Indifference

Indifference is not simply a lack of interest but a refusal to integrate the experiences, perceptions, and imaginative responses that arise from the interplay of reason, emotion, intuition, and conscience—responses that lead to insight. These psychological and moral data form a bridge between our subjective inner life and the objective realities we confront, and their integration is essential for authentic understanding and meaningful action.

Many people might claim to feel indifferent toward the Scriptures. However, I would argue that no one is truly indifferent to their content. Christians believe the Bible because we trust in its Author, who has demonstrated His trustworthiness in our hearts. To claim indifference to the Author of Scripture is to shut down both intellect and heart, refusing to engage fully with the data that call for our attention and response.

Reading René Girard recently has given me fresh perspective on this. In traditional myths, societies perpetuate the scapegoat mechanism by transferring communal guilt onto a chosen victim, masking this injustice with some form of divine justification. The gospel, by contrast, exposes and overturns this process. Christ, the innocent victim, unmasks the injustice of the crowd and nullifies humanity’s attempts to justify itself through myth. In doing so, the gospel demonstrates that true anthropology is revealed—not in our invention of myths but in their undoing.

This insight makes the gospel more than a religious claim; it is an anthropological revolution. It confronts our deepest tendencies and demands a response. To be indifferent to the gospel is not neutrality but a refusal to face the sin, guilt, and reconciliation it reveals. It perpetuates a kind of scapegoating by denying our moral responsibility, failing to integrate the truths the gospel brings to light. Hearing the gospel is not merely a call to intellectual assent; it is a question about one’s existence, culpability, and hope for redemption. To remain indifferent is to choose to stay outside the possibility of reconciliation with God.