FriendlyChristian interview
December 3, 2007 by leavingeden
My friend Bill recently interviewed me for his site, FriendlyChristian, which is a great community he’s created for Christians and atheists alike. Bill is a stellar guy with a great blog, but many of you already know that because you only read my blog because he links to it. Our interview is posted at FriendlyChristian today and tomorrow.
Thank You.
Thanks for sharing your story on this blog and through your interview with FriendlyChristian. I was directed there by a Think Christian email.
I’m definitely subscribing to your blog and look forward to reading more of your posts! As a Christian who considers herself to be open-minded and sensitive to the beliefs of others, I’m often disheartened by the level of discourse between Christians and atheists. It seems like both sides lob books at each other and make huge bombastic statements designed to anger the other side and drive book sales. I have to admit, from my perspective it seemed at first to be atheist authors that were the worst at this (I’m thinking about Hitchens and Dawkins in particular). I wanted to just say, “Hey! You accuse Christians of being closed-minded but you are much worse!” or “My belief doesn’t hurt you!”
But, through conversations with my husband (who’s agnostic), I’ve come to see that I’m reacting from a privileged position as a Christian who’s grown up in an environment that favors my belief system. My automatic reactions and best intentions have consequences that sometimes I can’t even see. Now that I know this, I would much rather have the people around me let me know when I’ve been insensitive or when I’m speaking from a position of ignorance, instead of continuing to live in ignorance and reacting based upon my own preconceptions.
Most importantly, I want to glimpse life from an atheist perspective, simply because it is important to listen to stories that are different from my own.
Thanks again for sharing.