There was a post below on whether Christians should fast during Ramadan. The answer is clearly no. We should proclaim the gospel and why we believe it (See Resurrection, The).
But the other question comes from Donald Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz (which, as I’ve said before, I enjoyed reading). He and a group of other Christians engage in an exercise we might call apologize to evangelize. They do things like apologizing for the Crusades. This supposedly makes everyone feel better and causes secularist college students to think better of their humble Christian peers.
Here’s the short version. We shouldn’t be apologizing for the Crusades. First off, I suspect the vast majority of apologizers have no idea what really happened in the Crusades or what precipated them. Second, it is just way too easy for people facing no great and threatening crisis to apologize for actions taken by others during an actual great and threatening crisis. And third, the apologies assume the military invasion of the Holy Land was utterly without merit. Assume nothing, youngsters or Christian hipsters or young, Christian hipsters.
If nothing else, the sad apologies by emergent trendmeisters (who have many fine qualities) demonstrates the failure of colleges and universities to pass on a legitimate fund of cultural knowledge to our students. The cafeteria-style pick and choose core curriculum has absolutely killed us. Abandon it with haste, friends!
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
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