Apologies Not Accepted!

I once had a friend named Mickey. He was a great guy, though underappreciated at the time. Like so many friends who grow up and part ways, we don’t see each other anymore. Oh, how the ages fly by—that is one lesson you learn from life. But I learned another, a more important lesson from my friend Mickey.

Mickey was one of a kind. He would come over and lounge around the house with the rest of us kids who occupied ourselves with less-than-constructive activities all summer long. We had great fun, but more than anything, Mickey got on our nerves because he broke half the things he touched. He was like “Chunk” from The Goonies.

He once stepped on our cat while walking upstairs. Another time, he crushed two Christmas lights that lit the walkway to our house. He broke two expensive lawn chairs by leaning back too far in them—and these are just a few things. Cassette tapes, tools, and dishes also came to be demolished with the calamitous touch of this oversized, Snickers-eating chum. Mickey was a Class-A klutz.

But Mickey was funny; just after every little mishap, he would say, breathing heavily and in a nerdy, fat boy’s voice, ”Oh, uh, sorry! I’ll pay for it!” He had a few other yucky tendencies too, like sweating profusely all over everything – and farting with the force of a category-1 hurricane – but this was all harmless fun in retrospect. It was actually hysterical. Mickey was a good guy. He still is, I hear.

But the other thing I learned from Mickey was that God must also be a pale-skinned, clumsy, fat kid with an eating disorder and a gland problem. No, just kidding. What I really learned from Mickey was that sometimes saying, “I’m sorry,” is not enough! When Mickey broke an expensive piece of stereo equipment we owned, mom and dad were furious. It took more than an apology to fix what was done—it took money from Mickey’s mom, which we got.

Now an apology is only good when it is followed by a resolution not to commit the same offense again. In Mickey’s case, he improved a little, but then again, he was still Mickey and always would be (what are you going to do, right?). As was the case with Mickey’s meaningless apologies, so it is with Christians and Christianity. We infidels get lots and lots of apologies for Christian shortcomings, but these apologies are totally un-redeemable.

My inbox is filled with emails from evangelical Christians making apologies for this, that, and the other. It’s always something as they apologize that I rejected Christianity without having a chance to know the “real Jesus,” that I was “soil with little root,” that I was ruined to Christianity by the radical Church of Christ from which I came, that I was not raised in or around family or friends of religion x, that I was driven away from the church by “cruel and divisive brethren,” that I was not taught well in preaching school, that I never had anyone take me to see a “real miracle,” that I was hurt inside from a personal tragedy, etc. The list is incredibly long.

Every step of the way, Christians are apologizing for something—for everyone else’s failures and for their own, but never for their deity’s failures. The apologies don’t mean a thing because no improvements can be made. Apologies for “bad Christians” are worthless because human nature is what it is. Humans will keep making the mistakes they make. There is nothing that can be done about that. And what about apologies from God? Well, of course, we get no apologies from that mystical being. God (if he existed) would owe the human race the biggest apology of all for bringing us into such an abhorrent existence. However, because the God of the Bible is like a big chemical company who refuses to be culpable for poisoning a small community’s water supply, you’ll get no apology from him. Allowing sick babies to stay on ventilators may move you and I to tears, but it doesn’t move God. So don’t expect an apology of any kind.

And what do we get in place of apologies from God? We get from Christians the ever popular “we’re all sinners” contention. That sickening gab never ceases to weary me. I’m tired of Christians apologizing for their failures, for the church’s failures (both today and in the past), for my supposed failures, for my parent’s supposed failures, for my preaching school’s supposed failures, and for the alleged failures of the whole human race. I want accountability, damnit, not meaningless apologies! Christians, your apologies are NOT accepted! And don’t tell me that you’re sorry I feel that way!

(JH)