I want to publicly apologize here and now for my rather curt reply to Democracy Lover yesterday. My only excuse is that I was grumpy, but that hardly matters. I had no business snapping at him not once but twice, and offering nothing substantive in the form of a reply.
Part of my bad mood yesterday was my frustration at being either deliberately misunderstood or misconstrued over at 4simpsons the day before. One tires of repeating oneself, and being told by others that one cannot possibly mean what one says, because they know better what one is saying. While I attempted at all times to be polite and open, I found the atmosphere over there closed, arrogant, dismissive, paternalistic, lacking in any grace, love, or joy (what I consider the hallmarks of living a Christian life). Rather than humility, acceptance, and community, I found triumphalism, rejection, and exclusivity. While they may derive strength from such a way of living and calling it "Christian", I see little of the Gospel at that blog. If that is what fundamentalism is like, I want no part of it, and I do not see what it has to do with the God I worship or the Jesus whom I confess.
Anyway, to Democracy Lover - sorry, man. Please forgive a tired, coffee-deprived man who had to suffer the slings and arrows of ignorant fortune. I should have taken my anger out on its source, not on you. Please return, and I hope I find myself in a better frame of mind to reply to you. Peace.
