, but all I am doing is laughing at all this. If only we could all be in the same place @ the same time, I’d be weeping from laughter.
prob an interesting twist on an apology, but a great quote above.
I am glad to read this but I myself, could not wait it out. We could not find a Christian church that was liberal enough. Just when I thought we fit in somewhere they started spewing heavy duty “conversion theology” and exposing my kids to it too. When I spoke up, no one would listen because they have a belief based in fear. We are Unitarian Universalists now and all is good. I LOVE your blog.
Unitarian Universalists aren’t Christian? Have the anti-trinitarian, universal salvation arguments within the name become historical artifact rather than statements of faith? I always liked that Unitarians staked out a ground of radical, Jesus -like love, pluralism and honest dissent withing the Christian tradition. If you’ve left, I guess some of us had better take over your camp site and keep the fire going.
Yes. This is how I feel as well.
Thank You Thank You and Thank You.
God bless you, Pastor Shore!
“I feel morally obliged, frankly, to do everything I can to help resurrect the Christianity I know from the ashes of what Christianity has become.”
That. Exactly. I want to be able to say, “I’m a Christian” without having to add, “but not one of THOSE Christians.”
Thanks, John, for all you do to bring that into reality. I never, ever come away from what you’ve written without having at least a couple of moments of feeling totally understood and deeply blessed.
Wow that is awesome.
John! thank you so much–keep the energy coming! God Bless!
Just reading about organic theology in a seminary class. The book was interesting. The only reason I understood the definition of organic theology was thinking about what you have been writing.
I’ve never met you, John. But I speak of you often. So many things you’ve shared have affirmed many things in my heart, even when the church tells me different. You’re the bomb.com!
All this really means a lot to me. Thank you so much.
You have a mavelous gift of speaking ou collective unspoken. Thank you for making yourself a new wineskin for the movement, if I may use that term to describe the process of sharing your revelations from our Gracious God.
I am with you John. So many throw out God when they really just need to throw out the current version of church, so they can truly know Him.
Love, love, love this.
Perfect timing for me to see this tonight John. Thank You for your encouragement.
@Kevin MacDougall huh?
Amen brother John! I wish I could show all of my old southern Baptist Church friends the light. They are so filled with hate and judgment i cant stand to be near them.
Like Jude said, “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Kevin: Um. Surely you’re intelligent enough to actually use your own words when you’re trying to make a point. Try that, and let’s see how it goes.
I didn’t sense he was speaking about the lovely young lady holding up the apology – I read that to be about the guys holding up the signs. Maybe wishful thinking? Perhaps.
Wrong post: he’s not on the one with the picture. (And neither are we!)
well that’s awkward.
balls.
I meant, awkward for you.
Shows how much you know. My whole life is awkward for me.
But seriously: We need a few more admin people for Unfundamentalist Christians. You always have THE coolest stuff on your FB wall. So: A: Will you come join us so you can blast out to all the UFC members all the ultra-cool stuff you always put on your FB wall?, or B: Do you know anyone with your ultra-honed sense of Super Greatness who would come be an admin for us and share their Internetty wonderments with the rest of us?
I post pictures of baby animals and people falling down (mostly me). You cray-cray.
Let me ponder.
If he had em…he would at least explain what he meant. Post and runs are such a lazy ass thing to do.
I thought he was posting in support of you. But I guess there’s a group of people who would take his words the exact opposite way. You probably know his posting history and I don’t.
Regardless, I think he makes a point which is stronger for having been made in someone else’s words: people have been arguing about some Christians being assholes since before Christians were called Christians.
Because I don’t always read the comments, I don’t know his posting history, either. I also took it to be a positive post. Ah, well.
I don’t think many of you understood my point. I was quoting Jude to say that people like US agree with him as do people like THEM… The difference is what we believe we’re defending, how we unwrap “faith,” etc. But anything so important is something we would say is worth contending for the integrity of. We seek to live it out and to preserve it so others can see it as well.
It’s just strange when you consider that the “Gun Toting Nascar Driving Jesus” crowd would quote the same verse I did in order to empower their followers to fight against people like John, or me, or a lot of other writers/thinkers/believers who champion a Jesus they have no place for.
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