Dan Harris Quote

Notwithstanding Ted’s foibles, he’d helped me become utterly at ease around people who said God bless you when I hadn’t sneezed. Increasingly, I even now found myself in the position of defending evangelicals to my friends and family. Once, when I made a passing reference to evangelical intellectuals, a relative quipped, Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Another stereotype I spent a lot of time batting down: that Christians were all spittle-spewing hatemongers. I met a few of those in my travels, of course, but they struck me as a distinct minority. Wonbo and I—two nonreligious New Yorkers, one of them gay, the other gay-friendly—were never treated with anything short of respect. Often, in fact, what we found was kindness, hospitality, and curiosity. Yes, people would always ask whether we were believers, but when we said no, there were never gasps or glares. They may have thought we were going to hell, but they were perfectly nice about it.