Three Cheers for Apatheism???

In our class, we mentioned that everyone is engaged in evangelism, even when they would adamantly insist that they were not. Here's a link to the article we mentioned in our class by Jonathan Rauch entitled, "Let It Be: Three Cheers for Apatheism." He writes,

It came to me recently in a blinding vision that I am an apatheist. Well, "blinding vision" may be an overstatement. "Wine-induced haze" might be more strictly accurate. This was after a couple of glasses of merlot, when someone asked me about my religion. "Atheist," I was about to say, but I stopped myself. "I used to call myself an atheist," I said, "and I still don't believe in God, but the larger truth is that it has been years since I really cared one way or another. I'm" -- that was when it hit me -- "an ... apatheist!"

And so he started on his crusade to convert the world to apatheism.

Read the article, and then reflect on these questions...

• The author writes, "...apatheism is an attitude, not a belief system." Do you buy that? What if the Christian were to tell him that 'Christianity is an attitude, not a belief system'?
  
  
• Note how the author is anything but apathetic when it comes to religious belief. He not only states his personal beliefs, but contends that the world would be a better place if everyone converted to his belief system: "I BELIEVE that the rise of apatheism is to be celebrated as nothing less than a major civilizational advance....best of all would be a world generously leavened with apatheists"
  
  
• And what do you make of his contention that many Christians are closet apatheists?

  I have Christian friends who organize their lives around an intense and personal relationship with God, but who betray no sign of caring that I am an unrepentantly atheistic Jewish homosexual. They are exponents, at least, of the second, more important part of apatheism: the part that doesn't mind what other people think about God

And here's one more example that I critiqued on my own blog.