I know it’s trendy these days to make fun of New Year’s resolutions. That’s because most people barely make it a few days before breaking every last one of them. For me, though, I am heavily motivated by resolutions and often find the discipline to stick to them.

Now, my resolutions are often fickle and self-serving that relate to weight loss and improving my image and health. But in the past few years I’ve managed to incorporate some ethical values into my selfish resolutions and they seem to have worked. Last year I resolved not to eat at a certain fast food chain as I felt that it was an evil empire whose food has a nasty effect on my body after the initial enjoyment wears off. And I am proud to say that I made it. And I feel great about it.

This year I have made some similar resolutions around exercise, weight loss and empire boycotts. I will keep trying to wean from those instant cheap fixes for my cravings of useless stuff and crummy food. I’ll be 40 before 2009 runs its course, and I realize I need to take these resolutions up a notch in order to stay healthy.

This all leads me to the resolution that’s most important to me in 2009. In the past six months I have been involved in a few dozen conversations with friends and neighbours about faith. More specifically, they have been about Christianity. These conversations inevitably reveal that the person I am chatting with has had a Christian past of some form or other that they have rejected and left behind. These are people that I care very much about and that have made a conscious decision to leave behind the faith of their parents.

Those rejections usually take the form of embracing a new religion, embracing all religions, rejecting all forms of religion whatsoever and pronouncing an atheist viewpoint, or an “I don’t really care because who can know?” agnostic type of worldview.

However, with each and every one of these people (whether they articulate it this way or not), the common denominator has been that they are rejecting Christians, not Christ. They have been burned, damaged, let down by, offended, rejected, judged or stabbed in the back by Christians. As a result, they have unfortunately decided that Christianity can’t be true.

So, I find myself in 2009 resolving to apologize on behalf of Christians. Now, just to make myself clear, I make no apology for being a Christian. But I do feel the need to apologize on behalf of what Christians have done and continue to do.

I apologize for being judgmental, patronizing, full of gossip, self-righteous and arrogant.

I apologize for the crusades. I apologize for voting for government leaders because they were against abortion even though they didn’t seem to think that the sanctity of human life in Iraq, Darfur, Soudan and Zimbabwe was equally as important. I apologize for the residential schools in Canada that decimated the aboriginal community and has not of yet done much to make things right. I apologize for Christian TV. I apologize for manipulative evangelistic techniques that encourage Christians to pretend to make friends so that they can Bible thump them when the time is right. I apologize that Christians often seem more concerned about themselves than others. I apologize for making Christianity a series of random and arbitrary do’s and don’ts as opposed to a way of life about loving God and neighbour. I apologize for participating in making Christianity an institutional religion.

I’m so sorry.

Most of all, I’m sorry that we Christians haven’t given the world an opportunity to see Jesus for who he really is because they can’t see him past us.

In 2009, I will be less defensive with my friends and more apologetic. I want more than anything for people to be able to meet Jesus and see him for what he really is. Then, if they choose to reject him, I think I could live with that.

As Christians we ought to at least try and let people get offended by the cross rather than them not even getting a chance to catch a glimpse of it due to all of the shadows we Christians cast all over it. Then people can choose to embrace or reject the cross for themselves once they’ve had an opportunity to see it firsthand.

Happy New Year! 

Dion Oxford, along with his wife, Erinn, and daughter, Cate, live in Toronto and are committed to journeying alongside people in the margins of society. Dion and Erinn have spent a combined 30 years working amongst folks who are living on the streets of Toronto. Dion is the director of Gateway, a Salvation Army shelter for men experiencing homelessness. He and his wife see the solution to homelessness as the church taking seriously the two great commandments of loving God and loving our neighbours. He likes to read, write, fly kites, cycle long distances, watch TV, play in his band and hang out with his friends.