About the CNN story...

Wow. I agree with Annie. I think I’m guna like it here. Thanks for the invitation to be part of this blog.

The rise of official secular groups is fascinating to me because I think it really is an urgent mirror reflecting a) to Christians where our own faith and fidelity are lacking, and b) to the secularists much about their own nature and freedom.

Listening to the secularists’ statements in the article, it’s clear their impression of Christians is that we are exclusive, anti-human, and unreasonable. Given this impression and the absence of faith, it’s no wonder they feel the need to establish something called the Freedom from Religion Foundation. And I think this impression is largely the doing of Christians, my self firstly, who have not undertaken the journey themselves to discover what Christ has to do with my humanity and my reason, let alone share this with others. To a large extent, the Christ the secularists are rebelling against is a spiritualized, irrelevant, and moralistic (Do This or Go to Hell) kind of guy. But is not this the Christ we often purport to follow when we separate His presence from our daily experience, and relegate Him to the corner of “spiritual” activities and moral norms?

For the secularists so hell bent on eradicating “religion” their very efforts point to the question “Why?” (They even admit that people ask them, “Why are you hateful?”) Yet behind their immediate answers (i.e. rhetorical swipes at Christians), there is something deeper going on. What is this “humanity” that they want to preserve from religion? If it’s a humanity that will not bow down to a tyrant, then they’re onto something. If it’s a humanity that rejects the infighting finger pointing hypocrisy of others, again, they’re absolutely right.

But if—if Christ was not a tyrant but the dearest lover, and if all the corrections that we offer to one another are not power-struggle-one-up-moves but reminders of the One who fulfills us, what a surprise that would be. If Christ helps me become more myself, more human, what a shock to the world. And how much more likely would the seed of faith find fertile soil among the secularists? (Stranger things have happened, if we recall the sorts of people who became His most fervent friends). Our task is to share this discovery (utterly a grace none of us could have manufactured) of this Christ with one another.