"Blame vs. Responsibility"

Sometime ago, someone close to me make a statement, something to the effect,  "The reason I am not a Christian is that you are negative and dour and you claim to be a Christian."

Setting aside his attitude, and while his perception may or may not be true, the fact remains that seeking to divest oneself of responsibility for a faith commitment or any other responsibility by blaming another in no way obviates that blamer of his or her personal responsibility.  Such thinking is akin to "victim thinking" and because it is not legitimate in content and process breaks down rather rapidly.  Yet culture, media, and academia either tacitly or directly has sought to impose upon us the message that given the "politically correct" set of circumstances, given the superior "exclusive truth" one does not have to be responsible.

Consider the "Occupy Wall Street" movement.  In the kind of thinking that prompts such a movement, there is a notion that because they are disadvantaged in some form or another, they do not have to be responsible to obey the law, respect other people's opportunity to make a living, and generally be responsible to respect other people even their fellow protesters.  They seem to believe that they have the superior "politically correct" circumstance that trumps all else and so they can be disrespectful, defecate wherever their please, fulfill their sexual proclivities even at the expense of other protesters, and do other things as they choose.

The real truth is that no amount of "politically correct" permission will absolve a person of responsibility.  One might blame and thus claim victimization because of his surroundings, his family, his culture, his faith, etc. but still in all personal responsibility does not transfer.  As I recently wrote in another venue, one can transfer his or her job to another but not the responsibility for the accomplishing of that job.

So it is that my friend that sought to blame another--me for his failure to make a faith commitment, in no way has absolved himself of responsibility for that commitment.  In fact the sad truth is that such may allow him to sleep the sleep of denial at night but someday it will be revealed for what it is--deception!