"born agains"

I had a most interesting experience during my last week of school. I was in a group disussion with some people, a few of which were friends of mine, and the topic of Christians came up. One of the girls started getting pretty animated, exclaiming "those born agains are f***ing crazy, totally in your face and s**t! I thought to myself as I smiled, "she hit the nail right on the head as far as I'm concerned." It's a shame that such connotations often accompany the term 'born again', especially for those outside of the faith community. However, it made me think about how frustrating Christians can be and that bumper sticker that says "Jesus, save me from your followers" has begun to make more and more sense to me over the past 5 years or so because I feel that way as well much of the time. The sad about many Christians is that their zeal has outstripped their wisdom, which is a recipe for disaster. They enter friendship with others with an agenda, which is the absolute WRONG approach. The agenda should be LOVE because that is what Christ calls Christians to do. "Crazy born agains" should not be an issue if Christians are prizing wisdom over zeal and loving the people with whom they come in contact. To borrw from Brian McClaren, the goal is conversation not conversion.