Absolutely. I shudder when I think of some of the things I wrote and said when I was younger and really on fire for my faith. (If only I could get that zeal back and combine it with the lessons I've learned over the last fifteen years or so. *le wistful sigh*)
I used to believe that if you're offended by the truth, you need to be offended. But now I realize that this is a message that pretends to be one of evangelization/apologetics/proselytism but is in actually preaching toward the choir. Taken to extremes, you get the door-to-door proselytizing that's ultimately not meant to make converts but to put young members in uncomfortable situations to teach them that nonbelievers are hostile and afraid of the truth. In any case, it's no more effective for evangelization than the likes of God's Not Dead.
Simple common sense, if you stop and listen to it, tells you that people tend not to listen to others who offend them--and that's before you consider the backfire effect. So I'd say if you're truly offended by the truth, you need to be educated, but offending you is one of the least effective ways I could go about doing that. (Really, even that's a naive approach: Sometimes people are just bigoted, not actually ignorant. But there are enough people who do bigoted things out of ignorance, like Minna with the racist slur, that education is a good place to start--if, that is, you can do it without being condescending.)
Of course, I don't think it's a problem for Christians to believe that Christianity is more true or more complete than other competing belief systems. After all, no two mutually exclusive truth claims both be true. But not only is the Chick-esque "You're going to hell! Wanna know how to fix that?" approach not effective, it's also incredibly rude. Minna's approach in Lovely People wasn't that bad, but it's not that much better. Making disciples involves loving people, not just telling them how much better your belief system is than theirs and telling yourself that's loving. No amount of zeal, and no amount of cute bunnies, can make up for failing to respect the people you're trying to evangelize. Even if the disrespect is unintentional.
So I have little interest in Minna's overtly Christian stories. I'll probably check them out even if I don't expect to stick with them. After SSSS, I feel I owe it to Minna to give her a chance to surprise me.
